Savitri
A Legend and a Symbol

Chapter 2September 4, 1971

Book 9. September

consciousness is linked to its utmost to the Divine Consciousness that there’s the sense of existence. It has become extraordinarily intense. When the physical gets converted, it will be something SOLID, you know, unalterable – and complete. And so concrete.... The difference between being in the Divine, existing only by Him and for Him, and then being in the... not in the ordinary consciousness obviously, but just the human consciousness, is so great that the one seems like death compared to the other, it’s so.... I mean the physical realization is really a concrete realization.

There is beginning to be such a concentration of energy (oh! it’s not there yet, very far from it, but...), there’s a beginning of perception of how things will be. It’s... it’s really marvelous. And so powerful! A power and a reality in the consciousness that nothing, absolutely nothing else can have – everything vital or mental and all that seems hazy and unsubstantial. Whereas this is concrete (Mother clenches her fists). And so strong!

Some problems are still to be solved, but not with words or thoughts. And things come to demonstrate – not just personal things, but also things from people around me; people, things, circumstances, all that comes for teaching, teaching the body to have the true consciousness. It’s... it’s marvelous.

(Mother goes within)

It seems that the problem was to create a physical being capable of bearing the Power that wants to manifest – all ordinary bodily consciousnesses are too thin and fragile to withstand the overwhelming Power that is to manifest. And so the body is being accustomed to it. It’s as if... you know, as if it suddenly caught a glimpse of such, such a marvelous horizon ahead, but overwhelmingly marvelous! Then, it is allowed to take only as much of it as it can bear.

Some adaptation is required. It’s quite evident where rest and food are concerned (especially food). It’s very strange.... The transition... right in the middle of the transition.

Will it have enough plasticity? I don’t know. It’s a matter of plasticity. To be able to withstand and transmit (gesture of something flowing through her), to offer no obstacle to the Power that wants to manifest.

Appearances are only future consequences. That’s why.... The appearance is what will change last.

What do you have?... You don’t have anything?... Some people came to see you?

No, aside from one or two exceptions, I refuse to see anybody. I don’t know, but I’ve found that The only person I’ve seen is E.

Oh, he’s a nice man!86

But otherwise I refuse to see people.

It’s better that way.

At one time, I used to see many people every day, but now, I find that... I don’t know, I need to be

quiet.

Yes.

(silence)

I have noticed something – already quite some time ago, but lately it has become very, very concrete. When I speak, there is a Consciousness which is expressed, and that Consciousness is what’s important – but people catch the words and leave the Consciousness! So of course that makes a frightful muddle. Therefore it’s better not to speak.

Well, maybe it makes a muddle for some people, but not for all – not for all!

But take this other example: I am trying to make Auroville a link between the old way of being and the new, but they are all sunk in.... I mean they use their freedom to live in the most ordinary way. So... it’s discouraging. There are some – a few – who are good, but the majority is a subhumanity, an altogether animal humanity. So....

Having to take care of one’s own change is enough of a work as it is, no?

God, yes!

(silence)

To be at every moment as expressive of the Divine Consciousness as one can be. That’s the only important thing.

(silence)

Yes, when one is here, near you, one is taken up into a kind of absolute ray. It’s.... In the past, I

remember my meditations “up above,” they were vast and quite pleasant, but here it’s a kind of ABSOLUTE. You say: this is IT. This is IT, you know, absolutely IT, it’s the absolute which is here and seizes you. But when one is no longer near you.... Through concentration, you can still capture IT again, to a certain degree....

86Quite a number of the tapes used to record these conversations were procured thanks to this very nice German man. We

But as soon as you let go of the concentration, well, you again have to.... That’s the difficulty.

There would have to be some kind of possession. But how is that done?

I don’t know.

It’s the Grace, in short!

(after a silence)

This body is trying its best to exist only in the Divine. If it could no longer feel separate from the whole (Mother touches the separative skin of her hands), it would be perfectly happy.

But like this (gesture of interiorization), when I don’t say anything, then it’s all right.

(Mother goes within)

You have nothing to ask?

Is something going to come to me? Something else [another book]?

People aren’t ready, mon petit! Every day I discover.... Those who are left to their freedom are worthless. They have the most vulgar consciousness, it’s dreadful – no aspiration, no need for perfection, nothing at all.

As for me I... this body does what it can. It can’t do much. It tries... it tries not to create any resistance. From time to time – from time to time – there’s something, a marvel, which lasts for a few seconds. But it’s... (Mother nods her head). Either we have to manage to make this body more plastic so it can be transformed, or else it will be for another life.

Although I must say that... Sri Aurobindo said to me, “Oh, to have to begin all that over again, the whole childhood and all that unconsciousness – no.” Before he left, he said no. “No, I shall return when it can be done in a supramental body.”87

(silence)

But there have to be bodies capable of lasting at will. He said, “The intermediate stage will be duration of life at will.” And I have the feeling that that is possible. Provided... the body itself thinks only of one thing – transformation. When it is like this (quiet, concentrated), then.... I can spend hours – hours without moving – in a kind of receptive contemplation, and it seems like a second. The sense of time is really curious. You see, there is a certain receptive contemplation, and there (gesture of being suspended in a smile)... time simply ceases to exist.

I sense.... I sense I am on the threshold of a great Secret... but (Mother nods her head)... not mental 87This is what Mother wrote to Sujata’s father, Prithwi Singh, in 1953 about the passing away of Sri Aurobindo: “At 1:26 in the morning, when I was in his room, he was steadily coming out of his body into mine; it was so much that I felt a physical friction in the cells of my body; with it a great power entered into me and I felt capable of resuscitating him. But when I told him, he said, ‘No, it is purposely that I have left my body, I will not come back into it, I will return in a new