Chapter 9January 27, 1961

Aurobindo was here – we never had a single case of an epidemic disease. It began when people started coming here with children; necessarily they brought their servants along with them, who went to the bazaar and even to the movies and here and there. Then everything came in.

But now the situation is bad. There are something like thirty cases of measles, four or five of smallpox and some chickenpox as well. You must be careful. I need you in good health, otherwise we’ll have to stop everything!

There are places where it happens like that: suddenly everything stops – no more school, no more mail, no more trains. I remember a poor little village in Japan where they had a flu epidemic, the first of its kind. They didn’t know what it was and the whole village fell ill. It was winter, the village was snowed in and there was no more communication with the outside (the mail came only once every fifteen days). The postman arrived... and everyone was dead, buried beneath the snow.

I was there in Japan when it happened. A little vale of snow – no one left.

(On the moralistic reactions of someone who thought that certain acts ‘angered’ God:)

They are only too eager to believe that God can get angry with them! I try to dispel this notion as much as I can, because it’s not true – it isn’t true.

(long silence)

This time, something has really been achieved.

Since the last experience [January 24] I see it daily. The following day, probably for reasons connected with the body’s development and adaptation, I was rather seriously ill – what is usually called ‘painfully ill’: the body was suffering a lot, or WOULD HAVE suffered a lot had it been in its former normal consciousness. That’s where I saw the difference – a fantastic difference!

I was perfectly conscious (now when I say ‘I’, it refers to my body, I am not speaking of the whole higher consciousness), the body was perfectly conscious of its suffering, the reason for its suffering, the cause of its suffering, everything – and it did not suffer. You understand, the two perceptions were there together: the body saw the disorder, saw the suffering just as it would have felt it a few weeks earlier, it saw all that (‘saw,’ ‘knew’... I don’t know how to express it – it was conscious, it was aware) and it did not suffer. The two awarenesses were absolutely simultaneous.

There is now a kind of VERY PRECISE knowledge of the whole inner mechanism for all things – To illustrate this, an interesting thing came up – yesterday, I think. (All these experiences come to show me the difference, as if to give proof of the change.) Someone had had a dream about me whispered to him by the adverse forces for specific reasons (I won’t go into the details). He was much affected by it, so he wrote down the dream and gave it to me. I was carrying his letter along with all the others, as I usually do, but suddenly I knew I had to read it right away: I read it. Then I saw the whole thing with such clarity, precision, accuracy: how it had come about, how the dream had been produced, its effect – the whole functioning of all the forces. As I read along and it went on unfolding, I did what was necessary for him (he was present at the time) in order to undo what the adverse forces had done. Then at the end, when I had finished, said everything, explained what it was all about and what had to be done, something SO CATEGORICAL came into me (I cannot verbalize this kind of experience, it is what I call the ‘difference’ in power: something categorical). I took the letter, uttered a few words (which I won’t repeat) and said, ‘You see, it’s like this: so much for that,’ and I ripped the letter a first time. ‘Then, that’s for that,’ I tore it a second time... and so on. I ripped it up five times and the fifth time I saw that their power was destroyed.

I have done these things before – it’s a knowledge I already had – and it always had its effect when I did them; it’s not that I am passing from powerlessness to power, not at all. But it’s this kind of... yes, something definite, absolute – a kind of absolute in vision, in knowledge, in action and ABOVE ALL in power – a kind of absolute that doesn’t need to conquer obstacles and resistances, but ANNULS the resistance automatically. Then I saw that something had truly changed.

(After a digression, Mother gives another example of the change:)

I told you something concerning the power of the will, didn’t I?...

Well, yesterday I saw R. He was asking me questions about his work and particularly about the knowledge of languages (he’s a scholar, you know, and very familiar with the old traditions). This put me in contact with that whole world and I began speaking to him a little about what I had already said to you concerning my experience with the Vedas. And all at once, in the same [absolute] way as I told you, when I entered into contact with that world a whole domain seemed to open up, a whole field of knowledge from the standpoint of languages, of the Word, of the essential Vibration, that vibration which would be able to reproduce the supramental consciousness. It all came, so clear, so clear, luminous, indisputable – but unfortunately there was no tape recorder!

It was about the Word, the primal sound. Sri Aurobindo speaks of it in Savitri: the essence of the Word and how it will express itself, how it will bring in the possibility of a supramental expression that will take the place of languages.... I began by speaking to him about the different languages, their limitations and possibilities; and I warned him against the deformations imposed on languages with the idea of making them a more flexible means of expressing something else. I told him how completely ridiculous it all was, and that it didn’t correspond at all to the truth. Then little by little I began ascending to the Origin. So yesterday again, I had this same experience: a whole world of knowledge, of consciousness and of CERTAINTY – precluding the least possibility of contradiction, discussion, or opposition; the possibility DOES NOT EXIST, it doesn’t exist. And the mind was absolutely silent and immobile, listening with obvious pleasure because these things had never before come into my consciousness; I had never been concerned with them in that way. It was completely new – not new in principle but completely new in action.

The experiences are multiplying.