Chapter 9December 31, 1963

Satprem, mon cher petit, On the 31st I will see you in the music room, and I would like Sujata too to come at 10 A.M., because I want to try different key boards of the organ, and she will help me arrange them.

My tenderness is ever with you

signed: Mother

(Mother tests the organ:

a little white figure

swaying on her stool)

There.

You have recorded it, haven't you?... And we'll play it tomorrow [for the Ashram] – that way, I won't have any work to do!

(Sujata:) Is it "work "?

You always have fun.

It gives me fun.... I don't know, I don't know what I play at all, at all, at all! I barely hear it. There is something having fun "over there." If I listen just a minute, it begins to disturb me!

That's enough, no?

(To Satprem:) What do you say, you there? Is that enough or do you want to hear more?

It depends. If you're tired...

Oh (laughing), tiring, this! It doesn't tire anything. The head is empty. I tell you, when I listen, it gets more difficult; if I don't listen, it's fine.

What time is it?

Almost half past ten.

I intended to play "The Horror of the World of Falsehood" tomorrow, and to end with "The Glory of Light"... if it comes.

But this is a little relaxation... musical relaxation.

(Mother plays the harmonium again:

"gay minor key" and

ends with a G)

Finished this time.

That's a promise: the G.

Whenever a promise comes, it ends with a G.

(Mother vibrates the G)

So I'll keep the keyboards as they are. And tomorrow at half past twelve when I play [for the Ashram], maybe it won't be... as free as today!

(To Sujata:) You put everything back in place. I don't know the time.... The clock is there [on the wall], but I can't see anything: I see the bright sky.

(Mother gives flowers)

It's a "golden power" [a hibiscus], lovely, isn't it!

What did the music evoke in you?... I don't want you to say "good" or "bad," but did it suggest anything?

My eyes fell on this sentence of Sri Aurobindo [on the calendar]

Ah, exactly! That's it. That's it! Every day, I look at it. In the evening the date and the quotation are changed – I don't know what tomorrow's text will be, we have to change the calendar and start "January." Would you like us to do it? Bring the calendar here.

All this will go now!

We have December here. (Mother reads:)

And earth shall be the Spirit's manifest home146 (Sujata:) Is it the promise that came?

Yes, the promise of the G. The G always promises.

(Mother sets the calendar

to January 1, 1964, and reads

All can be done if God's touch is there147 There: All can be done. All.

I like this calendar a lot because of its quotations. I change it every evening. Tomorrow, I see here... (Mother looks at her notebook) four, five, six, seven, eight people, and two over there, which makes ten – tomorrow morning between 10 and 11 A.M.... (Laughing) "All can be done if God's touch is there"!

So I'll see you next year. Did I give you everything? Did I give you the second calendar [with a photograph of Mother, printed in Calcutta]? The other one, he [Satprem] didn't like it.

(Sujata:) You're too stern, little Mother!

Ah, there we are again! But I wasn't stern: I was in contemplation!

(Satprem:) A stern contemplation.

(On the second calendar,

the photograph shows Mother

engaged in her translation work)

It's the last part of the Synthesis.148 We were supposed to revise it together, but it doesn't work.... (To Sujata:) You know what he does? He takes the English and starts translating again! (laughing) So there's no work left for me!

The conclusion is that when he has finished his book, I'll give you my manuscript to type. If my eyes were good, it would do, but they're no good, the poor things (I can't speak ill of them, they've served well, but anyway...). Or else, he [Satprem] would have to correct directly on my manuscript, but that he won't do.

Ah, no!

So it's no use.

(Sujata:) I also have a whole year of "Agenda" to catch up with.

148In fact, the passage Mother is seen translating in the photograph is from Savitri:

Our will [shall be] a force of the Eternal's power And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.

anything, and I don't know what happens but I start talking!149 All right, so we'll begin the revision of the Synthesis on the 4th, Is my handwriting difficult?

(Sujata:) No, no!

Oh, it's not so good any more. And while I was writing it, some strange things happened: one day, suddenly, I feel I've lost all control over my hand.... How do you write? And all at once, I start writing, and then I see: it's Sri Aurobindo's handwriting! And as it is illegible, I thought, "That's no great progress!" (laughter) So I really exerted myself, concentrated, wrote slowly, slowly, like a pupil in school, and it came back!

So you may come across some passages that aren't all that legible. But the last part ["The Yoga of Self-Perfection"] is the longest, and it's difficult, too.

He didn't complete it. He never completed the last chapter, he even told me, "You will complete it when I have completed my yoga," and then he went, left everything.

Afterwards, several times, he told me that I should be the one to complete it – I answered him that I didn't have the brain for it. Or else I would have to write it in a mediumistic way, but I am not a good medium, I am too conscious – the consciousness is immediately awake in the background and watches the phenomenon, so it stops working.

But your Agenda is the end of the "Yoga of Self-Perfection"!

Well, it'll be a long end! (Mother laughs) In other words, when it's over (we must first wait for it to be over), when it's over, with those notes, we could establish something – you'll have to wait for some time! There are still several years to go.

It doesn't matter, we aren't bored, are we? (To Sujata:) Are you bored? Tell me frankly, are you bored? (Sujata laughs) I don't need to ask HIM, I know the answer: "Oh, it's endless, it lasts forever, nothing happens, nothing takes place...." (laughter) Anyway, my children, that's the way it is. I am going as fast as I can, I am the one most concerned! But you can't hurry, it's not possible. Not possible.

In fact, in Savitri, Sri Aurobindo went through all the worlds, and it so happens that I am following that without knowing it (because I never remember – thank God, I really thank heaven! – I asked the Lord to take away my mental memory and He took it away entirely, so I am not weighed down), but I follow that description in Savitri without mentally knowing the sequence of the worlds, and these last few days... I was in that Muddle of Falsehood (I told you last time), it was really painful, and I was tracking it down to the most tenuous vibrations, those that go back to the origin, to the moment when Truth could turn into Falsehood – how it all happened. And it is so tenuous, almost imperceptible, that deformation, the original Deformation, that you tend to lose heart and you think, "It's still really quite easy to topple over... the slightest thing and you can still topple over into Falsehood, into Deformation." And yesterday, I had in my hands a passage from Savitri that was brought to me – it's a marvel, but... it's so sad, so miserable, oh, I could have cried (I don't easily cry).

The world

grew

full

of

menacing

Energies, He met the

prowl

and

stealthy

come

and

go Of armed

disquieting

bodied

Influences. A of

goddess

figures

dark

and

nude Alarmed the

air

with

grandiose

unease; Appalling footsteps

drew

invisibly

near, Shapes that

were

threats

invaded

the

dream-light, And ominous

beings

passed

him

on

the

road Whose very

gaze

was

a

calamity: A charm

and

sweetness

sudden

and

formidable, Faces that

raised

alluring

lips

and

eyes Approached him

armed

with

beauty

like

a

snare, But hid

a

fatal

meaning

in

each

line And could

in

a

moment

dangerously

change. But he alone discerned that screened attack.

(II.VII.205)

It makes you wonder.... It's like something gluey surrounding you, touching you all over; you can't go forward, you can't do anything without encountering those black and gluey fingers of Falsehood. It was a very painful impression.

And last night, there was the Answer, as it were. This morning, when I got up, I didn't remember clearly, but in the middle of the night I knew it very well. (It's not going from sleep to the waking consciousness: it is coming out of one state to enter another one, and when I came out of that state to enter the so-called normal one, I remembered very well.) I was as if made to live the WAY of turning that Falsehood into Truth, and it was so joyful!... So joyful. In the sense that it's a vibration similar to joy that is capable of dissolving and overcoming the vibration of Falsehood. That was very important: it isn't effort, it isn't righteousness, or scruple or rigidity, none of that, none of that has any effect on that sadness (it is a sadness) of Falsehood – it's something so sad, so helpless, so miserable... so miserable. And only a vibration of Joy can change it.

It was a vibration that flowed like silvery water – it rippled and flowed like silvery water. Which means that austerity, asceticism, even an intense and stern aspiration, all sternness, all that: no action. No action – Falsehood stays put in the background.... But it cannot resist the sparkling of joy. It's interesting.

(silence)

And in his text, Sri Aurobindo says that the Lord joins the contraries, the opposites, puts them together so they fight each other, and that this will and action give Him a sardonic smile (I am commenting).

A tract he

reached

unbuilt

and

owned

by

none: There all could

enter

but

none

stay

for

long. It was a

no

man's

land

of

evil

air, A crowded

neighbourhood

without

one

home, A borderland

between

the

world

and

hell.

A high appearance

wrapped

a

spacious

void. Yet nothing

would

confess

its

own

presence Even to

itself

in

the

ambiguous

heart: A vast deception

was

the

law

of

things; Only by

that

deception

they

could

live. An unsubstantial

Nihil

guaranteed The falsehood

of

the

forms

this

Nature

took And made them

seem

awhile

to

be

and

live. A borrowed

magic

drew

them

from

the

Void; They took a

shape

and

stuff

that

was

not

theirs And showed

a

colour

that

they

could

not

keep, Mirrors to

a

fantasm

of

reality. Each rainbow

brilliance

was

a

splendid

lie; A beauty

unreal

graced

a

glamour

face. Nothing could

be

relied

on

to

remain: Joy nurtured

tears

and

good

an

evil

proved, But never

out

of

evil

one

plucked

good: Love ended early

in

hate,

delight

killed

with

pain, Truth into

falsity

grew

and

death

ruled

life. A Power that

laughed

at

the

mischief

of

the

world, An irony

that

joined

the

world's

contraries And flung them

into

each

other's

arms

to

strive, Put a sardonic rictus on God's face.

(II. VII. 206)

I was asked for an illustration for H.; I saw the image, the Lord's face with a sardonic smile. And then, after last night's experience, this morning suddenly that expression of the face changed, and I saw the image of the true, the true sorrow of Compassion – I don't know how to explain it.... The sardonic smile changed: from sardonic it grew bitter, from bitter it grew sorrowful, from sorrowful it grew full of an extraordinary compassion....

(silence)

So we could say that Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord. And that His Joy is the cure for all Falsehood.

Sorrow had to be expressed so as to be erased from the creation. And sorrow is Falsehood – the Lord's sorrow, sorrow in its essence, is Falsehood.

So to live in Falsehood is to hurt the Lord. It opens up horizons....

And His Joy is the cure for everything. That's the problem seen from the other angle.

So, if we love the Lord, we cannot give Him cause for sorrow, and necessarily we emerge from Falsehood and enter Joy.

There was even the vision of how the vibrations were in the cells: vibrations that were silvery, sparkling, rippling, but very regular, and precise... (how can I put it?). It was the contradiction of Falsehood in the cells; like little flashes of silvery light.

But that [Falsehood] is the great obstacle, the extreme difficulty. It's something gluey which entered the creation and sticks to everything, and which has become a material habit too, because it's not only Mind that has Falsehood in it: there's Falsehood in Life, in Life itself. In the completely inanimate, I don't know.... Maybe it came with Life? (According to Savitri, the origin of Falsehood lies in Life.) But it's as though Unconsciousness, in order to go towards Consciousness, to return to Consciousness, had taken the path of Falsehood and Death instead of the path of Truth.

And Falsehood is this: the sorrow of the Lord. I was asked for a message for next year, and things of that sort kept coming to me, so I didn't say anything. They wouldn't even understand, it's incomprehensible if you don't have the experience. And if you say just like that, almost dogmatically, "Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord," it doesn't mean anything.

Or if you say it in a literary way, it's no longer true. And if you said, "Falsehood is the Lord's way of being unhappy" (!) (Mother laughs), people would think you're not being serious.

Well. My children, I think it's time to go and do our work. I wish you a happy new year!