Chapter 7August 21, 1963

94 – All renunciation is for a greater joy yet ungrasped. Some renounce for the joy of duty done, some for the joy of peace, some for the joy of God and some for the joy of self-torture, but renounce rather as a passage to the freedom and untroubled rapture beyond.

And your question?

I always hesitate to ask you questions, because it sets you on a certain line which isn't necessarily what would come to you....

(silence)

I never had much that experience of "enunciation.... To renounce something, you must be attached to it, while I always had the thirst, the need to go farther, to go higher, to progress, to do better, to know better and... instead of having a sense of renunciation, you have rather a sense of good riddance! Something you get rid of that hampers you, weighs you down, hinders your advance.

In that light, it's very interesting.

That's what I wrote to you the other day ["We are still all that we no longer want to be, while He is all that we want to become"]. What we call "we" in our egoistic stupidity, a stupidity of the ego, is precisely all that we no longer want to be; and it would be such a joy to throw all that away, get rid of it in order to be ready to become what we want to be.

That's a very living experience.

(Regarding an old "Playground Talk," of January 4, 1951, in which Mother said that one

of the essential conditions for transformation is an awareness of the inner dimensions: "It's a total reversal of consciousness, which can be compared to what happens to light

when it goes through a prism. Or else it's as if you turned a ball inside out, which can

be done only in the fourth dimension. You emerge from the ordinary consciousness of the

third dimension to enter the higher consciousness of the fourth dimension, and then an

infinite number of dimensions. This is the indispensable starting point.")

That's what I had told you already: the whole basis of the yogic effort is changed now. Formerly, the work was based precisely on that knowledge of inner dimensions – I can't recapture that any more, I

So I can't add anything to those "Talks": their source is different. Even now for the aphorisms, it's a little bit difficult. I feel I have to come down, to revert to an old frame of mind in order to say something.

You need not bother about people. Just speak according to your present mode, without bothering whether they understand or not.

They understand nothing.

It doesn't matter.

Then it's no use publishing what I say!

Some do understand.

Anyway, what I say nowadays is good for the [Agenda] box.

* * *

(Then Mother returns to the aphorism on "renunciation." She remains silent. She still appears to be

shaken.)

It's difficult because...

These days, I don't know whether it has come to the last battle, but it has descended very deep into the cells' worst-lit realm: what still belongs most to the world of Unconsciousness and Inertia and is most foreign to the divine Presence. It is, so to say, the primal substance that was first used by Life, and it has a sort of inability to feel, to experience a reason for that life.

In fact, it's something I had never experienced [that absence of meaning]; even in my earliest childhood, when there was no development, I always had a perception (not a mentalized but a vibrant perception) of a Power behind all things which is the raison d'être of all things – a Power, a Force, a kind of warmth.

It isn't the experience of THIS body's cells: it's an identification with the world in general, with the Earth as a whole. It's an absolutely frightful and hopeless condition: something meaningless, aimless, without raison d'être, without any joy in itself or... and worse than disagreeable – meaningless, insensate. Something that has no raison d'être and yet is. It was... it is a frightful situation.

I have an impression of being quite close to the bottom of the pit. Yesterday, it was like that almost the whole day long. But all at once something came (I don't know from where or how... neither from above nor from within nor from... I don't know): there is only ONE raison d'être, only ONE Reality, only ONE Life, and there is nothing other than... THAT. It was THAT (not in the least mentally, there was no intellectual formulation, nothing), it was Something that was Light (far more than Light), Power (far more than power), Omnipotence (far more than Omnipotence), and also an intensity of sweetness, of warmth, of plenitude – all that together – along with that was no way of getting out of that nothing, because it was nothing.

You know, all those who seek Nirvana, all their disgust of life, all that is almost enjoyable in comparison! That's not it. That's not it, it was a thousand times, a million times worse. It was nothing, and because it was nothing it was impossible to get out of it – there was no... no solution.

At one point, the tension was so great that... you wonder, "Am I going to burst?"

Then everything relaxed and opened up (gesture as if the cells opened out)... OM.

(silence)

I don't know if there's a yet deeper pit but...

And that relief, that blossoming, that peace... Everything disappears, except That.

(silence)

It's really the first time I had that experience – never, never did I experience that before. And it wasn't in the least, in the least personal to my body, it104 isn't my body's cells – it's something else....

And that is the basis and foundation of all materialism. It lasted the whole day long!...

(silence)

The experience came at the time when the condition was most acute in its nothingness.... I don't know how to explain it, it's inexpressible, but it was COMPLETE: there was nothing but that, that sort of meaningless and aimless "nothing," without raison d'être or origin – and, therefore, without remedy. Then it reached the point when... you know, when everything is about to burst and there is such a tension. (Is it tension? I don't know how to explain.) And all at once, a change as total as you can imagine.

So you understand, those old "Talks," all that's... a lot of talk!

(long silence)

Every time an experience of that kind occurs, the entire vision of things and of the relationship between things is changed (gesture of reversal). Even from a quite practical viewpoint. You see, Life is a sort of chessboard on which all the pawns are arranged according to certain inner laws, and every time it all changes: everything changes, the chessboard changes, the pawns change, the types of organization change. Also the inner quality of the pawns – very much so.

For instance, these last few days I had a whole vision of X, of what he represents, the people around him, his relationship with the Ashram – all that entirely changed. Every element took a new place in relation to all the others. And I have nothing to do with it, I don't "try" to understand, I don't "try" to see, nothing: the thing is simply shown to me. Like pictures that are shown to me. Each thing has its own special flavor, its own special color, its own special quality and its own special relationship with the rest – all the relationships are different.