Chapter 8March 28, 1964

I am not saying it's the cure, but it's the only answer: to endure in calm and peace, endure in calm and peace....

Then something will happen.

(silence)

But this experience (this is between ourselves) is an experience I had never had in my life. I always had the impression of a sort of control over what was going on in the brain, and that I was always able to answer with the "blank," you know, the calm, still blank – the still blank. This time (laughing), it wasn't that! And it became so formidable that even the mantra (the words of the mantra) were shooting past like cannonballs! (Laughing) It all seemed like a frightening hail of bullets!

There was only this to be done: I kept perfectly still, calling – calling for the Lord's Peace and Calm, that ever-widening Peace. The Infinite of the Lord's Peace.

Then it became possible to bear the Vibration. Now, what it does, its work – that's not our business, it's His. We cannot understand. But that it is at work goes without saying.

But without a doubt, if at that moment there had been a doctor to take my temperature, he would have found there was a tremendous fever – though nothing even remotely like an "illness"! No, it was miraculously wonderful, it gave the feeling that... it was something the earth did not know.

That's how it always expresses itself: something the earth did not know, something new. It is new to the earth. That's why it's hard to bear! Because it is new.

Even now (Mother touches her skull), it feels all swollen, and with a vibration inside (gesture of a trepidation) as if the head were twice as big as before.

(Mother feels her head) I am trying to see if my bumps have gone – they haven't yet!

The big difficulty is that all of N.'s experiences are in his mind. He has worked in his mind, transformed his mind; he has experiences, he's had all the experiences – but IN THE MIND: not at all in the body. But then all that I am saying here, all these experiences I have now are in the body – he doesn't understand. That's the difficulty. He cannot understand. And who can?... I don't know:

As soon as it concerns mental things, he understands perfectly well; as soon as it concerns material things, he doesn't understand anymore. But who can understand?...

I can't say I "understand," but...

I transpose. I transpose a truth that I understand mentally. I tell myself it's the same in your body.

Yes, that's closer, but (laughing) it's not quite it!

I see the problem very clearly, because all these experiences (if you reread Prayers and Meditations, you will see), I had them in the mind, even in the vital, and at the time, naturally, what I said was very clear, it made perfect sense; but the body didn't participate: it obeyed. When it's perfectly docile, it obeys, and it didn't stand in the way. But what's happening now is that all this, all these living experiences are taking place in the body itself; and unless one has them HERE, all my explanations of "vibrations' are meaningless

It's only when the experience becomes mental and psychological that people "understand" it. Perhaps the modern scientific mind that has studied atoms would understand better. It's the same kind of understanding as that of the scientist who analyzes the constitution of Matter. I distinctly feel it is an extension of that study and that it's the only true approach for the most material part of Matter. Any psychological explanation is meaningless.40

This very morning, I was following the movement, observing the control this Vibration of Truth has in the body in the presence of certain disorders (very small things in the body, you know: discomforts, disorders), I was observing how this Vibration of Truth abolishes those disorders and discomforts. It was very clear, very obvious, and ABSOLUTELY REMOVED from any spiritual notion, from any religious notion, from any psychological notion, so that the person who possessed this knowledge of opposition of one vibration to the other very clearly didn't in any way need to be a "disciple" or someone with philosophical knowledge or anything at all: he only had to have mastered this in order to realize a perfectly harmonious existence.

It was absolutely concrete and irrefutable. It was a lived, absolute experience.

And then all these cells, in a fervor... (it was truly an Ananda, so inexpressible...) hurled themselves at the Lord and told Him, "But it's so much more marvelous when we know it's You!" – the whole body.

And the light and warmth were expressed, that intensity of Ananda, that bliss... You understand, it wasn't in opposition to but like a COMPLEMENT of this vibratory knowledge, which was... I can't say a "coldly scientific knowledge" because that introduces mental notions, but it was of such a wisdom!... A knowledge so wise, so calm, so imperturbably quiet, absolutely free from any notion of good and evil, of divine, of positive and negative, absolutely independent of all of that – purely material. And with an absolute power. Then in these same cells, which were fully conscious of this knowledge of vibrations as being the supreme means of control for their harmony, suddenly there arose in them a sort of... not a flame (a flame is dark in comparison), a luminous Ananda: Love in its perfect reality.

And it was translated like this: "It's so much more marvelous when we know it's You!" It was really an experience. It lasted a few minutes (I was sitting at my table having my breakfast), but during those few minutes it was a perfection.

The two poles had met.41 40Let us recall the conversation of November 4, 1963: "... It's nothing but vibrations."

Truly the sensation, in the entire body, of Love's perfect Ananda.

The other thing is very fine, it's the vibratory knowledge and the Power – but this, this Ananda...

(silence)

What's very interesting is that all those experiences you've had in your inner and higher beings, in your every state of being, appear feeble, flimsy, like a dream in comparison with the same experiences in the body. There, it becomes so... The Power and Intensity are so fantastic that, all of a sudden, you understand WHY there is a material world.

(silence)

The relationship with the outside world would become difficult if this experience were constant....

And there is such a marvelous Wisdom, which gives all things in doses so that the overall progress may not be at the expense of anything – so that EVERYTHING may move on. Then you marvel at that Wisdom – which humanity constantly insults, which they clothe in the most pejorative words: Destiny, Fate.

It is a marvelous Wisdom.

And in spite of all your knowledge, in spite of all your powers, in spite of all your past experiences, you feel very small before That.

That Wisdom is a marvel.

(silence)

You know, one minute of such an experience gives you courage for years – it lasted a few minutes, I was having my breakfast.

Ultimately, that's also what I am waiting for: an experience in the body.

Of course, mon petit!

That may be why I am disappointed with "yogic life."

But I have myself never had much respect for yogic life! Never.

Yes, some days I feel a little bitter, I find that's really "not it."

No, that's not it. That's not it.

But you see, you see all the way I have come.... And I was born with a consciously prepared body – Sri Aurobindo was aware of that, he said it immediately the first time he saw me: I was born free. That is, from the spiritual standpoint: without any desire. Without any desire and attachment. And, mon petit, if there is the slightest desire and the slightest attachment, it's IMPOSSIBLE to do this work.

A vital like a warrior, with an absolute self-control (the vital of this present incarnation was sexless – a warrior), an absolutely calm and imperturbable warrior – no desires, no attachments.... Since my him furious!42 ).

If people were nasty to me, or if people died or went away, it left me absolutely calm – and so: "You're a monster, you have no feelings."

And with that preparation... It's eighty-six years since I came here, mon petit! For thirty years I worked with Sri Aurobindo consciously, without letup, night and day.... We shouldn't be in a hurry.

We shouldn't be in a hurry. And there was that experience, which of all experiences was truly the most... I could say the most decisive: that was when Sri Aurobindo left his body. Because materially, for the body, it was the complete collapse of a sort of unshakable trust, a sense of absolute security, of certitude that things were going to be done "just like that," harmoniously. Then his departure – the blow of a sledgehammer on the head.... And the entire weight of the responsibility here, on the body. Voilà.

That means quite a preparation – which is as wise as all the rest.

That's what Sri Aurobindo told me very clearly (because, of course, he saw, he knew), he said to me, "Only your body can withstand THAT, has the power to withstand...." It's a bit worn-out, but with the struggle and effort and work it has gone through, there is no ground for complaint: it has withstood – it has withstood very well. And it has been able to benefit from its accidents.

So we shouldn't be in a hurry.... Besides, that's an absolute rule: we shouldn't be impatient.

Yes, but that's not very encouraging for the ordinary human beings that we are.

Excuse me! There is a way.

All that I am doing, all that this body is doing, it has the power to pass on to others – that's precisely what I am studying now. I am studying this. It's a sort of power to put people in contact with the Vibration of the Consciousness (radiating gesture around the head), which is concentrated on a number of people and things (all over the earth, naturally), but also on certain points. It's the Power that came the night when there was that descent in the brain: at any moment I was able to direct a beam here, another beam there, touch a point here, another point there... (gesture like a beacon).

That's what Sri Aurobindo never stopped repeating: "Do not try to do it all by yourself, the Mother will do it for you, if you trust Her."

This I never say to anyone. But it's a fact. I never say it. I am saying it to you just now. But it's an absolute fact.

It isn't – you know this – it isn't done for ONE body: it is done for the earth. But the advantage of the individuality is that you can aim a beam at precise points (same gesture like a beacon) and obtain a result – not in a miraculous way that leaves people open-mouthed and stupid, not that; but when the aspiration is sincere, when the will is sincere... You know, what I do constantly is (gesture of offering): "Lord, I cannot do it, do it for me. Lord, I cannot do it, do it for me...." Well, that's what Sri Aurobindo said: if people around me do not have the direct Contact with the Lord (a contact I brought with my birth, of which I have grown more and more conscious, but which was the very source of this earthly existence), if they don't have that Contact, they can have a conscious contact with me; that's easy, because, of course, it's something visible, tangible, with a real 42Mother added this parenthesis later. (The father was furious above all because his daughter did not feel like going to the