Chapter 8January 28, 1967

So you stand there (Mother makes a gesture to indicate a very narrow ridge), as if on an invisible borderline, with an extraordinary, almighty Power which, at the same time, makes you know and prevents you from knowing, with extraordinary tiny subtleties of movement so nothing may happen too soon, that is, before everything is ready.

(long silence)

That would amount to saying that falling ill (from falling ill to dying) is caused by the incapacity to maintain the necessary tension to go from one state to another without falling back again, without the slackening of unconsciousness. Illness is always a fall back into unconsciousness out of incapacity to sustain the movement of transformation. And death is the same thing – the same thing, somewhat more complete.

Mother shows a note she has just written:

I wrote this to someone here.... He hasn't been in India for a long time, and he doesn't understand anything about Indians – which isn't a crime, but he's full of scorn. Because he doesn't understand he is full of scorn. So I wrote him this:

"One should be careful not to scorn what one does not understand, for innumerable are the marvels sealed from our narrow view. "The Lord has unsuspected splendors which He reveals progressively to our too limited understanding."

It's a whole category of ways of thinking. Those who think they have superior intelligence and scorn what they don't understand are innumerable – innumerable. And that's the very sign of stupidity! On the other hand, there are many (they are generally regarded as "simple-minded," but I, for one, have a liking for those simpleminded people, they have a warmth of soul) who admire anything they don't understand. They have a sort of open-eyed admiration (regarded as stupid) for anything they don't understand. But they, at least, have goodwill. While to the others on the lofty height of their so-called intelligence, anything they don't understand is worthless. This man came here and said, "One can't work with these people, they are Indians!" (Mother laughs) And he says it as a matter of course.

You met someone the other day, I heard?

So then, what's this gentleman like?

He's a man full of sexuality. When you enter his atmosphere there is sex and nothing else. It's the

only problem he's interested in. So in his magazine and a few other similar ones, they are trying to make Tantrism "of the left hand," the "Vama Marga," fashionable.

Oh!

He asked me questions on sexuality and talked of a "yoga of sexuality "!

Oh!

So I set things straight....

Oh, good.

Not very diplomatically, by the way. I said it had nothing to do with Tantrism. But the strange

thing is that despite all this sexual atmosphere, the man still has an opening: one day, some twelve years ago, as he had a problem, instead of writing to Sri Aurobindo (he had read Sri Aurobindo), he thought, "But why shouldn't I concentrate on Sri Aurobindo to have the answer to my problem?" He concentrated, and in the night he suddenly saw a big golden disk come and fill him, and a voice told him with extraordinary force the words he was waiting for, words of revelation.... So the man has an opening.

Oh, yes.

But then he told me, "That was probably my unconscious, it came from my unconscious, but

anyway..."

(Mother laughs) He has a good unconscious!

Those people!... The Grace comes to them and kindly gives them a beautiful experience, just like

that, and then: "It's my unconscious "!

(Mother laughs)

When he said that to me, I really felt Sri Aurobindo smiling.

Yes, he is amused.

But it seems that this so-called Tantrism and "yoga of sexuality" is overflowing everywhere in the

West.

Yes, it's dangerous. It's dangerous.

It may be the cure, they may go through, I can't say.... Because Sri Aurobindo said that if you go (Laughing) In the meantime it makes a fine mess! The other method is much quicker: abolition. I mean not only material abolition, but abolition of the PRINCIPLE of the thing; that's what I said before: when you go beyond animality, the material fact no longer has any reason to be, so it falls away. That's so to say immediate. But if you go all the way to loathing, that's another method!

Going all the way to loathing isn't the most dangerous thing; it's covering up this business with

spirituality and making a "yoga of sexuality."

Oh, (laughing) if you say that to them, they'll all fall sick!

But maybe one day impotence will take over. Then it will be the end. Because it's only Nature's instinct that gives power to this somewhat morbid imagination, and once Nature's instinct is exhausted or finished... oh, I must say I knew some old, very old people who were full of dirty things; but that was probably because they had repressed themselves during their whole youth.

There is, of course, something very repugnant about it, which people overcome in order to get the "pleasure"; but there is something very repugnant about it, which, as soon as the pleasure is gone, becomes really thoroughly repugnant. What I meant was that they will perhaps be cured through disgust.

Lots of sects and movements have been accused of practicing this kind of sexuality (I think it was the "moral" basis for the accusation against the Templars). It's probably the result of the Christian attitude; Christianity has spoken of "sin" and made it a sin, so there's the result. It's the reaction.

But in truth, as soon as you are capable of having the true Ananda, it's absolutely repugnant, just like wallowing in mud.

Only, with this method there will be a good amount of wastage.

But it's nothing but the survival of a natural process which was useful in the beginning of

evolution.

Quite so.

And the meeting of two beings must take place through other means.

Naturally!

From every side people ask the question of the sexual relationship between man and woman and

of spiritual discipline.

(Mother remains silent awhile)

To tell the truth, the Lord makes use of everything! One is always on the way towards something.

There comes a point when you go beyond indignation.