Chapter 2March 4, 1967

see – I have seen: holding out is tough. It's tough. It takes both an unflinching energy – a constant energy, like this (inflexible gesture) – and at the same time, a perfect humility ready to abandon EVERYTHING, because all that is is nothing in comparison with what must be. A perfect humility. I don't think there are many bodies like that. It really (laughing) has goodwill!

Oh, these last few days there have been moments... a few minutes (it could hardly last more) when it was really tough. And then, what makes it possible for the body to go through is that at such moments, it's completely like this (gesture of surrender): "Lord, what You will." Nothing, no thought, no speculation – nothing: "What You will." And "You alone exist." That's all.

Moments of anguish, you know... in an ordinary consciousness it would translate into hard-to-bear physical pains, but the Grace is there – the UNREALITY OF THE SUFFERING is there, fortunately.

Oh, a marvelous Grace. So then, the result (these few days were difficult), the result is this: that the consciousness of the body itself has really changed. Its consciousness is up above: there's nothing left here inside, it's all like that, like something everything goes through.

(silence)

It may have one ambition (it's expressed as an aspiration, at any rate): the possibility of making this unreality of suffering felt everywhere. When the possibility is glimpsed of transmitting everywhere the unreality of suffering, there comes a joy – a light, a joy in the body. That makes it happy. So the Consciousness above says "That's how it is, that's how it will be." There.

(Regarding Sri Aurobindo's aphorism 126: "The most binding law of Nature is only a fixed process which the Lord of Nature has framed and uses constantly; the Spirit made it and the Spirit can exceed

it, but we must first open the doors of our prison-house and learn to live less in Nature than in the

Spirit.")

That has been precisely the subject of... (can we call it meditation?), of this morning's work. It came so clearly. But the experiences aren't literary, they can't be expressed.23

(Mother goes into a contemplation)

23Mother will henceforth stop her "Comments on the Aphorisms," preferring to let her experience flow freely outside the artificial framework of a "commentary." In 1969, at a disciple's instance, she will briefly resume these comments and

For two or three days some beings from the vital have been eager to manifest their goodwill, and this was like the expression of their goodwill. In the vital, food is very often grapes, very frequently. Grapes of incomparable beauty, besides. And grapes are the fruit of life. So I suppose that's why. There were two bunches: one was bigger, the other not so big; I don't know whom the bigger was for and whom the other for: they came from both sides, they were presented like this (gesture to the right and to the left of Mother). One was on a plate, the other on a square of white paper. I presumed the one on the square of white paper was for me!

Lovely, beautiful bunches! Grapes turning golden, you know – transparent and golden as when they're ripe. Each grape was this big (gesture: about two inches).

(silence)

I tried to express what happened this morning, and what kept coming to me was: "But the experiences aren't literary, they can't be expressed."

(silence)

Some beings of the vital said to me, "There was a time when you used us and we were very happy. Why aren't you using us anymore now?" So I replied to them, "If you want to do work, I'm certainly not going to stop you!"

That was yesterday evening. I was asked questions on levitation (questions a proper modern child might ask), I was asked, "How is it that one who escapes from this law doesn't just go up into the atmosphere?" I answered from my experience that that's not the way levitation works, it's not because one escapes from the law of gravity: it's because physical bodies are supported by materialized vital forces (slightly materialized). So then, it put me back in contact with those forces and beings, and last night they said that to me; they told me, "Why aren't you using us any longer? We were quite happy!" I said, "Come along and do some work!" And there we are [= the grapes].

When you sleep (that is, when the body is in a state of trance), you can eat. You sense the taste when you have gone outside the body. And it's very nourishing, it gives strength. I have eaten I don't know how many times like that, mostly grapes – and what grapes!...

* * * Soon afterwards:

Yes, this problem of the transformation, I see more and more clearly that there are three approaches, three ways to go about it, and that in order to be more complete one should combine the three.

One – the most important, naturally – is the way we could call "spiritual," the way of the contact with the Consciousness – Love-Consciousness-Power, that is. These three aspects: supreme Love- Consciousness-Power. And the contact, the identification: making all the material cells capable of receiving Him and expressing Him – of BEING That.

Of all the ways, that is the most powerful and most indispensable. There is the occult way, which brings all the intermediary worlds into play. There is a very detailed