Chapter 9April 27, 1967

(Message given by Mother)

"For after all it is the will in the being that gives to circumstances their value, and often an unexpected value; the hue of apparent actuality is a misleading indicator. If the will in a race or civilisation is towards death, if it clings to the lassitude of decay and the laissez-faire of the moribund or even in strength insists blindly upon the propensities that lead to destruction or if it cherishes only the powers of dead Time and puts away from it the powers of the future, if it prefers life that was to life that will be, nothing, not even abundant strength and resources and intelligence, not even many calls to live and constantly offered opportunities will save it from an inevitable disintegration or collapse. But if there comes to it a strong faith in itself and a robust will to live, if it is open to the things that shall come, willing to seize on the future and what it offers and strong to compel it where it seems adverse, it can draw from adversity and defeat a force of invincible victory and rise from apparent helplessness and decay in a mighty flame of renovation to the light of a more splendid life. This is what Indian civilisation is now rearising to do as it has always done in the eternal strength of its spirit."40

Sri Aurobindo

(Regarding the "darshan" of April 24, forty-seventh anniversary of Mother's coming to Pondicherry.)

How was the 24th? Did you stay at home for the meditation?

It was rather peculiar.

Here is the sequence of events: someone living here had a very bad cold some seven or eight days before the darshan. I said to myself, "I must not catch it."41 So I did a special prayer not to catch it. But it has had consequences.

I told you about that experience, which has been growing increasingly concrete and constant, of the Vibration of Harmony (a higher harmony expressing the essential Consciousness in its aspect of love and harmony and, as it draws nearer to the manifestation, of order and organization), and of the nearly constant and general vibration of disorder, disharmony, conflict – in reality, Matter's resistance to this Action. The two vibrations are like this (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand between those of the left), as if they interpenetrated each other and a simple movement of consciousness sent you to one side or the other, or rather, as if the aspiration, the will for realization, put you into contact with the Vibration of Harmony, and the SLIGHTEST slackening made you lapse into the other. It has become constant. So then, on the 24th, right from morning there was a constant aspiration, a constant will for the triumph of the Vibration of Harmony. Then I sat down at my table as I always do, some five or ten minutes before it [the meditation] began. And instantly, with a power – a power capable of crushing an elephant – this Vibration of Harmony came down like that, in such a mass... that the body lost the sense of its own existence altogether: it became That, it was conscious of nothing but That. And the first quarter of an hour literally flashed by in a second. Then, there were three people in the room; one of the three, or maybe all three, felt ill-at-ease (nothing to be surprised at!), and that woke me up: I saw the light (I burn a candle on my table) and I saw the time, but it wasn't me – something saw. Then there was a sort of pacifying action on the place, and then – gone again. And one second later, the call of the end!42

It's the first time that has happened to my body. It always used to remain conscious. Sri Aurobindo, too, told me the same thing, that he never, ever had samadhi in his body. Neither did I: I always, always used to remain conscious. While that... only Force remained, there was nothing left but Force at work: there was a concentration here, a concentration on the whole country, and a concentration on the whole earth. And it all was conscious, like that (vast gesture above the head), at work. But something massive, as powerful as an elephant – enough to crush you.

I didn't say anything to anybody, I wanted to know (because when I speak, people try to find something, while I wanted to know the spontaneous reaction). The first thing I received was a letter from G. saying that he was at the Samadhi, and just before it started, a force came down on him so strongly that he fell (he was sitting, he fell forward). So he asked me what it was. I haven't replied yet. Then there have been other people, other things.

That was unique for me, because it's the first time it has happened to me. But it has had a result: all that still clings within to that old habit of disorder and disharmony – which is the cause of, oh, everything, all mischief, all illnesses, everything – that has been... Yesterday afternoon, I saw there was something that needed to be done away with, and it changed into a head cold. It's nothing.

It's nothing, and it has given me an opportunity to see that all the cells everywhere, even those that according to the old habit should be in discomfort because of the cold, are all in a blissful aspiration of transformation. And they truly and spontaneously feel that what's happening to them is to make things 41Mother in fact has a bad cold.