Chapter 8November 27, 1968

That it’s all the result of states of consciousness is certain (whether there is something beyond, I do not know, but at any rate I have the positive experience of that). It’s movements of consciousness. Why, how?... I don’t know. But looking at it from the other side, the fact that something belonging to this terrestrial region as it is has become conscious, is what gives the impression that something has "taken place".... I don’t know if I can make myself understood.... I mean that this body is just the same as all the rest of the earth, but for some reason or other, it happens to have become conscious in the other way; well, that normally should be expressed in the earth consciousness as a "coming," a "descent," a "beginning".... But is it a beginning? What has "come"?... You understand, there’s NOTHING but the Lord (I call it "the Lord" for the convenience of language, because otherwise...), there’s nothing but the Lord, not anything else – nothing else exists. Everything takes place within Him, consciously. And we are... like grains of sand in this Infinity; only, we are the Lord with the capacity of being conscious of the Lord’s consciousness. That’s exactly it.

(silence)

Before that experience, when I was in the consciousness of all the sufferings and horrors of physical life, at one point something came (it didn’t "say" – we are forced to use words, but all this takes place without mentalization), an impression... to translate I would say, "Aren’t you afraid of going insane?..." Do you understand? (It’s a translation.) So then, the body spontaneously replied, We are ALL insane, we can’t get more insane than we are!" And things instantly calmed down.

(long silence)

It’s here that this consciousness is (Mother touches Satprem’s chest). This (gesture pointing to the mind and above) is just light, light... (immense gesture). But in this body, this consciousness is here (same gesture to the chest). I mean the consciousness... that we are within the Lord.

I know, the consciousness that’s here knows that this way of speaking is quite childish, but it prefers this childish way to one that would try to be precise and would be mental.

(Mother looks at the clock)

Oh, it’s late.... I’ve talked a lot, bah-bah!

(Mother has a severe cold. In fact, she has been in the same painful curve since July.)

I don’t remember at all.

You touched the "central experience" of the transformation.

Oh, that’s right.

It’s going on.... The body has the impression that it’s beginning to understand. For it, naturally, there are no thoughts at all – none at all; but it’s states of consciousness. States of consciousness complementing one another, replacing one another.... To such a point that the body wonders how one can know with thought; for it, the only way of knowing, the only way of experiencing, is consciousness. It’s growing increasingly clear from a general point of view. And it’s applying it; it’s applying it to itself, that is to say, a work is going on to make all the parts of the body conscious not only of the forces they receive, the forces going through the body, but of the action of its inner working.

That’s growing increasingly precise.

It’s mostly this: for the body, everything is a phenomenon of consciousness, and when it wants to do something, it almost no longer understands the meaning of "knowing how to do it"; it must be CONSCIOUS of the manner of doing it. And not only for itself, but for all the people around it. That’s becoming such an obvious fact.... So to learn from someone else, to learn, for instance, the manner of doing a thing – for the body it’s only by doing it and at the same time applying the consciousness that it can learn. And what one explains, what someone else may explain, seems... it seems hollow – lifeless, hollow.

It’s becoming more and more like that.

(silence)

You didn’t answer my question about that vision of you lying flat on the ground....

(Mother laughs) I think it’s the symbol of perfect surrender. I was lying on my back, wasn’t I?

On your back, on the ground.

On my back, yes. It must be the pictorial expression of the body’s attitude.117

It’s the attitude of perfect receptivity in complete surrender.

Because that’s true. I truly don’t know if there are "parts" or organs that still have what we might call their "spirit of independence," but truly the body has made its surrender, that is, it has no will of its own; it has no desire, no will of its own, and it’s all the time as if "listening" – all the time – to perceive the Indication.

It’s beginning to know the exact spot or function that isn’t... I can’t say "transformed," because that’s quite a high-sounding word, but not in harmony with the others, and causing a disorder. That’s becoming a perception of every moment. When something apparently abnormal takes place, there is the beginning to be a little conscious. And not only for itself alone, but for all others too, it has begun: seeing, perceiving how the Consciousness (with a capital C) acts in others. And in fact, at times (words lag WAY BEHIND the experience), there no longer is the perception of division: there is the perception of diversity (that’s becoming very interesting)... the diversity (if it weren’t for what we might call the "latching on" of separateness), the diversity that, in the true consciousness, would be perfectly harmonious and would make a whole that would be perfection itself (Mother makes a round gesture).

It’s the latching on – what happened?... What happened?... It remains to be seen if, for some reason or other, it was necessary or if it was an accident – but how could it be an accident!... For the moment (there’s no thought, so it’s a little vague), for the moment there is an impression... I might put it simply like this: the impression of a TREMENDOUS acquisition of consciousness, which has been gained by paying the very high price of all the suffering and all the disorder.... Yesterday or today (I forget when, I think yesterday), at one point the problem was so acute (Mother touches her cheek and throat), and then the divine Consciousness seemed to be saying, "In all this suffering, it’s I who suffer" (the Consciousness, you understand), "it’s I who suffer, but in a way different from yours." I don’t know how to express it.... There was a sort of impression that the divine Consciousness was perceiving what to us was a suffering, that it existed – it existed for the divine Consciousness. But not in the same way as it exists for our own consciousness. So then, there was an attempt to make understood the consciousness of the whole at the same time, the simultaneous consciousness of everything... to express myself I might just say, the consciousness of suffering (the most acute disorder) and of Harmony (the most perfect Ananda) – both together, perceived together. Naturally that changes the nature of suffering.

But all that is very conscious of being some kind of chatter. It’s not the translation of what is. There is also the perception that little by little, following all these experiences, every aggregate (what, for us, is a body) is getting used to having the power to bear the true Consciousness.... It requires a play of adaptation.

But you know, Sri Aurobindo too wrote in Thoughts and Glimpses, I think, that suffering was a

preparation for Ananda.118 Yes. I must say there are many things from Sri Aurobindo that I am beginning to understand in a very different way.

I told you it was here (Mother points to her nose, mouth and throat) that there was the most complete resistance. As an experience it’s very interesting, but it’s still in full work....

(silence)

The impression of being on the verge of touching something, and then... it escapes. Something is missing.

(silence)

118"...Pain that travails towards the touch of an unimaginable ecstasy." See also Thoughts and Aphorisms: 93 – "Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us how to bear and grow in rapture. She has three stages of her schooling, endurance first,