Chapter 3March 13, 1968

(Reverting to the old Playground Talk:) I would no longer be able to deliver speeches like that! I find it presumptuous! (Mother laughs)

Now all experiences, all of them, come as if to let life grow clear (it’s quite interesting), to put things in their place. And all preferences, all opinions, all attractions, all distastes, all that is going away... in a kind of smile, in fact – not in indifference, but in a smile, the smile of the extraordinary relativity of the manifestation. And there begins to come the perception of what a true manifestation would be – in a sort of very supple harmony, smooth, and very vast. It’s in process of formation. Very interesting.

And these things (showing the Playground Talk) are still too cut-and-dried. But I quite understand that if now I were to tell experiences like the one I had this morning, it would be almost incomprehensible – too far from [people’s] consciousness.

There.

(Regarding an old Playground Talk of May 27, 1953.)

You say this: "Yes, science can find. If it moves in a very definite direction, if it progresses

sufficiently and doesn’t stop on the way, they will find the same thing that mystics have found, that religious people have found, that everyone has found, because there is only one thing to be found and not two. There is only one. So you may go a long way, you may wind and turn and wind again, if you go long enough without stopping, you are sure to reach the same point. Once you have reached there, you feel there’s nothing at all to be found! There’s nothing to be found. And that’s the power. That’s it, and that’s all. It’s like that." What do you mean by "That’s the power"?

Strangely, when you read it, it was SIMPLE, obvious, but now...

Yes, when I read it, it seemed obvious to me.... Maybe it doesn’t require any comment, that’s all!

Yes, they will find the same thing that mystics and monks and everyone have found – that’s the power. The power is what you find. And to That, essentially, you cannot give any name or definition.

It’s the big quarrel now about Auroville: in the Charter I put "Divine Consciousness" ["To live in Auroville one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness"], but they say, "It brings God to mind." I said (laughing), "Not to my mind!" So then, some change it to "the highest consciousness," others put something else. With the Russians I agreed to put "perfect Consciousness," but that’s an

* * *

(Soon afterwards, regarding another passage from the same Talk, in which someone asked Mother if

the Divine could "withdraw from us.")

You answer, "It’s an impossibility. Because if the Divine with drew from something, it would

immediately collapse, because it wouldn’t exist. To put it more clearly, He is the sole existence."

Now I would have answered, "It’s like asking if the Divine could withdraw from Himself!" (Mother laughs) That’s the hitch, you say "Divine" and they understand "God"!... There is ONLY That: That alone exists. That, what? – That alone exists!

(silence)

This morning again, I spent some time looking, seeing, and I seemed to ask the Divine, "Why do You enjoy denying Yourself?..." You understand, for our logic to be satisfied, we say, all that is dark, all that is ugly, all that isn’t living, all that isn’t harmonious – none of that is divine. But how could it be so?... It’s only an attitude for action. So putting myself in the consciousness of action, I said, "But why do You enjoy being like that!" (Mother laughs)

It was a very concrete experience of the cells, with the feeling (not "feeling" – neither feeling nor sensation), a sort of perception of being on the very edge of the great secret.... All of a sudden, a group of cells or a bodily function finds it amusing to go wrong – why? What meaning does that hold? And the answer was, it’s as if all that helped break limits.

But why, how? Mentally, we can explain everything, but that doesn’t mean anything at all: for the body, the material consciousness, it’s abstract. When the material consciousness catches hold of something, it knows it A HUNDRED TIMES BETTER than we can know it mentally. When it knows, it has the power: knowing gives it the power. That’s what is being slowly, slowly worked out. For an ignorant consciousness it’s slow and painful – but for the true consciousness, it’s not that! Pain, joy, all that is... such an absurd way of seeing things – of feeling and seeing things.

There is an increasingly concrete perception that everything – that there is nothing that doesn’t hold its own joy of being, because that’s THE way of being: without joy of being, there is no being. But it’s not what we mentally understand by "joy of being." It’s... something which is hard to express. And this perception of suffering and joy (almost of evil and good), all of that is necessities of the work to enable it to be done in a certain field of unconsciousness. Because true consciousness is something entirely, totally different.

That’s what the consciousness of the cells is now learning, and learning through a concrete experience; and all those appreciations of what is good and what is evil, of what is suffering and what is joy, all that seems misty. But the "thing" – the Truth – the concrete thing still hasn’t been caught. It’s on the way, one feels it’s on the way, but it’s not there yet. If one had it... one would be the all-powerful master. And possibly one cannot have it until the world in its totality, or to a sufficient extent, is ready for the transformation.