Chapter 718 May

You have heard about those drugs?1 Have you seen any pic-tures?... I have. People are thrust without the least defence into the lowest vital, and according to their nature they find it either frightful or marvellous. For example, the cloth covering a cushion or a chair suddenly takes on a wondrous beauty. This lasts for about two or three hours. Naturally, they are completely out of their senses the whole time. And the pity of it is that people call these “spiritual experiences”, and there is nobody to tell them that this has nothing to do with spiritual experience.

Some time ago I received a letter from someone who told me he had taken these drugs, and he said he had had terrible visions, that the walls of his room were alive with thousands of evil and desperate faces which persecuted him till nightfall. There you are!

And so this gave me yet another proof.... I saw pictures in Life — there were some photographs — it was as though you had entered a madhouse. For these are images registered in the subconscient — images of thoughts, images of sensations, im-ages of feelings, registered in the subconscient — which become objective, which come up to the surface and become objective. Thus they give the exact picture of what is within.

For instance, if you have the feeling or thought that someone is wicked or ridiculous or does not like you, in short, ideas of this kind — generally all this comes up in dream, but here you are not asleep and you have the dream! — they come to play the game you have thought of; what you have thought of them comes back upon you in their form. So this is an indication: for those who see happy, amiable, beautiful images, this means that within, everything is going on quite well (vitally), but for those 1 Mother is referring to the hallucinogenic drug called LSD, a derivative of lysergic acid.

who see terrifying or evil things, or things of that sort, it means that the vital is not pretty.

Yes, but isn’t there an objective vital, where these visions have no relation with our own subconscient?

Yes, there is, but it hasn’t the same character.

Not the same character?

One cannot know it unless one goes into the vital fully conscious — conscious of his own vital and conscious in the vital world as one is conscious in the physical world. One goes there consciously. It is not a dream, it hasn’t the nature of a dream; it is like an activity, an experience, and it is quite different.

But there do exist also these vital worlds where one is persecuted, terrible worlds, worlds of torture and persecution, isn’t it so?

Ninety per cent subjective.

Ninety per cent subjective. For more than a year, regularly, every night, at the same hour and in the same way, I used to enter the vital to do some special work there. This was not due to my own will: I was destined to do it. It was something I had to do. Now, for instance, this entry into the vital has been often described: there is a passage where beings are posted to keep you from entering (much has been said about these things in books of occultism). Well, I know by an experience, not casual, but repeated and understood, that this opposition or this malevolence is ninety per cent psychological, in the sense that if you do not anticipate it or fear it, or that there isn’t something in you that fears the unknown nor has all these movements of apprehension and so forth, then it is like a shadow across a picture or the projection of an image: it has no concrete reality.

I have had, it is true, one or two real vital battles in going to the rescue of someone who had gone astray. And twice I have received blows, and the next morning when I woke up there was the mark (Mother touches her right eye). Well, in these two cases, I know it was something in me — not any fear, I have never been afraid there, but because I anticipated it. The idea that “this could very well happen” and the fact that I was expecting it, made the blow come. I knew it for certain. And if I had been in what may be called my “normal state”, of inner certitude, this could not have touched me, it could not. And I had had this apprehension because an occultist whom I knew, had lost an eye in a vital fight and she had told me about it; and so (Mother laughs), that gave me the idea that this was possible, because it had happened to her! But when I am in my own state — I cannot even say that, it is not “personal”, it is a way of being — when one is in the true state, when one is a conscious being and has the true way of being, this cannot touch one.

It is like the experience of meeting an enemy and wanting to strike him, and then the blows do not go home and all that you do has no effect — it is always subjective. I have had every proof, every proof.

But then, what is objective?

There are worlds, there are beings, there are powers, they have their own existence; but what I mean is that their relation with the human consciousness depends upon this human consciousness for the form they take.

It is as with the gods, my child, it is the same thing. All these beings of the Overmind, all these gods, the relation with them, the form of these relations, depend upon the human consciousness. You may be... It has been said, “Men are cattle for the gods”, but if men accept to be cattle. There is in the essence of human nature a sovereignty over all things which is spontaneous and natural, when it is not falsified by a certain number of ideas and so-called knowledge.

One could say that man is the all-powerful master of all the states of being of his nature, but that he has forgotten to be this.

His natural state is to be all-powerful — he has forgotten to be this.

In this state of forgetfulness, everything becomes concrete, yes, in the sense that one may have a mark left on the eye; it may translate itself like this, but it is because... because one has allowed it to happen.

It is the same thing with the gods. They can govern your life and torment you a lot (they can help you a lot also), but their power, in relation to you, to the human being, is the power you give them.

This is something I learnt gradually over several years. But now I am sure of it.

Naturally, in the evolutionary curve, it was necessary for man to forget his omnipotence, because it had simply puffed him up with pride and vanity, and so had become completely distorted; and he had to be made to feel that many things were stronger and more powerful than he. But essentially this is not true. It is a necessity of the curve of progress, that’s all.

Man is potentially a god. He believed himself an actual god. He needed to learn that he was nothing better than a poor little worm crawling on the earth, and so life scraped, scraped, scraped him in every way until he had... not understood, but at least felt a bit. But as soon as he takes the right stand, he knows that he is potentially a god. Only, he must become this, that is, overcome all that is not this.

This relationship with the gods is extremely interesting.... As long as man stands dazzled, lost in admiration of the power, beauty, accomplishments of these divine beings, he is their slave. But when these become for him different ways of being of the Supreme and nothing more, and himself yet another way of being of the Supreme, which he must become, then the relation changes and he is no longer their slave — he is not their slave.

Then the only objectivity is the Supreme.

There, you have said it, my child. It is this. It is exactly this.

If the word “objectivity” is taken to mean “real independent existence” — self-existence, independent and real — there is only the Supreme.

Nevertheless, there is something disquieting about this almost total subjectivity.

Ah, why?

One wonders what is real, what one really comes across? Isn’t everything a tissue of imagination? This is rather disquieting.

But when one has the positive experience of the one and only existence of the Supreme and that all is only the Supreme playing to Himself, instead of being something disquieting or unpleasant or troubling, it is on the contrary a sort of total security.

The one reality is the Supreme. And all this is a game He plays to Himself. I find this much more comforting than the opposite view.

And after all, this is the only certitude that all this may become something marvellous; otherwise...

And this too depends altogether on the stand one takes. A complete identification with the game as a game, as something self-existent and independent, is probably necessary in the beginning, in order to play the game properly. But there’s a moment when one reaches precisely this detachment and so complete a disgust for all the falsehood of existence, that it is no longer tolerable unless one sees it as the inner play of the Lord in Himself, for Himself.

And then one feels this absolute and perfect freedom which makes the most marvellous possibilities become real, and all the most sublime things imaginable are realisable.

(Mother enters into contemplation.)

You will see, there is a moment when one cannot bear oneself or life unless one takes the attitude that it is the Lord who is everything. You see, this Lord, how many things He possesses, He plays with all this — He plays, He plays at changing the positions. And so, when one sees this, this whole, one feels the illimitable marvel, and that all our most wonderful aspirations, all these are quite possible and will even be surpassed. Then one is comforted. Otherwise, existence... it is inconsolable. But like this, it becomes charming. I shall tell you about this one day.

When one feels the unreality of life, the unreality of life when compared with a reality which is certainly beyond, above, but at the same time within life, then, at that moment... “Ah, yes, at last this, it is true — at last this, it is true and deserves to be true. This is the realisation of all possible splendours, all possible marvels, yes, of all possible felicities, all possible beauties, yes, this; otherwise...”

I have come to that! And then, I feel as though I still have one foot here, one foot there, which is not a very comfortable position, because... because one would wish that there be nothing but That.

The present way of being is a past which truly should no longer be there. While the other: “Ah! At last! At last! It is for this that there is a world.”

And everything else remains quite as concrete and real — it does not become hazy! It is just as concrete, just as real, but... but it becomes divine, because... because it is the Divine. It is the Divine who plays.

28 September 1966

Why is there suffering? How to cure suffering?

For a long time quite recently, that is to say, for days together, there was a very acute, very intense, very clear perception that the action of the Force translated itself externally by what we call “suffering” because that is the only kind of vibration which can pull Matter out of its inertia.

The supreme Peace, the supreme Calm are deformed and disfigured into inertia and into tamas, and precisely because this was the deformation of true Peace and Calm, there was no reason why it should change! A certain vibration of awakening — of reawakening — was necessary to come out of this tamas, that could not pass directly from tamas to Peace; something was needed to shake the tamas, and that is translated externally by suffering.

I am speaking here of physical suffering, because all the other sufferings — vital, mental, emotional sufferings — are due to a wrong working of the mind, and these... may simply be classed together as Falsehood, that’s all. But physical suffering gives me the impression of a child being beaten, because here, in Matter, Falsehood has become ignorance; that is to say, there is no bad will — no bad will is there in Matter, all is inertia and ignorance: complete ignorance of the Truth, ignorance of the Origin, ignorance of the Possibility and ignorance even of what is to be done in order not to suffer physically. This ignorance is everywhere in the cells, and it is only the experience, the experience of what is translated in this rudimentary consciousness as suffering, which can awaken, bring forth the need to know and to cure, and the aspiration to transform oneself.

It has become a certainty, because in all the cells there is born the aspiration, which is becoming more and more intense and which wonders at the resistance; but they have observed that whenever something goes wrong in the working (that is to say, instead of being supple, spontaneous, natural, the working becomes a painful effort, a struggle against something which takes the appearance of a bad will, but is only a reticence that does not understand), at that moment, the intensity of the aspiration, of the call, is tenfold, becomes constant. The difficulty is to remain at that state of intensity. Generally everything falls back, I cannot say into a somnolence, but a kind of relaxation: you take things easy; and it is only when the inner disorder becomes painful that the intensity grows and remains permanent. For hours — hours together — without slackening, the call, the aspiration, the will to be united with the Divine, to become the Divine, is maintained at its maximum. Why? Because there was externally what is called a physical disorder, a suffering. Otherwise, when there is no suffering, from time to time one soars up, then one falls back into a slackening; again another time one soars up once more... there is no end to it. That lasts eternally. If we want things to go fast (relatively fast according to the rhythm of our life), this smack of the whip is necessary. I am convinced of it, because as soon as you are within your inner being you look upon that with contempt (as regards oneself).

But then, all of a sudden, when there comes this true Compassion of the Divine Love, and when one sees all these things that appear so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, this great pain which is upon all beings and even upon all things... then there takes birth in this physical being the aspiration to soothe, to cure, to remove that. There is in Love, at its Origin, something which is translated constantly as the intervention of Grace: a force, a sweetness, something like a vibration of solace spread everywhere, but which an illumined consciousness can direct, concentrate on some points. And it is there, there itself that I saw the true use one can make of thought: thought serves as a kind of channel to carry this vibration from place to place, wherever it is necessary. This force, this vibration of sweetness is there in a static way upon the world, pressing in order to be received, but it is an impersonal action. And thought — illumined thought, surrendered thought, thought which is no longer anything but an instrument, which tries no longer to initiate things, which is satisfied with being moved by the higher Consciousness — thought serves as an intermediary to establish a contact, a relation, and to enable this impersonal Force to act wherever it is necessary, upon definite points.

It may be said in an absolute way that an evil always carries its own remedy. One might say that the cure of any suffering coexists with the suffering. So, instead of seeing an evil “useless” and “stupid” as it is generally thought to be, you see that the progress, the evolution which has made the suffering necessary — which is the cause of the suffering and the very reason for its existence — attains the intended result; and at the same time the suffering is cured, for those who are able to open themselves and receive. The three things — suffering as a means of progress, progress, and the cure of suffering — are coexistent, simultaneous; that is to say, they do not follow each other, they are there at the same time.

If, at the moment when the transforming action creates a suffering, there is in that which suffers the necessary aspiration and opening, the remedy also is taken in at the same time, and the effect is total, complete: transformation, with the action necessary to obtain it, and, at the same time, cure of the false sensation produced by the resistance. And the suffering is re-placed by... something which is not known upon this earth, but which is akin to joy, well-being, trust and security. It is a supersensation, in a perfect peace, and which is obviously the only thing that can be eternal.

This analysis expresses very imperfectly what one would call the “content” of Ananda.

I believe it is something that has been felt, experienced, partially and in a very fleeting manner, through all the ages, but which has just begun to concentrate and almost concretise itself upon earth. But physical Matter, in its cellular form, has, one cannot say fear or anxiety, but a kind of apprehension of new vibrations, and this apprehension naturally takes away from the cells their receptivity and assumes the appearance of uneasiness — it is not suffering, but an uneasiness. When, however, this apprehension is counterbalanced and cured by aspiration and the will for total surrender and by the act of total surrender, then this sort of apprehension, having disappeared, becomes a supreme well-being.

All this, they are as though microscopic studies of the phenomena of consciousness, free from mental intervention. The necessity of using words to express oneself brings this mental intervention, but in the experience it does not exist. And it is very interesting, because the pure experience has a content of truth, of reality, which disappears as soon as the mind intervenes. There is a savour of true reality which altogether escapes expression because of that. It is the same difference as between an individual and his portrait, a fact and the story told. It is like that. But it is much more subtle.

And then, to come back to what we were saying just now, when one is conscious of this Force — this Force, this Compassion in its essential reality — and when one sees how it can act through the conscious individual, one has the key to the problem.