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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

31 December 1954

One can say from an altogether impersonal point of view that the adverse forces--which of course are responsible for all difficulties--that the adverse forces are tolerated in the world in so far as they serve to make the world completely conscious. This indeed is true. But it seems to me a very human way of putting it because it could be said that as long as the world is not perfectly conscious, this allows the existence of these adverse forces. That is, it conditions them. The world's unconsciousness conditions the existence of these forces. So, one can as well say this as say that the forces are tolerated so long as the world is unconscious. I don't know if you are following. These are two opposite ways of saying the same thing and neither is perfectly true. But both contain something correct, yet something which is quite different. And in fact, if one wants to say the thing exactly, one can only say, "Things are like that because they are like that."

This is the only way of not making a mistake. If you say, "The world is like that because it is like that", then here you are sure you are saying something approximately correct--approximately. But if you try to explain, you will see an atom in a world and will take this atom for an explanation. You would [old p. 463]have to give all the explanations and even many others in order to approach the reality. [new p. 463]

That's what I just said, you know: that the human mind is linear in its action. It sees ideas one after another. Naturally when one speaks it is even ten times worse. One is obliged to say one word after another and this becomes frightful. But most people, almost all human beings think linearly. They think one thing after another. They can't think of many things at once. Only very few individuals are capable of thinking of, say, about twenty things at the same time. You can try, you will see. You think things one after another, one after another.... The succession may be very fast, but it is a succession. It is a very different kind of vision and a very different functioning, not of the mind but of intellectual powers, which can see things in their totality and all at the same time. But even when you see them like that, if you want to try to describe them, either by writing or speaking, you can't put down everything at the same time nor say everything at the same time; you are obliged to use one word after another, and so it necessarily becomes... it destroys the truth of the thing, it becomes linear, which means that the truest things cannot be said. Everything one says is always a diminution of the truth.