WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

"Everything is a choice"

22 January 1966

I experienced this morning, for two hours, a kind of blissful state in which there was such a clear consciousness that all the forms of life, in all the worlds and at all moments, are the expression of a choice--one chooses to be like that.

It is very difficult to say with words.... The kind of obligation in which one believes oneself to be living, to which one believes oneself to be submitted, had completely disappeared, and it was quite a spontaneous and natural perception that the life upon earth, and the life in other worlds, and all kinds of life upon earth and all kinds of life in other worlds are simply a question of choice: you have chosen to be like that and you choose constantly to be like this or to be like that, or whether it happens like this or it happens like that; and you choose also to believe that you are submitted to a fatality or to a necessity or to a law which compels you--everything is a question of choice. And there was a feeling of lightness, of freedom, and then a smile for everything. At the same time it gives you a tremendous power. All feeling of compulsion, of necessity--of fatality still more--had disappeared completely. All the illnesses, all the happenings, all the dramas, all that: disappeared. And this concrete and so brutal reality of the physical life: gone completely.

I lived this state for more than an hour and a half this morning. Afterwards, I was obliged to return... to a state which appears to me artificial, but which is compulsory because of others, by contact with others and with things, and the innumerable quantity of things to be done. But all the same, in the background the experience remains. And there remains a kind of amused smile for all the complications of life--the state in which one finds oneself has been the fact of a choice, and for the individual the freedom of choice is there, and people have forgotten it. It is this that is so interesting. [new p. 31][old p. 31]

I saw at the same time the whole tableau of human knowledge (because when those states are there, all human realisations, all human knowledge, come like a panorama before the new state and are put each in its place--always, always when an experience comes, it is as though retrospective) and I saw all the theories, the beliefs, the philosophies, the way they link themselves with the new state; it was amusing.

And that does not call for a rest. These experiences are so concrete, so spontaneous and real (they are not the result of a will, still less of an effort) that they do not call for a rest.

But those who managed to have this experience for whatever reason, and who had not a thorough philosophical and mental preparation (the saints or in fact all those who led a spiritual life) had then a very acute impression of the unreality of life and the illusion of life. But it is only a narrow view. It is not that, it is not that. Everything is a choice! Everything, everything. The Lord's choice, but in us, not there (gesture upward): here. And we do not know it, it is quite within the heart of ourselves. And when we know it, we can choose--we can choose our choice, it is wonderful.

And this sort of fatality and bondage and hardness of existence, all have disappeared. All disappeared. It was light blue, light rose, all luminous and limpid and light.

I conceive very well that this is not an absolute thing; it was only a way of being, but a very charming way of being.... Usually those who have not a sufficient intellectual preparation, when they have an experience of this kind, they believe they have caught the sole truth. And then with that, they dogmatise. But I saw quite well that it is not that, it is one way of being, although it is a fine way of being, well, infinitely superior to what we have here. And we can have it here: I have had it. I have had it in an altogether concrete way. And there is always something that is not all right, wrong here or wrong there, or this or that, and then circumstances also that are not all right; [old p. 32]always there are difficulties--all that... that changes colour. [new p. 32]And it becomes light, light--light, supple. All the hardness and stiffness: gone.

And the feeling also that if you choose to be like that, you can continue to be like that. And it is true. It is all the wrong habits--evidently millennial habits upon earth--all the wrong habits that prevent you. But there is no reason why this should not be a permanent state. Because this changes everything! Everything changes!... It is evident that if one becomes master of that state, one can change all the circumstances around oneself.

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 11, pp. 30-32