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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Some experiences of the body consciousness

One can say with equal exactitude that all is divine and that nothing is divine. Everything depends upon the angle from which one looks at the problem.

Similarly one can say that the Divine is perpetually becoming and also that he is immutable for all eternity.

To deny and to affirm the existence of God are both equally true; but each is true only partially. It is by rising above both affirmation and negation that one can approach the truth.

One can say further that whatever happens in the world is the result of the divine will and also that this will has to be expressed and manifested in a world that contradicts or deforms it. In practice, these two attitudes lead in the one case to peaceful submission to whatever happens, and in the other, on the contrary, to a ceaseless struggle to bring about the victory of what should be. In order to live the truth, one must know how to rise above the two attitudes and combine them.

April 1954

*

Keep your conviction if it helps you to build your life, but know also that it is only one conviction and that others are as good and true as yours.

April 1954

*

Tolerance is full of a sense of superiority; it should be replaced by a total understanding.

April 1954

*

The Truth is not linear but global; it is not successive but [old p. 299]simultaneous. Therefore it cannot be expressed in words: it has to be lived.

April 1954

*

To acquire a perfect and total consciousness of the world as it is in all its details, one must have, at the outset, no personal reaction to any of these details, no spiritual preference even as to what they ought to be. In other words, a total acceptance with a perfect indifference and neutrality is the indispensable condition for a knowledge by integral identity. If there be a single detail, however small, which escapes the neutrality, that detail escapes also the identification. Therefore, the absence of all personal reaction, for whatever end it may be, even the most exalted, is a primary necessity for a total knowledge.

One can thus say, paradoxically, that we can know a thing only when we are not interested in it, or rather, more exactly, when we are not personally concerned with it.

April 1954

*

Every time a god has taken a body, it has always been with the intention of transforming the earth and creating a new world. But till today, he has always had to give up his body without completing his work. And it has always been said that the earth was not ready and that men had not fulfilled the conditions necessary for the work to be achieved.

But it is the imperfection of the incarnate god that makes the perfection of those around him indispensable. If the incarnate god embodied the perfection necessary for the required progress, then this progress would not be conditioned by the state of the surrounding material world. And yet without any doubt, interdependence is absolute in this world of extreme objectification; therefore a certain degree of perfection in the manifestation as [new p. 280]a whole is indispensable for a higher degree of [old p. 300]perfection to be realised in the incarnate divine being. It is the necessity of a certain perfection in the environment that compels human beings to progress; it is the inadequacy of this progress, whatever it may be, that drives the divine being to intensify his endeavour for progress in his body. Thus the two movements of progress are simultaneous and complete each other.

April 1954

*

New experiences of the body consciousness

When one looks back on one's life, one almost always has the feeling that in such and such a circumstance, one could have done better, even though at every minute one was acting as dictated by the inner truth. This is because the universe is perpetually in motion and what was perfectly true before is only partially true today. Or to speak more exactly, the action that was necessary at the moment it was done would no longer be necessary now: another action would be more useful in its place.

August 1954

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When we speak of transformation, the word still has for us a vague meaning. It gives us the impression that something is going to happen and all will be well as a consequence. The notion reduces itself almost to this: if we have difficulties, the difficulties will disappear; those who are ill will be cured of their illness; if the body is infirm and incapable, the infirmities and incapacities will be removed; and so on. But as I have said, it is all very vague, it is only an impression. Now a remarkable [old p. 301]thing about the body consciousness is that it is unable to know a thing with precision and in full detail except when it is on the point [new p. 281]of accomplishing it. So, when the process of transformation becomes clear, when one is able to know through what sequence of movements and changes the total transformation will take place--in what order, in what way, so to speak: which things will come first, which things will follow--when everything will be known in full detail, that will be a sure indication that the hour of realisation is near. Because each time you perceive a detail with exactness, it means that you are ready to accomplish it.

For the moment, one can have a vision of the whole. For example, it is entirely certain that under the influence of the supramental light, the transformation of the body consciousness will take place first; then will follow a progress in the mastery and control of all the movements and functions of all the organs of the body; afterwards this mastery will change little by little into a sort of radical modification of the movement and then of the constitution of the organs themselves. All that is certain, although the perception of it is not precise enough. But what will finally take place--when the various organs have been replaced by centres of concentration of different forces, qualities and natures, each of which will act according to its own special mode--all this is still merely a conception and the body does not comprehend it very well, because it is still far from realisation and the body can truly comprehend only that which it is on the point of being able to do.

August 1954

*

The supramental body will be unsexed, since the need for animal procreation will no longer exist.

The human form will retain only its symbolic beauty, and one can foresee even now the disappearance of certain ungainly [old p. 302]protuberances, such as the genital organs of man and the mammary glands of woman.

August 1954

*

It is only in its external form, its most superficial appearance--which is as illusive to the latest discoveries of the Science of today as to the experience of the spirituality of the past--that the body is not divine.

August 1954

*

O Supreme Reality, O Supramental Truth, this body is totally vibrant with an intense gratitude. Thou hast given to it, one after another, all the experiences that can lead it most certainly towards Thee. It has come to the point where identification with Thee is not merely the one thing desirable, but the only thing possible and natural.

How am I to describe these experiences that are at two opposite extremes? From one end I would say:

"Lord, to be truly near Thee, to be truly worthy of Thee, one must drink to the dregs the cup of humiliation and yet not feel humiliated. The contempt of man makes one truly free and ready to belong to Thee alone."

And from the other end I would say:

"Lord, to be truly near Thee, to be truly worthy of Thee, one must be lifted to the peak of human appreciation and yet not feel glorified. It is when men call one divine that one feels one's inadequacy and the need to be truly and totally identified with Thee."

The two experiences are simultaneous: the one does not blot out the other; on the contrary, they seem to complete each other and thereby become more intense. In this intensity the aspiration grows formidable, and in answer to it Thy Presence becomes [old p. 303]evident in the cells themselves, giving to the body the appearance of a multicoloured kaleidoscope in which innumerable luminous particles in constant motion are sovereignly reorganised by an invisible and all-powerful Hand.

August 1954 [old p. 304]

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 15, pp. 298-303