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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

8 March 1972

About an "accident".

It is like that. It is like an imperative command: Go straight, else all will go wrong.

It is becoming terrible, terrible. It is like a Pressure--a frightful Pressure--to bring about the desired progress. I feel it in myself for my body. But my body is not afraid, it says (Mother opens her hands): "Very well, if I am to end, it is the end." Every minute it is like that: the true thing (Mother brings down her fist) or the end.

That is what seems to have come down--you know I said that something had come down (it is written somewhere) and we shall know one day, we shall know very soon what it is. You have read it, haven't you? [Note: "The whole day of the twenty-first I had a strong feeling that it was the birthday of everyone, and I was impelled to say to everyone `Bonne Fte'. "It was a very strong feeling that something new has manifested in the world and that all who were ready and receptive could embody it. "No doubt one will know in a few days what it was."]

Yes, it was on February 21.

But it is that, it is a kind of... no half-measure, no compromise, no approximation, no... not that. It is this (Mother brings down her fist).

And it is so for the body, at every minute there is an imperative: it is life or it is death. It is not the approximation which has lasted indefinitely. For centuries it was neither altogether bad, nor altogether good--it is no longer so.

The body knows that this is the way for the supramental body to be formed: it must be wholly under the influence of the [new p. 298]Divine--no compromise, no approximation, no "it will [old p. 298]come", not so: it is like this (Mother brings down her fist), a formidable Will.

But... it is the only way for things to go fast.

(Long silence)

But when one begins to understand practically the necessity of the transformation, when the thing starts truly to be understood and when one tries to do something, one finds that when the material substance receives a blow, then it remembers, and for a day or two it aspires, it seeks, and then it relaxes.

Yes, yes.

There is as though an incapacity for tension.

It is not incapacity.

What is it then?

Bad will. Egoism--what we call egoism--the egoism of Matter...

The egoism of Matter.

... that does not want to submit.

That I know. I am catching my body all the while, here, there, here, there. It wants to go about it in its very ordinary dawdling way.

It is a kind of relaxation of the aspiration and tension.

Yes, it is that. [new p. 299][old p. 299]

Then, what is to be done? Every time one must catch it, or what else?

Yes. But it can never be stable unless it is linked truly to the Divine. If you are like this (gesture, the two fists hooked as though up above on a rope), then automatically when the moment becomes quite critical, it goes over to the right side, yes, it goes over to the right side. It is as though all the while you had the feeling that you were hovering between life and death, and the moment you take the right attitude--when the part concerned takes the right attitude--it goes all right. Quite naturally and easily it goes all right. It is wonderful. But it is a tremendous thing, because there is a perpetual danger. Well, perhaps, I do not know, a hundred times during the day there is a feeling: life or (for the cells, I mean), life or disintegration; and then if they do not contract, as they usually have the habit to do, everything goes all right. But they are learning to... (Mother opens her hands in a gesture of self-giving), then it is all right.

It is as though by a kind of compulsion the body was being taught eternity. It is truly interesting. And then I see that the external circumstances are becoming frightful (from the ordinary point of view).

(Mother enters into contemplation.)

Have you anything to say?

No, it was that, the difficulty that I was meeting.

Yes.

I find it very difficult. You try once, twice, ten times to regain yourself, but you have the feeling that this is not the thing to be done, it is some other thing, [old p. 300]and that... if [new p. 300]there were really no higher power which did the thing for you, nothing at all could be done by you.

Yes, it is that. But then, there are experiences, hundreds of them, that the very minute you take the right attitude, the thing is done.

It is we who prevent the thing from being done... as though our own control prevented the Force from acting; it is something like that. One must... (Mother opens her hands).

(Silence)

I believe, I believe that it is the subconscient which has been convinced that if it does not maintain its control all will go wrong. That is my impression. It is that thing, it is that which says, "Ah, be on your guard, take care."...

(Mother opens her hands.)

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 11, pp. 297-300