Loretta reads Mother's Questions and Answers:1956-10-10

Transcript of:

Mother's Questions and Answers: October 10, 1956

by Loretta, 2018 (1:06:09)

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Mother's Questions and Answers

One month before this class, in the general meditation after the class of September 12th, 1956, Mother experienced a powerful descent of light. It's in Mother's Agenda, on the date of September 12th, 1956. She said it was not like the golden light of the Supermind, but a kind of phosphorescence. And phosphorescence is a kind of glow. Yet what came into Mother's body she said was “denser” than her physical body. And her physical body was almost unreal, “like sand”.

The light radiated out from Mother, into myriads of little sparks that were penetrating into everybody there in the Playground. Mother saw the sparks of light entering into each one of the people present in her class.

We were present in the class of September 12th, 1956, even though we live in 2018 – just a few weeks ago. And we received something from Mother's presence, and the few things that she said. But we weren't fortunate enough to be in the meditation – or perhaps some of the experience could have come into us, hearing the silence of the meditation on tape and just being open. Yet perhaps we can receive something by reading it in Mother's Agenda. Because there's always something that we can receive from her books.

Mother's Agenda
September 12, 1956

PDF (1 page)

There is a little more in Mother's Agenda on that date of September 12th, 1956. Mother also said: “A supramental entity had entirely possessed me. Something a little taller than myself: its feet extended below my feet and its head went a little beyond my head. A solid block with a rectangular base — a rectangle with a square base — one single piece.”

This description of the supramental entity corresponds a little bit to something Mother saw much later, in the beginning of July, 1970. It's in Mother's Agenda on July [1st], 1970. She saw the psychic being – the soul – of Rijuta, an American disciple, one of her secretaries. She said that this being seemed to be saying to her, “You're wondering what the supramental being will be – here it is! Here it is, this is it.” And Mother knew then that our psychic being – our individual soul within us – will evolve and become the supramental being that we will become. It will materialize physically, as part of the physical material creation; and it gives a continuity to our evolution, because our evolution simply continues as our soul evolves. It's not anything new in the sense that we are not already this – it is the part of us that evolves into being the supramental being.

Mother's Agenda
July 1, 1970

PDF (3 pages)

Mother gave a brief description of what Rijuta's psychic being looked like: she said it went beyond Rijuta's physical body by about 8 inches (that's 20 centimeters). In Mother's experience of being possessed by the supramental entity on September 12th, she said that its head went a little beyond her head, and its feet went a little beyond her feet. There is a similarity.

Mother also said that Rijuta's psychic being was the color of Auroville. This is an indescribable color – people say it's orange; at one point Mother says it's a combination of pink and gold. It's extremely beautiful; and the Auroville flower is this color. You can see it – it's very luminous, and it's really an indescribable kind of orange color.

On May 9th of 1970 – about two months before Mother saw Rijuta's psychic being – she described a vision or a dream that she had, where she had a supramental body. And the color was the same as the color she saw with Rijuta's psychic being: the color of Auroville, the color of Auroville's flower.

Mother also described her own supramental body as being like a body that she saw that she had about two years later, on March 24th of 1972. She said that she looked down at her own body, and that she saw it just like the body that she had seen, and that she had described, on May 9th of 1970. Although in this case, she said that the skin was very white, but [that] perhaps it was because she had white skin – she didn't know. Both times, the form that Mother saw was very slim and svelte. There were no sexual characteristics at all; so she did not have either a man's body or a woman's body, but something else.

Mother's Agenda
March 24, 1972

PDF (1 page)

We know of course that 1956 was the time of the descent of the Supermind into our earth-atmosphere for the first time. And since the 29th of February, when the force first came, we've been reading and looking for signs that that supramental force is having an effect on the people in the Ashram. And also seeing what happens to Mother now. It seems like up to now, people have not been affected in a way we can recognize. Mother has been receiving a lot of written questions about the supramental – questions about what it will be like in the future. But she hasn't answered a lot of her written questions. She's kept on saying that they are not interesting. And she has insisted that people ask questions in the class. On September 12th for instance, there was one small question and no questions after that – Mother simply ended the class. But then there was that extraordinary meditation which gave everyone an experience (whether they knew it or not).

But since Mother's experience of being possessed by the supramental entity, she's been bringing answers to questions that she has kept – questions about the supramental that she was not answering before. And perhaps we can see something changing in the class of last week, because Mother doesn't ask for questions at all. She comes to class with questions that she has prepared answers for in advance. Most of that class is on the Supermind. It is on what it will be like in the future, and how the appearance of the supramental forces will change our existing universe.

Mother was explaining something that she'd seen, and she gave us very carefully-constructed word-pictures. She said that she was speaking according to mathematical concepts; but even so, we did receive a feeling from Mother of how our universe is created new at every moment by the choices that are made by the supreme Will. It wasn't just mental information – it still did come through her words.

We also got a real feeling of the vastly increased possibilities coming into the creation, using Mother's mathematical construct. She showed us that now that the new forces are manifesting there, everything will change (and she explained in detail how it would change). And then she pointed out that we can experience these wonderful changes, and new miracles – miracles that are all around us – by changing our attitude. This change, she said, is no longer to believe that we are bound by what Mother calls ‘the so-called laws of nature’. And she urged everyone to put as few barriers as we can in the way of the possibilities to come. And she said that we do this by not believing that we are bound by these so-called laws of nature. And by being ready for anything that the supreme Will brings.

This week again, Mother brings a prepared answer to another question about the Supermind. She asks once if anyone has a question, but she doesn't really wait for an answer. She goes right on to her program – everything that she's prepared. And then, again this week Mother does her best to get us to try and experience the action of the new forces. In the last part of the class, she speaks about how all of the ways of being in the manifestation are ways of the Divine's being here. And each of us has only to discover our real truth, and to manifest our own true being as perfectly as possible, in order to do the best that we can do. This is the first and most important necessity for us: to discover this truth within ourselves, and to live it fully.

Last week, Mother also explained that when she is giving true teaching, she enters into a certain state of consciousness. And in that state of consciousness, she describes it as a living experience. And she said that with the spoken word, the vibration of sound transmits something (at least) of the experience; and the experience can be contagious and enter into all who are sensitive.

When you listen to the original French tape-recordings of Mother's classes – the ones that play after the reading of the English translation – you can hear the different kinds of voice qualities sometimes. You don't have to understand the French at all. It has nothing to do with words – and in any case, the beautiful changing types of tones in Mother's voice always carry the great love that she has, and her great wisdom. And this also has nothing to do with understanding the words. It changes us just to receive what's in the sound vibrations in Mother's voice.

In this class, we have just such another voice quality change as Mother spoke about last week. It comes precisely at the end of the class, when she speaks about experiencing the action of the divine Grace, and how all the ways of being are the Divine. And how necessary it is for us to discover the truth of our own being.

(If you want to hear it, you can just move your cursor to somewhere close to the end of where Mother speaks. And just keep it there, click on it – however your computer works. And you can hear – you can hear Mother's voice.)

And what you'll hear is Mother speaking almost in a dream-like way. There's a different rhythm in her voice, and her voice is filled with a kind of sweetness.

This week, Mother refers to things which are a part of Ashram activities, which everyone in the class knows – but we may not know about these things. She mentions the “Translation class”. This translation class was not for the students of the Wednesday class (the one that we're in now) – it was for adults. And in that class, they were translating Sri Aurobindo's major works into French. They translated The Ideal of Human Unity, The Human Cycle, the last six chapters of The Life Divine, and the first part of The Synthesis of Yoga.

Mother played tennis three times a week. In 1956, she was 78 years old. She was a great tennis player, and she'd played since her childhood. She played with a number of ashramites, and they tell stories of how it was always a sadhana to respond to the ball coming over the net from the Mother. After playing this game of tennis, she would then go to conduct her translation class – so the class was three times a week.

Mother herself translated a number of Sri Aurobindo's writings into French. In different places in the Agenda, she refers to translation work – work she is doing on her own, and translation work she is doing with Satprem. Some parts of the French translation of The Synthesis of Yoga (after the first part) were done only by Mother.

Mother also mentions that the conditions that we need to fulfill, to be on the way to transformation, are given in Sri Aurobindo's Synthesis of Yoga. And then she says that these conditions are also given, in greater detail, in his last articles on the supramental manifestation. In the book, there's a footnote which says we can find these articles on pages 1-74 in Volume 16 of Sri Aurobindo's collected works – this is a past edition of his collected works. There's a recent edition that's come out; but many people still have this edition of Sri Aurobindo's works. For the people who purchase the most recent edition, they will find this in Volume 13; the book is called Essays in Philosophy and Yoga. And it's on page 517. There it is titled, “The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth”.

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
“The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth”

PDF (78 pages)

This is actually a collection of seven articles which Mother asked Sri Aurobindo to write for the Ashram school Bulletin of Physical Education. The Bulletin was published four times a year, in Mother's time. It's still published four times a year; and you can subscribe to it. It has articles from published books, and also new things that keep coming to light as original ashramites pass on, and their letters to and from both Mother and Sri Aurobindo are given to the Archives by their families. And they're published first in the Bulletin of Physical Education.

“The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth” was first published as a full collection of the seven articles as a very small book, in January of 1952, with the same title: “The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth”.

It is October 10th, 1956. We're sitting in the Playground; Mother has just read from The Synthesis of Yoga. And then she says...

10 October 1956

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[Does anybody have a question? No?]

Some days ago, during the Translation Class I found a passage in The Life Divine which, I thought, might interest you this evening. Sri Aurobindo is speaking of the movement of Nature and he explains how from matter which seems inert came life, then how from life mind emerged and also how from mind will emerge the supermind or the spiritual life; and he gives a kind of brief survey of the time it takes. I am going to read this passage to you and shall tell you later what connection it has with our present situation:

“The first obscure material movement of the evolutionary Force is marked by an aeonic graduality; the movement of life-progress proceeds slowly but still with a quicker step, it is concentrated into the figure of millenniums; mind can still further compress the tardy leisureliness of Time and make long paces of the centuries; but when the conscious spirit intervenes, a supremely concentrated pace of evolutionary swiftness becomes possible.”

I am reading this to you because I have been asked about the action of the Supermind, and I had compared this manifestation of the Supermind to that of the mind which, according to all modern scientific discoveries, took nearly a million years to evolve from the animal brain, the ape-brain, to the first human brain. And I told you that, consequently, one should not expect this to take place in a few months or a few years, that it would obviously take much longer. Some people, it seems, thought that I was announcing that the superman would not come before another million years! I want to correct this impression.

Sri Aurobindo has said that as the development rises in the scale of consciousness, the movement becomes more and more rapid, and that when the Spirit or the Supermind intervenes, it can go much faster. Therefore we may hope that in a few centuries, the first supramental race will appear.

But even that is rather disconcerting for some people, for they think it contradicts what Sri Aurobindo has always promised: that the time has come for the supramental transformation to be possible.... But we must not confuse a supramental transformation with the appearing of a new race.

What Sri Aurobindo promised and what naturally interests us, we who are here now, is that the time has come when some beings among the élite of humanity, who fulfil the conditions necessary for spiritualisation, will be able to transform their bodies with the help of the supramental Force, Consciousness and Light, so as no longer to be animal-men but become supermen.

This promise Sri Aurobindo has made and he based it on the knowledge he had that the supramental Force was on the point of manifesting on the earth. In fact it had descended in him long ago, he knew it and knew what its effects were.

And now that it has manifested universally, I could say, generally, the certainty of the possibility of transformation is of course still greater. There is no longer any doubt that those who will fulfil or who now fulfil the conditions are on the way to this transformation.

The conditions Sri Aurobindo gives in detail in The Synthesis of Yoga and in still greater detail in his last articles on the Supramental Manifestation. So now it is only a question of realisation.

[(And then Mother stops speaking; and we hear her going through her papers of questions.)]

Now, if someone wants to ask me a question on the subject....

[Is that all?]

The method of these realisations, formerly, used to be an integral surrender to you. Now it is still the same thing; so, in these new conditions, should not this surrender be still more rigorous than before?

What I read today seems to be the most essential condition for starting, because it is the most universal.

[(And of course what Mother means is what she has read in the class, and we have that in a footnote:

“It is then by a transformation of life in its very principle, not by an external manipulation of its phenomena, that the integral Yoga proposes to change it from a troubled and ignorant into a luminous and harmonious movement of Nature. There are three conditions which are indispensable for the achievement of this central inner revolution and a new formation; none of them is altogether sufficient in itself, but by their united threefold power the uplifting can be done, the conversion made and completely made. For, first, life as it is is a movement of desire and it has built in us as its centre a desire-soul which refers to itself all the motions of life and puts in them its own troubled hue and pain of an ignorant, half-lit, baffled endeavour: for a divine living, desire must be abolished and replaced by a purer and firmer motive-power, the tormented soul of desire dissolved and in its stead there must emerge the calm, strength, happiness of a true vital being now concealed within us. Next, life as it is is driven or led partly by the impulse of the life-force, partly by a mind which is mostly a servant and abettor of the ignorant life-impulse, but in part also its uneasy and not too luminous or competent guide and mentor; for a divine life the mind and the life-impulse must cease to be anything but instruments and the inmost psychic being must take their place as the leader on the path and the indicator of a divine guidance.”

[(And I'm going to interrupt here – I want to point out that we just read that on July 4th of 1970, Mother said that she realized that our own psychic being will evolve into the supramental being. This is the part of us that is going to become the supramental being. And here in this place where he's writing – and as always – Sri Aurobindo says that our psychic being should emerge into the forefront of our being, and take control of all our different parts. And we can see now the tremendous importance it has – although it looks like Mother had not known this part of it, the full evolution of the psychic being, until much later. Still, they've always said: the first stage to be reached in the Yoga is the emergence of our psychic being and its taking control, so that everything is in order and everything works better. So we return now to what he wrote – he's going to the third condition...)]

“Last, life as it is is turned towards the satisfaction of the separative ego; ego must disappear and be replaced by the true spiritual person, the central being, and life itself must be turned towards the fulfilment of the Divine in terrestrial existence; it must feel a Divine Force awaking within it and become an obedient instrumentation of its purpose.”]

[(And Mother had just said that what we read today – what I just read – seems to be the most essential condition for starting; and then there's a silence and then she speaks.)]

Everyone must follow his path in accordance with his own nature, and there is always a preference for one way rather than another. As we read in one of our recent classes, for one who follows the path of action, it is much more difficult to feel that the human personality does not exist and that only the divine Force works. For one who follows the path of knowledge it is relatively very easy, it is something one discovers almost immediately. For one who follows the path of love it is elementary, since it is by giving himself that he progresses. But for one who follows the path of action it is much more difficult, and consequently for him the first step is to do what is said here in the passage of The Synthesis of Yoga which we have just read: to create in himself this complete detachment from the fruit of action, to act because this is what must be done, to do it in the best possible way, and not to be anxious about the consequences, to leave the consequences to a Will higher than his own.

One can’t make a general rule for the order of importance of the paths, it is an exclusively personal affair. And there is a time when one understands very well, it is apparent, that no two paths are alike, no two paths can be alike, and that every man follows his own path and that this is the truth of his being. One can, if one looks from a sufficient height, see a difference in the speed of advance, but it does not always conform to the external signs; and one could say a little humorously, that it is not always the wisest who goes fastest!

(Silence)

It seems to me no longer possible to make general rules. Indeed, the Grace is upon all. And what is necessary to let it act? It is very difficult to say.

If one can see it, feel it, experience its action, so to say, be conscious of its presence and movement, then one has the joy of the movement, the progress, the realisation; but this does not mean that if one doesn’t feel this joy, the action of the Grace is not there, the realisation not there.

And after all, all the ways of being of the Divine, all the forms of being in the manifestation are necessary to express the Divine. It is this manifestation as a whole, in its totality, which progresses towards a growing, infinite, eternal perfection. It is not each separate element, individually, it is all together, as a collective and total expression of the divine Truth. All this is moving forward constantly, eternally, towards a greater perfection. The universe of tomorrow will necessarily be more divine, if one may say so, than the universe of yesterday; and that of yesterday was more divine than the one preceding it. And so, it could be said that the Divine, in his expression of Himself, is in perpetual progress towards a more and more perfect, a more and more divine manifestation.

And in that case, each element has only to manifest, as perfectly as possible, its own law, what it should be in the whole, in order to do the utmost of what ought to be done. It is thus a conscious, an enlightened, one could almost say a disinterested, discovery of this truth of each being, which for it is the first and most important necessity.

Le 10 octobre 1956

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Il y a quelques jours, pendant la classe de traduction , dans La Vie Divine, j’ai trouvé un passage qui, j’ai pensé, pourrait vous intéresser ce soir. Sri Aurobindo parle du mouvement de la Nature et il explique comment, de la matière qui paraît inerte, est sortie la vie, puis comment de la vie est sorti le mental et aussi comment du mental sortira le supramental ou la vie spirituelle ; et il donne une sorte de résumé du temps que cela prend. Je vais vous lire ce passage et je vous dirai ensuite quel rapport cela a avec notre présente situation:

«Le premier mouvement obscur et purement matériel de la Force évolutive est marqué par un développement graduel qui s’étend sur des âges. Le mouvement de la vie suit une lente progression, cependant son rythme est plus rapide; il est concentré en l’espace de quelques millénaires. Le mental peut comprimer davantage encore la lenteur nonchalante du temps et faire de grands pas en quelques siècles. Mais quand l’Esprit conscient intervient, la cadence évolutive peut alors se dérouler avec une rapidité suprêmement concentrée.»

Je vous lis cela, parce que l’on m’a posé une question à propos de l’action du Supramental, et j’avais comparé cette manifestation du Supramental à la manifestation du mental qui, selon toutes les découvertes scientifiques modernes, a mis environ un million d’années pour évoluer du cerveau animal, du cerveau simiesque au premier cerveau humain. Et je vous avais dit que, par conséquent, il ne fallait pas espérer que cela se fasse en quelques mois ou en quelques années, qu’évidemment cela prendrait plus longtemps. Il se trouve que certaines personnes ont cru que j’annonçais qu’il n’y aurait pas de surhomme avant un million d’années! Je veux corriger cette impression.

Sri Aurobindo a dit qu’à mesure que le développement s’élève dans l’échelle de la conscience, le mouvement devient de plus en plus rapide et que, lorsque l’Esprit ou le Supramental s’en mêle, cela peut aller beaucoup plus vite. Par conséquent, nous pouvons espérer que dans quelques siècles la première race supramentale paraîtra.

Mais cela même est assez déconcertant pour certaines personnes, parce qu’elles croient que c’est en contradiction avec ce que Sri Aurobindo a toujours promis : que le temps était venu où la transformation supramentale était possible... Mais il ne faut pas confondre une transformation supramentale avec l’apparition d’une race nouvelle.

Ce que Sri Aurobindo promettait et ce qui évidemment nous intéresse, nous qui sommes ici maintenant, c’est que le temps est venu où quelques êtres d’élite dans l’humanité, qui remplissent les conditions de spiritualisation nécessaires, seront capables de transformer leur corps à l’aide de la Force, de la Conscience et de la Lumière supramentales, pour ne plus être des hommes-animaux, mais devenir des surhommes.

Cette promesse, Sri Aurobindo l’a faite, et il l’a basée sur la connaissance qu’il avait que la Force supramentale était sur le point de se manifester sur la terre. En fait, elle était descendue en lui depuis fort longtemps, il la connaissait et il savait quels étaient ses effets.

Et maintenant qu’elle s’est manifestée d’une façon cosmique, je puis dire, générale, naturellement la certitude de la possibilité de transformation est encore plus grande. Il n’y a plus aucun doute que ceux qui rempliront, ou qui remplissent les conditions sont en marche vers cette transformation.

Les conditions, Sri Aurobindo les donne en détail dans La Synthèse des Yogas, et encore plus en détail dans ses derniers articles sur la manifestation supramentale. Il ne s’agit donc plus que de réaliser.

Maintenant, si quelqu’un veut me poser une question sur le sujet...

La méthode de ces réalisations, avant, était la soumission intégrale à vous. Maintenant aussi c’est la même chose ; alors dans cette nouvelle condition, est‑ce que cette soumission ne doit pas être encore plus rigoureuse qu’auparavant?

Ce que j’ai lu aujourd’hui paraît être la condition de début la plus essentielle, parce que c’est celle qui est la plus universelle.

(Après un silence) Chacun doit suivre son chemin selon sa nature propre, et il y a toujours une inclination pour une manière plutôt qu’une autre. Comme nous l’avons lu dans l’une des dernières classes, pour celui qui suit le chemin de l’action, il est beaucoup plus difficile de sentir que la personnalité humaine n’existe pas et que seule la Force divine agit. Pour celui qui suit le chemin de la connaissance, c’est relativement très facile, c’est une chose que l’on découvre presque immédiatement. Pour celui qui suit le chemin de l’amour, c’est élémentaire, puisque c’est en se donnant qu’il avance. Mais pour celui qui suit le chemin de l’action, c’est beaucoup plus difficile, et par conséquent pour lui, le premier pas, c’est de faire ce qui est dit ici, dans le passage de La Synthèse des Yogas que nous avons lu : de créer en lui ce détachement complet du fruit de l’action, d’agir parce que c’est cela qu’il faut faire, de le faire de la manière qui paraît être la meilleure, et de ne pas se soucier des conséquences, de laisser les conséquences à une Volonté supérieure à la sienne.

On ne peut pas faire une règle générale pour l’ordre d’importance du chemin, c’est une chose exclusivement personnelle. Et il y a un moment où l’on comprend très bien, c’est visible, qu’il n’y a pas deux chemins semblables, que chacun suit son propre chemin, et que c’est cela la vérité de son être. On peut, si l’on regarde d’assez haut, voir une différence dans la rapidité de l’avance, mais elle n’est pas toujours conforme aux signes extérieurs ; et l’on pourrait dire d’une façon un peu plaisante que ce n’est pas toujours le plus sage qui va le plus vite!

(silence)

Il ne me paraît plus possible de faire des règles générales. En fait, la Grâce est sur tous. Et qu’est‑ce qu’il faut pour La laisser agir ? C’est très difficile de le dire.

Si l’on peut La percevoir, La sentir, éprouver pour ainsi dire Son action, être conscient de Sa présence et de Son mouvement, alors on a la joie du mouvement, du progrès, de la réalisation ; mais cela ne veut pas dire que, si l’on n’éprouve pas cette joie, l’action de la Grâce n’existe pas, que la réalisation n’est pas là.

Et en fin de compte, toutes les manières d’être du Divin, toutes les formes d’être de la manifestation sont nécessaires pour exprimer le Divin. C’est cette manifestation dans son ensemble, dans sa totalité, qui progresse vers une perfection croissante, infinie, éternelle. Ce n’est pas chaque élément, séparé, individuellement : c’est tout ensemble, comme une expression collective et totale de la Vérité divine. Tout cela est en marche, constamment, éternellement, vers une perfection plus grande. L’univers de demain sera nécessairement plus divin, si l’on peut dire, que l’univers d’hier ; et celui d’hier était plus divin que celui qui le précédait. Et ainsi, on pourrait dire que c’est le Divin, dans son expression de Lui-même, qui est en perpétuel progrès vers une manifestation de plus en plus parfaite, de plus en plus divine.

Et dans ce cas-là, chaque élément n’a qu’à manifester aussi parfaitement que possible sa loi propre, ce qu’il doit être dans le tout, pour faire au maximum ce qu’il doit faire. C’est donc la découverte consciente, éclairée, on pourrait presque dire désintéressée, de cette vérité de chaque être, qui est pour lui la première, la plus importante nécessité.

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