Om Namo Bhagavate
Mother's Agenda 1951-1960
September 16, 1958
(Mother to Satprem, 1958:) “The other day (I was in my bathroom upstairs), it came; it took hold of the entire body. It rose up in the same way, and all the cells were trembling. And with such a power! So I stopped everything, all movement, and I let the thing grow. The vibration went on expanding, ever widening, as the sound itself was expanding, expanding, and all the cells of the body were seized with an intensity of aspiration ... as if the entire body were swelling – it became overwhelming. I felt that it would all burst.
I understood those who withdraw from everything to live that totally.
And it has such a transformative power! I felt that if it continued, something would happen, something like a change in the equilibrium of the body's cells.”[1]
(Mother to Satprem, 1962:) “The body has been cradled by three Words....
Words that repeat themselves automatically, with no effort of will (but the body itself is quite aware that although these three particular Words happen to have been given to it, it might also have been something else – it was originally the choice of a higher Intelligence). This has become an automatic accompaniment. It is not so much the words in themselves as what they will represent and bring with them in their vibration.... I mean it would be quite inaccurate to say, “Only these Words are helpful,” no, not that. But they provide an accompaniment, an accompaniment of subtle, physical vibrations, which has built up a certain state or experience, a sort of association between the presence of those words and this movement of eternal Life, that undulating vibration.
Obviously, another center of consciousness, another (how shall I put it?) ... another concretization, another amalgam, might – would of course – have another vibration.
In ordinary language, the vibration of the mantra is what helps the body to enter a certain state – but it is not particularly THIS mantra: it is the particular relationship established between a mantra (it has to be a true one, a mantra endowed with power) and the body. It surges up spontaneously: as soon as the body starts walking, it walks to the rhythm of those Words. And the rhythm of the Words quite naturally brings about a certain vibration, which in turn brings about the state.”[2]
(Mother to Satprem, 1960:) “I myself use it for a very special reason, because ... You see, I invoke (the words are a bit strange) ... the Lord of Tomorrow. Not the unmanifest Lord, but the Lord as he will manifest ‘tomorrow’, or in Sri Aurobindo's words, the divine manifestation in its supramental form.
So the first sound of my mantra is the call to that, the evocation. With the second sound, the body's cells make their ‘surrender’, they give themselves. And with the third sound comes the identification of this [the body] with That, which produces the divine life. These are my three sounds.
And in the beginning, during the first months that I was doing the japa, I felt them ... I had an almost detailed awareness of these myriads of cells opening to this vibration; the vibration of the first sound is an absolutely special vibration (you see, above, there is the light and all that, but beyond this light there is the original vibration), and this vibration was entering into all the cells and was reproduced in them. It went on for months in this way.
Even now, when something or other is not all right, I have only to reproduce the thing with the same type of concentration as at the beginning ... for, when I say the japa, the sound and the words together – the way the words are understood, the feel of the words – create a certain totality. I have to reproduce that. And the way it's repeated is evolving all the time. The words are the same, however, the original sound is the same, but it's all constantly evolving towards a more comprehensive realization and a more and more complete STATE. So when I want to obtain a certain result, I reproduce a certain type of this state. For example, if something in the body is not functioning right (it can't really be called an illness, but when something's out of order), or if I wish to do some specific work on a specific person for a specific reason, then I go back to a certain state of repetition of my mantra, which acts directly on the body's cells. And then the same phenomenon is reproduced – exactly the same extraordinary vibration which I recognized when the supramental world descended. It comes in and vibrates like a pulsation in the cells.
But as I told you, now my japa is different. It is as if I were taking the whole world to lift it up; no longer is it a concentration on the body, but rather a taking of the whole world – the entire world – sometimes in its details, sometimes as a whole, but constantly, constantly – to establish the Contact (with the supramental world).”[3]
(Mother to Satprem, 1962:) “No one told me the mantra; I had begun doing japa before we met Panditji (it had come to me when I was trying to find a means of getting the body to take part in the experience – the body itself, you know: THIS). And this help was certainly given to me, because the method imposed itself very, very imperiously – when I heard certain Words it was like an electric shock. And then, disregarding all Sanskrit rules, I made myself a sentence; it isn't really a Sanskrit sentence, or any kind of sentence at all – a phrase made up of three Words. And these three Words are full of meaning for me. (I wouldn't mention it to a Sanskritist!) They have a full, living meaning. And they have been repeated literally millions and millions of times, I am not exaggerating – they surge up from the body spontaneously.
It was the first sound that came from the body when I had that last experience [April 13]. Along with the first pain, came that first sound – so it must be quite well rooted [in the substance of the body]. And it brings in exactly that vibration of eternal Life: the first thing I felt, all of a sudden, was a kind of strong calm, confident and smiling.”[4]
(Mother to Ashram teachers, 1973:) “I am going to tell you my old mantra; it keeps the outer being very quiet:
OM NAMO BHAGAVATE.
These three words. For me they meant:
- OM — I implore the Supreme Lord.
- NAMO — Obeisance to Him.
- BHAGAVATE — Make me divine.
This is a translation of it, I mean... Did you hear?
- Yes, Mother.
For me that has the power to calm everything.”[5]
- ↑ Mother's Agenda 1951-1960, 16 September 1958
- ↑ Mother's Agenda 1962, 31 May 1962
- ↑ Mother's Agenda 1951-1960, 11 October 1960
- ↑ Mother's Agenda 1962, 31 May 1962
- ↑ On Education, p.447, Conversation with teachers, 14 March 1973
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