The Fall

(Mother to Satprem, 1958:) “A peach should ripen on the tree; it's a fruit that should be picked when the sun is upon it. Just as the sun falls on it, you come along, pluck it and bite into it. Then it is absolute paradise.
         There are two such fruits – peaches and golden green plums. It is the same for both. You must take them warm from the tree, bite into them, and you are filled with the taste of paradise.
         Every fruit should be eaten in a special way.
         At heart, this is the symbol of the earthly Paradise and the tree of Knowledge: by biting into the fruit of Knowledge, one loses the spontaneity of movement and begins objectivizing, learning, questioning. So as soon as they ate of this fruit, they were full of sin.
         I say that every fruit should be eaten in its own way. The being who lives according to his own nature, his own truth, must spontaneously find the right way of using things. When you live according to the truth of your being, you don't need to learn things: you do them spontaneously, according to the inner law. When you sincerely follow your nature, spontaneously and sincerely, you are divine. As soon as you think or look at yourself acting or start questioning, you are full of sin.
         It is man's mental consciousness that has filled all Nature with the idea of sin and all the misery it brings. Animals are not at all unhappy in the way we are. Not at all, not at all, except – as Sri Aurobindo says – those that are corrupted. Those that are corrupted are those that live with men. Dogs have the sense of sin and guilt, for their whole aspiration is to resemble man. Man is the god. Hence there is dissimulation, hypocrisy: dogs lie. But men admire that. They say, “Oh! How intelligent they are!”
         They have lost their divinity.
         Truly, the human species is at a point in the spiral which is not very pretty.

(Satprem:) But isn't a dog more conscious, more evolved than a tiger, or higher in the spiral – that is, nearer the Divine?

It's not a question of being conscious. There is no doubt that man is more evolved than the tiger, but the tiger is more divine than man. One shouldn't confuse things. These are two entirely different things.
         The Divine is everywhere, in everything. We should never forget it – not for a second should we forget it. He is everywhere, in everything; and in an unconscious but spontaneous, therefore sincere, way, all that exists below the mental manifestation is divine, without mixture; in other words, it exists spontaneously and in harmony with its nature. It is man with his mind who has introduced the idea of guilt. Naturally, he is much more conscious! There's no question about it, it's a fact, although what we call consciousness (what ‘we’ call it, that is, what man calls consciousness) is the power to objectify and mentalize things. It is not the true consciousness, but it's what men call consciousness. So according to the human mode, it is obvious that man is much more conscious than the animal, but the human brings in sin and perversion which do not exist outside of this state we call ‘conscious’ – which in fact is not conscious but merely consists in mentalizing things and in having the ability to objectify them.
         It is an ascending curve, but a curve that swerves away from the Divine. So naturally, one has to climb much higher to find a higher Divine, since it is a conscious Divine, whereas the others are divine spontaneously and instinctively, without being conscious of it. All our moral notions of good and evil, all of that, are what we have thrown over the creation with our distorted and perverted consciousness. It is we who have invented it.
         We are the distorting intermediary between the purity of the animal and the divine purity of the gods.”

(Mother to Satprem, 1958:) “Yesterday morning, while reading a letter from A.H., I understood the Christian symbolism. It could be that some people understand ... Anyway, I suddenly understood ... It is extremely metaphysical. I followed the idea from a metaphysical point of view, along the lines of what we were saying yesterday: this ‘error’ committed that allowed the world to become what it is. But at the extreme limit, there always remains the question, ‘How is it possible?’ I was no longer seeing this with the mind.
         I came to the conclusion that from a practical standpoint, the solution is that the part of humanity expressing this Error in its life and its consciousness should ... or to put it another way, that part of humanity, of the human consciousness, capable of uniting with the Supermind and of liberating itself, will be completely transformed. This humanity is moving towards a future reality not yet expressed in its outer form. Whereas the part of humanity nearer to the simplicity of the animal or of Nature will be reabsorbed by Nature and entirely reassimilated. The possibility of a mental consciousness that allows for perversion – that makes mental perversion such an excruciating thing – will be abolished. It will disappear. These things will no longer be.
         In the vision, I went much deeper into this thought. I saw all the stages, but I no longer see them now. I can no longer explain – there was suddenly a vision that understood the idea of atonement and redemption. It was not formulated in words. Also, the idea that only an act of faith in a divine intervention could ... was the means of salvation. This was the idea of salvation. I understood Christ and faith in Christ. I understood it, and it did not apply uniquely to Christianity or to original sin. I understood what original sin and redemption through faith in Christ meant.”

(Shyam Sundar:) “In man is it the mind that prevents him from uniting with the cosmic rhythm?

(Mother:) Very often it is the vital vitiated by the adverse forces, and almost always the mind which wants to replace the cosmic rhythm with its own laws.”

---

See also

• Adam and Eve
• Christianity