A Dialogue – The Mother

'Each thing in its place'

The idea of sin is something I do not understand, I have never understood. ‘Original sin’ seemed to me one of the most monstrous ideas men have ever had – sin and me do not go very well together! So, naturally I agree with Sri Aurobindo completely, that there is no sin – that is clear, but…

There are certain things one could call ‘sins’ if one wants, like cruelty; well, I find only this explanation: it is the deformation of the taste or need for an extremely strong sensation. I observed in cruel people that it is then that they feel an ‘ananda’, they get from it an intense joy. Consequently, this legitimises it. Except that it is in such a deformed state that it is repugnant.

About the idea that things are not in their place, that, my child, is something I had understood even when I was little. And I found the explanation with Theon [the Mother’s teacher in occultism], because in his cosmogony he explained the successive ‘pralayas’ [destructions of the worlds] saying that in each universe it was an aspect of the Supreme that was manifesting; that each universe was constructed around an aspect of the Supreme, and that all, one after another, had returned to the Supreme (he enumerated all the aspects which had successively manifested, and with a logic in the succession that was extraordinary! I kept it somewhere but I don’t know where it is). And this time it was (I don’t even remember the number in the succession any longer), but this should be the universe that would not be withdrawn, that would follow a progression in the becoming which would be, so to say, indefinite. And that universe was the Equilibrium (not a static equilibrium but a progressive one). Equilibrium, that is (he explained), each thing in its place, exactly: each vibration, each movement in its place, each…and then, as one descends: each form, each activity, each element exactly in its place with respect to the whole.

That interested me very much because Sri Aurobindo said the same thing, that there is nothing ‘bad’: simply things are not in their place – their place, not only in space but in time; their universal place, their place in the universe, beginning with the worlds, the stars, etc, and each thing exactly in its place. And then, when each thing would be exactly in its place, from the most formidable to the most microscopic, the totality would express the Supreme PROGRESSIVELY without the need to be withdrawn and emanated once again. It was on this point that Sri Aurobindo based the fact that it is in this creation, this universe, that this sort of perfection of a divine world could manifest – what Sri Aurobindo called the Supramental.

Equilibrium is the essential law of that creation and that is what permits a perfection to be realised in the manifestation.

 

According to that idea, things ‘in their place’, another question came to me: with the descent of the Supermind, what would be the very first things that the supramental force would want to dislodge or try to dislodge?

 

The first things that it would dislodge?

 

 

     Yes, individually and cosmically, in order for everything to be in its place.

 

Would it ‘dislodge’ anything?… If we accept Sri Aurobindo’s idea, it would put each thing in its place, that’s all.

There is something that must necessarily cease: it is the Deformation, that is, the veil of falsehood covering the Truth, because that is what is responsible for everything we see, everything that exists here. If that is removed, things would be entirely different, necessarily: they would be as we feel them, when we come out of that consciousness. When one comes out of that consciousness, when one enters into that Truth-Consciousness, one is astonished that there can be anything like suffering and misery and death and all that; there is a sort of astonishment in the sense that…one cannot understand how this can happen (when one is pushed to the other side). But then that state of consciousness is always associated with the experience of the irreality of the world as we know it; whereas Sri Aurobindo says that that perception of the irreality of the world does not need to exist for the supramental consciousness: it is only the irreality of the Falsehood, not the irreality of the world. And that is very interesting. That is, that the world has a reality in itself, independent from the Falsehood.

I suppose that this will be the first effect of the Supermind – the first effect perhaps even in the individual, because it will start first with the individual.

That state of consciousness…probably must become constant, but then there is a problem: how can one remain in contact with the world as it is in its deformation? Because I have noticed something: when that state is strong in me, so strong that it resists anything that bombards it from outside, if I say something, people understand NOTHING! – nothing. Consequently, it must do away with a useful contact.

How would a small supramental creation be, like a nucleus of action and radiation on Earth, for example (taking the Earth alone)? Is it possible? …One can easily conceive of a nucleus of a superhuman creation…that is, men who have been men and who, through evolution and transformation (in the true sense of the word) have come to manifest supramental powers; but their origin is human, so while their origin is human there is forcibly a contact; even if everything is transformed, even if the organs are transformed into centres of force, there is still something human which remains, like a colouring. It is those beings, according to tradition, who would discover the secret of the supramental creation directly, without passing through the process of ordinary Nature. And so, it is through them that the real beings from the supramental world would be born, those who must, necessarily, live in a supramental world. But then, how would the contact be between those beings and the ordinary world? How to conceive of a sufficient transformation of nature for that supramental creation to be produced on earth? – I don’t know.

Naturally one knows that for such a thing to happen a considerable length of time is required, and there will probably be stages, degrees, faculties which will appear and which, for the moment, we do not know or we cannot conceive of, and which will change conditions on Earth – that is looking several thousand years ahead.

The problem remains: is it possible to use that idea of space – I mean space on the globe? Is it possible that there is a place in which this embryo or seed of a future supramental world can be created?

What I had seen… The plan had come in all its details: but it was a plan that, in its spirit and consciousness, is not at all in conformity with what it is possible to realise terrestrially right now (but in its most material manifestation, it was based on the existing earthly conditions). That idea of an ideal city which would be the nucleus of a small ideal country and which would only have purely superficial and extremely limited contacts in its dealings with the old world. One must therefore already conceive of (and this is possible) a Power sufficient to be at once a protection against aggression or bad will (that would not be the most difficult protection to get), and a protection against infiltration; the mixture… But that, one can, if need be, conceive of it. From the social point of view, from the point of view of organisation, the point of view of interior life, these are not difficult problems; the problem is the relation with what is not supramentalised, to impede infiltration, mixture; that is, to prevent this nucleus from falling into an inferior creation – it is a period of transition.

 

                                               (Silence)

 

All those who have thought about the problem have always imagined something unknown to the rest of humanity, in a place like a pass in the Himalayas, a place unknown to the rest of the humanity. But that is not a solution. That is not a solution at all.

No, the only solution is occult power. But that… Then that would mean already a creation of a certain number of individuals who had arrived at a great perfection of realisation, before anything could be done… But if that could be done, it is conceivable that one could have, cut off from the external world (there are no contacts, isn’t that so), a place where everything is exactly in its place, as an example. Each thing is exactly in its place, each person exactly in his place, each movement exactly in its place, and in its place in an ascending movement, progressive, without relapse (that is, just the contrary to what happens in ordinary life). So, naturally that would mean a sort of perfection; it also means a sort of unity. It means that the different aspects of the Supreme can be manifested; and necessarily an exceptional beauty, a total harmony; and a sufficient power to keep the forces of Nature under control: for example, even if that place is surrounded by the forces of destruction, those forces have no power to act – the protection is sufficient.

All of this demands an extreme, extreme degree of perfection in those individuals who would be the organisers of such a thing.

 

                                    (Long silence)

 

This must be similar to what happened for the appearance of the first man.

Finally, no one knows how the first men were formed, the first mental realisation. Is it known whether they were isolated individuals or if it was in groups? If this took place in the midst of others or isolated? I don’t know. There could be an analogy with the future case of the supramental creation.

In the solitude of the Himalayas or in the solitude of a virgin forest, it is not difficult to conceive of an individual who begins to create his small supramental world around him – that is easy to conceive. But the same thing is necessary: he must have arrived at such a degree of perfection that his power would act automatically to prevent intrusion from outside.

 

      Because he would be automatically exposed to attacks from outside?

 

They would automatically have to be protected; that is, all foreign or opposing elements must be prevented from approaching.

One does hear of stories like that, of people who live in an ideal solitude. That is not impossible to imagine at all. When one is in contact with the Power, when it is in you, one can see…that is child’s play! To the point even of being able to change certain things, to exert an influence on the environing vibrations and the environing forms which, automatically, would begin to be supramentalised. All that is possible – but it is on the individual scale. Whereas, let us take the example of what happens here: the individual who stays right in the middle of the chaos – that is where the difficulty lies!… Is it that, because of this fact, to arrive at a sort of perfection in the realisation is impossible? But the other also, the one isolated in the forest, it is always the same thing; it is the example that doesn’t prove at all that the rest will be able to follow. Whereas what happens here would already be a far more radiating action. This must happen at a certain point – it MUST happen. But the problem still remains: can this take place at the same time or before the other thing is realised: the individual, the one supramentalised individual?

 

                                                (Silence)

 

It is evident that in the conditions of community or group the realisation is far more complete, integral, total and probably more perfect than any individual realisation, which is always necessarily, NECESSARILY, on the external, material plane absolutely limited, because it is only one mode of manifestation, a microscopic aggregate of vibrations that are touched.

But from the point of view of facility of work, I think there is no comparison!

                                                (Silence)

 

So the problem remains. All those people like Buddha and the others, they FIRST realised, and then they returned to a contact with the world. Well that is very simple. But for what I envision, isn’t remaining in the world an indispensable condition in order for the realisation to be total?

That…

 

           (The Mother remains a long while absorbed, looking before her)

 

I am constantly seeing images! – not images: living things, as answers to the questions. There was a magnificent peacock being formed (the peacock is the symbol of victory here), and then his tail opened up like this, and on his tail a construction appeared, like the construction of that ideal place… It is a shame that we cannot photograph that world! There should be sufficiently sensitive plates – they have tried. That would be very interesting because it was moving like a cinema: they are not stills, they move.

 

(18 July 1961)

              From L’Agenda de Mere, Volume 2, 1961

                                    Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris, 1978

 

      *

 

[While the Peacock is the national bird of India and is indeed the symbol of Victory, it acquires this qualification because it is the vehicle of the God Kartikeya, Shiva’s Son, the War God of Victory. This is the same Godhead referred to in our work as the Fourth Power of the Solar Line, the Son Principle in the descent of powers for the supramental transformation. Since ‘the City’ is the domain of that Fourth Power, it is not at all surprising that the Mother should have had this first vision of that ‘ideal place’ with the backdrop of the Peacock’s Tail.]

 

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