There is always what could almost be called a popular way of presenting things. Take the whole Story of the Creation, of how things have come about: it can be told as an unfolding story (this is what Theon did in a book he called The Tradition - he told the whole story in the Biblical manner, with psychological knowledge hidden in symbols and forms). There is a psychological manner of telling things and a metaphysical manner. The metaphysical, for me, is almost incomprehensible; it's uninteresting (or interesting only to minds that are made that way). An almost childish, illustrative way of telling things seems more evocative to me than any metaphysical theory (but this is a personal opinion - and of no great moment!). The psychological approach is more dynamic for transformation, and Sri Aurobindo usually adopted it. He doesn't tell us stories (I was the one who told him stories! Images are very evocative for me). [278] But if one combines the two approaches.... Actually, to be philosophical, one would have to combine the three. But I have always found the metaphysical approach ineffective; it doesn't lead to realization but only gives people the IDEA that they know, when they really know nothing at all. From the standpoint of push, of a dynamic urge towards transformation, the psychological approach is obviously the most powerful. But the other [the symbolic approach] is lovelier!

The way Theon told it, there was first the universal Mother (he didn't call her the universal Mother, but Sri Aurobindo used that name), the universal Mother in charge of creation. For creating she made four emanations: Consciousness or Light; Life; Love or Beatitude and (Mother tries in vain to remember the fourth) ... I must have cerebral anemia today! In India they speak only of three: Sat-Chit-Ananda (Sat is Existence, expressed by Life; Chit is Consciousness, expressed by Power; Ananda is Bliss, synonymous with Love). But according to Theon, there were four (I knew them by heart). Well, these emanations (Theon narrated it in such a way that someone not a philosopher, someone with a childlike mind, could understand), these emanations, conscious of their own power, separated themselves from their Origin; that is, instead of being entirely surrendered to the supreme Will and expressing only.... [279] Ah, the fourth emanation is Truth! Instead of carrying out only the supreme Will, they seem to have acquired a sense of personal power. (They were personalities of sorts, universal personalities, each representing a mode of being.) Instead of remaining connected, they cut the link - each acted on his own, to put it simply. Then, naturally, Light became darkness, Life became death, Bliss became suffering and Truth became falsehood. And these are the four great Asuras: the Asura of Inconscience, the Asura of Falsehood, the Asura of Suffering and the Asura of Death.

Once this had occurred, the divine Consciousness turned towards the Supreme and said (Mother laughs): 'Well, here's what has happened. What's to be done?' Then from the Divine came an emanation of Love (in the first emanation it wasn't Love, it was Ananda, Bliss, the Delight of being which became Suffering), and from the Supreme came Love; and Love descended into this domain of Inconscience, the result of the creation of the first emanation, Consciousness - Consciousness and Light had become Inconscience and Darkness. Love descended straight from the Supreme into this Inconscience; the Supreme, that is, created a new emanation, which didn't pass through the intermediate worlds (because, according to the story, the universal Mother first created all the gods who, when they descended, remained in contact with the Supreme and created all the intermediate worlds to counterbalance this fall - it's the old story of the 'Fall,' this fall into the Inconscient. But that wasn't enough). Simultaneously with the creation of the gods, then, came this direct Descent of Love into Matter, without passing through all the intermediate worlds. That's the story of the first Descent. But you're speaking of the descent heralded by Sri Aurobindo, the Supramental Descent, aren't you?

page 280 - Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 28th July - 1961

But I also remember reading The Tradition, before I met Sri Aurobindo (it was like a novel, a serialized romance of the world's creation, but it was very evocative; Théon called it The Tradition). That was where I first learned of the universal Mother's first four emanations, when the Lord delegated his creative power to the Mother. And it was identical to the ancient Indian tradition, but told like a nursery story; anyone could understand - it was an image, like a movie, and very vivid.

So She made her first four emanations. The first was Consciousness and Light (arising from Sachchidananda); the second was Ananda and Love; the third was Life; and Truth was the fourth. Then, so the story goes, conscious of their infinite power, instead of keeping their connection with the supreme Mother and, through Her, with the Supreme, instead of receiving indications for action from Him and doing things in proper order, they were conscious of their own power and each one took off independently to do as he pleased - they had power and they used it. They forgot their Origin. And because of this initial oblivion, Consciousness became unconsciousness, and Light became darkness; Ananda became suffering, Love became hate; Life became Death; and Truth became Falsehood. And they were instantly thrown headlong into what became Matter. According to Théon, the world as we know it is the result of that. And that was the Supreme himself in his first manifestation.

page 55 - Mother's Agenda, volume 3, 27th Jan. - 1962
Essentially, it is becoming the tapas [energy] of things - the tapas of the universe.

The Manifestation is always said to begin with Sachchidananda: first Sat, pure Existence; then Chit, the awareness of this Existence; and then Ananda, the Delight of Existence which makes it go on. But between Chit and Ananda there is Tapas - that is, Chit realizing itself. And when you become this tapas, this tapas of things, you have the knowledge that gives the power to change.[[ Tapas: literally, heat. It is the concentrated energy constituting everything - not generated by some mechanism, but by the very concentration of the power of Consciousness (chit). In Indian tradition, the world was created by Tapas in the form of an egg - the primordial egg - which broke open from the incubating heat of consciousness-force and gave birth to the world. To "become the tapas of things" is to uncover in one's own material, bodily substance that same formidable, supramental seat of energy (what physicists, following Einstein, call atomic energy: E = mc2), the energy that animates the stone and the bird and the universe - for then like can act upon like. Mother was reaching that point. ]] The tapas of things is what governs their existence in the Manifestation.

You see, I am expressing this for the first time, but I began to live it a while back. When you are THERE, you have a feeling of (what shall I say?) of such formidable power! The universal power, really. You have the sense of total mastery over the universe.

page 93 - Mother's Agenda, volume 3, 24th Feb - 1962


"Mortality is the effect whose cause is disequilibrium. It is accidental and temporary...."

According to Théon, you know, the world has been created and destroyed - creation and pralaya - six times. And each time, a particular attribute was manifested, but since that attribute couldn't reach fulfillment, the world was "swallowed up again." Now it's the seventh time, and the attribute is Equilibrium. And when Equilibrium is established, there will be uninterrupted progress - with no disequilibrium, naturally: that is, a deathless state, with no disintegration.

page 452 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 15th Dec. 1962

It was really very interesting. Afterwards it's just a memory, no longer the thing.... It concerned the creation of the material world, the material universe, in the light of the conception of the Supreme in love with His emanation. But the vision was all-embracing, as if I were on the other side - the side of the Supreme, not of the creation - and saw the creation as a whole, with the true sense of progress, the true sense of advance, of movement, and the true way in which all that doesn't belong to the future creation will disappear in a kind of pralaya [[Pralaya: end of a world, apocalypse. ]] (it can't really "disappear" but it will be withdrawn from the Manifestation). And it was very interesting: all that doesn't collaborate (in the sense that it is a sufficient experience, an experience that has come to its end) was reabsorbed. It was like the true vision of what was rendered as the Last Judgment. It is something going on constantly, that mighty "gust" of manifestation, and there are things that have been, according to our vision of time, but that live on, that continue to exist in the future; there are things that exhaust themselves (that's in the present), and there are things that have no more purpose, that cannot keep pace with the movement (I don't know how to explain this) and enter the Non-Being - the pralaya, the Non-Being, the unmanifest - of course, not in their forms but in their essence; that is to say, the Supreme in them remains the Supreme but unmanifest. But it was all a living, palpable experience which lasted for a day and a half. The entire universal movement was LIVED and sensed. Not merely seen but lived - and in what light! What stupendous power! With that kind of certitude at the core of everything - something very odd. It's very difficult to express. But the experience lasted so long that it became perfectly familiar. To translate it into words I might say: it is the Supreme's way of seeing - of feeling, of living. I was living things the way He does. And it gives a power of certitude of realization. In the sense that what we are heading for is already here; the road we look back on, the road we have traveled and the road yet to travel, it all lives simultaneously. And with such logic! An eternal, wonderful superlogic which makes it obviousness itself - everything is obviousness itself. Struggle, effort, fear, all of that, oh, absolutely, absolutely nonexistent. And together with this, the explanation of the feeling we have of not wanting certain things any more: they leave the Manifest. You see, it's like a sieve into which everything is thrown and where He ... to Him, everything, but everything is the same, but there is the vision of what He wants, and also of what is useless for what He wants or would prevent the fullness and totality of what He wants (contradictions of sorts, I don't know how to explain it) - so with that He just goes this way (gesture of reswallowing) and it goes out of the Manifestation.

At the time I could have said it in a more understandable language, while now ...

But can these useless things be withdrawn from the Manifestation without causing any catastrophes?

I don't know how to explain it.... Putting it like this implies an arbitrary fiat, but there's no such thing: it isn't a "gentleman" who decides to withdraw certain things he no longer likes! It's not that way. They are things which, owing to their own propensity (what we might call their essential truth), had at a given moment their place in the Manifestation, and which, once they have lost their purpose, quite naturally leave the Manifestation - I could put it in fifty different ways just as poorly, I can't see how to explain it properly. But the fact was evident. It was part of such a wonderfully complete and harmonious Whole - that Harmony is beyond us, we cannot understand it, caught as we are in the sensation of opposites. But there, "opposites" do not exist, there are only things that ... Like the fact of the Supreme seemingly dominated by His creation, wholly obedient to His creation - as though He had no power, no knowledge, no vision, so things follow their course in the chaos we know. Well, when we put it like this, there is something unbelievable and shocking about it, yet it was so very natural, so very true, and part of such a perfect whole!

Only, you cannot see it unless you see the whole. At the time, everything was preexistent, although unfolding in time for the Manifestation. But it was preexistent. Not preexistent as we understand it, not everything "at a given moment".... Oh, how impossible! It's impossible to express it. I still feel what I could call the "warmth" of the experience - the reality, the life, the warmth of the experience are there. You know, I have lived in a Light! A Light which isn't our light, which has nothing to do with what we call light, a Light so warm and powerful! A creative Light. So powerful! ... Everything was so perfectly harmonious: everything, everything without exception, even the things that appear to be the very negation of divinity. And a rhythm! (gesture as of great waves) A harmony, so wonderful a TOTALITY, where the sense of sequence ... Sequence doesn't mean things being like this (chopping gesture), one being abolished by the next, it is ... At the time I might have been able to find or invent the words, I don't know, now ... now, it's only the memory of it. The memory, not the presence itself.

The experience lasted long. It started in the night, lasted through the whole day, and last night there was still something of it lingering, but then ... (laughing) I seemed to be told, "So then, aren't you going to move on? Are you going to stay with this experience, are you stuck there?!" It is so true: things move fast, fast, fast, and run as you may, you're still not going fast enough.


page 48-50 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 19th Feb 1963

Recently, between your last visit and this one (two or three days ago), I suddenly had a revelation of the purpose of creation - what it signifies and the why of it: the meaning of creation. It was so clear! So clear. The vision of its reason and where we are going - simply impossible to describe it in words.

Some words came (Mother shows Satprem a piece of paper), but then they had a very special meaning. Here:

The result of creation is adetailed multiplication of consciousness.

When the vision of the whole and the

vision of all the details join together

within an active consciousness, the creation will

have attained its progressive perfection.


"Progressive" means ... (expanding gesture). No word, no image can convey the experience. It was a real comprehension, a real vision of the thing. This (Mother points to her note) seems hollow in comparison. To use a very childlike metaphor, it's as if the creation unfolded on a screen, were projected on a screen. Or rather, the Supreme Consciousness is projecting itself on a sort of infinite screen.

The experience was ... it was obviousness itself! That was IT. But it lasted only a moment. Then, I tried to put it in words. And these words had meaning, a special meaning.

To a child, you could say that the Supreme unfolds himself before his own consciousness, like someone unreeling an endless film. He projects what is here (gesture pointing within, at heart level), in front of him, like that. And since the supramental being would have the capacity to be consciously one with the Divine, he would at once be the seer and the seen.

There are just no words to say it.


page 28-29 - Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 12th Jan - 1972-1973


But do we know how long the earth has existed?

Yes Mother, it's been calculated.
Ah?

Yes, it was calculated: I don't know exactly how many billionsof years - but it's billions of years. [[Four and a half billion years, according to the current estimate. ]] And they have also calculat

ed the end!

Ah! And?

I think it's still quite far ahead But it appears the end of theearth is scientifically inevitable - because of progressive cooling

and changes in the gravitational field. [[It is said that in five billion years the sun will become a "red giant" and burn its planets. The cooling period would come much later. ]]

Theon used to say that up to now there had been ... that this was the seventh creation; there had been six creations before which were "reabsorbed" - just as you said. And this one was the seventh, but it wouldn't be reabsorbed, it would transform itself. There we are. Instead of that destruction by the sun which so far has ultimately led to the disappearance of the creation, this time the creation would go on transforming itself, to become again the Supreme and manifest Him.


Theon and Sri Aurobindo didn't know each other, you see, they never met each other, they didn't even know of each other's existence. Yet Theon proclaimed... (I don't remember what he called the new world) what Sri Aurobindo calls the "Supramental." What's remarkable - interesting, you know, strikingly interesting - is that without knowing each other, with totally different approaches, they reached the same conclusion.

And we are precisely at the time when ... the other creations had come to an end; but instead of coming to an end, this one will be transformed. How? I have no idea.

The interesting thing in man is that materially speaking, he is ... a mere nothing, a second lost in eternity - a tangled web of weaknesses - but in terms of consciousness, he has the capacity to understand. His consciousness is capable of contacting the supreme Consciousness. So naturally there are all those who wanted to merge back into that Consciousness, but Sri Aurobindo said: the point is not to merge back into it but to make the world capable of manifesting that supreme Consciousness.

That's ultimately the whole point.

How did they arrive at the same conclusion? ... There must have been a reason for them to know the same thing at the same time, in totally different countries and without ever knowing about each other.

And I met one and the other.

Greatly interesting, obviously.

Greatly interesting, because this physical being [Mother's] was not born in an important position, quite the contrary (gesture indicating an ordinary background).... The only thing I remember well is when I was a little girl (five or six years old, I can't say exactly), a very little girl, seated in a little armchair made especially for me, and I would feel a GREAT Force (Mother raises a finger above her head) above my head. And already at that age Oust the way a child can think, you know) I knew "that" was sure to accomplish great things.... I didn't understand anything, I didn't know anything.

(silence)

And now it's transformation instead of pralaya. [[The destruction or end of a world (apocalypse). ]]


page 265-66 , Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 9th Aug - 1972-1973

(Sujata:) Which victory, Mother?
Which victory? But there is only one, my child.


Which is?
Which is THE Victory ... we can call it what we like: the Victory of Truth over Falsehood, the Victory of the Lord over his creation.

Which means the creation will now go consciously towards the Divine?
Ohh!

Eh, Mother? No? Not yet? ... Not quite yet?
Well, that Victory is still only for a few.

The creation consciously going towards its divine Origin and ready to manifest that Origin is still only for a few. I think it will take centuries until it becomes general - oh, centuries, maybe millenniums!

But what matters is for us to be the few who are conscious, who consciously ... (silence, Mother opens her hands) ... manifest the Divine. That is our victory, for a few of us, which we can and must win and embody - by "win," I mean overcome the material resistance in the body (Mother pinches the skin of her arm). That we can and it is our duty to overcome - I mean all the stupid unconscious resistance. That must come to an end. This is our work, and it must be done here (pointing to the body).

(silence)

You say it will take centuries or even millenniums. But, forinstance, would it not go taster by contagion? No?

We'll see, mon petit! Let's first do what we should do. Let's concentrate on that.

Let's do what we should do.

Yes, Mother.

page 297-98 , Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 18th Oct - 1972-1973