I wanted to clarify something.... I don't know if Mona Lisa and Marguerite de Valois were your incarnations, but weren't they contemporaries!?...
Yes, but I told you - four at once![[ Conversation of June 27. ]]

Four at once. And, in general, they were the different states of being of the Mother - the four aspects. Generally one aspect in each embodiment (when there were four). Or else this or that aspect might have been less present in one embodiment and more present in another. Sometimes there was a fairly central presence and then at the same time less central, less important emanations. But that has happened several times - several times. On two occasions it was particularly clear. But I have often sensed that there wasn't merely ONE embodiment, that the course of history may have crystallized around this or that person, but there were other embodiments less (how to put it?) ... less conspicuous, somewhere else.

They are the different aspects of the Mother.

page 233 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 30th June 1962

A little later, Mother refers to a passage from the preceding conversation in which she said that her present incarnation on earth didn't have a merely terrestrial effect but an effect on all the other worlds as well - and particularly on the gods.

None of those beings, those gods and deities of various pantheons, have the same rapport with the Supreme that man has; for man has a psychic being, in other words, the Supreme's presence within him. These gods are emanations - independent emanations - created for a special purpose and a particular action which they fulfill SPONTANEOUSLY; they do it not with a sense of constant surrender to the Divine but simply because that's what they are, and why they are, and all they know is what they are. They don't have the conscious link with the Supreme that man has - man carries the Supreme within himself.

That makes a considerable difference.

But with this present incarnation of the Mahashakti.... She is the Supreme's first manifestation, creation's first stride, and it was She who first gave form to all those beings. Now, since her incarnation in the physical world, and through the position She has taken here in relation to the Supreme by incarnating in a human body, all the other worlds have been influenced, and influenced in an extremely interesting way. [[Some days later, Satprem again brought up the above passage, asking whether the Mother hadn't been active on earth since the beginning of time and not merely "with this present incarnation of the Mahashakti." The reply: "It was always through EMANATIONS, while now it's as Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri - the Supreme tells Savitri that a day will come when the earth is ready and 'The Mighty Mother shall take birth'.... But Savitri was already on earth - she was an emanation. So they were all emanations? They were all emanations, right from the beginning. So we have to say: 'With the PRESENT incarnation.'" ]] I have been in contact with all those gods, all those great beings, and for the most part their attitude has changed. And even with those who didn't want to change, it has nonetheless influenced their way of being.


Human experience, with this direct incarnation of the Supreme, [[I.e., with the psychic being or soul IN MAN, the direct incarnation of the Supreme in man: "This has come with humankind." ]] is ultimately a UNIQUE experience, which has given a new orientation to universal history. Sri Aurobindo speaks of this - he speaks of the difference between the Vedic era, the Vedic way of relating to the Supreme, and the advent of Vedanta (I think it's Vedanta): devotion, adoration, bhakti, the God within. [[Satprem subsequently asked Mother: You almost seem to be saying that during the Vedic era there was no divine presence in man! No, there wasn't! They discovered it. Humanity has undergone a spiritual evolution. Vedism is in contact with the gods and, THROUGH THE GODS, with the Supreme; but it is not in direct contact with the Supreme - there is no inner, psychic con" tact. That's what Sri Aurobindo says (I myself know nothing about it!). But with the Vedanta and the devotees of Krishna, it is the god within: they had a direct contact with the god within (as in the Gita). ]] Well, this aspect of rapport with the Supreme could exist ONLY WITH MAN, because man is a special being in universal History - the divine Presence is in him. And several of those great gods have taken human bodies JUST TO HAVE THAT. [[Shortly afterwards, Satprem asked: When a god takes a human body it must be terrible for him. Or does his divinity become quite veiled to him? Yes, quite veiled. They are powerful beings, they give a sense of power, but it is quite veiled. But Krishna had a human body, Shiva had a human body. But supposing one of those gods were to incarnate in the present world ... well, it wouldn't be much fun - he would suffocate. Fun?... No, you see, they extend sufficiently beyond the limits of their bodies so as not to be suffocated. ]] But not many of them - they were so fully aware of their own perfect independence and their almightiness that they didn't NEED anything (unlike man, you see, struggling to escape his slavery): they were absolutely free.

And that's why.... How many times Durga came! She would always come, and I had my eye on her (!), because in her presence I could clearly sense that there wasn't that rapport with the Supreme (she just didn't need it, she didn't need anything). And it wasn't that something acted on her consciously, deliberately, to obtain that result: it has been a contagion. I remember how she used to come, and my aspiration would be so intense, my inner attitude so concentrated ... and one day there was such a sense of power, of immensity, of ineffable bliss in the contact with the Supreme (it was a day when Durga was there), and she seemed to be taken and absorbed in it. And through that bliss she made her surrender.

Most interesting.


page 234-35 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 30th June 1962