And after all, what we want ... we know that we need, not an artificially new language, but something supple enough to be able to adapt to the needs of a new CONSCIOUSNESS; and that's probably how that language will emerge, from a number of old languages, through the disappearance of habits.

What's specific to each language (apart from a few differences in words) is the order in which ideas are presented: the construction of sentences. The Japanese (and the Chinese even more so) have solved the problem by using only the sign of the idea. Now, under the influence from outside, they have added phonetic signs to build a sentence; but even now the order in the construction of the ideas is different. It's different in Japan and in China. And unless you FEEL this, you can never know a foreign language really well. So we speak according to our very old habit (and basically it's more convenient for us simply because it comes automatically). But when I "receive," for instance, it's not even a thought: it's Sri Aurobindo's formulated consciousness; then, to be expressed there is a sort of progressive approximation, and sometimes it comes very clearly; but very often it's a spontaneous mixture of French and English forms and I feel it's something else trying to be expressed. At times (he follows my notation), he makes me correct something; at other times it comes perfectly well - it depends.... Oh, it depends on the limpidity. If you are very tranquil, it comes very well. And there, too, I see it's not really French and not really English. It's not so much the words (words are nothing) as the ORDER in which things come up. And when afterwards I look at it objectively, I see that it's in part the order in which they come in French and in part the order in which they come in English. And the result is a mixture which is neither one language nor the other and endeavors to express ... what might be called "a new way of consciousness."

It leads me to think that something will be worked out that way, and that any too strict, too narrow attachment to the old rules is a hindrance to the evolution of expression. From that point of view, French is a long way behind English - English is much more supple. But the languages in countries like China and Japan that use ideograms seem to be infinitely more supple than our own.

Certainly!
They can express new ideas and things far more easily through juxtaposition of signs.

But now, with this "new logic" and "new mathematics," a whole set of new signs is beginning to be universal, that is to say, the same signs express the same ideas or things in all countries, whatever language is used in the country, quite independently.

These new thoughts and new experiences, this new logic and new mathematics, are now taught in higher classes, but all the primary and secondary studies have remained in the old formula, so I have been very seriously thinking of opening primary and secondary schools in Auroville, based on the new system - as a trial.

So what should be done there (and what I try to do) is the same work of receptive silence and to let inspiration, the inspirational consciousness, gather the necessary elements. For that we must be very tranquil. We must be very supple, in the sense of surrendered; I mean, allow as little habitual activity as possible to mix in - be almost like automatons. But with the full perception of the consciousness trying to be expressed, so that nothing gets mixed in with it. That's the most important thing: to receive this consciousness and hold it like ... really like something sacred, without anything getting mixed in with it, like that. So then, there is a problem of attraction, we might say, and of concretization in the formula. [[The "attraction" of the words in which this consciousness will be clothed. ]] I always say to myself that if I knew a lot of languages, it would all be made use of; unfortunately I know only two (properly speaking I know only two) and I have only very superficial and minimal glimpses of two or three others - that's not enough. Only, I had a contact with very different methods: the method of the Far East and the Sanskrit method, and of course the methods of the West. It does give a sort of base, but it's not sufficient - I am poles apart from erudition. I have always felt that erudition shrivels up thought - it parches the brain. (I have great respect for erudite people, oh indeed, and I seek their advice, but ... for myself it won't do!)
Well, I think it should be the same thing with language. One should be tuned in to someone in that way, or through that someone to something still higher: the Origin. And then, very, very passive. But not inertly passive: vibrantly passive, receptive, like that, attentive, letting "that" come in and be expressed. The result would be there to see.... As I said, we are limited by what we know, but that may be because we're still too much of a "person"; if we could be perfectly plastic it might be different: there have been instances of people speaking in a language they didn't know, therefore ...

It's interesting.


page 56-59 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 18th Feb - 1967

When it comes to languages, it's very interesting.... Those are things that come, stay for an hour or two, then go away, they are like lessons, things to be learned. And so, one day, there came the question of languages, the different languages. Those languages took shape little by little (probably through usage, until, as you said, one day someone took it into his head to fix it in a logical and grammatical way), but behind those languages, there are identical experiences - identical in their essence - and there are certainly sounds that correspond to those experiences; you find those sounds in all languages, the different sounds with minor alterations One day, for a long time (more than an hour), it unfolded with ail the proof in support, for all languages. Unfortunately, I didn't see clearly, it was in the night, so I couldn't note it down and it went away. But it should be able to come back. It was really interesting ... (Mother tries to recall the experience) There were even languages I had never heard: I've heard many European languages, in India several Indian languages, chiefly Sanskrit, and then, Japanese And there were languages I had never heard. It was all there. And there were sounds, certain sounds that come from all the way up, sounds ... (how can I explain?), sounds we might call "essential." And I saw how they took shape and were distorted in languages (Mother draws a sinuous line that branches out on its way down) Sounds like the affirmative and the negative - what, for us, is "yes" and "no" - and also the expression of certain relationships (Mother tries to remember). But the interesting point was that it came with all the words, loads of words I didn't know! And at that time I knew them (it comes from a subconscient somewhere), I knew all those words.

At the same time, there was a sort of capacity or possibility, a state in which one was able to understand all languages; that is every language was understood because of its connection with that region (gesture to the heights, at the origin of sounds). There didn't seem to be any difficulty in understanding every language.


There was a sort of almost graphic explanation (same sinuous line branching out on its way down) showing how the sound had been distorted to express this or that or ...

It's a whole field of observation that's part of the study of vibrations: how essential vibrations are distorted as they spread out, and thus produce the different states - on the psychological level, on the level of thought, on the level of action, and also of languages, of expression.



page 216 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 15th July - 1967