For there's a consciousness of the form, a life of the form. There's a consciousness, a consciousness in the form assumed by the cells. That takes SEVEN DAYS to come out. So sometimes the body makes abrupt movements when burned - people say it's mechanical. It's not mechanical, I know it's not.

I know it. I know that this consciousness of the form exists since I have actually gone out of it. Once, long back, I was in a so-called cataleptic state, and after awhile, while still in this state, the body began living again'; that is, it was capable of speaking and even moving (it was Theon who gave me this training). The body managed to get up and move. And yet, everything had gone out of it!

Once everything had gone out, it naturally became cold, but the body consciousness manages to draw a little energy from the air, from this or that ... And I spoke in that state. I spoke - I spoke very well, and besides, I recounted all I was seeing elsewhere.

1. It was at Tlemcen, in Algeria. While Mother was in trance, Theon caused the thread which linked Mother to her body to break through a movement of anger. He was angry because Mother, who was in a region where she saw the 'mantra of life,' refused to tell him the mantra. Faced with the enormity of the result of his anger Theon got hold of himself, and it took all Mother's force and all Theon's occult science to get Mother back into her body - which created a kind of very painful friction at the moment of re-entry, perhaps the type of friction that makes new born children cry out.

page 376 , Mother's Agenda , volume - 1, 28th May 1960

Once when I was at Tlemcen with Theon (this happened twice, but I'm not sure about the second time because I was alone), my body was in a cataleptic state and I was in conscious trance.... It was a peculiar kind of catalepsy in the sense that my body could speak, though very slowly - Theon had taught me how to do it. But this is because the 'life of the form' always remains (this is what takes seven days to leave the body) and it can even be trained to make the body move - the being is no longer there, but the life of the form can make the body move (in any case, utter words). However, this state is not without danger, the proof being that while I was working in trance, for some reason or other (which I no longer remember, but obviously due to some negligence on the part of Theon who was there to watch over me), the cord - I don't know what to call it - went snap! The link was cut, malevolently, [[Through Theon's malevolence, in fact. ]] and when it was time and I wanted to return, I could no longer re-enter my body. But I was still able to warn him: 'The cord is cut.' Then he used his power and knowledge to help me come back - but it was no joke! It was very difficult. [[Satprem remembers that a few years earlier Mother had told him about the circumstances of this incident: during her work in trance, Mother discovered the location of the 'mantra of life'-the mantra that has the power to create life (and to withdraw it, as well). Theon, an incarnation of the Asura of Death, was of course quite interested and told Mother to repeat this mantra to him. Mother refused. Theon became violently angry and the link was cut (the link that connected Mother to her body). When he realized the catastrophe his anger had caused, Theon grew afraid (for he knew who Mother was) and he then, as Mother recounts, made use of all his power to help her re-enter her body. Later, Mother gave this mantra to Sri Aurobindo ... who let it quietly sink into oblivion. For it is not through a mantra that the secret of life (or death) is to be mastered, but through knowledge of the true Power - in other words, ultimately, knowledge of the reality of Matter and the mechanism of death: it is the whole cellular yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Mother. ]] And this is when I had the experience of the two different states, because the part that had gone out was now without the body's support - the link was cut. Then I knew. Of course, I was in a special state; I was doing a fully conscious work with all the vital power, and I was in control not only of my surroundings but.... You see, what happens is a kind of reversal of consciousness: you begin to belong to another world; you feel this quite distinctly. Theon instantly told me to concentrate (I was finding it all interesting - Mother laughs - I was making experiments and getting ready to go wandering off, but he was terribly scared that I would die on him!). He begged me to concentrate, so I concentrated on my body.

When I re-entered, it hurt terribly, terribly - an excruciating pain, like plunging into a hell.

Into a ... ?
Into a hell (Mother laughs).

It was frightful. it doesn't last long.

He made me drink half a glass of cognac (he always made me take some every day after the trance because I would work in trance for more than an hour, which is generally a forbidden practice). Still, I am quite sure that with anybody but me and him, this would have been the end. I would not have reentered.

page 304-06 , Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 5th Aug. 1961.

Anyway, it was because of Theon that I first found the 'Mantra of Life,' the mantra that gives life, and he wanted me to give it to him, he wanted to possess it - it was something formidable! It was the mantra that gives life (it can make anyone at all come back into life, but that's only a small part of its power). And it was shut away in a particular place, [[Not a physical place. See conversation of November 7, p. 380. ]] sealed up, with my name in Sanskrit on it. I didn't know Sanskrit at that time, but he did, and when he led me to that place, I told him what I saw: 'There's a sort of design, it must be Sanskrit.' (I could recognize the characters as Sanskrit). He told me to reproduce what I was seeing, and I did so. It was my name, Mirra, written in Sanskrit - the mantra was for me and I alone could open it. 'Open it and tell me what's there,' he said.

(All this was going on while I was in a cataleptic trance.) Then immediately something in Me KNEW, and I answered, 'No,' and did not read it.

I found it again when I was with Sri Aurobindo and I gave it to Sri Aurobindo.

But that's yet another story....

page 367-68 - Mother's Agenda, volume 2, 5th Nov. - 1961

I had two experiences of that kind. The first was at Tlemcen [[Mother means the experience when the link is cut off and one cannot reenter one's body (which means one is medically dead). The first experience at Tlemcen is probably the one when Théon had a fit of anger while Mother had gone out in her vital body in search of the mantra of life," and the link was cut off by Theon's anger. ]] and the second in Japan.... There was an epidemic of influenza, an influenza that came from the war (the 1914 war), and was generally fatal.

page 116 , Mother's Agenda, volume 4 , 20th April 1963