When the mind came down upon earth, something like a million years went by between the manifestation of the mind in the earth atmosphere and the appearance of the first man. But it will go faster this time because man is waiting for something, he has a vague idea: he is awaiting in some way or another the advent of the superman. Whereas the apes were certainly not awaiting the birth of man, they never thought of it - for the excellent reason that they probably don't think very much! But man has thought about it and is waiting, so it will go faster. But faster probably still means thousands of years. We shall speak of this again in a few thousand years!

page 78 , Mother's Agenda , volume 1 , 2nd May - 1956

This defeatist Mind is still functioning - and in full swing! When we get out of that.... I want to be able to act directly without its help - do what Sri Aurobindo said: be rid of it!

page 22 , Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 10th Jan. 1961
Anger, moreover, like all forms of violence, is always a sign of weakness, impotence and incapacity. Here the deception comes from the approval one gives it or the flattering adjective one covers it with; for rage can be no more than blind, ignorant and asuric - opposed to the light.

But this is still the best of cases.

There is another case where people - without knowing it or because they WANT to ignore it - always pursue their personal interests, their preferences, their attachments, their concepts; people who are not entirely consecrated to the Divine and make use of moral and yogic ideas to conceal their personal motives. These people doubly deceive themselves: not only do they deceive themselves through their outer activities, their relations with others, but they also deceive themselves about their personal motives; instead of serving the Divine they are serving their own egoism. And this happens constantly, constantly! One serves his own personality, his egoism, while pretending to serve the Divine. This is no longer even self-deception: it's sheer hypocrisy.

This mental habit of always cloaking everything with a favorable appearance, of giving all movements a favorable explanation, is at times so flagrant that it can fool nobody but oneself (although it may occasionally be subtle enough to create an illusion). It is a sort of habitual self-exoneration, the habit of giving a favorable mental excuse, a favorable mental explanation for all one does, all one says, all one feels. For example, someone with no self-control who strikes another in great indignation and is ready to call it divine wrath! Righteous [[Throughout the Agenda, words Mother originally spoke in English are italicized. ]] is perfect, because righteous immediately introduces this element of puritanical morality - wonderful!

This power of self-deception, the mind's craft in devising splendid justifications for any ignorance or folly whatsoever, is tremendous.

page 30 , Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 17th Jan. 1961


There have been times, while working in the most material mind (the mind ingrained in the material substance), when I felt my brain swelling and swelling and swelling, and my head becoming so large it seemed about to burst! On two occasions I was forced to stop, because it was ... (was it only an impression, or was it a fact?) in any event it seemed dangerous, as if the head would burst, because what was inside was becoming too tremendous (it was that power in Matter, that very powerful deep blue light which has such powerful vibrations; it is able to heal, for example, and change the functioning of the organs - really a very powerful thing materially). Well then, that's what was filling my head, more and more, more and more, and I had the feeling that my skull was (it was painful, you know) ... that there was a pressure inside my skull pushing out, pushing everything out.... I wondered what was going to happen. Then, instead of following the movement, helping it along and going with it, I became immobile, passive, to see what would happen. And both times it stopped. I was no longer helping the movement along, you see, I simply remained passive - and it came to a halt, there was a sort of stabilization.

(silence)

But Sri Aurobindo must have had the experience [of cellular expansion], because he said positively that it COULD be done.

page 37, Mother's Agenda , volume 3 12th Jan 1962

(Mother asks for a box of paints to demonstrate practically the gradation of colors of the levels of consciousness, from the most material Nature to the Supreme. The point is to illustrate the symbol of Infinity, the figure 8, which Mother explained in the conversation of May 11: the infinite play of the Supreme reaching down to Nature and Nature rising toward the Supreme. Mother speaks in English in the presence of a disciple, who is a painter, so that he may convey her explanations to H., the disciple who is preparing illustrations for "Savitri.")

Of course, all these things are lights, so you can't reproduce them. But still, it must be a violet that is not dull and not dark (Mother starts from the most material Nature). What she has put is too red, but if it's too blue, it won't be good either - you understand the difficulty? Then after violet there is blue, which must be truly blue, not too light, but it must be a bright blue. Not too light because there are three consecutive blues: there is the blue of the Mind, and then comes the Higher Mind, which is paler, and then the Illumined Mind, which is the color of the flag [Mother's flag], a silver blue, but naturally paler than that. And after this comes yellow, a yellow that is the yellow of the Intuitive Mind; it must not be golden, it must be the color of cadmium. Then after this yellow, which is pale, we have the Overmind with all the colors - they must all be bright colors, not dark: blue, red, green, violet, purple, yellow, all of them, all the colors. And after that, we then have all the golds of the Supermind, with its three layers. And then, after that, there is one layer of golden white - it is white, but a golden white. After this golden white, there is silver white - silver white: how can I explain that? (H. has sent me some ridiculous pictures of a sun shining on water - it has nothing to do with that.) If you put silver, silver gray (Mother shows a silver box nearby shining brilliantly in the sun), silver gray together with white ... that is, it is white, but if you put the four whites together you see the difference. There is a white white, then there is a white with a touch of pink, then a silvery white and a golden white. It makes four worlds.


page 143-44 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 18th May 1963

If I observe very carefully, I have the impression that the mind of Matter Sri Aurobindo refers to,[[. The "body-mind." ]] you know, the thought of Matter, isn't yet pure, it's still mixed; so it only takes one wrong movement for everything to come undone. And in people, that material mind lives in its wrong movement constantly - except a flash once in a while: a reversal. But here [in Mother], there still remains a habit; a habit (almost like a mere memory) of the wrong movement. And it only has to recur even as tiny as a pinpoint for ... brrt! everything to fall back into the old rut.

But when I see the care I've taken for so many years to purify that fellow, I am a little (what should I say?) ... I can't say frightened or anxious, but ... (I can't even say pessimistic), but the condition of people who haven't done all the yoga I've done for years, how difficult it must be! Because the body's cells obey that material mind, which, in its natural state, is a mass of stupid ignorance that thinks it's so smart, oh! ... An almost foul mass of stupidity, and it thinks it's so smart! It thinks it knows everything.

page 315 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 18th Sep. 1963

There is a slight hope that this material mind, the mind of the cells, will be transformed.

page 184 - Mother's Agenda , volume 6, 21st July - 1965

So what is the difference between this material mind and the physical mind? How would you define the physical mind in contrast with this material mind?
The physical mind is the mind of the physical personality formed by the body. It grows with the body, but it isn't the mind of Matter: it is the mind of the physical being. For instance, it is the mind that makes one's character: the bodily, physical character, which is in large part formed by atavism and education. What is called "physical mind" is all that. Yes, it's the result of atavism, of education and of the formation of the body; that's what makes the physical character. For example, some people are patient, some are strong and so on - physically, I mean, not for vital or mental reasons, but purely physically everyone has a character. That's the physical mind. And it is part of any integral yoga: you discipline this physical mind. I have done it for more than sixty years.

page 229 - Mother's Agenda , volume 6, 31st Aug - 1965

The education of the new mind. It would be fine if it became an instrument of beauty!


page 116 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 18th May - 1966

A little later

There was, yesterday afternoon and this morning, a long demonstration of how the Mind brought about and permitted a certain change in the evolution of Matter for the Divine's play, how rejection of the Mind is useful ONLY as a means of progress and evolution, and how it will be fully used when the new being - the complete, divine being - manifests. It was very interesting. A demonstration.

It's the continuation of the demonstration [of August 31] which showed that ALL that has happened is necessary.

But this can be really understood only when you have got rid of the Mind. As long as you are bound to it, you don't understand anything.

It takes place little by little....


page 192 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 3rd Sep - 1966

(Mother gives Satprem a rose the color of fire.)

Do you think Nature will ever invent something better than this?... I don't think so.


It's beautiful, this Nature! I find this more beautiful than animals. From the point of view of consciousness, it's obviously more limited; a plant doesn't have the consciousness an animal has - they have this aspiration towards the light, but the consciousness isn't precise. But from the point of view of material organization it's incomparable. Take a tree like this one (the coconut tree under Mother's window), I see it all the time, this tree, it's wonderful! And how it struggles, how it works, how it produces ....

From the point of view of beauty, I mean material harmony, the Mind has spoilt things a lot, quite a lot (at least that's my impression).

How will things be?... Because nothing I have seen has, from the point of view of form, the richness, variety, unexpectedness, beauty of color and form that this rose has. I have seen things, I have seen supramental realizations - from the point of view of consciousness, they are infinitely superior, without a doubt, but from the point of view of form ...

page 61 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 25th Feb - 1967

We may say that all experiences tend towards a single revelation - that consciousness alone exists. And that it is the decision or choice (words are inaccurate), a decision of the consciousness that causes the form - all the forms, from the most subtle to the most material ones; and the material world, the apparent fixity of the material world stems from a distortion or a darkening of the consciousness, which has lost the sense of its all-powerfulness. This distortion has been still more pronounced since the advent of the mind, which in its working has so much taken the place of consciousness that it has so to speak substituted itself for consciousness, and that the mind, in its ordinary working, cannot be distinguished from consciousness - it doesn't know what consciousness is, and so ... (Mother makes a gesture expressing a shrinking or hardening).

It's becoming very, very precise, very clear, very visible in the developed human mind. For the functioning of the body, for example, the difference between the action and perception of the consciousness and the action and perception of the mind. And in our world as it's still organized, the mind is more (oh, as an impression this is very interesting), much more concrete - "concrete" in the way of what we are used (wrongly used) to calling "real" - and set. It's not translucent, not fluid; it's not plastic, not fluid: it's mental, concrete. And then, the mind needs acquired knowledge and all the contacts with the outside.... Let's take a disorder in the body's functioning (which may come for all kinds of reasons that are very interesting to observe, but anyway, we can't speak of everything at the same time). The disorder is there and is expressed through a sense of discomfort; the way the consciousness reacts and acts and the way the mind reacts and acts are entirely, absolutely different (we can't say opposite, but absolutely different). Then there is the weakness (I am talking about the sensation of the body itself), the weakness arising from old habit. It's not a lack of faith, the body knows in an almost absolute way that there is only one salvation, one savior: THE Consciousness. But there is a weakness that causes a sort of slackening, a letting go to habit, and that's where an intensity of faith is needed - but an energy in the faith - in order not to yield. This goes on in a very small sphere, you understand, it's a question ... not even of minutes - of seconds. And if there is a letting go, it means illness; while the other way [of the consciousness] means, little by little, progressively, the unreality of the disorder.

But it means an intensity of faith which, compared to the present state of mankind, may be regarded as miraculous.


page 62-63 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 25th Feb - 1967

But it is radical, mon petit! You can't imagine, it's like.... I could really say I've become another person. Only this (Mother indicates the appearance of her body) is still like this, the same as it was.... To what extent will it be able to change? Sri Aurobindo said that if the physical mind is transformed, the body's transformation will follow quite NATURALLY. We'll see.


page 338 - Mother's Agenda , volume 12 , 18th Dec - 1971