-400_Supramental body.html

The transition between the two appears really possible only through the entry - the conscious and willed entry - of a supramentalized consciousness into a body that we could call an "improved physical body," in other words, the human physical body as it is now, but improved: the improvement produced, for instance, by a TRUE physical training, not in its present exaggerated form but in its true sense. It's something I have seen fairly clearly: in an evolution (physical training is developing very fast nowadays, it's not even half a century since it started), in evolution, that physical training will bring an improvement, that is, a suppleness, a balance, an endurance, and a harmony; these are the four qualities - suppleness (plasticity), balance between the various parts of the being, endurance, and harmony of the body - that will make it a more supple instrument for the supramentalized consciousness.

So the transition: a conscious and willed utilization by a supramentalized consciousness of a body prepared in that way. This body must be brought to the peak of its development and of the utilization of the cells in order to be ... yes, consciously impregnated with the supreme forces (which is being done here [in Mother] at the moment), and this to the utmost of its capacities. And if the consciousness that inhabits that body, that animates that body, has the required qualities in sufficient amount, it should normally be able to utilize that body to the utmost of its capacity of transformation, with the result that the waste caused by the death of decomposing cells should be reduced to a minimum - to what extent?... That's precisely what still belongs to the unknown.

That would correspond to what Sri Aurobindo called the prolongation of life at will, for an indefinite length of time.

page 72 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 - 17th Apr - 1965

The supramentalized body will be sexless since the need for animal procreation will no longer exist.

It is only in its outward form, in its most superficial appearance - as illusory for the latest discoveries of today's science as for the experience of spirituality in former ages - that the body is not divine.

Supreme Reality, Supramental Truth, this body is all-vibrant with intense gratitude. You have given it, one by one, all the experiences that can lead it most infallibly towards You. It has reached a state where the identification with You is not only the sole thing desirable, but also the sole thing possible and natural.

page 36 , Mother Agenda , vol - 1 , 1951-1960 , Aug .

You said there had been a step forward. Is there something new?

I had always said that there were two points on which the future hadn't been revealed to me. First, what the first form of supramental life on earth would be exactly, that is to say, the stage that will follow man as he is - just as there was a stage that followed the animal (and which, in fact, disappeared), what is the stage that will follow man, and will perhaps be destined to disappear, too? Then the other point, which was more personal: could the transformation of this body go far enough to allow an indefinite prolongation, or would the work on the cells be somehow partly wasted?

I can't say I have answers, but in both directions there has been some opening, as it were. The feeling that I was in front of a wall and it's opening up, I am allowed to proceed. Well, the conclusions aren't there yet, but in both directions we have actually taken a step forward because it's open - there isn't a wall any longer, it's open.

Especially that feeling of being stuck has gone away.

The first discoveries aren't worth telling because they aren't precise or concrete or definitive enough. There is just this sense of relief: instead of standing in front of something that blocks your way, phew! you can breathe and walk on.

The consequences will be for later.

(long silence)

That would correspond to what Sri Aurobindo called the prolongation of life at will, for an indefinite length of time.

But as things are at present, it would seem there is a transitional period in which the consciousness has to switch from this body to another, better prepared body - better prepared outwardly, physically (not inwardly); "outwardly," I mean, having acquired certain aptitudes through the present development, which this body doesn't have, of the four qualities - which it doesn't have in sufficient amount and completeness. That is to say, those four qualities must be in perfect accord and in sufficient amount to be able to bear the work of transformation.

I don't know if I can make myself understood....

Yes, but you are talking about "switching" to a new body?

In that case, one would have to switch to a new body. But a switching (from the occult point of view, that's a known thing), a switching not to a body to be born, but to an already formed body. It would take place through a sort of identification of the psychic personality of the body to be changed with the other, receiving body - but that, the fusions of psychic personalities, it's possible, (laughing) I know the procedure! But it requires the abolition of the ego - yes, the abolition of the ego is certainly necessary; but if the abolition of the ego is sufficient in the supramentalized individuality (can I use the word individuality? I don't know ... it's neither "personality" nor "individuality"), in the supramentalized being, if the abolition of the ego is done, completed, that being has the power to completely neutralize the presence of the ego in the other being. And then, through that neutralization, the shrinking that always comes from a reincarnation would be canceled - that's the dreadful thing, you see, that time lost in the shrinking into a new being! While through that conscious passage - willed and conscious - from one body to the other, the being whose ego no longer exists has an almost total power to abolish the other ego.

All that occult mechanism needs to be developed, but for the consciousness it's almost rational.

That would be the procedure.

The conditions for the almost indefinite prolongation of the life of the body are known, or almost known (they are more than sensed - they are known), and they are learned through the work that must be done to counteract the EXTREME FRAGILITY of the physical balance of the body undergoing the transformation. It's a study every minute, as it were, almost every second. This is the extremely difficult part. It is difficult because of all the reasons I have already explained, because of the intrusion of forces that are in a state of imbalance and have to be, as they come along, brought back to the new state of balance. [[This is the whole problem of the selection of evolutionary samples that the Ashram represented. ]] That's where you find the sign of the unknown.

Voilà. It's there.

But it's not blocked anymore. The path is open, one can see - one can see.

It will come.

But the transition which is really hard to perceive is the transition from the animal creation (which is perpetuated, of course) to the supramental formation; that transition hasn't taken place yet. The passage from that creation to the supramental creation of a body - that's what we don't know. It is the passage from one to the other: how? It still is a somewhat more difficult problem than the passage from animal to man, you understand, because the process of human creation is refined, but it is the same ... Oh!

(The conversation is cut short by the doctor's entry)

... While here, it is a new form of creation.

page 71-74 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 - 17th Apr - 1965

You were speaking of the first form of supramental life.

On the earth.

Yes, in an "improved physical body." I wondered about that ... especially when you speak of "switching to a new body."

What were you wondering?

This, in particular: The difference between the present human body and the supramental creation is so considerable, the substance must be so different...

Of course.

... that I am wondering to what extent even an improved physical body could be of use? Because the thing is going to be so different. Whether this body is old and bent or young and very supple, does it really make any difference, since ...

That's not what I meant by "improved." Whether the body is young or old doesn't make any difference, because the advantages are balanced by drawbacks. I have also looked at the problem - it doesn't make any difference.

Switching to a new body may become a necessity, that's all, but it's secondary.

What I meant by an "improved physical body" is that sort of mastery over the body that's being gained nowadays through physical training. I have seen lately magazines showing how it had started: the results in the beginning and today's results; and from the standpoint of the harmony of forms (I am not talking about excesses - there are excesses everywhere - I am talking about what can be done in the best possible conditions), from the standpoint of the harmony of forms, of strength and a certain sense of beauty, of the development of certain capacities of endurance and skill, of precision in the execution combined with strength, it's quite remarkable if you think of how recent physical training is. And it's spreading very quickly nowadays, which means that the proportion of the human population that is interested in it and practices it is snowballing. So when I saw all those photos (for me, it's especially through pictures that I see), it occurred to me that through those qualities, the cells, the cellular aggregates acquire a plasticity, a receptivity, a force that make the substance more supple for the permeation of the supramental forces.

Let's take the sense of form, for example (I am giving one example among many others). Evolution is openly moving towards diminishing
the difference between the female and the male forms: the ideal that's being created makes female forms more masculine and gives male forms a certain grace and suppleness, with the result that they increasingly resemble what I had seen all the way up, beyond the worlds of the creation, on the "threshold," if I can call it that, of the world of form. At the beginning of the century, I had seen, before even knowing of Sri Aurobindo's existence and without having ever heard the word "supramental" or the idea of it or anything, I had seen there, all the way up, on the threshold of the Formless, at the extreme limit, an ideal form that resembled the human form, which was an idealized human form: neither man nor woman. A luminous form, a form of golden light. When I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote, I said, "But what I saw was the supramental form!" Without having the faintest idea that it might exist. Well, the ideal of form we are now moving towards resembles what I saw. That's why I said: since there is an evolutionary concentration on this point, on the physical, bodily form, it must mean that Nature is preparing something for that Descent and that embodiment - it seems logical to me. That's what I meant by an improved physical form.

The other point is quite secondary, it's incidental, it isn't in the line of evolution. I am only saying that it's a method that CAN be used, and it has been used in the past.

Switching to a new body?

Switching to a new body. The method may be used again, IF IT IS FELT TO BE NECESSARY. It wasn't the central idea, it was perfectly incidental - it may happen. And all I said was that the consciousness of these cells having lost the sense of ego (I think they have lost it, though this body was formed without the sense of ego - at any rate, if it was necessary at a given time, it no longer is), having lost the sense of ego, it finds no difficulty in manifesting in another body. And this is a perfectly practical and material experience, I mean I have had multiple experiences of this consciousness using that body, this body, that other body ... for certain things; of course it was momentary, not in a permanent way, but at will and anyway lasting long enough to make me experience it concretely.

But this is a personal affair, it has nothing to do with the public or collectivity, while the other point is interesting: I have a feeling it is Nature's collaboration, pushing humanity in that direction in order to prepare a matter more receptive to the ideal that wants to manifest.

When I thought about the last conversation again, it seemed to me that the gap between the two creations, the animal and the supramental, is so huge that it doesn't make much difference whether the body is more supple and so on.

The gap isn't so huge. The gap is huge in the MODE OF CREATION, that's where there is a huge gap. That's where it is difficult to conceive how we will switch from one to the other and how there can be intermediaries.

Exactly, I suddenly remembered in this connection a quotation from Sri Aurobindo that seemed to me interesting. It's in "The Human Cycle," at the end of "The Human Cycle." Here's what he says: "It may well be that, once started, it [the supramental endeavour] may not advance rapidly even to its first decisive stage; it may be that it will take long centuries of effort to come into some kind of permanent birth. But that is not altogether inevitable, for the principle of such changes in Nature seems to be a long obscure preparation followed by a swift gathering up and precipitation of the elements into the new birth, a rapid conversion, a transformation that in its luminous moment figures like a miracle."[[The Human Cycle, Cent. Ed. XV.252. ]]

This is very interesting.... Yes (laughing), he said this to me a few days ago!

It is true.

Basically, once there is a body formed, precisely, by an ideal and an increasing development, a body with sufficient stuff and capacities, sufficient potential, there may very well be a rapid Descent of a supramental form, just as there was one with the human form. Because I know that (I know it from having lived it), I know that when the transition - a very obscure transition - from the animal to man (of which they have found fairly convincing traces) was sufficient, when the result was plastic enough, there was a Descent - there was a mental descent of the human creation. And they were beings (there was a double descent; it was in fact particular in that it was double, male and female: it wasn't the descent of a single being, it was the descent of two beings), they were beings who lived in Nature an animal life, but with a mental consciousness; but there was no conflict with the general harmony. All the memories are absolutely clear of a spontaneous, animal life, perfectly natural, in Nature. A marvelously beautiful Nature that strangely resembles the nature in Ceylon and tropical countries: water, trees, fruits, flowers.... And a life in harmony with animals: there was no sense of fear or difference. It was a very luminous, very harmonious, and very NATURAL life, in Nature.

And strangely, the story of Paradise would seem to be a mental distortion of what really happened. Of course, it all became ridiculous, and also with a tendency ... it gives you the feeling that a hostile will or an Asuric being tried to use that to make it the basis for a religion and to keep man under his thumb. But that's another matter.

But that spontaneous, natural, harmonious life - very harmonious, extremely beautiful and luminous and easy!... A harmonious rhythm in Nature. A luminous animality, in fact.

That's how we began, and it began that way because there was a descent of the higher human mental consciousness into the form that existed. The phenomenon may recur in the same way, with the difference that it can be more conscious and willed - there may be the intervention of a conscious will. It would, or it could happen through an occult process - well, I don't know, there are all sorts of possibilities, one of which could be the conscious passage of a being who has used the old human body for his development and his yoga, and who would leave that form once it became unnecessary in order to enter a form capable of adapting to the new growth.

Here, the two possibilities meet.

But for the time being, there is no question of that because although the development of physical training is extremely rapid, it's still clear that it may take hundreds of years.

There is a quotation from Sri Aurobindo in which he says that the first point to be acquired is prolongation of life at will - it isn't directly immortality: it is prolongation of life at will. He wrote it in the articles on The Supramental Manifestation.

page 74-78 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 - 21st Apr - 1965

You remember what I had said? That it would be an improved physical body that would make the transition between the human body and the supramental body?...[[ See conversation of April 17, 1965. ]] Last night Sri Aurobindo told me in his own way that it was correct, that it was true. It was very interesting.

Very interesting.

page 131 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 , 18th June - 1965

My impression is that Sri Aurobindo already has his subtle supramental form. For instance, when he has to move, he doesn't give the impression of being subject to the same laws as we are; but as it's subtle, it doesn't appear surprising. And also a sort of ubiquity: he is in several places at the same time. And a plasticity, an adaptability according to the work he wants to do, the people he meets. In those activities I am quite aware that I see him in a certain way, but I think others don't see him the same way - they see him differently, probably wearing clothes. When he ran in the forest, we were all alone, and it was a large forest without anyone there; then a few minutes later, we were somewhere else and there were people, other people to whom he spoke, and I didn't at all feel that the others were seeing him without clothes: they were certainly seeing him wearing clothes.

page 134 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 , 18th June - 1965

I spent a good part of the night (almost the whole night till 3 in the morning) with Sri Aurobindo, and he not only showed me and explained to me, but he himself WAS what he was showing me: he was preparing himself for the new creation. And last night he told me, he showed me how this or that thing would be, how the body would be. I remember that when I woke up, he was lying down on a bed, I was kneeling beside the bed, looking at him, and while he was that new body, he at the same time explained to me how the superman's body would be (the supramental being). [[Mother actually said "the overmental being." This confusion will often take place, probably because Mother found this vocabulary quite cumbersome. But this next being clearly has nothing to do with the overmind or the world of the gods. ]] And it was so living that even when I woke up, it remained - I can still see it. But the details ... (how can I put it?) the memory doesn't have the precision that enables it to explain (I don't know how to put it). I still have the vision ... it had a color ... it wasn't casting rays of light, not that, but ... and not luminescent like an object, but with a special luminosity which had that light ... a little like Auroville's flower (but it wasn't like that, it looked perfectly natural). He was showing me his body; he was lying down, and showing me his body, saying, "Here is how it is." The form was almost the same, with some ... I still have the memory there (gesture in the atmosphere), but I don't know how to explain .... Lately, I had been wondering, "It's odd, we don't at all know how it [the new body] will be." And I was saying to myself, "There's no one to tell me." Because this Consciousness that came, it acts through the consciousness, but not so much through the vision. So then, I had that last night. For a long, long time I was with Sri Aurobindo, a long time, for hours. It has entered the consciousness, it will come out again one day But I kept the memory of the last thing: I saw myself, I was in two places at the same time (and maybe I too wasn't quite as I am, but that didn't interest me: I was looking at him, who was lying down and explaining to me), and it was ... it was the same thing as a luminescent body, but it wasn't luminescent, it was ... if I am not mistaken, it was the color of this sari (Mother points to Sujata's sari), something like that.

Orange?

No ... It's a pink with a golden glow, you understand. So the two are seen together, like this (gesture of fusing together).

page 314-15 , Mother's Agenda , volume 10 , 30th Aug - 1969

Moreover, Sri Aurobindo told me straight out, he said to me, "We can't hope it will take less than two years.

Two years?

Two hundred years! We can't hope it will take less than two hundred years. He said, "Normally, it should take three hundred years." He himself had begun it, of course, and he knew - he knew very well, I saw it when he left: the consciousness which came out of his body and straight into mine ... quite a lot of it! Yet that didn't prevent him from being ill.

It's a big task.

Page 416 , Mother's Agenda , volume 10 , 8th Nov - 1969

So then, yesterday I wrote (I forget the words), "But when You want to transform the IMAGE into Your likeness, what happens?" [[Lord, when You want the image to change into your likeness, what do You do?" The next day, the disciple to whom Mother had sent this reply wrote back: "I did not understand what you wrote yesterday." Mother replied again (on the 9th): "What Sri Aurobindo calls 'image' is the physical body. So I asked the Lord what He does when He wants to transform the physical body, and last night He answered me by giving me two visions. The one was about the liberation of the body consciousness from all conventions regarding death; and in the other. He showed me what the supramental body will be. As you can see, I did well to ask Him! 1. Still, in the afternoon, the doctor did a checkup which showed a blood pressure of 120 and a pulse rate of 70. ]] Something like that. And I got the answer last night!... Two activities of the subtle physical. Oh, I'll tell the first (laughing): I killed someone point-blank!...

Oh!

The second vision was more personal. Then I understood: it's because the very body, the very consciousness (physical consciousness) is full of all those falsehoods and all those illusions and all those preconceived ideas, and when that is gone, then the Lord can manifest in there.

It was ... it was LIVED, and it was a stunning realization, mon petit!

This [the body] isn't quite well yet - there's a lot to be done, but ... I felt I had tipped over to the right side.

It was simply wonderful!... Wonderful.

page 182-83 - Mother's Agenda , volume 11 , 9th May - 1970

Then you go on [Satprem takes up the text again], and there'sanother ambiguity:

"What will that being be like who will come afterthe superman? I don't know.... Because we are
still much too human; when we visualize the
Supreme Consciousness in a form, the Supreme
Being and so on - the Supreme - we tend to give
it a form similar to the human one, but that's our
old habit.... I saw that being ...

So here, are you referring to the supramental being, or to thebeing intermediary between man and the supramental? You say:

"I saw that being (I saw it many years ago): it was clearly a far more harmonious and expressive
form than the human one....

Ah, that I don't know what it was, because it was earlier: before I knew Sri Aurobindo. I saw it ... I think it was at Tlemcen that I saw it. Then I had no notion of the superman, the supramental and all that, I didn't use those words. So I don't know.... Better use something vague.

The intermediary being?

I don't know.

The next or future being?

Yes: "the future being."

"I saw that future being (I saw it many years ago):it was clearly a far more harmonious and expres
sive form than the human one, but there was a
likeness, it was still a human form, that is to say,
with a head and arms and legs and ... Will it be
that? I don't know. There will necessarily be that
as an intermediary - necessarily. There were all
those kinds of apes which acted as intermediaries

between the animal and man.... But lightness,
invulnerability, moving about at will, luminosity
at will - all that goes without saying....

You mean that it's part of the supramental?

Yes, yes.

"Also clothing at will: its not something foreignadded on, it's the substance that takes on certain
forms."

Ah, yes, that's very important, because I POSITIVELY saw that. It's the substance itself that takes on now the form of a cloth, now ... (wavy gesture)

(silence)

Probably the difference between man and superman will be morea difference of consciousness than a material difference?

(after a silence)

From the standpoint of form, it seems to be like that, but is it because of our powerlessness? That remains to be known.

There is obviously the precedent of the ape and man, but if there is the same difference between that being and man as between man and the ape ...

It would be something already!

It's a lot! It's a lot.

But one may conceive that a higher consciousness would"aestheticize," harmonize this material substance....

Yes.

But the step beyond that is what's more incomprehensible.

Yes.

You understand, it's the functioning of the organs and the need for organs, that's what would make a big difference. A being that wouldn't need lungs, wouldn't need a heart ... that would make a tremendous difference!

page 213-15 - Mother's Agenda , volume 11 , 27th May - 1970

As for me I ... this body does what it can. It can't do much. It tries ... it tries not to create any resistance. From time to time -- from time to time -- there's something, a marvel, which lasts for a few seconds. But it's ... (Mother nods her head). Either we have to manage to make this body more plastic so it can be transformed, or else it will be for another life.

Although I must say that ... Sri Aurobindo said to me, "Oh, to have to begin all that over again, the whole childhood and all that unconsciousness -- no." Before he left, he said no. "No, I shall return when it can be done in a supramental body."[[This is what Mother wrote to Sujata's father, Prithwi Singh, in 1953 about the passing away of Sri Aurobindo: "At 1:26 in the morning, when I was in his room, he was steadily coming out of his body into mine; it was so much that I felt a physical friction in the cells of my body; with it a great power entered into me and I felt capable of resuscitating him. But when I told him, he said, 'No, it is purposely that I have left my body, I will not come back into it, I will return in a new body, the first body built in the supramental way.' But," Mother added, "he did not tell me the time when he would return." ]]

But there have to be bodies capable of lasting at will. He said, "The intermediate stage will be duration of life at will." And I have the feeling that that is possible. Provided ... the body itself thinks only of one thing -- transformation. When it is like this (quiet, concentrated), then.... I can spend hours -- hours without moving -- in a kind of receptive contemplation, and it seems like a second. The sense of time is really curious. You see, there is a certain receptive contemplation, and there (gesture of being suspended in a smile) ... time simply ceases to exist.

I sense.... I sense I am on the threshold of a great Secret ... but (Mother nods her head) ... not mental -- not in thoughts. It's ... "something."

page 235-36 - Mother's Agenda , volume 12 , 4th Sep - 1971

It's really a period of transition for the body.

The body is realizing, becoming conscious of what in it prevents it from being immortal, and at the same time of what can be immortal in it. It has had moments of agony as never before in its whole life -- in connection with death, which has never happened before. And it has understood that its very constitution was causing this, and what it had to change. I am ... as though on the threshold of an extraordinary discovery, but....

(silence)

I could put it this way: the why of death has become clear, and the how of immortality is ... (silence).... You know, it's a curious thing, the feeling that there is something (Mother feels with her fingertips) TO TOUCH.

page 236-37 - Mother's Agenda , volume 12 , 8th Sep - 1971

For the first time, early this morning, I saw myself: my body. I don't know whether it's the supramental body or ... (what shall I say?) a transitional body, but I had a completely new body, in the sense that it was sexless: it was neither woman nor man.

It was very white. But that could be because I have white skin, I don't know.

It was very slender (gesture). Really lovely, a truly harmonious form.

That's the first time.

page 96 - Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 24th Mar - 1972-1973