-433_The Mother in France.html

As a child, when I was around ten or twelve years old, I had some rather interesting experiences which I didn't understand at all. I had some history books - you know, the textbooks they give you to learn history. Well, I'd read and suddenly the book would seem to become transparent, or the printed words would become transparent, and I'd see other words or even pictures. I hadn't the faintest idea what was happening to me! And it appeared so natural to me that I thought it was the same for everybody. But my brother and I were great chums (he was only a year and a half older), so I would tell him: "They talk nonsense in history, you know - it is LIKE THIS; it isn't like that: it is LIKE THIS!" And several times the corrections I got on one person or another turned out to be quite exact and detailed. And (I see it now - I understood it later on) they were certainly memories. About some passages I would even say, "How stupid! It was never that; THIS is what was said. It never happened like that; THIS is how it happened." And the book was simply open before me; I was just reading along like any other child and ... suddenly something would occur. It was something in me, of course, but I used to think it was in the book!

I found out many, many things about Joan of Arc - many things. And with stunning precision, which made it extremely interesting. I won't repeat them because I don't remember with exactness, and these things have no value unless they are exact. And then, for the Italian Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa; and for the French Renaissance: François I, Marguerite de Valois, [[Of whom Clement Marot said: "Body of a woman, heart of a man, and face of an angel." ]] and so forth.

Twice I knew that it wasn't just images but something that had happened to ME, but it took another form. Once (when I was older, around twenty) it happened at Versailles. I had been invited to dinner by a cousin who, with no warning, served me dry champagne during dinner - and I drank it unsuspectingly (I who never drank at all, neither wine nor liquor!).... When I had to get up and cross the crowded room, oh, how very difficult it became, so difficult! Then we went to a place near the chateau, with a view of the whole park. And I was staring at the park, when I saw ... I saw the park filling up with lights (the electric lights had vanished), with all kinds of lights, torches, lanterns ... and then crowds of people walking about ... in Louis XIV dress! I was staring at this with my eyes wide open, holding on to the balustrade to keep from falling down (I wasn't too sure of myself!). I was seeing it all, then I saw myself there, engrossed in conversation with some people (I don't remember now, but there were certain "corrections" here too).... I mean I was a certain person (I don't remember who) and there were those two brothers who were sculptors (Mother vainly tries to recollect the names[[Mother later tried to recall the names again, without success: "Those sculptor brothers did a lot of work on the palace at Versailles.... And I am not sure if it wasn't Mme de Montespan. I don't remember any more. This kind of thing should not be talked about vaguely. At the time it was precise, exact: I knew all the names, all the details, all the words - but I never wrote it down and now it's gone. And these things shouldn't be told approximately. I'll do some research on these sculptor brothers. No, just leave it as it is: a few 'vaguenesses' (Mother laughs)." ]]) ... anyhow, all kinds of people were there and I saw myself talking, chatting. And I seem to have been sufficiently in control of myself, because when I related all that I had seen, there were some quite interesting details and corrections. That was one time.

There was another time at Blois. They make Anjou wine at Blois. It was the same story: I never drank anything but water or herb tea, but there was a luncheon and they served us sparkling Anjou wine ... it seemed so light! Afterwards (I was with an artist friend, we were all artists) we went to see the museum, and it appears I was sparkling with wit! And I suddenly halted in front of a painting by ... now let's see, who was it? Coué?... No, Clouet! Clouet: the princess ... one of the princesses. [[Has Mother confused Clouet with Corneille de Lyon? Because it seems there is no Clouet at Blois, but there is a portrait of Madeleine of Scotland, daughter of François 1, painted by Corneille de Lyon. Unless Mother confused Blois with another town and another chateau? ]] And I started making a few remarks out loud (it took me a little while to notice that people were listening). "Look at this!" I was saying. "Just look at this! Look what this fellow has done to me! See what he's done to me - it wasn't at all like that!" It was actually a beautiful painting, but I was quite unhappy about it: "Look what he's done to me! Look - he made this like that, but that's not at all how it was, it was LIKE THIS! " Details.... And then I became aware (I wasn't too conscious physically) ... I realized that people were standing around listening, so I got a grip on myself, and left without a word. But I told my friends, "Listen, it was definitely me! It was MY portrait, it was ME!

Almost all my memories of past lives came like that; the particular being reincarnated in me rises to the surface and begins acting as if it were all on its own! Once in Italy, when I was fifteen, it happened in an extraordinary way. But that time I did some research. I was in Venice with my mother and I researched in museums and archives, and I discovered my name, and the names of the other people involved. I had relived a scene in the Ducal Palace, but relived it in such a ... such an absolutely intense way (laughing - a scene where I was being strangled and thrown into a canal!) that my mother had to hurry me out of there as fast as she could! But that experience I wrote down, so the exact memory has been kept (I didn't write down the other experiences, so the details have all faded away, but this one was noted, although I didn't include any names). The next morning I did some research and uncovered the whole story. I told it all to Théon and Madame Théon, and he also had the memory of a past life there, during the same period. And as a matter of fact, I had seen a portrait there that was the spitting image of Théon! The portrait of one of the doges. It was absolutely (it was a Titian) ... absolutely Théon! HIS portrait, you know, as if it had just been done.[[Here we have a choice between several chilling faces. Of the five portraits of doges by Titian, that of the doge Antonio Crimani, painted between 1555 and 1576, is one of the few that have remained in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. Might this be the one? ]]

All those kinds of things came to me just like that, without my looking for them, wanting them, or understanding them, without doing any sort of discipline, nothing - it was absolutely spontaneous. And they just kept on coming and coming and coming.

From the time I met Théon, it all got clarified: I saw it all clearly, understood and organized it. But a good deal of it happened before - everything I have just told you happened before I met Théon.

"One after the other, these vital beings came," you say, "and some of them have even been in men...."

One of them was in Murat, on the day of his great victory. [[Is the battle in question here that of Eylau (February 8, 1807) or Friedland (June 14, 1807)? ]] It was a vital force that took possession of him and remained just for that victory; and it came into me, so I saw it all! I saw its entry into Murat's body and the whole battle scene - I lived through it all. And once the battle was over, it left him. It was very interesting.

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 230-33 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 30th June 1962

In fact, if I look at the order my own yoga took.... When I was five years old (I must have begun earlier, but the memory is a bit vague and imprecise) ... but from five onwards, in my consciousness (not a mental memory but - how can I put it? - it's noted, a notation in my consciousness) ... well, I began with consciousness. Of course I had no idea what it was. But my first experience was of the consciousness here (gesture above the head), which I felt like a Light and a Force; and I felt it there (same gesture) at the age of five. It was a very pleasant sensation. I would sit in a little armchair made especially for me, all alone in my room, and I ... (I didn't know what it was, you see, not a thing, nothing - mentally zero) and I had a VERY PLEASANT feeling of something very strong, very luminous, and it was here (above the head). Consciousness. And I felt, "That's what I have to live, what I have to be." Not with all those words, naturally, but ... (Mother makes a gesture of aspiration Upward). Then I would pull it down, for it was ... it was truly my raison d'être.

That is my first memory - at five years old. Its impact was more on the ethical side than the intellectual; and yet it took an intellectual

form too, since.... You see, apparently I was a child like any other, except that I was hard to handle. Hard in the sense that I had no interest in food, no interest in ordinary games, no liking for going to my friends' houses for snacks, because eating cake wasn't the least bit interesting! And it was impossible to punish me because I really couldn't have cared less: being deprived of dessert was rather a relief for me! And then I flatly refused to learn reading, I refused to learn. And even bathing me was very hard, because I was put in the care of an English governess, and that meant cold baths - my brother took it in stride, but I just howled! Later it was found to be bad for me (the doctor said so), but that was much later. So you get the picture.

But whenever there was unpleasantness with my relatives, with playmates or friends, I would feel all the nastiness or bad will - all sorts of pretty ugly things that came (I was rather sensitive, for I instinctively nurtured an ideal of beauty and harmony, which all the circumstances of life kept denying)... so whenever I felt sad, I was most careful not to say anything to my mother or father, because my father didn't give a hoot and my mother would scold me - that was always the first thing she did. And so I would go to my room and sit down in my little armchair, and there I could concentrate and try to understand ... in my own way. And I remember that after quite a few probably fruitless attempts I wound up telling myself (I always used to talk to myself; I don't know why or how, but I would talk to myself just as I talked to others): "Look here, you feel sad because so-and-so said something really disgusting to you - but why does that make you cry? Why are you so sad? He's the one who was bad, so he should be crying. You didn't do anything bad to him.... Did you tell him nasty things? Did you fight with her, or with him? No, you didn't do anything, did you; well then, you needn't feel sad. You should only be sad if you've done something bad, but...." So that settled it: I would never cry. With just a slight inward movement, or "something" that said, "You've done no wrong," there was no sadness.

But there was another side to this "someone": it was watching me more and more, and as soon as I said one word or made one gesture too many, had one little bad thought, teased my brother or whatever, the smallest thing, it would say (Mother takes on a severe tone), "Look out, be careful!" At first I used to moan about it, but by and by it taught me: " Don't lament - put right, mend." And when things could be mended - as they almost always could - I would do so. All that on a five to seven-year-old child's scale of intelligence.

So it was consciousness.

Next came the period of learning and developing, but on an ordinary mental level - school years.[[ Mother clarified: "Actually, a growth of consciousness was going on throughout those years of study; I didn't learn things by rote, I needed to understand them; and as soon as I understood something, I knew it. In other words, because the learning period was not yet intellectual, it can be considered part of the period of consciousness development." ]] Curiosity made me want to learn to read. Did I tell you how it happened? When I was around seven, just under seven, my brother, who was eighteen months older, used to bring big pictures home from school with him (you know, pictures for children with captions at the bottom; they're still used nowadays) and he gave me one of them. "What's written there?" I asked. "Read it!" he said. "Don't know how," I replied. "Then learn!" "All right," I told him, "show me the letters." He brought me an A-B-C book. I knew it within two days and on the third day I started reading. That's how I learned. "Oh-oh," they used to say, "this child is backward! Seven years old and she still can't read - disgraceful!" The whole family fretted about it. And then lo and behold, in about a week I knew what should have taken me years to learn - it made them think twice!

Then, school years. I was a very bright student, always for the same reason: I wanted to understand. I wasn't interested in learning things by heart like the others did - I wanted to understand them. And what a memory I had, a fantastic memory for sounds and images! I had only to read a poem aloud at night, and the next morning I knew it. And after I had studied or read a book and someone mentioned a passage to me, I would say, "Ah, yes - that's on page so and so." I would find the page. Nothing had faded, it was all still fresh. But this is the ordinary period of development.

Then at a very young age (about eight or ten), along with my studies I began to paint. At twelve I was already doing portraits. All aspects of art and beauty, but particularly music and painting, fascinated me. I went through a very intense vital development during that period, with, just like in my early years, the presence of a kind of inner Guide; and all centered on studies: the study of sensations, observations, the study of technique, comparative studies, even a whole spectrum of observations dealing with taste, smell and hearing - a kind of classification of experiences. And this extended to all facets of life, all the experiences life can bring, all of them - miseries, joys, difficulties, sufferings, everything - oh, a whole field of studies! And always this presence within, judging, deciding, classifying, organizing and systematizing everything.

Then conscious yoga made a sudden entry into the picture when I met Théon; I must have been about twenty-one. Life's orientation changed, a whole series of experiences took place, with the development of the vital giving interesting occult results.

Then, a period of intensive mental development, mental development of the most complete type: a study of all the philosophies, all the conceptual juggling, in minute detail - delving into systems, getting a grasp on them. Ten years of intensive mental studies leading me to ... Sri Aurobindo.

So I had all this preparation. And I am giving you these details simply to tell you it all began with consciousness (I knew very well what consciousness was, even before I had any word or idea to explain it), consciousness and its force - its force of action, its force of execution. Next, a detailed study and thorough development of the vital. After that, mental development taken to its uppermost limit, where you can juggle with all ideas; a developmental stage where it's already understood that all ideas are true and that there's a synthesis to be made, and that beyond the synthesis lies something luminous and true. And behind it all, a continual consciousness. Such was my state when I came here: I'd had a world of experiences and had already attained conscious union with the Divine above and within - all of it consciously realized, carefully noted and so forth - when I came to Sri Aurobindo.

From the standpoint of shakti, this is the normal course: consciousness, vital, mental and spiritual.

Is it different for men? I don't know. Sri Aurobindo's case was quite special, and apart from him I don't see any convincing example. But generally speaking, what is most developed in a man, along with the mind, is the physical consciousness; the vital is very impulsive, practically ungoverned. That's my experience of the hundreds and hundreds of men I have met. There's normally a physical strength built up through games and exercises, and side by side a more or less advanced, but primarily mental development, very mental. The vital is terribly impulsive and barely organized, except in artists, and even there.... I lived among artists for ten years and found this ground to be mostly fallow. I mingled with all the great artists of the time, I was like a kid sister to them (it was at the turn of the century, with the Universal Exposition in 1900; and these were the leading artists of the epoch); so I was by far the youngest, much younger than any of them - they were all thirty, thirty-five, forty years old, while I was nineteen or twenty. Well I was much more advanced in their own field - not in what I was producing (I was a perfectly ordinary artist), but from the viewpoint of consciousness: observations, experiences, studies.

I am not sure, but it seems to me that the problem of consciousness ought to come first.

page 278-81, Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 25th July 1962.

I have seen that the different stages of my development occurred in twelve-year periods, though I don't recall the exact dates. The first period, from the age of five (I can't start earlier than five!) to about eighteen, dealt with consciousness. Then came all the artistic and vital development, culminating in the occult development with Théon (I met Théon around 1905 or '06, I think[[In fact, Mother met Théon for the first time one day in 1904, in Paris. Then she went to Tlemcen in 1905 and again in 1906. ]]). Then right around this time an intensive mental development began - from 1908 to 1920, or a little before; but it was especially intense before coming here in 1914.

And 1920 marked the beginning of full development. Not spiritual development - that had been going on from the very start -but ACTION, the action with Sri Aurobindo. That was clearly from 1920 on; I had met Sri Aurobindo earlier, but it really began in 1920.[[When Mother returned from Japan in April 1920. ]]

And the realization of the inner Divine?

The dates ... I am no good at dates! And I don't have any papers left to give me precise details. But the realization of the inner Divine must have been in 1911, because that's when I started writing my Meditations. [[The first Prayers and Meditations date from November 1912, but there may have been earlier ones among the numerous texts Mother destroyed. ]] But since my earliest childhood, you know, this presence was always there, with an initial emphasis on consciousness, then on the vital and aesthetics, then on the mind ... and culminating here, in 1920, with action.

From 1911 or '12, up to 1914, there was the whole series of inner experiences, psychic experiences, preparing me to meet Sri Aurobindo (so this ran parallel to my mental development).

In practice, these periods overlap, but approximately every twelve years a particular type of development predominated, in this order: consciousness first, then the vital (mainly from the aesthetic point of view, but a study of sensations as well), then the mind, then spiritual realization. And in between the vital and mental phases came the brief period of occultism, serving both as a transition and a basis for spiritual development.

page 290-91, Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 28th July 1962.

For a long, long time, that was also the one thing I felt was worth living for - Consciousness. When I met Théon and came to understand the mechanism, I also understood why I wasn't conscious at a certain level. I think I've told you how I spent ten months one year working to connect two layers - two layers of consciousness; the contact wasn't established and so I couldn't have the spontaneous experience of a whole spectrum of things. Madame Théon told me, "It's because there's an undeveloped layer between this part and that part." I was very conscious of all the gradations: Théon had explained it all in the simplest terms, so you didn't need to be, as I said, a genius to understand. He had made a quadruple division, and each of them was divided into four, and then again into four, making innumerable divisions of the being; but with that mental simplification you could make in-depth psychological studies of your own being. And so by observation and elimination I eventually discovered that between this and that (gesture indicating two levels of Mother's consciousness), there was an undeveloped layer - it wasn't conscious. So I worked for ten months on nothing but that: absolutely no results. I didn't care, I kept right on, telling myself, "Well, it may take me fifty years to get anywhere, who knows." And then I left for the country (I was living in Paris at the time). I lay down on the grass, and all at once, with the contact of earth and grass, poof! There was a sort of inner explosion - the link was established, and full consciousness came, along with all the ensuing experiences. "Well," I said to myself, "it was worth all the trouble!"

page 335-36 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 5th Sept 1962

The only experience of my life was that world of music - it was overwhelming. It was so.... It was the Divine!

Yes, indeed - that's how it is.

Now that's what I call an experience.

Yes, I understand.

How did it happen?

Simply while I was sleeping one night. In Ceylon.

At what time?

Towards the end of the night, I suppose, because I woke up and I was ... I don't know, for a good two hours I was like someone in a state of shock. "It's not possible," I was saying, "it's not possible." I really couldn't get over it.

Yes, that's an experience! (Mother laughs.)

But you know, when you come into contact with the God within, that's really an experience too. It has the same kind of reality and intensity of your experience, ALONG WITH the sense of the eternal Divine. And it's simply the inner Divine: there's no need to fly off to the heights, it's right here (Mother touches her heart).

It's the experience I had in 1912. The first contact, when you go within and then THAT'S IT ... that concrete reality, that intensity beyond any possible physical intensity. And then the sense of: that's IT - the Divine. This is the Divine. This is the divine Reality; this is it, the Divine. You ARE the Divine.

That's the experience. It's the base, the basic experience. Once you have it, you may progress more or less rapidly; although if you truly give yourself, you progress very rapidly. Externally you are in a position where, having that experience, you could cover the whole path in a matter of years and straight-away begin the work of transformation (Mother touches her body).

To have it (just to give you an idea) took me a year of exclusive concentration on finding that within myself - that is, to enter into contact with the immanent God. I did nothing but that, thought of nothing but that, wanted nothing but that. There was even a rather funny instance, because I had resolved to do it (I had already been working for a very long time, of course; Madame Théon had told me about my mission on earth and all that, so you can imagine - I am talking about the psychic being belonging to this present creation, this formation - Mother touches her body) ... anyway, it was New Year's Eve and I decided: "Within the coming year." I had a large, almost square studio, a bit bigger than this room, with a door leading onto a patio. I opened the little door and looked at the sky and there, just as I looked, was a shooting star. You know the tradition: if you formulate an aspiration just as you see a shooting star, before the star disappears, it will be realized within the year. And there, just as I opened the door, was a shooting star - I was totally in my aspiration: "Union with the inner Divine." And before the end of December of the following year, I had the experience.

But I was entirely concentrated on that. I was in Paris, and I did nothing else but that; when I walked down the street, I was thinking only of that. One day, as I was crossing the Boulevard Saint Michel, I was almost run over (I've told you this), because I was thinking of nothing but that - concentrating, concentrating ... like sitting in front of a closed door, and it was painful! (intense gesture to the chest) Physically painful, from the pressure. And then suddenly, for no apparent reason - I was neither more concentrated nor anything else - poof! It opened. And with that.... It didn't just last for hours, it lasted for months, mon petit! It didn't leave me, that light, that dazzling light, that light and immensity. And the sense of THAT willing, THAT knowing, THAT ruling the whole life, THAT guiding everything - since then, this sense has never left me for a minute. And always, whenever I had a decision to make, I would simply stop for a second and receive the indication from there.

But that was ages ago. I have done a lot of things since then. It was long ago, in 1912. And now ... oh, this old carcass!

It does its best.

page 399-400 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 30th Oct. 1962

Oh, listen (this is not meant to be published or told), I don't know if I've told you already. I was nine or ten years old, I was running with some friends in the forest of Fontainebleau (I've told this story somewhere). The forest is rather dense, so you can't see very far ahead. We were running, and speeding along as I was, I didn't see I was coming to the edge overhanging the road. The place where we were was about ten feet above the road (more than a story high), and the road was paved with stones - freshly paved. And we were running. I was racing ahead, the others were behind. Well, I'd built up such momentum that I couldn't stop - whoosh! I went sailing into the air. I was ten, eleven at the most, mind you, with no notion of the miraculous or the marvelous, nothing, nothing - I was just flung into the air. And I felt something supporting me, holding me up, and I was literally SET DOWN on the ground, on the stones. I got up (I found it perfectly natural, you understand!): not a scratch, not a speck of dust, nothing, absolutely intact. I fell down very, very slowly. Then everyone rushed up to see. "Oh, it's nothing!" I said, "I am all right." And I left it at that. But the impression lingered. That feeling of something carrying me (gesture of a slow fall, like a leaf falling in stages with slight pauses): I fell down that slow. And the material proof was there, it was no illusion since I was unscathed - the road was paved with stones (you know the flint stones of France?): not a scratch, nothing. Not a speck of dust.

The soul was very alive at the time, and with all its strength it resisted the intrusion of the material logic [[Just what presides over the "inevitability" of accidents, including gravitation, illness and death. ]] of the world - so it seemed to me perfectly natural. I simply thought, "No. Accidents can't happen to me."

But flung like that! ... For a very long time the memory of the SENSATION remained: something that went like this (same gesture of a leaf falling) and simply set me down on the road. When I worked with Théon, the memory came back, and I saw it was an entity: what people in Europe call angels (what do they call it?) ... guardian angels, that's right. An entity. Théon had told me of certain worlds (worlds of the higher intellect - I don't remember, he had named all the different planes), and in that world are winged beings - who have wings of their own free choice, because they find it pretty! And Madame Théon had always seen two such beings with me. Yet she knew me more than ten years later. And it appears they were always with me. So I took a look and, sure enough, there they were. One even tried to draw: he asked me to lend him my hand to do drawings. I lent my hand, but when I saw the drawing (he did one), I told him, "The ones I do without you are much better!" So that was the end of the matter!

What did it depict?

Funny drawings. One showed a sea with a rock and a small figure (that one was the best). A high cliff, a tiny figure, and then the sea. It wasn't very good!

I would lend my hand and look elsewhere - I didn't look at what I was drawing to make sure there was no subconscious interference. And I could distinctly feel his hand moving mine. After a while, I said to myself, "I think I'll take a look." I looked - "I say," I told him, "It's not up to much!"

It was in Tlemcen.

That kind of oddity never interested me. I found them simply natural. But these are what people call miracles.

page 73-74 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 9th March 1963

There was another occurrence (less striking), once in a room as long as this one and wider, [[About forty feet long and thirteen feet wide. ]] the salon in my family's house. Some little friends had come and we were playing. I told them, "I'll show you how one should dance." I went to a corner of the room to get the longest distance to another corner, and I told them, "One single step in the middle." And I did it! (Mother laughs) I sprang (I didn't even feel I was jumping, it was like dancing, you know, like when they dance on point), landed on the tips of my toes, bounced up and reached the other corner - you can't do that alone, even champions cannot. The length of the jump went beyond records, because afterwards I asked here, when we started physical exercises at the Ashram, I asked what the longest jump was - mine was longer! And they take a run up, you see, they run and then jump. But I didn't run: I was standing in the corner, and hop! up I went (I said "hop!" to myself, soundlessly), and frrrt! I landed on the tips of my toes, bounced and landed the other side - quite evidently I was carried.

All this took place before the age of thirteen or fourteen (from eight to thirteen or fourteen). Many things of the kind, all of which seemed to me perfectly natural - it didn't feel as though I was doing something miraculous. Perfectly natural.

I remember also, once, there were iron hoops (I don't know if they still exist) bordering the lawns in the Bois de Boulogne - and I used to take a walk on them! It was a challenge I threw to my brother (there was a difference of sixteen months between us, he was older - and much better behaved too!). I told him, "Can you walk on these?" "Leave me alone," he answered, "it's not interesting." "Just watch!" I told him. And I started walking on them, with such ease! As if I had done it all my life. It was the same phenomenon: I felt weightless.

Always the feeling of being carried: something holding me up, carrying me. And now if I compare the movement or the sensation ... it's the same as that vast movement of wings - the same vibration.

After thirteen or fourteen years, it became more difficult. But before that, it was really fine.

page 74-75 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 9th March 1963

But I found a far lovelier miracle.... It was at Tlemcen, I was playing the piano, I don't recall what (a Beethoven or a Mozart piece). Théon had a piano (because his English secretary used to play the piano), and this piano was in his drawing room, which was on a level with the mountain, halfway up, almost at the top. That is to say, you had to climb two flights of stairs inside the house to reach the drawing room, but the drawing room had large French doors opening out onto the mountainside - it was very beautiful. So then, I used to play in the afternoon, with the French doors wide open. One day, when I finished playing, I turned around to get up, and what did I see but a big toad, all warts - a huge toad - and it was going puff, puff, puff (you know how they inflate and deflate), it was inflating and deflating, inflating and deflating ... as though it were in seventh heaven! It had never heard anything so marvelous! It was all alone, as big as this, all round, all black, all warts, between those high doors - French doors wide open to the sun and light. It sat in the middle. It went on for a little while, then when it saw the music was over, it turned around, hop-hop-hopped ... and vanished.

That admiration of a toad filled me with joy! It was charming.

(silence)

Also when I was eleven or twelve, my mother rented a cottage at the edge of a forest: we didn't have to go through the town. I used to go and sit in the forest all alone. I would sit lost in reverie. One day (it happened often), one day some squirrels had come, several birds, and also (Mother opens her eyes wide), deer, looking on.... How lovely it was! When I opened my eyes and saw them, I found it charming - they scampered away.

The memory of all these things returned AFTERWARDS, when I met Théon - long afterwards, when I was more than twenty, that is, more than ten years later. I met Théon and got the explanation of these things, I understood. Then I remembered all that had happened to me, and I thought, "Well! ..." Because Madame Théon said to me (I told her all my childhood stories), she said to me, "Oh, but I know, you are THAT, the stamp of THAT is on you." I thought over what she had said, and I saw it was indeed true. All those experiences I had were very clear indications that there were certainly people in the invisible looking after me! (Mother laughs)

Interestingly there was nothing mental about it: I didn't know the existence of those things, I didn't know what meditation was - I meditated without the least idea of what it was. I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, my mother had kept it all completely taboo: those matters are not to be touched, they drive you crazy!

Later, the memories came back.

page 76-77 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 9th March 1963

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. People would get pneumonia after three days, and plop! finished. In Japan they never have epidemics (it's a country where epidemics are unknown), so they were caught unawares; it was an ideal breeding ground, absolutely unprepared - incredible: people died by the thousands every day, it was incredible! Everybody lived in terror, they didn't dare to go out without masks over their mouths. Then somebody whom I won't name asked me (in a brusque tone), "What Is this?" I answered him, "Better not think about it." "Why not?" he said, "It's very interesting! We must find out, at least you are able to find out whatever this is." Silly me, I was just about to go out; I had to visit a girl who lived at the other end of Tokyo (Tokyo is the largest city in the world, it takes a long time to go from one end to the other), and I wasn't so well-off I could go about in a car: I took the tram.... What an atmosphere! An atmosphere of panic in the city! You see, we lived in a house surrounded by a big park, secluded, but the atmosphere in the city was horrible. And the question, "What Is this?" naturally came to put me in contact - I came back home with the illness. I was sure to catch it, it had to happen! (laughing) I came home with it.

Like a bang on the head - I was completely dazed. They called a doctor. There were no medicines left in the city - there weren't enough medicines for people, but as we were considered important people (!) the doctor brought two tablets. I told him (laughing), "Doctor, I never take any medicines." "What!" he said. "It's so hard to get them!" "That's just the point," I replied, "they're very good for others!" Then, then ... suddenly (I was in bed, of course, with a first-rate fever), suddenly I felt seized by trance - the real trance, the kind that pushes you out of your body - and I knew. I knew: "It's the end; if I can't resist it, it's the end." So I looked. I looked and I saw it was a being whose head had been half blown off by a bomb and who didn't know he was dead, so he was hooking on to anybody he could to suck life. And each of those beings (I saw one over me, doing his "business"!) was one of the countless dead. Each had a sort of atmosphere - a very widespread atmosphere - of human decomposition, utterly pestilential, and that's what gave the illness. If it was merely that, you recovered, but if it was one of those beings with half a head or half a body, a being who had been killed so brutally that he didn't know he was dead and was trying to get hold of a body in order to continue his life (the atmosphere made thousands of people catch the illness every day, it was swarming, an infection), well, with such beings, you died. Within three days it was over - even before, within a day, sometimes. So once I saw and knew, I collected all the occult energy, all the occult power, and ... (Mother bangs down her fist, as if to force her way into her body) I found myself back in my bed, awake, and it was over. Not only was it over, but I stayed very quiet and began to work in the atmosphere.... From that moment on, mon petit, there were no new cases! It was so extraordinary that it appeared in the Japanese papers. They didn't know how it happened, but from that day on, from that night on, not a single fresh case. And people recovered little by little.

I told the story to our Japanese friend in whose house we were living, I told him, "Well, that's what this illness is - a remnant of the war; and here's the way it happens.... And that being was repaid for his attempt!" Naturally, the fact that I repelled his influence by turning around and fighting ... [dissolved the formation]. But what power it takes to do that! Extraordinary.

page 116-17 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 20th April 1963

I am not positive, but when he gave you this diagram, had he had in himself the conscious meaning, he would have passed it on to you.... I have a feeling he is more like a scholar. He has perhaps more of an impression than an understanding.

But where does the significance of figures come from?

The deeper significance of figures ... There are countless traditions, countless scriptures ... which I took great care not to follow. But the deeper significance of figures came to me in Tlemcen, when I was in the Overmind. I don't remember the names Théon used to give to those various worlds, but it was a world that corresponded to the highest and most luminous regions of Sri Aurobindo's Overmind. It was above, just above the gods' region. And it was something in accord with the Overmind creation - the earth under the gods' influence. That was where figures took on a living meaning for me - not a mental speculation: a living meaning. That was where Madame Théon recognized me, because of the formation of twelve pearls she saw above my head; and she told me, "You are that because you have this. Only that can have this!" (Mother laughs) It hadn't even remotely occurred to me, thank God!

But figures are alive for me. They have a concrete reality.

And this (the diagram) is meant to prepare for the "second birth" mentioned in the Vedas, the spiritual birth. Through it one becomes a complete being, consciously complete.

Of course, it's the beginning of realization. But for many people it's the ultimate term.

I hope it won't tire you out any more.

page 138 , Mother's Agenda, volume 4 , 11th May 1963

It's true, people are generally built for the place where they are to live, but in my case, I felt comfortable only here. Up to the age of thirty, my whole childhood and youth, I always felt cold - always cold. And in winter ... Yet I went skating, did exercises, I led a very active life - but cold, terribly cold! I felt as if I lacked the sun. But when I came here: "Ah, at last! (Mother takes a breath) Now I am comfortable." The first year when I came here, bringing all that accumulated cold in my body, at the height of summer, in this season, I was going about in a woolen suit! A skirt, a blouse and a cloak. People would stare at me.... I didn't even notice it - it was my natural dress.

When I left again, I went by boat (people didn't travel by plane at the time), and when I came to the middle of the Mediterranean, I fell sick - sick from the cold, in the Mediterranean! So you see, I was built for the work here, (laughing) it was foreseen!

page 177 - Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 15th June 1963

"But I can tell you about my own experience. Until the age of about twenty-five, I only knew the God of religions, God as men made him, and I did not want him at any cost. I denied his existence with the certitude that if such a God existed, I detested him.

"Around twenty-five, I found the inner God, and at the same time I learned that the God described by most Western religions was none other than the Great Adversary.

"When I came to India ...

Oh, here we should say how long afterwards.... I was twenty-five, and I was born in 18 ... 78.

It was in 1903.

And I came to India in 1914. We should specify that. It's around 1903 that I had the experience of the inner Divine.

"When I came to India in 1914 and I knew Sri Aurobindos teaching, everything became very clear."

page 118-19 , Mother's Agenda , volume 11 , 25th March - 1970

I acquired that psychic consciousness just before leaving for Tlemcen. And it grew stronger there.

page 158 - Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 15th Apr - 1972-1973