The Mother spoke of two aspects of her work: Ascent and Descent. The first consisted of realising the highest possible transcendental states, akin to the Vedic climbing up of the ascending slopes of heaven, ranges and ranges rising above the worlds of Ignorance. She says that it was a much easier task and she accomplished it at a very early stage of her spiritual life. In fact already by 1911 she had discovered the Mantra and spoke of making a resolution to raise ourselves “towards the Supreme Light… so that it may pervade us entirely and illumine with its great brilliance our minds and hearts, all our thoughts and our actions.” The path of Descent was a much tougher one and she took it up after meeting Sri Aurobindo in 1914. But the real decisive work on it began after 1956. This is the work related to the manifestation of the Supreme Light even in this world of Ignorance. Aswapati in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, after the supramental realization and the oneness of this entire creation, recognizes that a yet “mightier task” remains to be done if there has to be success of his own yogic pursuit. The Mother’s work is related with that “mightier task”. Her work is to make manifest the possibilities of the spirit in this material creation. She was intensely busy with it during the last eighteen years or so. She has disclosed some of those achievements of hers in the course of talks which have been recorded as The Mother’s Agenda. We shall excerpt these under the title The Yoga of the Cells by the Mother. To begin with, we shall follow her Collected Works Vol. 11, Notes on the Way.

The Publisher’s Note states the following: “During the years 1961 to 1973 the Mother had frequent conversations with one of her disciples about the experiences she was having at the time. She called these conversations, which were in French, l’Agenda. Selected transcripts of the tape-recorded conversations were seen, approved and occasionally revised by the Mother for publication in the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education; they appeared regularly from February 1965 to April 1973 under the titles Notes on the Way and A Propos. The English translations that accompanied the French text in the Bulletin were sometimes read out to the Mother for approval; the same translations, with minor revisions, are published in this volume, number eleven of the Collected Works of the Mother. The following introductory note preceded the first of the Notes on the Way conversations: “We begin under this title to publish some fragments of conversations with the Mother. These reflections or experiences, these observations, which are very recent, are like landmarks on the way of Transformation: they were chosen not only because they illumine the work under way—a yoga of the body of which all the processes have to be established—but because they can be a sort of indication of the endeavour that has to be made.”

7 October 1964

Things have clearly taken a turn for the better, not from the ordinary point of view but from the higher. Yet the material consequences are still there—all the difficulties are as though aggravated. Only, the power of the consciousness is greater—clearer, more precise. …

But the way is still long—long, long. I feel it is very long. One must last—hold on, above all, that is the impression—one must have endurance. These are the two absolutely indispensable things: endurance, and a faith that nothing can shake, even an apparently complete negation, even if you suffer, even if you are miserable. …

The big difficulty in Matter is that the material consciousness (that is to say, the mind in Matter) has been formed under the pressure of difficulties—difficulties, obstacles, sufferings, struggles. It has been, so to say, “worked out” by these things and that has left upon it a stamp, almost of pessimism, defeatism, which is certainly the greatest obstacle.

It is of this that I am conscious in my own work. The most material consciousness, the most material mind is accustomed to act, to make an effort, to advance through whippings; otherwise, it is tamas. And then, so far as it imagines, it imagines always difficulty, always the obstacle or always the opposition, and that slows down the movement terribly. Very concrete, very tangible and often repeated experiences are needed to convince it that behind all its difficulties there is a Grace, behind all its failures there is the Victory, behind all its pains, its sufferings, its contradictions, there is Ananda. Of all efforts it is this one which has to be repeated most often. …

I am speaking exclusively of the material consciousness. …

I understand well why the Truth, the Truth-Consciousness does not express itself more constantly, because the difference between its Power and the power of Matter is so great that the power of Matter is, as it were, annulled—but then that does not mean transformation, that means crushing. That is what they used to do in ancient times—they crushed all this material consciousness under the weight of a Power against which nothing can struggle, which nothing can oppose. And then one had the impression: “There you are! It has been done.” But it has not been done, not at all!—for the rest, down below, remained as before, without changing.

Now it is being given the full possibility to change; well, for that you must allow it full play and not interpose a Power that crushes it—this I understand very well. But this consciousness has the obstinacy of the imbecile. … the very first reaction of this imbecile material consciousness is: “Ah! We shall see how long that is going to last”, and naturally, by this movement it demolishes everything—one must begin all over again.

I believe that for the effect to be lasting—not a miraculous effect that comes, dazzles and goes away—it must really be the effect of a transformation. One must be very, very patient—we have to deal with a consciousness very slow, very heavy, very obstinate, which is not able to advance rapidly, which clings to what it has, to what has appeared to it as truth; even if it is quite a tiny truth, it clings to that and does not want to move. Then to cure that, one must have very much patience—much patience.

Triumph comes to the most enduring. ... In the last few days, yesterday or the day before, there was this experience: a kind of consciousness wholly decentralized (I am speaking always of the physical consciousness, not of the higher consciousness at all), a decentralised consciousness which happened to be here, there, there, in this body, in that body, then there was a kind of intervention of a universal consciousness with regard to the cells, as though it asked those cells for what reason they wanted to keep this combination, if one can call it so, or that conglomerate. Indeed, they were made to understand or feel the difficulties coming from the number of years, the wear and tear, the external difficulties, in sum, all the deterioration caused by friction and usage—but that seemed to them quite unimportant. The answer was rather interesting in the sense that they did not seem to attach importance to anything other than the capacity to remain in conscious contact with the higher Force. It was like an aspiration (not formulated in words, naturally), what is called in English “a yearning”, “a longing” for this contact with the divine Force, the Force of Harmony, the Force of Truth, the Force of Love. And it is because of that that they appreciate the present combination. …

At that moment, this universal consciousness intervened, saying, “There!—the obstacles”, and these obstacles were clearly seen, but the cells themselves cared nothing for it; it appeared to them as a kind of disease. Then, at that moment, there was born a kind of lower power to act upon these things (this physical mind); that has given a material power to separate itself from that and reject it. And it is after that that there was this turning of which I spoke just now, the turning in the circumstances as a whole, as if truly something decisive had happened. There was as though a confident joy: “Ah! We are free from this nightmare.”

And at the same time, a relief—a physical relief, as though the air was easier to breathe—yes, a little as though one was closed in a shell—a suffocating shell—and that... in any case an opening has been made within. And you breathe. I do not know if it is more than that, but it is as though a fissure was made, an opening, and you breathe.

And it was an altogether material, cellular action. But as you descend into that domain, the domain of the cells, even of the very constitution of the cells, how it seems less heavy! This sort of heaviness of Matter disappears—it begins again to be fluid, vibrant. This would tend to prove that the heaviness, thickness, inertia, immobility, is something added, it is not a quality essential to... it is the false Matter, that which we think and feel, but not Matter itself, as it is. This was clearly felt. …

And naturally, the thirst for progress, the thirst for knowledge, the thirst for transformation and, above all, the thirst for Love and Truth—if one keeps that, one goes quicker. Truly a thirst, a need, a need.

All the rest has no importance; it is that one has need of. … The “Something” one is in need of, the Love one is in need of, the Truth one is in need of, the supreme Perfection one is in need of—and that is all. ... But that: a need, which the Thing alone can satisfy—nothing else, no half-measure, only that. And then, you go! ...