Apropos of Chaturvarņa in Sanatan Dharma VIII, Paulette
has sent me the Mother’s talk dated 25 August 1954 [CWM, Vol. 6, pp. 291-95]
bearing on this theme. The relevant part of it is being posted here to recognise the possibilities beyond the present social order, possibilities as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo. Our sincere
thanks to Paulette not only for this, but also for the significant comment she
has made in this regard: “As for the system of Chaturvarņa, streaming from the
Virat Purusha or Universal Spirit and codified by Manu, it was strictly related
to the individual’s swabhāva, one’s
inborn nature, the truth of one’s being, which determined one’s belonging to a
specific varņa. As such, Chaturvarņa
has nothing to do with the perversion of the caste system, rigidly established
on heredity instead of one’s inner predisposition. As Sri Aurobindo points out,
the betrayal of Chaturvarna is a major cause of the present degeneration.”
25 August
1954
[This talk is based upon Chapter 6 of The Mother by Sri Aurobindo.]
There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother,
but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with
so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences
indispensable for the supramental realisation,—most of all one who is her
Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda which flows from
a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the
highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the
Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divinest Life and even now supports
from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.
Sweet Mother, what Personality is this and when will
she manifest?
I have prepared my answer. I knew someone would ask me
that, because of all things this is the most interesting in this passage, and I
have prepared my answer. I have prepared my answer to this and my answer to
another question also. But first I am going to read this one.
You asked: “What personality is this and when will she come?”
(Silence) And this is my reply:
“She has come, bringing with her a splendour of power
and love, an intensity of divine joy unknown to the earth so far.
The physical atmosphere was completely changed by it, saturated
with new and marvellous possibilities.
But for her to be able to settle and act down here, she
needed to meet with at least a minimum of receptivity, to find at least one
human being having the requisite qualities in the vital and physical nature, a
kind of super-Parsifal endowed with a spontaneous and integral purity, but at
the same time having a strong and balanced body in order to bear the intensity
of the Ananda she had brought without giving way.
Till now she has not obtained what was necessary. Men obstinately
remain men and do not want to or cannot become supermen. They can only receive
and express a love cut to their measure—a human love! And the marvellous joy of
the divine Ananda escapes their perception.
So, at times, she thinks of withdrawing, finding that
the world is not ready to receive her. And this would be a cruel loss. It is
true that for the moment her presence is more nominal than active, for she does
not have the opportunity to manifest herself. But even so, she is a powerful
help in the Work. For, of all the aspects of the Mother, this is the one which
has the greatest power for the transformation of the body. Indeed, the cells
which are able to vibrate to the contact of divine joy, to receive and preserve
it, are regenerated cells on the way to becoming immortal. But the vibrations of
divine joy and those of pleasure cannot lodge together in the same vital and
physical system. So one must have totally
renounced experiencing all pleasure in order to be in a state to receive the
Ananda. But very few are those who can renounce pleasure without, by the very
fact, renouncing all participation in active life and plunging into a rigorous asceticism.
And among those who know that it is in active life that the transformation must
take place, some try to see pleasure as a more or less warped form of Ananda, and
thus justify in themselves the quest for personal satisfaction, creating in
themselves an almost insuperable obstacle to their own transformation.”
Shall we stop here? We shall finish next time. That
will give me time to find out.
There, then. Now, if you want to ask something... (Long silence) Speak!
Whoever wants to say something may speak... anybody who
wants to say something, not only the students.
If one has not
succeeded, Mother, one can try?
What?
If one hasn’t
succeeded so far, one can try?
Oh, one can always try.... The world is recreated at
every moment. You can recreate a new world this very moment if you know how to
create it, that is, if you are capable of changing your nature.
I have not said that she has gone away. I said that she
thinks of going away, sometimes, from time to time.
But, Mother,
she came down because she must have seen some possibility!
Eh?
She came down because there was a possibility, because things
had come to a certain stage and the time had come when she could descend. In
fact she came down because I thought it was possible that... she could succeed.
(Silence) There are always possibilities, only... they must materialise. You
see, a proof of what I told you is that it happened at a given moment and
during... for two or three weeks, the atmosphere, not only of the Ashram but of
the earth, was surcharged with such power, precisely, with so intense a divine
joy, which creates so wonderful a power that things which were difficult to do
before could be done almost instantaneously! There were repercussions in the whole
world. I don’t think there was one among you who was aware of it. You couldn’t
even tell me when it happened, could you?
When did it
happen? (Laughter)
I don’t know the dates. I don’t know. I don’t remember dates.
I could tell you approximately, like that... (Silence) Perhaps if I consult my
papers I would .nd the dates. But I don’t know the dates. These, for me, are
things which... All I know is that it happened before Sri Aurobindo left the body,
that he had been told beforehand and recognised the fact...
(Silence)
There was a terrible fight with the inconscient; for,
as I saw that the receptivity was not what it ought to be, I put the
responsibility for it on the inconscient and it was there that I tried to give
battle. I don’t say that this had no result, but between
the result obtained and the result hoped for, there was
a great difference.
But I tell you this, you see... you are all so close,
you bathe in the atmosphere, but... who was aware of anything? You continued to
live your little life as usual, didn’t you?
(Silence)
I think it was
in 1946, Mother, for you told us so many things at that time!
Right!
(Long silence)
Sweet Mother,
now that she has come, what should we do?
Eh?
What should we do?
You do not know? You... (Silence) Try to change your consciousness.
(Long silence)