The cells of the body have made such tremendous
progress that they are constantly offering a prayer to the supreme Lord of the Universe, they
imploring for the strength and the beauty, the harmonious perfection needed to
be the Divine’s instruments upon earth. The body is fully awake, the cells live
consciously, aspire consciously, by themselves, without the interference from the
vital and the mental: the consciousness is working directly in them. The mind
of the physical has been converted, has become silent; in that silence it
receives the inspiration of the Consciousness. This mind of the physical, the physical’s
mind, is illumined, is conscious, organised, and it expresses itself in
prayers. While all is one single substance, the material cells have to obtain
the capacity to receive and to manifest consciousness. This is what is being
done. There is certitude that a new form will take birth, which will be what
Sri Aurobindo called the supramental form. “It is the body that ends by saying
the mantra! Spontaneously, so spontaneously that even if you by chance think of
other things, your body will be saying the mantra. And it is the body that
aspires, the body that says the mantra, the body that wants the light, the body
that wants the consciousness.” The significant aspect is, once it is done, once
one body has done it, it has the capacity to pass it on to others. The progress
is there, and there are happy conversations among the cells: “Imbecile that you
are! Why do you have fear? Don’t you see it is the Lord himself who is doing
this to transform you?” Yet the other: “Ah! ...” The difficulty is, of these
“Ah-wallahs”. But there is the advance, and it looks so wonderful. Now, there
is a kind of suppleness, there is plasticity. “And then, the splendour of the
Presence.” Wow!
This physical’s mind is, pointed out Sri Aurobindo, an
impossibility, but impossibility not in the sense of hopelessness or
infeasibility but in terms of impracticality at a point of advance; in fact Sri
Aurobindo worked to remove that impossibility—and this is what the Mother means
while referring it to him. She said on another occasion, 18 December 1971, “Sri
Aurobindo has said that if the physical mind is transformed, the transformation
of the body would follow quite naturally.”
The physical’s mind receiving the supramental Light he called as the Mind of
Light which was already established in him and which he passed on to the Mother
the moment he withdrew on 5 December 1950. Sri Aurobindo himself has said: “It
is only when the Supramental manifests in the body-mind that its presence can
be permanent.”
22 November
1967
I have written a prayer, the prayer of the cells of the
body:
Now that, by the effect of the Grace, we are slowly
emerging out of inconscience and waking to a conscious life, an ardent prayer
rises in us for more light, more consciousness: “O Supreme Lord of the
universe, we implore Thee, give us the strength and the beauty, the harmonious
perfection needed to be Thy divine instruments upon earth.”
It is almost a proclamation, this prayer of the body. Yes,
people in their mind and their vital asked to become divine; well, it is all
the old story of spirituality, reiterated for centuries. No, now it is the
body. It is the body that wants to participate. It is altogether a progress.
How to awaken this aspiration in the body? But it is
already fully awake for months in me! How is it done?—it is in the process of
being done. If it has been done in one single body, it can be done in all
bodies.
Yes, but how? Well, first of all, to awaken the
consciousness in the cells... The consciousness wakes up more and more, the
cells live consciously, aspire consciously. The same consciousness which was
the monopoly of the vital and the mind has become that of the body: the
consciousness is working in the cells of the body. They are becoming conscious,
wholly conscious, a consciousness not depending at all upon the vital or the
mental consciousness: it is a bodily consciousness.
And this physical mind [the mind of the physical] of
which Sri Aurobindo said that it was an impossibility, that it was something
that turns round and round and will always turn round and round, precisely
without consciousness, like a kind of machine, that mind has been converted,
has become silent, and in the silence it has received the inspiration of the
Consciousness. And it has begun again to pray: the same prayers that were there
before in the mind.
But since it is happening in one body, it can happen in
all bodies! I am not made of something different from the others. The difference
is in consciousness; that is all. It is made exactly of the same thing, with
the same things, I eat the same things, and it was made in the same way,
absolutely.
And it was as stupid, as obscure, as unconscious, as
obstinate as all the bodies of the world. And this began... and then slowly,
slowly, slowly the cells woke up to a new receptivity and opened themselves to
the Divine Influence directly.
Otherwise there would be no hope. If this matter that
started by being... Even a pebble is already an organisation—certainly it was
worse than a pebble: unconscious, inert, absolute; and then, little by little,
little by little that woke up. It sees, yes, it sees, it has only to open its
eyes to see. Well, it is the same thing which happens: for the animal to become
a man it did not require anything other than the infusion of a consciousness, a
mental consciousness; and now it is the awakening of this consciousness which
was altogether at the bottom, the very bottom. The mind is withdrawn, the vital
is withdrawn, all is withdrawn. At the time when I was said to be ill, the mind
was gone, the vital was gone; the body was left to itself—purposely. Yes, it is
that, it is just because the vital and the mental were gone that it gave the
impression of a very serious illness. And then, in the body left to itself,
little by little the cells began to wake up to the consciousness (gesture of aspiration rising up); this consciousness
that was infused into the body by the vital (from the mental into the vital, from the vital into the body), when
both had disappeared, the consciousness emerged slowly, slowly. That started
with a burst of the Love from the highest summit, the last supreme altitude,
and then little by little, little by little, it came down into the body. And
then this physical mind, [the physical’s mind,] that is to say, something
altogether, altogether stupid, which used to turn round and round, repeating
always the same thing, a hundred times the same thing, little by little it was
illumined, became conscious, was organised, and then it entered into the
silence; then in the silence the aspiration expressed itself in prayers.
It is the contradiction of all the spiritual assertions
of the past: “If you want to live fully conscious of the divine life, give up
your body—the body cannot follow.”
Well, Sri Aurobindo came and said: the body, not only
can it follow, it can even be the base for manifesting the Divine.
The work remains to be done.
But now a certitude is there. The result remains still
far off, very far; much has to be done before the crust, the experience of the
most external surface as it is, manifests what is happening within (not
“within” in the spiritual depths: within the body). To enable that to manifest
what is within... This will come last, and it is good it is so, for if it came
before time, one would neglect the work.
But it is all one single substance, all similar
everywhere, and everywhere it was unconscious; and then what is remarkable is that
automatically things are happening altogether unexpected, here and there, in
people who do not even know anything.
The material cells have to obtain the capacity to
receive and to manifest consciousness. And then an eternal and indefinite
ascent, there is the appearance of a new type—it is a descent from above. The
previous descent was a mental descent, and this one, Sri Aurobindo calls it a
supramental descent; the impression is that of a descent of the supreme
Consciousness which infuses itself into something that is capable of receiving it
and manifesting it. And then, out of this, when it has been thoroughly churned
(how long it will take, one does not know), a new form will take birth, which
will be what Sri Aurobindo called the supramental form.
How is one going to reach there? ... There will surely
be stages in the manifestation, with perhaps a specimen that will come and say:
this is how it is. This means that the coming of the superhuman being... it may
very well pass unperceived or not be understood. One cannot say, for there is
no analogy. But with regard to all that is superior to man, man has been accustomed
to think that these were beings... divine beings, that is to say, they had no
body, they appeared in the light—in short, all the gods as they have been
conceived—but it is not at all like that. ...
The body is not an ass, poor fellow! For me that
problem never arose, because... When one plays music or does painting, one sees
very well that the consciousness enters into the cells and these cells become
conscious. This experience, for example: there are things in a box and one says
to the hand: “Take twelve”; (without counting, like that) the hand picks up the
twelve and gives them to you. That is an experience that I had long, long ago.
At the age of twenty I started having experiences like that, therefore I know.
I knew how the consciousness works. Well, it is impossible to learn piano or to
do painting unless the consciousness enters into the hands and the hands become
conscious independently of the head. The head can be busy elsewhere, that has
no importance. Besides, this is exactly what happens in the case of people
called somnambulists: they have a consciousness belonging to the body that
makes them move and do things [that are] quite independent of the mind and the
vital.
It is the body that ends by saying the mantra!
Spontaneously, so spontaneously that even if you by chance think of other
things, your body will be saying the mantra. And it is the body that aspires,
the body that says the mantra, the body that wants the light, the body that
wants the consciousness—you, you can think of other things, Tom, Dick or Harry,
a book, etc., it has no importance.
But now I understand very well, very well; in the
beginning I did not understand, I believed that I was made “ill” so that I would
stop the life that I was leading. ... So now I understand: it was cut off from
the vital and the mental and left to its own resources; it was simply the body:
all that it knew, all the experiences it had had, all the mastery that was
there in all the states of being, the vital, the mental and above, all that
gone! and this poor body left to itself. And then naturally, little by little,
all that was rebuilt, rebuilt, a conscious, purely conscious being.
Yes, I understand, I understand. But truly it was cut
off, that I have known—I have seen—cut off, the states of being sent away: “Go
away, you are no longer wanted.” And then a new life needed to be built up. And
instead of the necessity of passing through all the states of being as was done
before, by successive awakenings up to the highest, the very highest, beyond
form—now it is not at all like that, it needed nothing at all of all that, it has
simply to... (gesture of aspiration that
rises and opens like a flower). Something has opened and developed
within... it was the direct contact, without any intermediary—direct contact.
And that it has now, all the while. All the while, all the while, the direct contact.
And it is the body, it is not through all kinds of things and states of being,
not at all, it is direct.
But once it is done (Sri Aurobindo has said this), once
one body has done it, it has the capacity to pass it on to others: now here and
there, all of a sudden one or another experience occurs in people. There are
some who are not afraid! “Ah! ...” Something altogether new, altogether
unexpected. It is contagious, this I know.
Something is translated in words and then there are
conversations among the cells (the Mother
laughs): “Imbecile that you are! Why do you have fear? Don’t you see it is
the Lord himself who is doing this to transform you?” And the other: “Ah!...” Then
it remains quiet, and then opens itself and waits, and then... the pain goes
away, the disorder goes away, and everything is put in order.
It is wonderful.
But if by mischance the mind comes in, starts to help
or judge, then the whole thing stops, and all fall back into the old habit. In
reality, it is the ego, vital, mental, etc., all that has been, pouf! taken
away. It was a radical operation.
And so now, there is a kind of suppleness, plasticity.
And all this is learning—it is very much in relation with the whole (horizontal gesture), but it is learning
to look for all its support, all its force, all its knowledge, all its light,
all its will, all, all, like that (vertical
gesture, turned to the Supreme), solely like that, in an extraordinary
plasticity.
And then, the splendour of the Presence.