This month we enter the period of Kali when her activity is quite intense. The Mother often spoke about this great and mighty goddess and her different ways of being and action. But She also mentioned what is preferred approach with regard to the Integral Yoga. It is against this background that we base this talk today, the last of this year.
Words of the Mother
(The day before ‘Kali Puja,’ the ritual festival devoted each year in India to the goddess Kali, the warrior aspect of the universal Mother)
She has already been here for two days and … Oh, yesterday especially, she was so … in such a mood! – like a warrior. I said to her, ‘But why not change them through … through an excess of love?’
So then she answered (I remember how she put it), ‘First a good punch in the chest (she didn’t say ‘in the nose’!), a good punch in the chest, and then when they’re down, gasping for air, they’re ready.’
That’s one opinion!
October 19, 1960
* * *
The world isn’t ready. That’s the worst part.
The world isn’t ready.
So then, if it is Kali, it means everything back to the melting pot, and with the means at their disposal, that may mean having to start the whole civilization from scratch again – how many centuries wasted?
What has come down to us from the civilizations that disappeared?… Nothing. Nothing, not even one exact bit of information.
All that, all this Matter all the time going … (gesture of rising and being swallowed back), making effort, producing forms, producing an element that can manifest consciousness, and then, brff! (gesture of being swallowed back) And again (gesture of rising), and back it goes again – what a terrible waste! A great waste….
I mean that according to my vision (which I don’t think is mine, it’s not a personal vision), nights and days like yesterday (which aren’t pleasant) obviously give you a knowledge, and upheaval [Kali] still belongs to the old method – it’s accepting that the world hasn’t changed. While this sort of apparent shrinking is in fact perhaps the proof that the earth consciousness has changed and is putting pressure on what resists, which gets smaller and smaller, but harder and harder.
Harder and harder, that’s right.
As if all that’s conscious and living were being extracted, and what remains becomes more and more stony.
(silence)
The conscious perception of the two elements (the body is becoming a representative object; not just symbolic: representative), the perception of the state of consciousness of those elements that belong to the past, to the past evolutionary movement, and of those that are open to the new method, if I may say so, is clearer and clearer; it’s perceptible as clearly as, more clearly than external physical things, than the external form (this distinction is physical, but it belongs to the inner construction). Outwardly, it results in fever. It’s a battle. And not a battle of ill wills, it’s not that: it’s a sort of incapacity. And it’s not with violence that we will succeed. You know, the only thing that can triumph is this supreme Vibration of Love, but there is an incapacity to receive, and then (it’s a strange phenomenon), this incapacity to receive causes a sort of sifting, and it’s only elements that are as if watered down that can pass through – the Thing in itself in its true essence cannot…. If you look at it from below, you feel as if That refuses to give itself, but it’s not true, because when you ARE That (laughing), there is no sense of being watered down: That manifests in its plenitude. And see what happens [the sifting]!
And it’s clear (you can see it in very small details) that if there were direct contact, something would be as if shattered – it would cause something to be shattered. Yes, too abrupt, too sudden a change, like something that’s shattered….
* * *
Has one of the new pieces of Ashram gossip reached you two?… I am supposed to have said that Maheshwari75 has manifested in a golden light, that Sri Aurobindo has come (where from, I don’t know!) and said that the world wasn’t ready and that was why there are catastrophes and cyclones – haven’t you heard the story? Anyway, I denied it. First, I said, “Where could Sri Aurobindo come from? He is always here, so he doesn’t need to come!”
The story is unimportant, except that some people were distraught: they were expecting the end of the world! Sri Aurobindo saying “the world isn’t ready” means it’s coming to an end!
Anyway, yesterday (I think it’s in answer to this story of Maheshwari and Sri Aurobindo saying the world isn’t ready), I wrote something in French, but it was under the pressure of Sri Aurobindo’s consciousness. He said (Mother takes a note and reads):
“According to the law of men, the guilty must be punished. But there is a more imperative law than the human law: it is the law of the Divine, the law of compassion and mercy. It is thanks to this law that the world can last and progress …
The vision was so clear. It was such a clear vision…. If you follow this law of the guilty who must be punished, then little by little, with the unfolding of things, everything should be punished! (Mother laughs) Nothing would remain! So Sri Aurobindo said:
“It is thanks to this law that the world can last and progress towards Truth and Love.”
The guilty must be punished! … It’s always the same idea; men always have that idea: the guilty must be punished – but where does that lead to??
(silence)
I also wrote another thing. I told you that on the day of Kali puja she came and was displeased. So I wrote (Mother takes another note and reads):
“They know what should not be done They know what should be done They know how to do it They know everything! … Yet, of all factors, mental arrogance is the most unfavorable to the action of the divine Grace.”…
And I saw this note of yesterday as indicative of the key (I mean “inwardly,” in the universal attitudes). It was all clearly seen: men always believe that the guilty must be punished, that it’s the way out of the difficulty, but the true way is compassion and mercy. It’s not that you are ignorant of the true movement and the false one, but you have SPONTANEOUS mercy, effortlessly – and at all times. The vision was very clear that this is how progress is possible – if the fault were always punished, there wouldn’t be anyone left to progress!
That’s the conclusion.
* * *
It’s precisely because there are too many people like this that the earth is in difficulty! Too many, too many people are in the mind: mental difficulties and more mental difficulties…. You can’t get through (impenetrable gesture). It’s an endless process. And that’s what makes those … bang! those battles, wars, conflicts necessary.
You know, an ardent faith, a psychic aspiration, a fervor, a self-giving, instead of being forever turned in on oneself, turned in on oneself …. A self-giving, that’s what is needed to save the world!
(silence)
Mental faith isn’t enough, psychic fervor is necessary – self giving, self-abnegation.
The body itself is learning that every time it thinks of itself, there’s a small catastrophe – not “catastrophe,” but I mean on the body’s scale: a cellular catastrophe every time it even slightly turns in on itself. It must forget itself completely, forget itself, and most importantly, it must not try to find support, comfort, understanding, help or anything of the sort (horizontal gesture all around) – only there (gesture with the hands open upward and forming a kind of upside down triangle): the only support is the Divine. The only support. The only help, the only responsibility. All the rest…. There isn’t one thing coming from or towards a human being that isn’t mixed; and the moment it’s mixed, it means conflict.
This is a time of extremes, even extremes in the downright material. Did I tell you two the other day that I had received the first flower of a plant which visibly was supramental power – a flower like this (gesture), a hibiscus? And yesterday there was the first flower of another plant, also a hibiscus, this big, snow-white, with such a color at the center! An indefinable color, it can’t be described…. It’s golden pink, but so beautiful that you wonder how such colors can be physical. A flower this big (gesture, about five inches), the first flower was yesterday. And that was VISIBLY (it expressed itself, you know) the Victory of Love, the Power of Love…. It’s as if all this physical Nature were, oh, like this (gesture of intense aspiration), trying – she tries, and there is a Response. They are blessed not to have a mind.
It was beautiful. It doesn’t keep, otherwise I would have kept it to show it to you. How beautiful it was! Like this (same gesture of fervent aspiration): a thirst, a thirst for the Divine, a thirst for the Divine. All those mental ratiocinations and complications, it all goes round and round in circles. Yes, it does bring about what’s now taking place: a sordid conflict, really sordid, between Falsehood and Truth.
And the government is rotten. People whose very tactics and principle of action are falsehood: to deceive and deceive and deceive. And naturally, to deceive themselves.
You know that these are the Puja days: there were Durga’s days, and there will soon be Kali’s day. So then, all the Powers are like this (gesture ready to strike), at the slightest hint they would charge down. And one is obliged to hold them (immobilizing gesture), to take great care not to have the least indignation, otherwise …
And the supreme Consciousness, above, looks on, and so … That’s the supreme Smile.
I told you about the meeting with Durga. Now there is Kali, waiting. And naturally, it’s the great power – the great power, a power … you understand, they are stronger, more powerful than this teeming humanity, so if you let them loose … As for me, I want Love to be victorious RIGHT NOW – she will have the victory, she will, but … not after so much breakage.
(silence)
We have reached a climax, because the impression is really that mind is triumphing over Matter, and it is convinced of it. Convinced – they go everywhere at their own sweet will, they know all that goes on everywhere … and they don’t even know what goes on inside themselves.
