The Confusion is There to Teach Us (HH 099)

We are in the midst of a great confusion and disorder. A number of problems besiege the Indian nation and the world in general. It is as if the Asura was trying his last bit in an end game. Perhaps he is aware that the noose is tightening around him and the day drawing closer when all this darkness will indeed be transformed into Light. But in the meanwhile what can we do while humanity goes through this dark passage?

Words of the Mother

I don’t know if this perception is correct, but for several months I have felt that the earth has never been in such darkness. I have a sense of a tremendous darkness.

Yes, yes. But both are there. It’s true. A CONFUSION-it’s a confusion – a dark confusion, yes. A dark confusion, but that’s what Sri Aurobindo always said: the confusion becomes much more intense and dark just when the light is to come. That’s correct. It looks like a dark chaos. And especially in this country … terrible, oh, unbelievable things. It’s because serious people said them to me (they aren’t newspaper gossip) that I am obliged to believe them. There are really dreadful things going on in the government and in the organization – dreadful. Unbelievable. And the Chinese …

But Mother, do you know in the West, the influential books (not only influential, they’re read and devoured by all the young) are those of Mao Tse-tung?

Of …?

Mao Tse-tung.

What’s that?

… He’s the great Chinese, the great Chinese mandarin-Mao Tse-tung.

And what does he say, that man?

That man … says that “Power flows from the barrel of a gun.

(Mother remains silent)

That’s what they read in the West. And the latest bestseller is a book titled something like “The Wretched,” which is an apology of violence: “Power must be seized through violence.” That’s what is successful in the West, what all the students are devouring.

Oh, an apology of violence …A gospel of violence.

That’s the vital in full swing.

Yes.

Ooh! That explains all the visions I’ve had. I thought … I put the blame on my body, thinking this poor body has an unfortunate atavism: constantly dreadful, frightful imaginations – but they weren’t imaginations, it was conscious of what was going on …. Oh! …

Oh, what you’re telling me is very interesting, because yesterday (these last few days, these last three days), faced with the horror of the perception of things, this body (which is quite the opposite of sentimental, it’s never, never been sentimental) started weeping …. It didn’t weep materially, but it was … And with an inner intensity, it said, “Oh, why does this world exist?” Like that, it was so … awful, sad, miserable … so miserable and … so horrible, you know, oh!

… But it instantly gets the Response- not a response with words, it’s simply … like an immensity opening in the Light. Then, there’s nothing more to say.

…..But the process to change this back into That….. The process is … abdication (what word should we use?), self-giving (that’s not it)….

And curiously, I knew at that time that it was the exact repetition of the experience Buddha Siddhartha had, and that it was IN this experience that he said, “There is only one way out: Nirvana.” And at the SAME TIME, I had the true state of consciousness: his solution and the true one. That was really interesting. How the Buddhistic solution is only ONE step taken on the path-one step. And BEYOND that (not on another path, but BEYOND that) is where the true solution lies. It was a decisive experience.

(long silence)

But what’s this creation? … You know, separation, then wickedness, cruelty (the thirst to cause harm, we might say), then suffering, again the joy of causing suffering, and then all disease, decomposition, death – destruction. (All that is part of a single thing.) What happened? … The experience I had was the UNREALITY of those things, as though we had stepped into an unreal falsehood, and when you step out of it, everything vanishes – it DOES NOT exist, it isn’t. That’s what is frightful! What to us is so real, so concrete, so dreadful, all that does not exist. It’s … stepping into Falsehood. Why? How? What? …

But never, never in this body’s whole, entire existence, not once – not once – has it felt such a … total and profound sorrow as on that day … Oh, something that made it … (Mother has a lump in her throat). And at the end of it all, Bliss. And then, pfft! it faded away, as if to say, “Not yet, not yet, the time hasn’t come yet.” But as if all this, which is so awful, did not exist.

Anyway, there’s nevertheless a very strong, very concrete sensation that what’s like that, in this Falsehood, is something limited. And unreal. And that we are all in Falsehood and Unreality – that’s why things are as they are. And the interesting point was that that escape into Nirvana wasn’t the solution, it was only a remedy – a remedy for a time (how can I explain? I don’t know) … a partial remedy. A partial and, we might almost say, momentary remedy.

So that’s a paroxysm at a certain point. Afterwards comes the long path: one must go on and on with the PROGRESSIVE work of transformation. Then, the next minute, there is what Sri Aurobindo called the supramental being. It’s like the transition from the one towards the other.

Yes, the other day, I had a perception (I don’t have the gift of vision), but such a concrete perception, that the earth was as if beneath a black cloak-what you call Falsehood or Illusion. It was something COVERING the earth.

Yes, yes.

I felt that, but very concretely: a black coat.

Yes, exactly

Only, it would have to be pulled back FOR EVERYONE.

(After a silence) I can’t say (it’s inexpressible), it was something that contained horror, dread, sorrow – and a compassion, oh, intense! … Never, never had the body felt things like that. Besides, that put it in a rather … critical state for a few hours. Afterwards, it was as if everything, everything came-every single thing-with a Smile and a resplendent Light; as if (to put it into children’s words), as if the Lord were saying, “See, I am everywhere. See, I am in all things.” It was unbelievable- unbelievable …. But there’s no communication between the two.

You understand, that was when the body said, “What? Shall we have to go on and on with that? Must we … go on and on with that? The world, people, the whole creation – go on and on with that? …” It seemed … I suddenly understood: “Ah! That’s what they expressed as ‘perpetual hell’.” That’s it. It was someone who had that perception.

And all the methods – which we may call artificial, Nirvana included-all the methods to get out of it are worthless. Beginning with the fool who kills himself to “Put an end” to his life: that’s … of all stupidities, that one is the biggest, it makes his case still worse. From that up to Nirvana (where one imagines one can get out of it), all of it, all of it is worth NOTHING. Those are different stages, but they’re worth NOTHING. And then, after that, when you really have a sense of perpetual hell, all of a sudden … (nothing but a state of consciousness, it’s nothing but that), all of a sudden, a state of consciousness… in which all is light, splendor, beauty, happiness, goodness …. And all that is inexpressible. ….

But salvation is PHYSICAL -not at all mental, but PHYSICAL. I mean it’s not in escape: it’s … HERE. That I felt very strongly.

Mother, the other day you said something. You said, “The time has come to take one’s stand.” You said, “The body has taken its stand,” but you didn’t dare urge others to do it, and you added, “Now the time has come to take one’s stand.”

Yes, I think so.

But what do you mean by “taking one’s stand”?

This, the awareness the body now has that all this is unreal.

If you asked the body, it would say, I don’t know if I am alive, I don’t know if I am dead.” Because that’s really how it is. For a few minutes it absolutely has the feeling of being dead; at other times, it has the feeling of being alive. The body is like that. And it feels that exclusively depends on … whether the Truth is perceived or not.

(silence)

* * *

In the end, I am absolutely convinced that confusion is to teach us to live from day to day, that is to say, without being preoccupied with what may happen or what will happen, just concerning ourselves from day to day with what we have to do. All thinking and foreseeing and devising and all that furthers disorder a lot.

To live almost from minute to minute, to be like this (gesture turned upward), attentive only to the “thing” one has to do every moment-and to let the All-Consciousness decide … We never know things, even with the most general vision; we never know things except VERY partially – very partially. So our attention is drawn to this, drawn to that, but such and such other thing exists, too. And to give a lot of importance to dangerous or harmful things is to give them strength.

(Mother goes into a contemplation)

When one is assailed by the vision of this disorder and this confusion, there is only one thing to do, it’s to go into the consciousness in which one knows that there is only ONE Being, ONE Consciousness, ONE Power – there is only ONE Oneness-and all those things take place within this Oneness. And that all our petty vision, our petty knowledge, our petty judgments, our petty … all of it is nothing, it’s microscopic in comparison with the Consciousness that rules over the Whole. And then, if one has in the least the sense of why separate individualities exist, maybe it’s only to enable aspiration – the existence of aspiration, of this movement, this movement of self-giving and surrender, of trust and FAITH. The faith that there lies the raison d’être of the makeup of individuals, and the aspiration to become THAT in all one’s intensity and all one’s sincerity … That’s the only thing needed.

That’s the only thing needed, the ONLY thing; the only thing that subsists. All the rest … phantasmagoria.

It’s the only thing effective in every case: when you want to do something, when you cannot do something, when you act, when the body can no longer act … In EACH and EVERY case, that alone – that alone: make conscious contact with the Supreme Consciousness, unite with it, and … wait. There.

Then one receives the exact indication of what one has to do every minute – to do or not to do, to act or to remain still. That’s all. Even to be or not to be. And it’s the only solution. More and more, more and more this certitude is there: it’s the ONLY solution. All the rest is childishness.

And all activities, all possibilities can be naturally made use of it does away with the arbitrariness of personal choice, that’s all. All possibilities are there, all, but all things are there, all perceptions are there, all knowledge is there-only, personal arbitrariness is done away with. And this personal arbitrariness seems so childish! So childish … foolishness – foolishness, ignorant stupidity.

I feel, I feel that agitation, like this (Mother feels the air), phew! It whirls about in the atmosphere!

Poor humanity.

(long silence)

Dec 30, 2014