How to call It?

How to call It?

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A personal note as introduction

How to effectively communicate and to what extent does the nature of what one wishes to communicate determine the very possibility of communication? Nowadays, the medium of writing is amply seconded if not overtaken by evermore sophisticated audio-visual technology for the transmission of striking messages. But even if one uses only the written word – the verb – as one’s medium of choice, every writer, author, historian, philosopher or poet is likely to be striving to acquire and develop a particular technique, ability or “know-how”. A considerable part of this lifetime – well, several decades – has unfolded, or been branded by a process of… purification, demolition, thinning out, abdication, dissolution… of the ego! Along the way, a kind of inner choice affirmed itself to withdraw from mental and vital activities. This choice was made possible by the experience of the support and protection of the Grace. Such a choice naturally has various consequences and some of these, such as the retreat from social interactions or the decrease in the circulation of energies, may be viewed as negative but, in fact, happens to be quite instructive. The essential motivation for this choice was the intent to collect and gather and concentrate in the task of awakening the physical Hereby I do apologize for my nullity.

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consciousness – so that its milieu may become propitious and receptive to the meeting of the consciousness which is to replace the mind at the prow of the evolution. In the domain of expression, one of the effects of this retreat – and of this orientation – is that one can no longer refer to anything but to direct experience; it is thus impossible for me, or would be unbearable, to write anything that is not founded on experience. Nonetheless, since the words used remain the same, they may appear as ordinary, even though the sentence is charged with a density or a depth or an amplitude that arise from this experience which seeks to communicate itself. A requisite of fidelity renders any explanation so insufficient that it seems almost to betray the sense or substance of what has been experienced; it is therefore necessary for those who will read these lines to establish for instance a sort of porosity or receptivity that will favor the intuitive sense rather than the intellectual reasoning. A day surely shall come, perhaps soon, when we will be able to communicate and share instantly without any words or artifacts.

Divakar

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Aum Namo Bhagavate

Srimirraaravindaye

Namastasyei Namastasyei Namastasyei

Namo Namah

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Yes, how to call It,

How to name It?

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He – That?

The Supreme walks on His way.

Are His hands free?

Does He hold the scepter of the emperor of the worlds, the stick of the old and lame, the staff of the beggar?

Reclining, motionless, on the flank of the rock, is He asleep?

He goes on His way.

His silhouette is barely outlined.

At times, in instants almost as brief as lightning, His feet appear entirely: they are strong and finely wrought, filled with calm vigor and perfectly proportioned; above the ankles tinkle tiny bells hanging from gold woven strings.

Firmly they move onward; their presence is such that eternity alone can contain it.

Then all vanishes and only remains the impress of a form.

Yet from this form such a density emanates that no dimensions can ever situate or sustain it.

***

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Words spoken by Mother

The following conversation, recorded by Sujata and Satprem in the Mother’s Agenda, presents one of the many occasions when Mother met with the great contradiction, this contradiction de facto, as if inscribed in Matter itself, which seems to render for ever impossible a real and actual transformation of physical and material nature - its passage or its accession to a more conscious and sovereign state, relieved from the necessity of death and egoism. October 26, 1968 I have nothing to say. I can speak, but I have nothing to say! Are you all right? I hardly cough anymore.... But I have nothing to say. (silence) This physical, this physical consciousness (I don’t think it’s a personal physical consciousness), the general physical consciousness was, in this body, seized with such a pity, oh!... I can’t say "pity"... it’s something very special: a very intimate, very tender compassion for the human physical condition. But it seized me in massive proportions! Nothing else remained in the consciousness, and if I hadn’t controlled it, I would have started crying and crying.... That has been the dominant note of these last few days. And as if underneath, as if coming from the depths, beneath, the perception of this Compassion – the divine Compassion – the perception of the way the thing is seen and felt by the Divine.... That was wonderful. It really was a dominant note. And there are so to speak no contradictions from outside – I don’t see many people: among them, there is only ONE person, one person who lives in a joyous consciousness. Only one among all the people I know. Even then, it’s because that person lives in a very harmonious vital-mental consciousness and is contented.... Besides, I feel that if one were to scratch a little... [the person’s joy would vanish]. Yes, the condition of human bodies is very miserable. It’s miserable.

Yes, very much so. It’s really miserable.

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Oh, it’s not at all, it has nothing to do with vital or mental difficulties or any of that.... The body isn’t conscious of that, not interested in that – not interested: when people recount vital or mental difficulties, it finds them quite childish. But the MISERY this body lives in – that’s what is awful. There have even been moments... There is, as I said, a CONSTANT call – constant call to the Divine, and even the strong (how can I put it?) perception of his Presence, so then there is a sort of contradiction.... When it began, I said, "How can You want this?" You see, for a very long time – for years – the spontaneous attitude (it’s not the result of an effort), the body’s spontaneous attitude has been, "It’s my incapacity, my ignorance, my helplessness, my stupidity... that bring about my misery." It considers itself to be solely responsible for all its miseries. But then, that’s the difficulty, it’s this contradiction: "Why, why do You want things to be like this? Why?" So I spend almost entire days and nights in silence (I mean, without speaking), but seeing – seeing... And there isn’t any sensation or perception of a separate individuality; there are innumerable experiences, dozens of them every day, showing that it’s the identification or unification with other bodies that makes you feel this person’s misery, that person’s misery, the misery of... It’s a fact. And it’s not felt as being another body’s misery, it’s felt as your own. Which means it has become difficult to make a distinction on a plane... (Mother stretches her hands out into the distance). There is a plane ever so slightly more subtle than the quite material plane.... So one isn’t complaining about one’s own There is a very clear and spontaneous perception that it’s impossible to extract a small part from the whole and make something harmonious out of it when the whole isn’t harmonious. But why, why?... I can’t understand.... As long as the body felt separate (in the past – very long, very long ago), when it felt itself to be a body separate from others, and more importantly, separate from the Divine, then it made sense: there’s nothing to say, it’s quite natural, it makes sense. But now that for it EVERYTHING truly is the Divine, how, how can that fail to bring about Harmony?... You understand, when on the vital or mental level (and above, of course), you have the experience of identity, you have at the same time the Bliss. Here [in the body], there is the experience of identity, but No Bliss. Why? Maybe if the body had managed to remain separate, it could have felt something – but that’s not true! It would have been a falsehood.... You see, this identity isn’t the result of an effort, not the result of a will: it’s a FACT – a spontaneous fact, I didn’t make the least attempt to get it. It began like that. And this body itself is in a state... which I can’t call "precarious," but which is nothing particularly cheering. It hasn’t resulted in a physical harmony for the body. Because there’s all the rest. Precisely! misery, it’s that EVERYTHING is one’s misery. In other words, it’s not an egoistic complaint.

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Now and then, for... not even a few minutes (it’s a few seconds), there is a clear perception of the true Identity, which is perfect Harmony, and then all disorders cease to exist – but... materially they exist! Take a very simple instance: my teeth are all loose in my mouth – it s a FACT – and it’s true that logically, such a condition should be very painful: it’s not. And I see that it is so because of a Presence – that I understand very well. But it doesn’t get cured, far from it! It’s incurable. 100 This physical is truly... a mystery. I understand people who have said, "It must be abolished, it’s a falsehood." Yet that’s not true, it’s not a falsehood, it’s... what is it? If we say "a deformation," it doesn’t mean anything. (silence) But the power to relieve (not to heal: the power to relieve), far from having diminished, has increased. When I am told that someone is ill, at least ninety-nine times in a hundred, I have already EXPERIENCED the thing, and what I am told makes me say, "Ah, it’s so and so." I have already experienced it as being part of my physical being (gesture in the distance), an immense physical being, you know, immense and without precise form. And it’s this precision and this division that are... (what should I say?)... are they the obstacle or the cause (probably both) that prevent the Harmony from being established? It’s because we REALLY are separate. But then, can you conceive how a world that’s not really separate would be?... Because, you understand, the question is serious: if for the world to exist as it is, it has to be really separate, and if being really separate is the cause of all misery, then... And yet, in another way (I don’t know how), in another way I know (it’s not "I" who knows: there’s no "I" there), I know, I KNOW (it’s the great "I" who knows) that the desertion, the disappearance of this world is NOT the solution.... But what is it?.... This is the only world where division is no longer the result of a state of consciousness, but a FACT. So?... Everywhere else, it’s the result of a state of consciousness: if the consciousness changes, the state changes – not here. It’s the only world: here. And yet... it [division] is a falsehood. (silence) One can easily conceive of a considerable improvement with the establishment of the true Consciousness, because, as I said, there are experiences (quite fleeting, but still) that are very concrete, of even a material harmonization which, seen in that way, looks very much like a miracle. But one conceives that reestablishing the True Consciousness and, along with it, the Harmony it brings, would make a considerable difference.... Probably a difference sufficient for a harmonious and progressive state to be realized – in harmony, not in misery. That may be the supreme miracle the Divine is trying to achieve: separation – an existing fact – and the state of consciousness of Oneness. 100In a letter (see Cent. Ed., vol. 26, p. 352-353), Sri Aurobindo told the story of a yogi who could prolong his life at will (and lived for more than 200 years), but who kept the same toothache till the end, without ever being able to cure it. He was Swami Brahmananda, who, one day in the 1900s, told a disciple of his (Sardar Mazumdar), "As for the tooth, I have suffered from it since the days of Bhao Girdi," that is, since 1761. (silence)

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Now, at any rate, I know.... The work in the other states (even, even in a subtle physical) is relatively child’s play. The difficulty is here. (silence) So one may conceive of an improvement, even a considerable improvement, a state far more harmonious than the existing one. The existing state... it’s hell, really; it’s only thanks to this Possibility that it’s not hell. It’s because behind that hell, there is this Possibility – which is living, real, existing, tangible, livable – otherwise it’s infernal.... You understand, one gets the impression that all the states of being have been whipped together (you know, like when you make mayonnaise!), all the states of being well mixed together like that, in a great confusion, so naturally the "horrible thing" is bearable... because of all the rest in there. But if you start separating... Oh! (gesture of horror) What do YOU have to say? Well, it means that the consciousness of the WHOLE must change. It’s always the same problem: when the WHOLE totality has progressed, changed its consciousness, the material "fact" should become different. It appears to be like that. That’s the problem. There’s no escape, no way to divide that. EVERYTHING must change. Individuality is merely a means of action for the transformation of the whole. I understand why they said one had to escape! It demands such a transformation... it’s almost an eternity of time. Once you’ve got out of it, you’re out of it, but all the time you’ve spent to... "One" can’t be transformed without everything being transformed! Yes, that’s it. That’s right. That is to say, "one" accelerates the transformation of the whole. Yes. But that means the great surrender: "It’s like that, it’s like that...." Frightful. That’s why there are people who escape (even though it’s no use, because they’ll have to come back): it’s to get some rest! (Mother laughs) It’s perfectly obvious that if it weren’t unbearable, it would never change. And if it’s unbearable, well... it really makes you feel like running away – which is impossible, of course, it’s foolish to think you can get out of it: it’s not possible. Only, for a time... you rest. It means abandoning the work. It delays the result. And yet... yet you feel that if by some miracle ONE individual succeeded in physically supramentalizing himself, it would be such an example for the rest of the world that... I don’t know, it would change it radically. But that would still be partial. Yes, but it would strike consciousnesses so much.. It wouldn’t be general, it could only be partial. But it WILL be. It’s part of the Plan. But the perfection of ONE realization depends on a total realization. There may be a certain "quantum" of realization, that’s undeniable – that’s precisely what the supramental race will realize, obviously. It’s obvious.

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But I mean that if, now, through some miracle, ONE became luminously true, it would strike the rest of mankind so much that it would be turned back onto the path of Truth – ONE example. Yes, of course. But that... (silence) Let’s hope for it! (silence) That’s the true surrender... oh!... (long contemplation) Maybe the miracle of true surrender?... (It’s not even surrender, it’s something like an acceptance, which is at the same time the abolition of any separation.) That would be perfect... maybe. It has to be seen. There. So the next time is your birthday – a new birth. (silence) Since you have conceived of it... it means you must try to do it.

***

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Questioning: to be body in the world

Is there a single living organism that is able to perfect itself indefinitely?

Even these royal trees, that can live and continue to grow and strengthen through more than a thousand years and even longer if no major interference occurs, do not constitute an example of self-perfecting within the whole: for, although they increase in size and may seed entire forests, neither their complexity nor their adaptability develop. And what of those crystals which silently grow within the secret core of the rock through perhaps millions of our years? Yet does one not find, intrinsic to every material form – to every form born of Matter – and animating it, an urge towards self- perfection? Be it a mountain, a drop of water, a gymnast or a robber, every material existence – every existence issuing from Matter itself – aspires and yearns to its own perfection. The whole prairie as well as each of its blades of grass and butter-cups, are stirred by the thrust to their perfect expression, the truth of their own nature. But it is a perfection that, given the appropriate conditions, can be naturally attained, as its model is already inscribed; it is not an indefinite self-perfecting that would be an actual discovery and unprecedented becoming. Until now in the natural world of the Earth, the perfection of each form represents its apogee, which is followed by its decline: the form wilts, decays, perishes and dissolves.

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In the terrestrial evolution, along with the mobility of the living forms, the relations within the environment became more varied and complex. The relative autonomy of the individual form has particularly developed in the human body across the ages, with the successive intervention of plans and states of consciousness – Matter adapting gradually to these new subtle faculties by refining the many tasks and distributing them to new cellular associations and activities.

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From primary forms to composite bodies: the passage from the aura and impression to the completed form is at once a closing, a separation and an opening, an accession. Thereafter, time and space measure one another; past this threshold and this instant, the internal and the external are born, the within and the without; past this threshold and this instant, relations are born, all relations. The complete form of a pearl of dew, of a snowflake, of a grain of pollen and even, however fleeting, of a spark, is irrevocably subject to the laws ruling the whole of the material world – or the material degree of manifestation. The body of a daffodil or an iris, of an oak or a banyan, although riveted in space, must adapt and respond to it.

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There is opposition, vulnerability, wear and erosion, there is domination, there is culture of the resources.

Then the bodies prepare to move and venture into space, to explore it and adapt to it; the hare and the snake, the eagle and the elephant, the bee, the trout, the eel and the dolphin, the dragonfly, the rhinoceros and the wolf, the sparrow and the ape, so many models innumerably are composed to withstand the test of time and space.

None of these, however, can last longer than its time.

No animal body, no matter how perfected and capable, has been able to develop faculties of indefinite preservation and renewal.

***

In some species, particularly mammalian species, a beginning of individualization appears more precise, with fine and unique variations in their morphology and physiognomy and with the formation of vital characteristics specific to each member. The increase and diversification of their individualized possibilities of response and expression in relation to the whole and to the common milieu, gradually cleave the way of their destiny.

The human body stands erect, from sky to earth and earth to sky and it can face every direction; its limbs can reach and hold, push and hit.

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Yet its autonomy remains conditional and its preservation depends on a constant input of energy which it must draw “outside”; in its case as in the case of most other mammals an assembly of specialized and complementary organs has developed to effectuate the transformation and filtering of the ingested substances so as to sustain and substantiate all of its energetic needs. It is outside of itself, thus, that the human body must identify and seize those elements which can best nourish it, as it is from the outside that it must as well protect itself.

***

Subtle forces from adjacent planes then began to watch this vehicle and invest in it, establishing little by little nascent correspondences with particular organs and seats of cellular activity, stimulating their responses and cultivating the sensations caused, deepening the impulses and developing the experiential range in space and time and the growing multitude of relations with the environment and its perceived parts and elements. These forces, although they could not directly feed the human body, could considerably augment, enhance and strengthen its stature and its apprehension of its own individual reality as well as of the reality of the whole.

Because, you understand, the question is serious: if for the world to exist as it is, it has to be really separate, and if being really separate is the cause of all misery, then...

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Aggression and flight, want and fear, became more intensely charged.

Risk, danger, the discovery of the world and its creatures, its rhythms and its opposites, composed an existence enriched with contrasts and diversity which, with the training in relationships, felt the first impressions of a vast mystery.

Emotions, at first merely amplified, grew more nuanced and individual behavior acquired a new dimension of experience.

Then other forces from other planes of existence too became interested in this terrain that seemed propitious for an attempt at a material manifestation of their native powers and faculties. By dint of sheer repetition, passages and connections were evolved in the organism, mobilizing and informing cellular aggregates and groupings. Through observation, comparison, deduction, memorization, the functions of measuring and assessing became integral to the life of the body and, in its sleep, dreams came sowing other possibilities. An urge to progress and a capacity to reflect and ponder began to exert an influence and, in the presence of an increasing array of variations, the sense of the person was born.

Once these rudiments had become functional, forces from higher planes of consciousness could in turn through them begin to express and develop new operational fields.

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These human bodies that had become complex beings gifted with a capacity of choice and reflection, stirred by urges as yet incomprehensible but irresistible, moved to try out, attempt and risk and learn and transmit, and to control, dominate or tame their environment, began to discover other approaches to the multitude of the states of Matter. With their honed attention they studied the characteristics of every form and every state they met so as to recognize and identify them and ascribe to each the degree to which it could help or harm.

And thus was the object born.

First it was a sharpened stone, a hollowed reed, a knotted vine.’

These organic bodies learned to extract from accessible Matter what they could make use of: from another organic body brought to its death, animal body vanquished through ruse or strength, so many uses could be cultivated, its blood, flesh, milk, entrails, cranium, nails and hair and bones and fur could all serve their needs; from a vegetal or mineral state also materials and tools and implements could be fashioned, to shelter and protect, erect and defend their hearth and home. With the experiential growth of thought, more objects were conceived by these human bodies undergoing a process of individualization, so as to assuage their vulnerability: fragile bodies exposed to countless unpredictable and uncontrollable hazards, till death in the end would either surreptitiously or suddenly find and strike them.

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And thought, along with the developing of nascent faculties, released for them accesses to subtler spaces of experience which would then prompt the manufacture of symbolic objects as materialized signs and markers and as means of self-expression.

***

May the Lord take possession of His domain…

May a greater Consciousness incarnate, may more consciousness incarnate…

***

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Where are we now?

Overpopulation: calculations have been made, so as to determine what would be the invested surface, should the entire human population of the Earth be assembled and gathered, while accounting for each body an average vital space – and just one single State of America would suffice. But such reckoning omits or ignores our immense disorder, this mess of things that we have everywhere scattered and dumped: the number and variety of those objects a single human being is able to acquire, accumulate and hoard, give away, dispose of or throw, bears no relation with the size of a single physical body. Today, Earth is littered with an incalculable mass of separate objects, which no longer respond to any will; its very atmosphere is strewn with thousands upon thousands of discarded pieces and parts and used-up machines which go on orbiting out of inertia around her (perhaps forever?). Therefore our sciences now strive to refine their approach of artificial intelligence as a means to repair, fix or mitigate the damage with the help of robotized contraptions it will enable us to fabricate, equipped with self-destructing mechanisms.

But it is the direct communication with the whole, the conscious realization of the whole and its fluxes, that we must find and by which we must grow greater and truer.

***

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There are two separations that must be conquered: the separation of individual consciousnesses between them as between each of them and the whole, and the separation between each consciousness and its true and permanent source. When Douce Mere began to work intensively in Her own body to awaken in it the awareness of the Presence and to open it to the Force of Truth, a few of Her disciples without telling Her constructed for Her a new apartment on the roof terrace of the central building of the Ashram, which they arranged and fitted a little like a cabin on a cruiser and, behind a wooden panel was a small well equipped washroom, where She would arrange Her various phials and jars and her necessaries and on a little tablet set near to the seat She even had what She would need to write notes; there was just enough room to turn around, but one day She somehow slipped and found Herself on the floor, momentarily stunned: Her body at once protested, but not because of the fall and its discomfort, rather because of the confusion and disorder in the relations – a disharmony had occurred between the elements of a whole and the molecules of the glass phials, of the shelf, of the porcelain basin, of Her leg or of Her hands that was gripping the tablet were all disturbed at once and it was as if some absurdity afflicted them all at the same time, which must be shaken off. For, the more She advanced in the work and the more She entered in a continuum wherein the Presence was Life – wherein all lived by the Presence.

The body of Douce Mere, itself increasingly aware of this immutable reality, was simultaneously becoming more permeable to the other bodies and identified with them and more able to transmit to them a measure of force and harmony – and yet,

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concerning its own singular condition, this harmony of vast and puissant and all-knowing truth did not seem to help.

Douce Mere was all Shakti.

Nowhere in Her, in no part of Her, was there a single ounce of inertia. Her body had become a unique site radiating a new force yet unknown upon earth. And yet its appearance was that of a diminished body which was undergoing the damages of a fierce, accelerating process of ageing. While the very consciousness of Her body was more and more one with a sovereignty in which Matter no longer knew any barriers or distances, its most concrete appearance was that of a very rapid and seemingly inexorable degradation – and the battle She waged with all the atavistic resistance of the species was all the more heroic and promising of another future for the Earth. Thus it was that Her body was learning to approach Matter, all Matter and all its bodies and formations, from and through the Presence and the unity it radiates, rather than from the status conferred by separation.

This is the lesson we must all learn now so as to free ourselves from alienation, dependency and of all value judgments.

***

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We are not yet born.

We are animals, we are humans, we even are perhaps evolved humans, but we remain separate.

We are not yet Her children, Her vessels in this miraculous world, this material world which the Grace alone can effectively rule.

We confuse union with fusion.

The separation which was indispensable at the beginnings becomes now the obstacle to a living and progressive unity.

A spiritual realization which would leave this world unaccomplished, debased, disfigured and betrayed can neither be the highest nor the truest realization.

This unity of tomorrow is not a return to an original undifferentiated magma, but a passage to a next degree of consciousness in the manifestation, of which the forerunners will become able to exist and operate materially within a continuum of conscious presence that will teach them concretely the laws and modes of a progressive inclusive harmony.

***

But how are we going to come out of this present mess and emerge to a truly useful perception?

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Our daily lives are articulated by so many practically unavoidable gestures and motions that keep us bound to an increasing deterioration of the material terrestrial reality. A few of us here and there do try to extirpate themselves out of this ubiquitous trap and to desist from contributing to it at all, promoting through their acts a radical “return to nature”, renouncing and disengaging themselves as thoroughly as possible from all modern amenities. Their objective is to become entirely free of any other dependency than that of their own labor and of nature’s bounties for their subsistence.

***

Fifty years ago already, Douce Mere wondered whether the Force of peace and harmony would be able to save the earth - and at the time the main concerns were of the conflicts between nations with their direst consequences and of the rapid increase of duplicity and falsehood, with its sinister effects. Now these consequences and effects bear directly on the physical condition of the earth, on the state of its body.

Duplicity has so many faces; dishonesty has so many degrees.

In the perspective of the true being, we all are, sometimes or often, dishonest: whenever we do not do our work, do not fulfill our task as well, as exactly, scrupulously, carefully and

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meticulously as we can, with as much probity, integrity, loyalty and perfection we are capable of at this moment; whenever we fail or fall short of rectitude, candor and guilelessness in our relations; whenever we willfully add or subtract to the information expected of us or intentionally lend it a character, intent or import not its own… A number of those disasters presently occurring everywhere in the world are largely the results of our “negligence”: of our dishonesties, small or big. To offer one’s work, to offer one’s action, implies precisely this disinterested transparency, this constant concern and care for perfection, exactitude and fidelity.

Douce Mere was always looking for conscious instruments, actively committed men and women who would be capable of giving themselves entirely, unreservedly and without any preferences at the service of Truth.

***

As the body gradually opens to the Presence and lets itself be impregnated or permeated directly by the true consciousness instead of remaining the slave and the site of the arbitrary ego, it aspires to be freed from all contingencies.

***

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What a supramental body, a body of the new species, will be like, what will be its abilities, its functions and its possibilities, the present body knows not yet. But it senses, it feels, it aspires and turns to an almost accessible material, corporeal state, which seems as if to stand at the edge of a mist enveloping us still. Of which it divines and senses the possibilities as if these were lacking or it was missing them, as if they were legitimately its own but had been taken away, or denied – or else, as if they had been promised long ago and were now imminent and most required. An intermediate body?

***

First and foremost it aspires to become able to progress continuously – that the time be granted to consolidate and fortify and deepen, in concrete and practical terms, its union with the true consciousness and the Presence, to learn to express and manifest ever more faithfully in ever newer and more tangible ways the reality of the Presence in the world. And to this end it aspires firstly to be relieved of its dependency on other material forms and organisms for its own sustenance and to learn and receive directly the energies needed for the renewal and progress of its cellular aggregate.

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Neither the vital nor the mental forces were able to liberate it from the separation.

They could only mitigate it, refine it and make it richer and more diverse and attractive, they could multiply and enhance its sensorial experience, they could “civilize” it.

But it remains.

The body feels and knows, with an illogical, irrational and improbable knowing, a knowing which has yet no other proof than its own faith, that the Consciousness-Force which descends like a white sword of the purest Light, an infinite axis traversing it with all the knowledge and all the love of all the universes, CAN liberate it – and will.

***

How to find, how to learn the new process or operative mode, as one learns a new breathing technique or finally identifies the tiny nerve connection to a small muscular movement ignored until then? The body senses that it is not a matter of intensive askesis or of obtaining some spectacular so-called superhuman physical power, but rather of a humble, essential, direct and simple accession to a material and corporeal reality which is open to other dimensions heretofore unknown, unseen or unperceived.

***

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Indeed we absolutely must find this physical process which will deliver us from any external dependency whatsoever – but why is it that we must find it, to what aim, out of which necessity?

In fact, this necessity only becomes tangible once an inner work of unification, liberation and transition is accomplished – the unification of all the parts of one’s individual nature around the psychic being; the liberation of the being from all atavism, habits, needs and desires that chain and harness the consciousness to the past evolution; the transition to the reality of the new consciousness. And for this first work to be fulfilled, an environment sufficiently comprehensive and harmonious is required. Yet it is this very same work which will make it possible for the true consciousness to incarnate, to manifest at least partially already, for the good of all.

***

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Today and tomorrow

Today humanity is beginning to strain and struggle and writhe in the vice of a tightening physical impossibility. Today we all are from every side obviously overtaken by the exponential multiplication of the deleterious effects of our actions – many of which already appear to be irreversible and beyond remedy. Ministers, engineers or farmers, priests, doctors or cooks, fishermen or truck drivers, shopkeepers or cleaners, philosophers, teachers, craftsmen, no one is capable to see a viable way in front. We push ahead in various fields of research, on how to undo and repair the damages done, on alternative methods, techniques and approaches, on how to tame the infinitely small, the quantum scale of it all, how to control, control, control Matter, control Nature, control our own conduct – and somehow derail or prevent this seemingly ineluctable fate, this curse we ourselves have nourished and brought to bear. But we dare not, we know not, to turn to another State, another Consciousness, surer, vaster and truer than those that still govern our nature. None of us really knows what to do.

Why?

***

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This truth-consciousness which awaits to be invited, ready to work openly in the world, is exempt of all judgment: it knows, it understands. It understands all that has contributed to make us what we are, to make of each of us and each of our acts what they are: it does not judge, it knows and sees what is needed for the good of all.

We do not see.

We have reached the limits of our capacities.

This consciousness is free, as it operates from unity, while we remain prisoners of separation and grasp the world only through our cuttings and incomplete assemblages.

***

How is it that we cannot even sense the significance of this conscious immensity which awaits to gather all, unite all, embrace all? Is it because we have filled up the three dimensions with our secretions, emissions end refuse? Is it because we rather want to continue pleasuring ourselves separately, even at the cost of utter destruction and annihilation?

***

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Prisoners of Matter and separated by Matter, exiled from the One, surrounded and counted and watched by death, we never ceased to create bonds, groupings and associations, a multitude of bonds - which can never replace the single permanent bond of oneness.

Today each of our scientific or intellectual disciplines gives a different definition to consciousness, definition which is in constant flux in the current of the advance, progress and discovery that keep modifying or upsetting our comprehension.

Yet we know, without words or images, or any sort of drama, that some instants of our lives have been as if touched by the Grace, instants in which we forgot ourselves and gave ourselves to greater and to more than just us, to love, to a communion of aspirations for beauty, harmony and truth, to a momentary symbiosis with a source of perfection – these instants when we have been linked, joined: reunited with the single infinite Inhabitant of the universes, with a coherence of all that is, with a smile of certainty.

It is there itself that each one of us draws support and force.

It is our only continuity.

***

But what, then, is consciousness?

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We can more easily define what it is not: it is not a function, not a part of our being or of our nature, it is not an instrument, nor is it an observable phenomenon; it is not an activity of our brain; it is neither our personal possession not anyone else’s. Looking at it carefully, one can neither dissociate it from existence itself, nor from something akin to joy or plenitude – even though our experience of it may be limited to a few fleeting seconds seeded in the course of our lives. If we do sometimes happen, either in an unexpected or apparently accidental manner, or through an intensity of concentration of the whole being, to perceive it, yet its actuality, presence and proximity are in no way depending on or resulting from any instrumental effort or any physical, emotional or mental activity.

And yet, without it, we are not!

This inability of ours to situate or identify the very reality of consciousness is actually the exact indicator of our separation – we are separated of this continuum which informs all that is.

Nonetheless we do make use of the term in different occasions to designate “something” which our intelligence cannot define. Thus we say: “in our soul and conscience…” to mark a depth of choice, commitment or integrity; “he is conscious, doctor…” to signal that the son has come out of coma; “I am conscious of the confusion my conduct may have caused…”, to confirm that I acknowledge my responsibility; “to become conscious of certain influences…”, to refer to a complex process of distancing, observing, discerning and evaluating; “to return to a waking

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consciousness…”, to distinguish from the state of dreaming during the body’ sleep and describe the fact of coming back to the common stance within the physical and material world. But no one is in a position to explain accurately, scientifically and intellectually, what “It” is. It is therefore our one and single treasure!

***

On the first of January of every year, at dawn, Douce Mere used to broadcast a message which aimed at summing up the progress to be made and invite to it all the individual consciousnesses as well as the collective. Likewise, on the first of January, 1973, Douce Mere gave Her last New Year message: “When you are conscious of the whole world at the same time, then you can become conscious of the Divine” In Her experience, this hereafter represented an accessible realization – and a formidable and utterly new step, the first in the new consciousness and the new State of the manifestation. The double victory over the double separation was won: the accession to the continuum of consciousness – transcendence, universality and immanence at once, here upon earth, in the body.

***

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And even while were rising the first tentative and timid babbles and murmurs of this evolutionary passage in a human body and physical consciousness – in 1973 too were enunciated the first warnings: if mankind would pursue the road of material development it had embarked upon, the entire terrestrial nature would suffer and eventually revolt. Scientists of diverse disciplines, gathering all their findings, established a comprehensive report which demonstrated the ecological consequences of the type and mode of growth humanity had so far adopted and pointed out the measures that must be taken by all the governments of the earth before the end of the millennium in order to avoid and prevent catastrophes and reorient human progress on a sustainable and harmonious path for the whole of terrestrial life. Nearly 50 years have since passed and the governments of this world still resist or begrudge the task, even as the degradation of the earth milieu has already reached an irreversible stage. But how this evolutionary advance of one individual, or even of a few individuals, could be of any concern to the great majority of the human species, or what effects could it have on its condition – and what sort of relations could it eventually entertain with this new state of consciousness and its representatives?

***

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During the past 50 years it is obvious to everyone that the character of terrestrial evolution has altered. One might summarize four simultaneous unfoldings or developments to define its outer character: The explosive proliferation of the human species; The reign of techniques or technological applications of new scientific discoveries and the access of a growing majority of human beings to a mode of material consumption become synonymous with well-being; The evermore direct and constant communication of all parts of the earth between them; The ruin and degradation of the entire terrestrial eco-system. But inwardly; or where the development of the human person is concerned, how to qualify it? One may to begin with distinguish between two parallel and opposites processes: The first is that of a living synthesis, of a blossoming and universalization with the release from the yokes of the past and the meeting of the self in an infinite diversity of experiences and expressions. The second is that of an apparently formidable progress in the comprehension of the organic, physical and material world, brought to serve a general improvement of living conditions and yet resulting in an uncontrolled amplification of exploitative practices meant to ensure immediate profits at the detriment of the natural terrestrial equilibrium.

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The first is an ever more comprehensive movement of integration, ever richer and more attentive to the diversity as to the truth inherent in every experience, which raises and heightens the human stature by liberating it from its fears, rigidities, barriers and limitations and opening it to the concrete possibility of actual fraternity. The second movement is animated by tendencies which, in their separate pursuits, often become contradictory: the quest for autonomy and release from all servitudes; the quest for prosperity; the quest for power over Matter and circumstances; the quest for permanence; the quest for the secrets of creation; the quest for enjoyment and delight; the quest for inclusive social harmony and a minimum of ensured equality for all; the quest for health, immunity, invincibility, corporeal mastery and prolongation at will of the individual physical existence; the quest for tools and instruments able to intelligently serve the needs of the human being; the quest for superhuman capacities; the quest for new explorations and conquests…

***

If terrestrial evolution appears today to be rushing towards disaster, is it not due to the lack of an essential, a primordial and most necessary quest on the part of the dominating species, the quest for the True? This irreplaceable quest, which remains still the imprisoned hostage of the conflict between religion and free-will, alone can guarantee the integrity of outer developments: without it, everything is corruptible and fast profits take precedence and the shadows grow of the destruction to come.

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How are we here?

By what miracle, what magic have we cone to be?

It is time to acknowledge Consciousness, to acknowledge the One.

(“Man is a narrow bridge, a call that grows, his soul the nascent bud of the rose of God…”)

There is indeed no other explanation, whether rational, infra or supra rational, that may hold for the journey: this germ of life in the infinity, these eons of learning, this path that cleaves itself forward come what may towards the incarnation and the conscious manifestation of the One, such is our true destiny, our cause and our goal.

***

Caught in the snare of separation, we still do not know how to cross the threshold of an insoluble conflict between what is objective and what is subjective. Our observation and assessment of objective material reality, be it that of the galaxies, of a grain of rice, of a trachea, an embryo, a stalactite or a cathedral, convince us of an infinite impersonal coherence to which we incomprehensibly participate but for a few instants of time.

And our subjective internal experience of our sojourn in this material reality exposes us to an almost endless scale of

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questions, perceptions, needs and feelings and sentiments which we strive to render meaningful, till our very last breath.

Our apprehension of Matter, from the heat of the body, the hardness of the stone, the vigorous solidity of the tree trunk, the scent of the mire or that of the rain in the wind, to the sight of the bluish sphere of the earth in the space infinite, as our awe of a jealous and ruthless god, of exclusive higher domains and puissant rival entities, all the way to the concept of an unknowable supreme being, in their twin evolutions, have accompanied us to this moment of transition. Presently we are confronted, however well-equipped, intelligent and cultured we may be, with a reality so incommensurable, so complex and so indifferent to our discourse as to our most brilliant representations, that all of our concepts, whether religious, philosophical, sociopolitical, technological or scientific, are condemned to ridicule or insignificance. And yet, the deeply rooted certainty endures in each of us that this, all of this and our own existence midst the dust of the stars cannot be accidental – there is a sense, there is an evolution, there is a becoming and there is a plenitude to be reached. But how, even fitted or provided with the most sophisticated performing engines, shall we ever be able to unite with this sense and be fulfilled in it? Shall we not forever remain separated, whatever may happen, and even reduced to stratagems of intelligence and brought to a dead-end – the defeat of Life itself?

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***

Our civilizations have obstinately been projecting onto the universe, or on its eventual invisible source, one form or another, one purposeful design or another, drawing from our subjective experience alone. But even concepts are forms and all the forms we have been able to conceive are now proving obsolete, ridiculous or dismally insufficient.

***

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Our brother seers

The Rishis of the Vedic times proceeded otherwise.

Understanding that the physical being, the emotional being and the mental being are but instrumentations, perfectible but partial, they set themselves in the medium of consciousness which informs these and causes them to evolve. Contemplating the perceptible universe through their senses and faculties and the infinity of its outer forms as well as of its subtler forms and worlds, they intuited and divined that consciousness is also free of all these forms and that pure existence can actually be devoid of all form.

They sought the essence, or the source, or the foundation and they attained to the experience of That.

That alone is.

There is nothing but That.

All is That.

Universes and atoms, all forms and the undifferentiated formless, all that is manifest as well as the Non-Manifest, all is That.

There from, consciousness turns again to the created – the continuous movement of creation, the pulsations from which all space-times and dimensions originate. Then they perceived the sites, cores and nodes of concentration and evolution, the fields elected for the emergence of a conscious multiplicity.

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