Man after Man

Chapter One: What remains?

In the blue mountains, the Nilgiris¹ Interview with Satprem, a French writer, witness of Mother's evolutionary experiment.

D: We started with this sentence from Rimbaud in "A Season in Hell". He describes the hell through which we are going now, a hundred years in advance. So, we are in hell everywhere and he says: "And yet, it's eve, and at dawn, armed with an ardent patience...

SATPREM:... we will enter the splendid cities".

Yes, only, you see, Rimbaud's hell was still very psychological, now it's a physical hell. Right now, people are being shot in Teheran, you see...Everywhere, there is barbarism in one form or another. It's becoming very suffocating. Because man must face a quite dreadful physical reality for his consciousness to change. That's what it's all about. We are not in a moral crisis, we are not in a political, financial, or religious crisis, we are in nothing of all that; we are in an evolutionary crisis. We are dying to humanity to be born to something else. So everything is broken, everywhere, everything is horrible, everywhere, even in the splendid, so comfortable American cities. It's the same barbarism everywhere and we have to reach the moment where the consciousness moves into another dimension, you see. This is the story: it's an evolutionary crisis. We're at the same point where, at a certain moment in evolution, we had to move from a branchial respiration to a pulmonary one, or we would asphyxiate.

This is what's happening. you see, I can only talk about my own experience: a man starts to be only when he arrives at the total nothingness of what he is, what he believes, what he thinks, what he loves. When we arrive at that complete nothingness, then something must be, or we die. I have experienced that in the concentration camps, there's was nothing left, everything was broken, shattered, even myself I was broken; all ideals, nobilities, everything was broken, shattered, there was nothing, nothing, nothing you understand.

There were no politics, no religion, there was nothing to cling to, then, when there's nothing, what remains? What remains? There's a centre of force, of being, something remains and this is the key. It's not all we think, it's not all we feel, it's not all we love, it's no ideals, no dear Lord, it's nothing of all that. It's something... poignant, as if all the being was gathered into such an intense anxiety that it's like a prayer, or it's love, it's something warm, powerful, without words, which is the being, which is what we are. This is the question or the point at which everyone is arriving: when everything collapses, what remains?

D: It seems that man cannot conceive the end of his species and this eventual transition to another one.

S: But if they conceive it or not, does it really matter? Obviously, if they could conceive it, it would be easier but even if they can't conceive it, it will fall on their heads. It's falling on their heads. The ceiling is collapsing. So, if they don't consent they will be broken, that's all.

D: I think this is the reason why a lot of people start to feel it as something unbearable, as a need.

S: Yes, that's the key. It has to be unbearable. When you have reached such a point of asphyxia, or impossibility, then, you have to find another possibility or you die. You will never be able to pass into another possibility unless the old way of being has become impossible. This is in conformity with all evolutionary laws. We pass into a new species when the conditions of the old species, for whatever reasons, become unbearable or impossible, or asphyxiating. Then the genius in these human cells is forced to find a new mechanism, or a new way of being which will take us through these unlivable conditions. If, in these human cells, the secret is not there to help you with this new adaptation, then you die. And when you reach the point of impossibility, well, you are forced to find a new possibility. And it's not about thinking, or even willing, you are physiologically forced. The secret is in the body, because what evolves? It's not thought that evolves, it's the body. Which way did the species evolve? They evolved through their cells, through their body, and us, men, it's all the same, we added thought to that but it's not the foundation.

The foundation is what happens in the body. All this evolutionary crossing which led us to Man gives us the chance, the grace, to understand the phenomenon instead of enduring it unconsciously like all the previous species. We have the wonderful possibility to understand the phenomenon. For once in evolution, the next stage will take place consciously. This means we can open our eyes, we can understand the process. And when we understand it, many things change. This means we can hasten the process, we can collaborate in the process, instead of being crushed under suffocating conditions which we don't understand. All the insanity, all the madness, all the horrible things which happen in the world, it's because men don't understand the process. and everything is broken to force us to reach that human moment, where we are what man really is.

What is it, a man? We are completely misled by philosophies, religions, politics, all these are outgrowths which were added century after century, but this has nothing to do with human reality. What is human reality? A man in a cell, who's going to be shot tomorrow morning, knows what it is, sometimes. Many mornings, I listened to steps in the corridor... then, when you are there, alone in the dark, and hear steps coming and one knocks at the next cell's door, and then it goes, it's another cell. at that moment, where is philosophy?, where is religion?, where is family?, where is love? Where is all that superficial crust? There's nothing left. There's nothing left, but there's something so powerfully sweet, so strong, which IS, for once IT IS and that is human reality. It has no name, it has no name...but it's a force, and it's very gentle as if suddenly everything slips out of your hands and a sweetness remains which understands everything, which is not insipid, which is strong, which looks at all this comedy, all this tragedy from above and which suddenly sees things from beyond. And that is man and no one can touch that, no one. One can shoot you, one can torture you, but that doesn't move, that IS, and this is the evolutionary link, this is what will take us through to somewhere else, into a less tragic and less ridiculous species. This is that reality which has the power to move on to the next stage. It's not all our philosophies.

Did the philosophy of the fish ever help it to become an amphibian? Did the dinosaur's religion ever help him to become a mammal? So it's nothing we know that will help us to go through, it's nothing, nothing, nothing at all, it's not Karl Marx, it's not the pope, it's nobody, it's simply that thing which is the pure being of what we are, you see, which is like a true heartbeat, then that, yes, that passes through, because it's the only reality, everything else was just there to teach us to approach the reality of what we are: religious, Marxist, Gandhist, all the human things which are simply there to help us to approach, step by step, human reality.

And then now, the world event is that all this is broken: we are blessed because all our ideas, all our feelings, all our moralities are broken, it's such a grace, we are laid bare to find that which can survive, that which is creative, because when you are at this point of being, you understand that it's the creative force, that it is that which can change everything. But, only, as evolution is not an individual matter, humanity has to reach this irrevocable point globally, this point where you are or you are not. You are or you are not? And if you are not, then, you leave, like many species left.

But in any ordinary life, the simplest one, there is a moment when man is facing himself, alone. In every human existence there is a moment, when, in exceptional conditions, we see our life collapsing, and we look...it happens to every man, and it happens to more and more human beings, this moment when, really, you have the feeling that everything has failed.

D: But I see there are young people, in young people it's very strong, who are reacting to this with an external violence.

S: Yes, they escape, we escape and everybody escapes; so, we escape into drugs, we escape into assassinations, we escape in so many ways. These are escapes. We escape just as well into drugs and murders and violence as we escape into transcendental yoga, into religions, into Marxism. These are all escapes, we elude the question. So, we can say that humanity probably divides itself into one species which finds everything perfectly normal and natural and more or less pleasant with little joys, little troubles, great joys, great troubles and another species, I could say, which is in this intensity of nonsense and doesn't ask questions, but calls in its heart, cries out in its heart, and that makes the difference. these ones, and the others and if you are then you go through everything, not only do you go through but you find the key of the reason why we are in this catastrophe. The real catastrophe is now, it's not the bomb, you see, the bomb is the false catastrophe, the real catastrophe is when man has nothing left to stand on, this is the catastrophe, and at the same time it's a marvel, it's a marvel.

So, there are few men who have the courage of this nothingness, of this nullity, and the circumstances bring us there, the circumstances are forcing each and every one of us to reach this lasting essence, this essence which IS, you see. We are led there, we are arriving there. So, in order to arrive there, all insanities, all madness are actually part of the signs, it's not hopeless at all, on the contrary, it's the sign that we are at last approaching a reality. The world of 1900 was a hopeless world, when science took birth, and all the great hopes, it was "La Belle Epoque" as they say. This was a hopeless world..because it was such a mediocre humanity we were making. Instead, now, there can be fools, there can be drug addicts, there can be all this madness and this terror but we are approaching something which has a poignant reality. This is no longer comedy, these are no longer all the stories we were shown in theatres in 1900. We are approaching a deeply moving reality in the consciences, because what we don't understand is that the next evolutionary stage towards which we are precipitated will not be an improvement of the present jail, meaning that we are going to find better ideals or even better feelings, better moralities, it's not that. The next evolutionary stage what is it? It's that suddenly in a few ones, or maybe brutally in a lot of people, consciousness is going to burst.

What does it mean to burst? It means another look. Imagine, to use the same image again, a first fish in evolution which suddenly develops a pulmonary respiration, gets out of the water, arrives under the sun, on a beach...

You understand the difference? Between this thing which was living in the water, and suddenly this other animal, under the sun, on the beach. These are two things so completely different that one is like madness for the other.

This new force, we could say, this new species, is it possible to make it grow or appear in a certain number of human beings who live together collectively?

Auroville is an attempt to incarnate this experiment humanly and, above all, collectively.