Man after Man

Chapter Three: Mother's Agenda

D: Mother's Agenda.

S: Oh. the Agenda...it's an adventure, a fabulous adventure. You see, Mother had explored many paths at the beginning of the century, when Jules Verne was still there, when Santos- Dumont flew 60 meters at Bagatelle. But She was already further than all that. She had experienced many things we call para psychological, meaning that you go out of your body, you go far away and see many things happening physically, and all that didn't seem to be Her aim. You go out of your body, yes, you go and explore far away and see like physically what's happening there. You come into contact with forces which move storms, nature, rain. You can look like, a prophet, a thaumaturge (miracle-worker).

She had explored all that already, when Jules Verne had finished, when Einstein had just started. And She told herself this is all very well, but to see extraordinary things, go out of one's body, what's the point? If one is born into a body then this body must have a sense. Extraordinary things are very pretty, but if life is not extraordinary, what's the point? Then, She met Sri Aurobindo who told her the way further, the way into the body. He told her, and that was already at the beginning of the century, "Man is a transition being", it won't remain always like that, with this intelligence or even this extraordinary supraphysical powers, or even these extraordinary scientific powers. It's going to become something else.

What, something else? And then Sri Aurobindo left, She was all alone. Sri Aurobindo had said very few things, although He had written many volumes, He had said very little about the secret. What's this other thing? What's going to come after man or what's going to come out of man? It's not going to fall from the sky, you see, if there is a stage after the human being, it has to be made, it has to come out of us. and from where is it going to come? Obviously not from our intelligence. Evolution happens in the body. Then, alone, at almost 80, She started the path of tomorrow, the tomorrow of what? We don't know... Did a monkey know what a man would be?

And in this "not knowing", in this unknown, there's a great anxiety. You walk into nothing, you are in nothing, because, if you were in something, then you would be in the old man.

Man's tomorrow is nothing yet, it's like the forest, you don't know it, you have to go through it. When you have gone through it then you can understand that there are outlines, rivers, a forest. But when you're into it, there are trees and trees and trees, and going where? And then, I arrived at Pondicherry one day. Me too, in my childish or desperate way, I had knocked at many doors, I had searched a lot.

I had been in Guyana's virgin forest, and then adventure well, adventure closes up on itself, you're a prisoner of the virgin forest too, you're a prisoner of some story which closes up on itself. After some time, even if you've had the most extraordinary adventures, the circle closes up. I've been a gold seeker, you cannot spend your entire life seeking gold. I've been to Brazil, to Africa, I became a sannyasin in India, I've been on the roads, I have experienced Tantrism, they tried to teach me these so-called extraordinary powers which seemed so little extraordinary to me and then what? After all that, what? After all that, you remain a man with his question, with his lack of plenitude, with no real sense...no real sense...or it's always the same old story.

I met Mother, and then, well, I fought a lot because it was an ashram. I'm not fond of walls... but She has been very patient with me, so patient...I was a bit of a wild child, you see, and I was always tempted to go back to my virgin forest or to the desert and She made me understand that there was another adventure, She conquered me.

Then, I had this extraordinary privilege of listening to her impossible adventure in this virgin forest of the future where She groped around, where She bumped into obstacles, where She received many blows, because, if you want to get out of this old human species and find out what will be man's tomorrow, not his tomorrow in the head but his tomorrow in life and in the body, then you immediately meet with the old species. To become a next species, it's very crazy.

So, She was groping...but groping into what? You grope into your own body, into the consciousness of your own body. Evolution takes place in the body. This body is the bridge towards what is to come. Evolution always happened in the cells. These cells changed their way of being or their way of functioning. So, what is the new way of functioning? As soon as you enter and descend into this body consciousness, then, you meet with all which doesn't want this experiment, this novelty. Anything new is frightening for the body. She was telling me, her eyes closed, her improbable or incredible adventures. It was painful, because the deeper you go into this body, the more you meet this very primitive consciousness of matter, which is scared, which is afraid of diseases, which revolts, which shrinks as soon as there's something unknown. And then you meet death. It's as if, in the depths of the body, there was something like a call for death. Something which longs for the end of this nightmare of existence where you have to struggle.

I'm talking about the body, you see, not about the existence in the middle of the world. I'm simply talking about the body. One must struggle against diseases, against aggressive vibrations which are rushing at you .and something deep down, which wants all this nightmare to stop and which calls for death. Then, this is a strange adventure, really, in a virgin forest, sometimes cruel and merciless. You have to struggle not only with your own body's difficulties but also with the difficulties of the surrounding species. As soon as you descend a little deeper, there is no more I, separated from others, you feel that these cells are immediately communicating with everything. It's the way the animal lives. For him, the world is not external, he feels all what's happening around him as if it was in him, you see, there is no I and the others.

Then, the more you descend into this body consciousness, the more you descend into the complete unity of human matter. There's no distance, there's no "over there", there's no "other".

Then, the quite fabulous experience is that this body consciousness is somehow spread everywhere. Then you understand how a bird can fly from the Spitzberg to the lagoon of the Pacific without getting lost on the way because everything is immediately and naturally there for him. Then there is this whole fabulous side of a body which finds itself everywhere and there is this other side then, quite dreadful, where the body is this one with cancer, that one full of hatred, that one filled with cruelty and that one who denies. Then, it's as if constantly and symbolically, through her surroundings, Mother was swallowing all the world's difficulties, all the world's refusals, the world's negations, or even its will for death. It was like a battle.