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3 October 1956
I have yet some other questions of a practical nature, and in connection
with these questions I saw something I am going to tell you about -oh!
it was not a vision with images, don't expect something very entertaining.
No, it is not that.... I was asked - I am rewording it, this is not the
exact text of the question:
Question: What difference does the presence of the Supermind really
make ? In what way does it change the tenor of problems, and how
should life be reconsidered following this manifestation ?
I have been asked to give practical examples; I don't quite know what
that may mean, but anyway, here is what I saw in a sort of mathematical
mood - though the language of mathematics is rather foreign to me - but
I may call this a mathematical way, that is to say, a mathematical way
of looking at the problem.
I think all of you have studied enough mathematics to know the complexity
of the combinations which may be produced by taking certain select elements
of a set as a basis.
I shall give you an example to make myself clear, for I can't use the
terms which are employed in teaching you. For instance, the letters of
the alphabet. There is a certain number of letters in the alphabet; well,
if you want to calculate or know the number of combinations possible by
taking all these letters together - how they may be organised, in how
many ways they can be organised you have learnt how very fantastic the
figure becomes.... Good.
But if you take the material world and go down to the most minute element
- you know, don't you, that they have come to absolutely invisible things,
innumerable things - if you take this element as the basis and the material
world as the whole, and if you imagine a Consciousness or a Will playing
with all these elements at making all the possible combinations without
ever repeating a single one.... Obviously... In mathematics you are told
that the number of elements is finite and that therefore the number of
combinations is finite; but that is purely theoretical, for if you come
down to practice and all these combinations had to follow each other,
even if they went at so great a speed that the change would be almost
imperceptible, it is quite obvious that the time needed to make all these
combinations would be, apparently at least, infinite; that is to say,
the number of combinations would be so immense that no limit could be
assigned to it - at least no practical limit; the theory is not interesting
for us, but practically it would be like that.
So suppose that what I tell you is true, in this sense that there really
is a Consciousness and a Will manifesting these combinations, successively,
indefinitely, without ever repeating a single one twice; we come to the
conclusion that the universe is new at each moment of eternity. And if
the universe is new at each moment of eternity, we have to acknowledge
that absolutely nothing is impossible; not only that, but that what we
call logic is not necessarily true, and that the logic, one could almost
say the fantasy of the Creator, is unlimited.
Therefore, if for one reason or other - which might perhaps be difficult
to express - if for some reason a combination were not followed by the
one nearest to it but by another freely chosen by the Supreme Freedom,
all our external certitudes and all our external logic would instantly
break down.
For the problem is much more complicated than you think: it is not only
on one plane, in one field, that is to say, what may be called a surface
of things, that there is this practically infinite number of elements
permitting of eternally new combinations, there is besides what may be
called a depth, that is to say, other dimensions.
And the Creation is the result not only of surface combinations but of
combinations of depths below this surface - what in other terms are called
"psychological factors".
But I am at the moment taking a purely mathematical stand, although I
don't speak the language of mathematics, but still it is a mathematical
conception.
And so here we come to the problem:
Every time a new element is introduced into the total set of possible
combinations, it causes what may be called a tearing of its limits: the
introduction of something which makes all past limits disappear and new
possibilities come in and multiply infinitely the possibilities of old.
So, you had a world which, according to the ancient knowledge, had twelve
depths or twelve - how to put it ? - successive dimensions; and into this
world of twelve dimensions, suddenly new dimensions are precipitated;
then all the old formulas are instantly transformed and the whole possibility
of the old unfolding becomes... one can't say increased but supplemented
by an almost infinite number of new possibilities, and all this in such
a way that all the previous logic becomes illogical in the presence of
the new logic.
I am not speaking at all of what the human mind has made of the universe,
for that is to reduce it to its own dimension; I am speaking of the fact
just as it is, of a total set of combinations which are realised successively,
in accordance with an order and a choice which, obviously, completely
elude the human consciousness, but to which man has to some extent adapted
himself and which, with a great effort of study such as humanity has pursued
down the centuries, he has succeeded in formulating well enough to be
able to hook himself on to something tangible....
It is obvious that modem scientific perception is much nearer to something
corresponding to the universal reality than were the perceptions of the
Stone Age, for instance - this without the shadow of a doubt. But even
this is going to be suddenly completely overpassed, exceeded, and probably
turned quite topsy-turvy by the intrusion of something which was not in
the universe which was studied.
Well, it is from this change, this sudden transformation
of the universal element which quite certainly is going to bring about
a kind of chaos in the perceptions, that a new knowledge will emerge.
This, in the most general way, is the result of the new manifestation.
(see note)
From an altogether restricted, external and limited point of view, I shall
now speak to you of certain things which don't belong to my own experience
but which I have heard about; for instance, that there is a greater number
of what are called "child prodigies". I haven't met any, so
I can't tell you what is truly prodigious about these children, but still,
according to the stories that are related, there are obviously some kind
of new types which seem astonishing to the ordinary human consciousness.
It is examples of this kind, I believe, that we would like to know in
order to understand what is happening....
But it is possible, in fact, that things are happening now which
we are not used to watching. But it is a question of interpretation.
The only thing I am sure of is what I have just told you, that the quality,
the number and the nature of the possible combinations in the universe
are suddenly going to change so considerably that it will probably be
quite bewildering for all those who do research.
Now, we shall see.
(Silence)
I could perhaps add a practical word to what I have just told you; it
is only an illustration of a detail, but it will be an indirect answer
to other questions which were asked some time ago about the so-called
laws of Nature, causes and effects, "inevitable" consequences
in the material field, and more particularly from the point of view of
health; for example, that if one doesn't take certain precautions, if
one doesn't eat as one should, doesn't follow certain rules, necessarily
there are consequences.
It is true. But if this is seen in the light of what I have just said,
that no two universal combinations are alike, how can laws be established
and what is the absolute truth of these laws?… It does not exist.
For, if you are logical, of course with a little higher logic, since no
two things, two combinations, two universal manifestations are ever the
same, how can anything repeat itself ? It can only be an appearance but
is not a fact. And to fix rigid laws in this way - not that you cut yourself
off from the apparent surface laws, for the mind makes many laws, and
the surface very obligingly seems to comply with these laws, but it is
only an appearance - but anyway this cuts you off from the creative Power
of the Spirit, it cuts you off from the true Power of the Grace, for you
can understand that if by your aspiration or your attitude you introduce
a higher element, a new element - what we may now call a supramental
element - into the existing combinations, you can suddenly change
their nature, and all these so-called necessary and ineluctable laws become
absurdities.
That is to say that you yourself, with your conception, with your attitude
and your acceptance of certain alleged principles, you yourself close
the door upon the possibility of the miracle - they are not miracles when
one knows how they happen, but obviously for the outer consciousness they
seem miraculous.
And it is you yourself, saying to yourself with a logic that seems
quite reasonable, "Well, if I do this, that will necessarily happen,
or if I don't do that, necessarily this other thing will happen",
it is you yourself who close the door - it is as though you were putting
an iron curtain between yourself and the free action of the Grace.
How nice it would be to imagine that the Supreme Consciousness, essentially
free, presiding at the universal Manifestation, could be full of fantasy
in its choice and make things follow one another not according to a logic
accessible to human thought but in accordance with another kind of logic,
that of the unforeseen !
Then there would no longer be any limits to the possibilities, to the
unexpected, the marvellous; and one could hope for the most splendid,
the most delightful things from this sovereignty free Will, playing eternally
with all the elements and creating unceasingly a new world which logically
would have absolutely nothing to do with the preceding one.
Don't you think it would be charming ? We have had enough of the world
as it is ! Why not let it become at least what we think it ought to be
?
And I am telling you all this in order that each one of you may put
as few barriers as you can in the way of the possibilities to come.
That's my conclusion.
I don't know if I have made myself understood, but indeed a day will
come, I suppose, when you will know what I meant.
That's all, then.
Note: When this talk was first
published in 1962, Mother added the following comment about "the
new element": "It is not a question of 'new things' in the sense
that they did not exist before, but that they were not manifested in the
universe. If they were not already there, involved, they could never have
come! That is obvious. Nothing can exist which does not already exist
from all eternity in the Supreme, but in the manifestation it is new.
The element is not new but it is newly manifested, it has newly come out
of the Non-manifest. New, what does that mean? It has no meaning, a 'new
thing'! It is new for us in the Manifestation, that is all."
Back to the text
The Mother
in: Questions and Answers 1956 - October 3, 1956
CWM volume 8 - pages 312-317
published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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