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1 January 1958
0 Nature, material Mother,
Thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate
and there is no limit
to the splendour of this collaboration.
(New Year Message, 1 January 1958)
Question: Sweet Mother, will you explain the message for this year
?
It is already written ! The explanation has already been written, it is
ready for the Bulletin of February 21.[see Appendix
below]
There is nothing to explain. It is an experience, something that happened,
and when it happened I noted it down, and as it turned out, it occurred
just at the moment when I remembered that I had to write something for
the year-which was next year at that time, that is, the year which begins
today. When I remembered that I had to write something -not because of
that, but simultaneously - this experience came, and when I noted it down,
I realised that it was... it was the message for this year
(Silence)
I will tell you only one thing: you should not misinterpret the meaning
of this experience and imagine that from now on everything is going to
take place.without any difficulties and always in a manner that favours
our personal desires. It is not on this plane. It does not mean that when
we do not want it to rain, it will not rain ! that when we want something
to happen in the world, it will happen immediately; that all difficulties
will be done away with and everything will be as it is in fairy-tales.
It is not that. It is something much deeper: Nature, in her play of forces,
has accepted the new Force which has manifested and included it in her
movements. And as always, the movements of Nature are on a scale which
is infinitely beyond the human scale and not visible to an ordinary human
consciousness. It is an inner, psychological possibility which has come
into the world rather than a spectacular change in earthly events.
I am saying this because you might be tempted to believe that fairy-tales
were going to be realised on earth. It is not yet time for that.
(Silence)
One must have much patience and a very wide and very complex vision to
understand how things happen.
(Silence)
The miracles which take place are not what could be called story-book
miracles, in the sense that they don't happen as in stories. They are
visible only to a very deep vision of things very deep, very comprehensive,
very vast.
(Silence)
One must already be capable of following the methods and ways of the Grace
in order to recognise its action. One must already be capable of not being
blinded by appearances in order to see the deeper truth of things.
We could usefully, this evening, just take this resolution: to try throughout
the year to do our best, so that the time may not pass in vain.
APPENDIX
Explanation of the New Year Message of 1 January 1958
[published in the Bulletin of 21 February 1958]
In the course of one of our classes [=30 October 1957, Mother was precisely
explaining the first pages of Sri Aurobindo's "The
Spiritual Evolution" that are the last six chapters of "The Life Divine"
added in 1940] I spoke of the limitless abundance of Nature, the inexhaustible
creatrix who takes the multitude of forms and mixes them together, separates
them again and remoulds them, unmakes and destroys them, to move on to
ever new combinations. It is a huge cauldron, I said: she stirs things
inside and brings out something; it's no good, she throws it in again
and takes something else ... One or two forms or a hundred have no importance
for her, there are thousands and thousands of forms, and then as for years,
a hundred years, a thousand, millions of years, it is of no importance,
you have eternity before you! It is quite obvious that Nature enjoys all
this and that she is not in a hurry. If she is told to rush rapidly through
and finish this or that part of her work quickly, the reply is always
the same: "But why should I do so, why ? Doesn't it amuse you ?"
The evening I told you about these things, I identified myself totally
with Nature, I joined in her game. And this movement of identification
provoked a response, a sort of new intimacy between Nature and myself,
a long movement of a growing closeness which culminated in an experience
which came on the eighth of November.
Suddenly Nature understood.
She understood that this new Consciousness which has just been born does
not seek to reject her but wants to embrace her entirely, she understood
that this new spirituality does not turn away from life, does not
recoil in fear before the formidable amplitude of her movement, but
wants on the contrary to integrate all its facets.
She understood that the supramental consciousness is here not to diminish
but to complete her.
Then from the supreme Reality came this order, "Awake, 0 Nature,
to the joy of collaboration." And the whole of Nature suddenly
rushed forward in a great surge of joy, saying, "I accept, I shall
collaborate."
And at the same time, there came a calm, an absolute tranquillity so
that the bodily vessel could receive and contain, without breaking, without
losing anything, the mighty flood of this Joy of Nature which rushed
forward as in a movement of gratitude. She accepted, she saw with all
eternity before her that this supramental consciousness was going to fulfil
her more perfectly, give a still greater strength to her movement, a greater
amplitude, more possibilities to her play.
And suddenly I heard, as if they came from all the corners of the earth,
those great notes one sometimes hears in the subtle physical, a little
like those of Beethoven's Concerto in D-major, which come in moments
of great progress, as though fifty orchestras had burst forth all
in unison, without a single false note, to express the joy of this new
communion between Nature and Spirit, the meeting of old friends who come
together again after having been separated for so long.
Then these words came, "O Nature, material Mother, thou hast said
that thou wilt collaborate and there is no limit to the splendour of this
collaboration."
And the radiant felicity of this splendour was sensed in perfect peace.
That is how the message for the new year was born.
The Mother
in CWM, volume 9, "Questions and Answers
1957-1958" pages 245-248
published by Sri
Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA
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