The
Mother Answers on The Divine Body - I
It
is precisely about this progressive transformation that
I am going to speak to you this evening... I have often
been asked this question, "Why, after having posited
as an ideal principle that when we deal with our body we
ought to do it with the knowledge that it is only a result
and an instrument of the supreme Reality of the universe
and of the truth of our being,—why, after having taught
this and shown that this is the truth to be realised, do
we have in the organisation of our Ashram, doctors, dispensaries,
a physical education of the body based on modern theories
accepted everywhere?'' And why, when some of you go for
a picnic do I forbid you to drink water from just anywhere
and tell you to take filtered water with you? Why do I have
the fruit you eat disinfected, etc.?
All
this seems contradictory, but this evening I intend to explain
something to you which, I hope, will put an end to this
feeling of a contradiction in you. In fact, I have told
you many a time that when two ideas or principles apparently
seem to contradict one another, you must rise a little higher
in your thought and find the point where the contradictions
meet in a comprehensive synthesis.
Here,
it is very easy if we know one thing, that the method we
use to deal with our body, maintain it, keep it fit, improve
it and keep it in good health, depends exclusively
on the state of consciousness we are in; for our body is
an instrument of our consciousness and this consciousness
can act directly on it and obtain what it wants from it.
So,
if you are in an ordinary physical consciousness, if you
see things with the eyes of the ordinary physical consciousness,
if you think of them with the ordinary physical consciousness,
it will be ordinary physical means you will have to use
to act on your body. These ordinary physical means make
up the whole science which has accumulated through thousands
of years of human existence. This science is very complex,
its processes innumerable, complicated, uncertain, often
contradictory, always progressive and almost absolutely
relative! Still, very precise results have been achieved;
ever since physical culture has become a serious preoccupation,
a certain number of experiments, studies, observations have
accumulated, which enable us to regulate diet, activities,
exercise, the whole outer organisation of life, and provide
an adequate basis so that those who make the effort to study
and conform strictly to these things have a chance to maintain
their body in good health, correct the defects it may have
and improve its general condition, and even achieve results
which are sometimes quite remarkable.
I
may add, moreover, that this intellectual human science,
such as it is at present, in its very sincere effort to
find the truth, is, surprisingly enough, drawing closer
and closer to the essential truth of the Spirit. It is not
impossible to foresee the movement where the two will unite
in a very deep and very close understanding of the essential
truth.
So,
for all those who live on the physical plane, in the physical
consciousness, it is physical means and processes which
have to be used in dealing with the body. And as the vast
majority of human beings, even in the Ashram, live in a
consciousness which, if not exclusively physical, is at
least predominantly physical, it is quite natural for them
to follow and obey all the principles laid down by physical
science for the care of the body.
Now,
according to what Sri Aurobindo teaches us, this is not
a final realisation, nor is it the ideal to which we want
to rise. There is a higher state than this, in which the
consciousness, though it still remains principally mental
or partially mental in its functioning, is already open
to higher regions in an aspiration for the spiritual life,
and open to the supramental influence.
As
soon as this opening occurs, one passes beyond the state
in which life is purely physical—when I say "physical"
I include the whole mental and intellectual life and all
human achievements, even the most remarkable; I am speaking
of a physical which is the summit of human capacities, of
an earthly and material life in which man can express values
of a higher order from the mental and intellectual point
of view—one can go beyond that state, open oneself
to the supramental force which is now acting on earth and
enter a transitional zone where the two influences meet
and interpenetrate, where the consciousness is still mental
and intellectual in its functioning, but sufficiently imbued
with the supramental strength and force to become the instrument
of a higher truth.
At
present this state can be realised on earth by those who
have prepared themselves to receive the supramental force
which is manifesting. And in that state, in that state of
consciousness, the body can benefit from a much better condition
than the one it was in before. It can be put into direct
contact with the essential truth of its being, to the extent
that, spontaneously, at every moment it knows instinctively,
or intuitively, what is to be done and that it can do it.
As
I say, this state can now be realised by all those who take
the trouble of preparing themselves to receive the supramental
force, to assimilate it and obey it.
Of
course, there is a higher state than this, the state Sri
Aurobindo speaks of as the ideal to be fulfilled: the divine
life in a divine body. But he himself tells us that this
will take time; it is an integral transformation which cannot
be achieved in a moment. It will even take quite a long
time. But when it is accomplished, when the consciousness
has become a supramental consciousness, then action will
no longer be determined at every moment by a mental choice
or be dependent on the physical capacity: the entire body
will spontaneously, integrally, be the perfect expression
of the inner truth.
This
is the ideal we must keep before us, for the realisation
of which we must strive; but we must not delude ourselves
and think that it can be a rapid transformation, miraculous,
immediate, marvellous, without effort and without labour.
However,
it is no longer only a possibility, it is no longer even
only a promise for a far-off future: it is something which
is in the making. And already one can not only foresee but
feel the moment when the body will be able to repeat integrally
the experience of the most spiritual part of the being,
as the inner spirit has already done, and will itself be
able to stand in its bodily consciousness before the supreme
Reality, turn to it integrally and say in all sincerity,
in a total self-giving of all its cells: "To be Thyself—exclusively,
perfectly—Thyself, infinitely, eternally... very simply.''
29 May 1957
- The Mother
