There were six creations in the
past, narrates the Mother, and they were dissolved, as they did not succeed in
establishing here the divine sovereignty. The earth carries their psychic
memory, the unhappy memory of their failure which in her subconscience causes reservation
about the present attempt also. But this time it will not be so—the Mother
assures—particularly when the Supermind has descended and made its station in
the earth’s subtle-physical. The work now goes on in the efficacy of the Mantra
“What Thou Willest, What Thou Willest.” But did the Mother discover it, this
Mantra, so late in the day, in the seventh creation? If so, why after such a
long and tortuous experiment, after much travail and suffering and pain, why it
took that kind of a complicated or convoluted turn? What could have been the
occult reason in this late discovery of the Mantra? One has no knowledge of it,
of the pros and cons governing the thousand operations involved in it. But it
was in the physical, in the tough obstinate physical, in the physical’s dark
and gross mind, rigidly antagonistic and fixed, that she discovered it, the Mantra
dynamic and powerful in the very cells of the body. That is its true power.
They, the good aspiring cells, began hymning “What Thou Willest, What Thou
Willest.” They opened out to the supreme Will and started participating in its
joy. Never had it happened earlier.
But this happened because of the strategic ‘passing away’ of Sri Aurobindo, at
1.26 am on 5 December 1950, at the “Death’s tremendous hour”. Sri Aurobindo
made a conscious entry into the World of Death. The Mother told Dr Sanyal, Sri
Aurobindo’s and later her physician, the following: “People do not know what a
tremendous sacrifice Sri Aurobindo has made for the world. About a year ago,
while I was discussing things, I remarked that I felt like leaving this body of
mine. He spoke out in a very firm tone, ‘No, this can never be. If necessary
for this transformation, I might go, you will have to fulfil our Yoga of
supramental descent and transformation.’ ” The comment was written down from
memory and approved by her afterwards. All this was in the same month, December
1950.
Later, the Mother said: “It was this, the work that Sri Aurobindo had given me.
Now I understand.” She elaborated it in her conversation, dated 14 March 1970:
…And I see now, I see how his
departure and his work so... so vast, yes, and so constant, in the subtle
physical, how much, how much it has helped! How much it has (Mother makes a gesture of kneading Matter)
helped to prepare things, to change the physical structure. All the experiences
that others have had, which were in order to come in contact with the higher
worlds, left here below the physical as it is. ... How to say it? From the
beginning of my life till Sri Aurobindo’s departure, I was in the consciousness
that one can go up, one can know, one can have all the experiences (indeed, one
did have them), but when one came back into this body... it was the old mental
laws, for-mi-da-ble, which ruled things. And then, all these years have been
years of preparation—preparation—liberation and preparation, and these days now
it has been... ah! the physical recognition, made by the body, that it has
changed. It has to be “worked out”, as it is said, it has to be realised in all
the details, but the change is done—the change is done. That is to say, the
material conditions elaborated by the mind, fixed by it (Mother closes her two fists), that appeared to be inevitable to
such an extent that those who had a living experience of the higher worlds
thought that one must flee from the world, give up this material world if one
wanted to live in the truth (that is the basis of all these theories and
faiths); but now it is no longer like that. The physical is capable of
receiving the higher Light, the Truth, the true Consciousness and of
manifesting it. It is not easy, it needs endurance and will, but a day will
come when this will be quite natural. It is just, just the door opened—that is
all, now one must go on…
The concern is, the physical life being governed by the higher consciousness, a
job which is “difficult… hard… painful”.
But the marvellous thing is: “This body, it is... perfectly peaceful and happy:
it is ‘What Thou willest’.” Indeed, unimaginable it is! “How much he has worked
since he left! Oh! all the while, all the while,” she reveals.
Physical transformation,—with the first step of the opening of the physical to
the divine Presence,—that is the work, a work that can be done only in “What
Thou Willest, What Thou Willest.” In it the work of transformation of the
consciousness down to the material becomes rapid; in it is assured the complete
success.
Let us read the Mother’s prayer dated 7 March 1932:
My Lord, I will not try to escape
from the work Thou hast given me. Wherever Thou placest my consciousness, it
will remain without any attempt to rise to the blissful heights. Even if Thou
willest it to be in the mud of the most material nature, it will stay there
peaceful and at rest. But wherever it is, it cannot but be without aspiring
towards Thee, opening to Thy influence and calling Thee down into itself as the
sole reality of its existence.
Savitri has a work to do. The issue of her soul is, in the face of Ignorance
and Death, to hew the ways of Immortality, immortality of the physical in the
terrestrial creation. But this has to happen after reckoning all the facts of
existence, the spirit’s will and the cosmic forces operating in tandem as well
as in opposition. The accomplishment, and the victory, of the “What Thou
Willest, What Thou Willest”, lies in Savitri doing the Shakti Yoga, the Yoga of
the Conquest of Death. She must do this Yoga under the direct command of the
supreme Consciousness-Force herself. There, in it, is settled her soul’s issue.