The Eternal Mother

It is said that The Mother — Mirambika, who was born as Mira Alfassa — withdrew Herself on the 17th day of November in 1973. However, we will see that in reality, in the highest meaning and sense of the term ‘reality’, The Mother continues eternally — in a NEW BODY.

The spiritual journey of Man has a revolutionary and evolutionary turning since Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. They have given Spirituality a completely new turn and definition, a completely new purpose and value.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother came to earth in order to lead the earthly Evolution beyond Man, beyond all the imperfections and incompleteness of Man, beyond all the sorrows and miseries of Man, beyond Death : and They have, jointly, advanced and almost completed Their Task to a very great extent. Only what They have done has to be finished — this is the Task that has to be taken up by some of the followers of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and it will surely be further taken up and advanced by some. What They have done in Their individual lives has to be extended to the collective life.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A divine life in a divine body is the formula of the ideal that we envisage. But what will be the divine body? What will be the nature of this body, its structure, the principle of its activity, the perfection that distinguishes it from the limited and imperfect physicality within which we are now bound? … … …
The process of the evolution upon earth has been slow and tardy– what principle must intervene if there is to be a transformation, a progressive or sudden change?

It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence, free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness and able to develop the power and perfection of the spirit … … …

Into that truth [supramental] we shall be freed and it will transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of all the being are there as native powers of the supramental truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit… … … [Supramental Manifestation]

The most essential aspect of the Work of the Supramental Descent and Transformation has been realized and advanced by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother aimed at and worked for a Descent, on earth, of the Supramental Consciousness, what He otherwise named as Truth Consciousness. They declared that Their main aim and objective was to manifest on earth the principle of Truth-Consciousness, of the Supramental Consciousness on earth, and set it on earth as a basic principle that will operate and function here and transform the human life into a divine life, progressively and step by step. And the divine life is defined by Them as a life where the main principle in function and operation is the principle of Supermind, while at present the main principle is Mind. They pointed out that no other power can bring the transformation except the Supramental Consciousness and Force. For more than fifty thousand years man has endeavoured to make perfect and flawless himself, his life and existence and his environment, but he has failed for the reason that all his endeavours came from an inferior power, the power of Mind. Mind is not a power of Truth — it is an indirect derivation from Truth, covered by pulls of flesh and upheavals from the vital forces and the smokes of the inconscience.

In the course of earthly evolution of Man, there were previous manifestations from the Supreme consciousness in order to cause from the Highest heights the Descent of the highest power suitable for the mankind at those times, and establish them on earth. Sri Rama came with the ideal of the enlightened mind, and Sri Krishna manifested the Overmind consciousness and revealed for us the aspect of Ananda of the Supreme. Thereafter, we find the Buddha who taught us the Way of Nirvana to transcend beyond the mental consciousness. And then, the next step required was / is the descent and manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness and Force. Sri Aurobindo took the Leadership, and along with The Mother, He did all that He had to do. With the Sacrifice of His body, He caused to get manifested the Mind of Light in The Mother, which the first effect of the Descent of the Supermind. This has to be done not for a course of an individual realization and perfection, but the whole earth and, at least, especially for a community open to the Supreme Consciousness. And Sri Aurobindo and The Mother wanted us to make efforts to progress towards the Supramentalization.

OOOOO

Sri Aurobindo told The Mother that She had to stay and complete the Work. Indeed, the entire responsibility of the Supramental Manifestation and of the Work for having a Divine Body came upon The Mother, when Sri Aurobindo passed away and the Mind of Light manifested in Her.

As we know, due to The Mother’s unique, intense and unparalleled Endeavours, the Supramental Consciousness finally descended on earth on 29th February 1956. I am again quoting below the oft-quoted declaration by The Mother :

First Supramental Manifestation
(During the common meditation on Wednesday
The 29th February 1956)
This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
And then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

In Notes on the Way, The Mother spoke of the New Body. It was around 1972. The New Supramental Body was already there. Only, The Mother was trying unveil the Way for entering that Body. She expressed that She will walk into That Body and merge the gross physical body into That Body. She said: I am trying to fuse this material body into that body but I have not been able to get the clue. … Nobody on earth has tried this, the secret is not given to me.

But Events were different, and Her entire Being had to leave the physical body. And then She has entered the New Body, which is eternal and immortal. Sri Aurobindo has a supramental Body, but that cannot function at present on earth in a direct manner, whereas The Mother’s Body is nearer to the earth.

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Let us find what M P Pandit has written in this regard in a unique manner:

*Then on the morning of 17th November at about nine o'clock, a particular friend of mine — he has certain grounding in occult experience, occult knowledge, and normally when we meet, we exchange notes — told me, "I have seen the Mother's body of light." I got interested. He said, “The new body is full of light but it is not yet dense enough to function in the earth conditions. It is there, and as I was looking at it I got the feeling that the Mother would enter this body the moment it became dense enough to stand and function in the earth atmosphere, seen or unseen. But there is no question of revival of the material body." And he added, "Those who are capable of seeing the Mother's halo, aura, they will be able to see that luminous body." It confirmed what I had perceived some four months earlier; I told him as much.

*That evening at 7.25 p.m., as you all know, the Mother withdrew from her body. They say the cause was heart failure, but let me tell you the heart failure was not the cause, the heart failure was the result of her withdrawal. She had decided; the moment things were ready, she walked into that body.

*She has not passed away, she has just changed her body. Not changed in the manner of the Gita — soul changing bodies — but consciously; keeping the full personality she has gone into that body. And, as it was revealed to me on that day, she will function in that body, work through those instruments who are open to her, expedite the remaining work — the working out of the consequences — but her activity will not be confined to the Ashram or to Auroville; for her the whole world is her ashram. As I was led to put it on radio the next day, "The sea of Love that is the Mother swells into an ocean": not a perception, not an idea, not an image, but an experience.*

OOOOO

The Eternal Mother shows Her example before all of us — the human race — and given us the Task and the Aim : the Supramental Transformation.

Out of Man, the Superman is to manifest. And Man is the basis for the advent of the Superman. He shall have to become the Superman. The purpose of the appearance of man must now be fulfilled. Man must surpass himself for that. Man has to collaborate with the Eternal Mother and the Master for the new Evolution, or the evolutionary forces will ignore him and go beyond him and find out its own means.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

A new humanity means for us the appearance, the development of a type or race of mental beings whose principle of mentality would be no longer a mind in the Ignorance seeking for knowledge but even in its knowledge bound to the ignorance, a seeker after Light but not its natural possessor, open to the Light but not an inhabitant of the Light, not yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it would be capable of passing into the supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature. … … …

The first gleamings of the new Light would carry in themselves the seed of its highest flamings; even in the first beginnings, the certainty of their topmost powers would be there; for this is the constant story of each evolutionary emergence: the principle of its highest perfection lies concealed in the involution which precedes and necessitates the evolution of the secret principle.

The Mother is waiting for us. In order to complete the Task of the Supramental Change and bring in the Supramental Race, there should be, at first, a “new humanity” — in the Words of Sri Aurobindo. That is the Aim now, before all of us.

Barindranath Chaki
17-11-2008

[Written on 17-11-2008 and published on 20-11-2008, simultaneously in ASPIRATION, All Choice, Sulekha and Gaia.]