The Mother on the New Consciousness—la Conscience du Surhomme

Dear Friends,

On 1 January 1969 the Mother experienced the presence of a new consciousness which She has called in French la Conscience du Surhomme. This consciousness—translated into English by Georges Van Vrekhem as the ‘consciousness of the overman’—manifested in the earth atmosphere to establish itself here.

The Mother’s words on this experience—compiled from Her conversations with Satprem and published in the Agenda—have been published on the website of Overman Foundation.

“We simply follow the Mother’s reports about the experience, for they show how careful she was not to distort her experiences by casting them prematurely into a mental formulation.” (Georges Van Vrekhem in The Mother: The Story of Her Life)

With warm regards,

Anurag Banerjee

Founder,

Overman Foundation.

___________

1 January 1969:

So, a happy new year, mon petit!

Yes, there was… It came slowly in the night, and this morning when I woke up, there was a golden Dawn, as it were, and the atmosphere was very light. The body felt, “Oh, it’s really… truly new.” A light, golden Light and… benevolent. Benevolent in the sense of a certitude—a harmonious certitude.

It was new.

So there.

When I say “Happy new year” to people, that’s what I pass on to them. And this morning, I’ve spent my time like that, spontaneously saying, “Happy new year, happy new year….” So…

4 January 1969:

On the 1st, something really strange took place…. And I wasn’t the only one to feel it, a few people felt it too. It began just after midnight, but I felt it at 2, and others at 4 in the morning. It was… I told you a few words about it last time, but the surprising thing is that it didn’t correspond to anything I expected (I didn’t expect anything), or to any of the things I had felt. It was something very material, I mean it was very external—very outward—and luminous, with a golden light. It was very strong, powerful. But its character was a smiling benevolence, a peaceful joy, and a sort of blossoming in the joy and the light. And it was like a “happy new year,” like a wish. I must say it took me by surprise.

It lasted—I felt it for at least three hours. Afterwards, I stopped concerning myself with it, I don’t know what happened. But I told you a few words about it, and I spoke to two or three others: they had all felt it. Which means it was VERY material. They had all felt a sort of joy like that, but an amiable, powerful joy, and… oh, so sweet, very smiling, VERY BENEVOLENT… something… I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a kind of benevolence; so it was something very close to the human. And so concrete! So concrete. As if it had a taste, so concrete was it. Afterwards, I didn’t concern myself with it anymore, except that I told two or three people about it: they had all felt it. Now, I don’t know whether it has mingled or… It hasn’t gone, it doesn’t give the feeling of something that comes only to go away.

It was far more external than the things I usually feel, far more external…. Hardly mental at all, I mean there was no sense of a “promise” or… No. It would rather be like… My own impression was that of an immense personality, immense (meaning that for it, the earth was small, like this [Mother holds a small object in the hollow of her hands], like a ball), an immense personality, so very benevolent, and coming to… (Mother seems to gently raise the little ball in the hollow of her hands). It was the impression of a personal god (yet it was… I don’t know) who comes to help. So very strong! And so sweet at the same time, so understanding.

And it was very external: the body felt it everywhere, everywhere (Mother touches her face, her hands), all over like this.

What has become of it? I don’t know.

It was the start of the year. As if someone on the scale of a god (someone, that is) had come to say “Happy new year,” with all the power to make it a happy year. It was like that.

But what was it?…

So concrete…

I don’t know.

Is it… is it the personality (because it didn’t have any form, I didn’t see any form, there was only what it brought along [Mother feels the atmosphere with her fingers], sensation and feeling, these two things—sensation and feeling), I wondered if it wasn’t the supramental personality… which will, then, manifest later in material forms?

Since then, the body—this body—has been feeling (it has been permeated by that everywhere, a lot), it has been feeling much more joyful and less concentrated, living more in a happy, smiling expansion. For instance, it speaks more easily. There’s a note… a constant note of benevolence. A smile, you know, a benevolent smile, and all that with a GREAT FORCE…. I don’t know.

Haven’t you felt anything?

That day, I had a sense of contentment.

Ah, that’s it! Yes, that’s right.

Is it the supramental personality?… Which will incarnate in all those who will have a supramental body…?

It was luminous, smiling, and so benevolent because of its POWER: I mean that generally, benevolence in the human being is something slightly weak, in the sense that it doesn’t like battle, it doesn’t like struggle—but this wasn’t like that at all! A benevolence that imposes itself (Mother brings her two fists down on the armrests of her chair).

It interested me because it was entirely new. And so concrete! Concrete like this (Mother touches the arms of her chair), like what the physical consciousness usually regards as “others,” as concrete as that. Which means it didn’t come through some inner being, through the psychic being: it came DIRECTLY onto the body.

What is it?… Yes, it may be that…. The body’s feeling since that took place has been a sort of certitude; a certitude as if now it no longer were in an anxiety or uncertainty to know. “What will it be? What will this Supramental PHYSICALLY be like?” the body used to wonder. “What will it be like physically?” Now, it no longer thinks about it, it’s happy.

Very well.

Is it something that’s going to permeate the bodies that are ready?

Yes… I think so, yes. I feel it’s the formation that’s going to permeate and express itself—permeate and express itself—in the bodies… which will be the bodies of the Supramental.

Or maybe… maybe the superman? I don’t know. The intermediary between the two. Maybe the superman: it was very human, but a human of divine proportions, you understand.

A human without weaknesses and shadows: it was all luminous—all light and smile and… sweetness at the same time.

Yes, maybe the superman.

(silence)

I don’t know why, for a moment I have been thinking insistently: people who won’t know how things actually happened will say, once this supramental force has entered the earth’s atmosphere and penetrated them, they will say, “Well, WE are the ones who did this!”

(Mother laughs) Yes, probably!

It’s we, it’s our fine humanity that has… blossomed.

Yes, certainly It’s always like that.

That’s why I say—I say that after all, for all of us here who have to face all the difficulties, it’s really a Grace! Because WE will know how—and we will not cease to be, of course.

We will know how it was done.

8 January 1969:

And this descent of the superman consciousness…

Did I tell you I had afterwards identified it?

When you spoke last time, you had identified it.

Yes, but I spoke of “supramental consciousness.”

Later, you said, “Maybe the superman?”

Yes, that’s it. It’s the descent of the superman consciousness. I had the assurance of it afterwards.

It was on the 1st of January after midnight. I woke up at 2 in the morning, surrounded by a consciousness, but so concrete, and NEW, in the sense that I had never experienced that. It lasted, quite concrete and present, for two or three hours, and then it spread out and went to find all those who could receive it. And at the same time I knew it was the consciousness of the superman, that is, the intermediary between man and the supramental being.

It has given the body a sort of assurance, a sort of trust. That experience has made it steady, as it were, and if it keeps the true attitude, all the support is there to help it.

A certain number of people (I asked afterwards) had the experience, they felt it (not as clearly), felt the presence of a new consciousness—lots of people. They told me (I asked them if they had felt something), they told me, “Oh, yes!” But each with… (Mother twists her fingers slightly) naturally his own special approach.

(silence)

The curious thing (I’ve noticed it with others) is that when the Action is silent, it’s FAR MORE PRECISE than when it takes place through words. Words are received mentally, and there is always a slight distortion: a distortion of the content of those words. Whereas when the action is direct (Mother makes a gesture of inner communication), it’s very precise.

I don’t want to give names, but I’ve had both examples these last few days. There was someone I was to see only a few days later, so then I put the Consciousness and Force on him, and the change took place, but very clearly and precisely; while to others I spoke of this experience, and they transcribed it: two transcriptions were read out to me, very different from each other (while I very nearly said the same thing), each transcription is different, and there is a slight distortion, different too, in each.

I didn’t correct them because words themselves distort, so…

You see, when I speak, I give words a very precise meaning—very subtle and precise; the other person receives the sound of the word and gives it his own interpretation. But what can we do?

This Consciousness takes on a different “color,” so to speak, in everyone. It’s the same thing with words: words have a similar, but nevertheless different meaning for each of those who utter them…. We would have to communicate like this (gesture of inner exchange): the direct experience.

15 January 1969:

It has remained, this [superman] consciousness. It has remained, it’s very strong, oh!… Today again, with these [Jain] sadhus, I had the experience: it came, mon petit, it was tremendous! It came massively, it enveloped me completely, so I sat very still, like that, behind it: nothing could get through. Interesting… Oh, it really is a power. Down to the vital. Physically, the body cannot respond; there is indeed an action, but… it’s not that. It’s not that. But it has put a vital in the body (you know that the vital had gone away), an awesome vital! That’s quite amusing. You feel as if you were saying to people, “Keep still!”

I am going to try it on A. [the American disciple], I’ll see if it makes him steady on his feet again…. He’ll believe it’s his statue of Athena! It doesn’t matter. Even those who think well still think nonsense, so…

This sadhu, “it” tried to pull him within, but when the pressure became very strong, he started talking! He couldn’t… [bear or contain it]. The disciple who was near him became very excited, but he controlled him.

He began with some banality about “the work I am doing for humanity” (some stupid remark of the sort), and when he saw it didn’t work, he kept as quiet as he could, then started talking again and said what I told you—that he had “heard about me a lot, but…” As for me, I kept putting all this consciousness between the body and him.

After all, I enjoyed myself! (Mother laughs)

He had a stick, which he had even wrapped in white! He was all white, and the stick too was white; he carried it like this, as a bishop carries his crosier.

They have completely shut themselves in.

Ah, they’ve deliberately cut themselves off from the world, and they want to assert that: separation is part of their conception.

They have shut themselves in their saintliness.

Many of them, I am sure, have suppressed desires and all kinds of such things in a state of ferment…. But the body kept very still with that [superman consciousness] around it, and the Consciousness kept saying to him, “The individual is nothing, abdicate, abdicate the individual—be sincere, abdicate the individual. The supreme Consciousness alone is….” It didn’t touch him. I don’t know if something in him received it, but he didn’t notice it…. We’ll see.

18 January 1969:  

So this consciousness is very consciously active.

(silence Mother gives flowers)

Here, this is for you.

You see (Mother shows two hibiscus flowers), it’s not the same thing: this is “Grace,” and this is “Supramental Consciousness”—we have the flower before the consciousness!…

(silence)

Today I saw Pondicherry’s lieutenant governor (he comes now and then, every two weeks), and other people (a guard of Auroville, who is a Muslim), a bit of everything, and now this consciousness comes: the other day, I told you, it was like a rampart, but today with the governor it was much smaller, of limited proportions (gesture like a beam), but it was there, intact: it was the same thing, only the concentration was less. And it comes between the Action (Mother points to her own body) and the person. It’s like a projection of power. And now it has become habitual.

There is in it a consciousness (something VERY precious) that gives lessons to the body, teaches it what it has to do, that is, the attitude it should have, the reaction it should have…. I had already told you a few times how difficult it is to find the procedure of the transformation when there’s no one to give you indications; and it’s the response, as it were: “he”¹ comes and tells the body, “Have this attitude, do this, do that in that way.” So then the body is happy, it’s quite reassured, it can’t make a mistake anymore.

Very interesting.

It has come like a “mentor”—and PRACTICAL, wholly practical: “This is to be rejected; this is to be accepted; this is to be generalized; this”…, for all inner movements. And it even becomes very material, in the sense that with certain vibrations, it says, “This is to be encouraged”; with others, “This is to be channeled”; with yet others, “This is to be got rid of….” Small indications of that sort.

(silence)

Years ago, in one of the old Talks, when I spoke there, at the Playground, I said, “The superman will probably be first a being of power, so as to be able to defend himself.” That’s it, it’s that experience. It has come back as an experience. And it’s because it has come back as an experience that I remembered having said it.

Yes, you said, “Power’s what will come first.”

Yes, Power first.

Because those beings will need to be protected.

Yes, that’s right. Well, I’ve had the first experience for this body: it came like a rampart, it was awesome! An awesome power! Quite out of proportion with the apparent action.

Very interesting.

And that’s also why (now that I see this experience), I see that the result is far more precise and concrete, because the mind and the vital aren’t there. Because it [this new consciousness] is taking their place. And with this whole tranquil assurance of knowledge that comes at the same time. It’s interesting.

(silence)

Do you have something to say?

I was wondering how, individually, this consciousness will act, for instance outside you?

In the same way. Only, those who haven’t made it a habit to observe themselves objectively will notice it less, that’s all. It will go through cotton wool, as it were, as it always does. But otherwise it’s in the same way.

I mean, this consciousness will not act on the mind so much as on bodies?

I do hope it will make people THINK correctly…

It’s a guide, basically.

A guide, yes.

It’s a consciousness, you understand.

For me, THE Consciousness limits itself to special activities, in special cases, but it’s always THE Consciousness; just as it’s almost completely limited in the human consciousness, so too in certain states of being, certain activities, it limits itself to a certain way of being so as to accomplish His action. And that’s something I had asked for a lot: “May I be guided every minute,” because it saves a huge amount of time, of course, instead of having to study, to observe, to…—one knows. Well, now I realize it has happened like that.

(silence)

There is a very pronounced change in those who were touched on the 1st of January: there is especially… as I said, a precision and a certainty that have entered their way of thinking.

(before leaving, Satprem lays his forehead on Mother’s knees)

Oh, time is so short….

You don’t have anything to ask? Anything to say?

It was here (Mother looks in the region of the heart). It’s strange, I seem to be asked to put it in contact with all those who come near me.

(After Satprem has left, Mother says a few words to Sujata.)

Since it came, I’ve been seeing people’s eyes more clearly—in the past too, I used to see their eyes, but it was their psychological state, while now I see the expression of the eyes, and it’s so interesting!