Subconscient Education

References:
1: “Sri Aurobindo writes this about the chakra at the base of the spine: “The Muladhar is the centre of the physical consciousness proper, and all below in the body is the sheer physical, which as it goes downward becomes increasingly subconscient, but the real seat of the subconscient is below the body, as the real seat of the higher consciousness (superconscient) is above the body.” Bases of Yoga/ p. 133,
2:  The Mother’s Agenda-25th March-1964
3: “The supramental world exists in a permanent way, and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had proof of this today when my earthly consciousness went there and consciously remained there between two and three o’clock in the afternoon: I now know that for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscious relationship what is missing is an intermediate zone between the existing physical world and the supramental world as it exists. This zone has yet to be built, both in the individual consciousness and in the objective world, and it is being built. When formerly I used to speak of the new world that is being created, I was speaking of this intermediate zone. And similarly, when I am on ‘this’ side – that is, in the realm of the physical consciousness – and I see the supramental power, the supramental light and substance constantly permeating matter, I am seeing and participating in the construction of this zone.” The Mother’s Agenda/03.02.1958
4: “What's interesting is to follow this sort of change in the consciousness of the cells: a lot of them still have a sense of wonder at the fact that the Truth exists. That's the form it takes: a sense of wonder.    "Ah, so that's what it is!" A wonder.
A wonder at the existence, the UNIQUE existence of the Lord – a joy! Such an intense joy and a childlike wonder, you know: "Oh, so it's really like that!" And this goes on in one part of the body after another, one group of cells after another. Truly charming. And then, when the mantra comes spontaneously, oh! An adoration: "It's like that, like that! That is true, THAT is true – all the disorder, all the ugliness, all the suffering, all the misery, all of that isn't true! It's not true, THAT is true." And not with words (words make it very small): with an extraordinary sensation, extraordinary! Then ... it's the beginning of that sort of glorious, marvelous life. It's still at the stage of wonder; that is, something unexpected in its sublimity.” The Mother’s Agenda-25.03.1967
5: “If we consider that a child must only learn, know and be aware of what can keep him pure of all lower, crude, violent and degrading movements, then we should eliminate at one stroke the entire contact with the rest of mankind, beginning with all those accounts of wars, murders, conflicts and deceits that are called History; we should eliminate the present contact with family, parents and friends; and we should constantly control the child’s contact with all the vital impulses of his own being… This idea is what led to monastic life shut in a convent, or to ascetic life in the cave or the forest... This remedy has proved to be totally ineffective and has not pulled mankind out of its quagmire…According to Sri Aurobindo, the remedy is altogether different…We must face integral life with all that it still entails in terms of ugliness, falsehood and cruelty, but while taking care to discover in ourselves the source of all goodness, all beauty, all light and all truth, in order to consciously put that source in contact with the world so it may transform it…That is infinitely more difficult than fleeing or closing one’s eyes so as not to see – but it is the only really effective way, the way of those who are truly strong  and pure and capable of manifesting the Truth.” The Mother’s Agenda-29.05.1968
6: “Why, why is this world like this, why? Why all these horrors, why?... That’s how the body was this morning. And it has the impression – just as it has that very strong, very strong sensation of being within the Lord – it has the impression of what that leads to, of what is to come. And then, with TOTAL trust, total. But it doesn’t yet know…It’s all the time – constantly, unceasingly – all the time brought face to face with this experience that when you are like this (Mother tips two fingers on one side), that is, turned to the Divine, things work out miraculously – miraculously ...it’s unbelievable; and being like that (Mother tips two fingers on the other side) is enough for everything to be disgusting, to go wrong, to grate: a TINY LITTLE movement either of trusting opening, or of the ordinary consciousness (not at all a consciousness of revolt or negation, not at all: merely the ordinary consciousness, the consciousness of life as people have it – the ordinary consciousness), and it’s enough ... things become appalling; and then, like this (gesture in the other direction): miraculously marvelous. For microscopic, unimportant things, you understand, that is to say, for EVERYTHING – no question of "important" or "unimportant" things, nothing of that sort – for everything it becomes simply miraculous, yet it’s the same thing! In one case you are in pain, you suffer, you are miserable, you even fall ill, and in the other case And it’s the same thing…But it has reached the point where now the body is quite astounded that one can live the ordinary life with the ordinary consciousness and be contented! It finds that appalling, you know, appalling. And that way of living in chaos, ugliness, wickedness, selfishness, violence, oh ... and cruelty and all possible horrors, and of finding it all perfectly natural.... That’s when the body says to itself, "It must be ... it must have been necessary as a stage in the development, and it’s an effect of the Grace, so there’s nothing to say, there’s only to admire."…But it’s absolutely certain – absolutely certain – that if the world, if the creation were as it appears to be to this bodily consciousness as it now is, there would be only one thing to do – to blot it out! That’s obviously the explanation of, and justification for, all nihilistic religions and philosophies. It takes a thoroughly unconscious insensitiveness to be able to live happily and contentedly in this horror that is the world. And all this IS the Lord, and not only IS the Lord but is WITHIN the Lord; that is to say, it’s not as we imagine it – things that were driven away, rejected – not at all, not at all: all this is there… WITHIN the Lord. So there… You see, the body has this experience of being completely disorganized, of having a cold, a pain here, a pain there ... and when it’s in a certain attitude (we may call it an attitude, I don’t know), at any rate in a certain state of consciousness: vanished! All that no longer exists, there’s not a trace – there’s no cold anymore, no pain anymore, nothing anymore, it’s all gone! Though it’s ready to come back.... And not only gone (which would be a psychological phenomenon), but the CIRCUMSTANCES of people and things around CHANGE! They become different: in one case, everything is like that – stubborn, twisted – and in the other ...So as a matter of fact, the body’s advantage over the mind is that it understands very well (for it, it’s natural) that all that way of seeing and speaking is only a way of seeing and speaking; you may have the opposite way and it may be just as true, and yet another way would be quite true, and finally all that one says and thinks is only ... ways of seeing. The mind has difficulty with that, but the body knows it very well, very well. But ... Inexpressible.” The Mother’s Agenda-04.12.1968,
7: “The experience is repeated in every detail, every field, like a demonstration through fact. And it’s not a "long process" of transformation: it’s like something turning around all at once (Mother turns over two fingers), and instead of seeing ugliness, falsehood, horror, suffering and all that, the body suddenly lives in bliss. And all things have remained the same, nothing has changed, except the consciousness…So there remains the question (this is something ahead, it’s probably coming): how is the experience to express itself materially? ... For the body itself, it’s perfectly obvious: for, say, an hour, or two, or three, it suffered a lot, very miserable (not a moral suffering: a wholly physical suffering), then all of a sudden, brrff! all gone.... The body has apparently remained the same (Mother looks at her hands), in its appearance, but instead of an inner disorder that makes it suffer, everything is fine, and there’s a great peace, a great tranquillity – everything is fine. But that’s for ONE body – how does that act on others?... It’s beginning to perceive the possibility in other consciousnesses. On the moral level (that is to say, the level of attitudes, character, reactions), it’s very visible; even sometimes on the physical level: something suddenly disappears – as we had the experience when Sri Aurobindo would remove a pain (Mother shows a hand of the subtle physical coming and taking away the pain), we would wonder ... "Ah!" Gone, vanished, like that. But it’s not constant, not general, it’s only to show it can be like that through the fact that it happens in one case or another – to show that things CAN be like that…We might put it this way: the body has the sense of being shut inside something – shut in, yes – shut as if inside a box, but it can see through; it sees and can also have an action (though limited) THROUGH something that’s still there and which must disappear. That "something" gives a sense of imprisonment. How is it to disappear? ... That I don’t know yet…There must be found the relationship between the consciousness in ONE body and the consciousness of the whole. And the extent of the dependence, and the extent of the independence; that is, how far the body can be transformed in its consciousness (and, necessarily as a result, in its appearance), how it can be transformed without ... without the transformation of the whole – how far? And to what extent is the transformation of the whole necessary to the transformation of the body? That remains to be discovered.” The Mother’s Agenda-21.12.1968
8: Savitri-603,
9: “The survival of the evil habits in sleep is easily explained and is a thing of common experience. It is a known psychological law that whatever is suppressed in the conscious mind remains in the subconscient being and recurs either in the waking state when the control is removed or else in sleep. Mental control by itself cannot eradicate anything entirely out of the being. The subconscient in the ordinary man includes the larger part of the vital being and the physical mind and also the secret body- consciousness. In order to make a true and complete change, one has to make all these conscious, to see clearly what is still there and to reject them from one layer after another till they have been entirely thrown out from the personal experience. Even then, they may remain and come back on the being from the surrounding universal forces and it is only when no part of the consciousness makes any response to these forces of the lower plane that the victory and transformation are absolutely complete.” CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes-p-365,
10: “In the present case, of course, the body is always saying, ‘I am ready for everything – I will do anything at all’; yet I still can’t say that it has this.  It’s trying to be completely ‘pure’ according to the spiritual concept – it doesn’t sense its separate personality. More and more, year after year, it has been striving to feel only the divine Presence, the divine Life, the divine Force and the divine Will, all within itself; and to feel that without them it is nothing, it doesn’t exist. This is fully realized in its consciousness (the conscious part). In the subconscient and inconscient, obviously... it is not realized otherwise, logically, it shouldn’t be ill…The whole disorder evidently originates from the subconscient and inconscient; all the more so as it came with various indications (sent by the hostile forces – but this can always be useful, provided you are careful) saying, ‘Yes, everything is going well in your higher centers, but...’(because the different points of attack have clearly followed the order of the centers). Four or five days ago, or maybe a week, before this latest difficulty occurred, I saw little beings coming out of the subconscient and saying, ‘Ah! Your legs haven’t       had any trouble for a long time! It’s the turn of the lower centers!’ I swept it all away, of course, but....Taken this way, it could be an indication that all this needs ... a somewhat brutal preparation in order to be put in the necessary condition.” The Mother’s Agenda-11.02.1961,
11: “To realize what one has to realize, it is absolutely indispensable to be TOTALLY free of all ties with the ordinary, false consciousness common to material body-consciousness – the consciousness of the body-substance – deriving from the subconscient and the inconscient. This must not only be mastered (it has been mastered for a long time) – but there must be complete independence so that it no longer has the power to provoke any reaction at all. But we aren’t there yet, it’s still not like that, and as long as it isn’t, we are not on the safe side. But when all the body’s cells, even in their most subconscious reactions, will come to know what I myself know, that the Supreme alone exists, when they will know that, it will be good – not before.” The Mother’s Agenda-11.02.1961,
12: “Right in the subconscient, a subconscient ... oh, hopelessly weak and dull and ... (how to put it?) enslaved to a host of things – enslaved to EVERYTHING. It has been unfolding before me night after night, night after night, to show me. Last night, it was indescribable! It goes on and on – it seems to have no limits! Naturally, the body feels the effects of this, poor thing! It is the body’s subconscient, but it’s not personal – it is personal and not personal: it becomes personal only when it enters the body…You can’t imagine the accumulation of impressions recorded and stored in the subconscient, heaped one on top of another. Outwardly, you don’t even notice, the waking consciousness isn’t aware of it; but they come in, they keep on coming and coming, piling up ... hideous! …So we’ll see how long this is going to last. I understand why people have never tried to change it: stir up that quagmire? No! It takes a lot (laughing), a lot of courage! Oh, it’s so easy to escape, so easy to say, ‘None of that concerns me. I belong to higher spheres, it doesn’t concern me.’…Anyway, it’s obvious that nobody has succeeded, so far not a single person– and I understand! I understand. When you find yourself face to face with it, you wonder, ‘How could anything possibly withstand this!’…My body was strongly built, solid, full of endurance – it had a tremendous energy, yet it’s beginning to feel that it isn’t easy.” The Mother’s Agenda-18.02.1961
13: “Yes. By acting from above, one can keep these things under control, hold them in place, prevent them from taking any unpleasant initiatives, but that’s not. To transform means to transform…Even mastery can be achieved – it’s quite easy to do from above. But for the transformation one must descend, and that is terrible.... Otherwise, the subconscient will never be transformed, it will remain as it is…One can even pose as a superman! (Mother laughs) But it remains like that (gesture in the air), it’s not the real thing. It’s not the new creation, it’s not the next step in terrestrial evolution…You might as well say, ‘Why are you in a hurry? Wait for Nature to do it.’ But Nature would take a few million years and in the process squander away a host of people and things. A few million years are unimportant to her – a passing breeze.” The Mother’s Agenda-18.02.1961,
14: “Yet the cells sense so perfectly that.... All the experiences in the subconscient at night are quite clear proofs that a ... a WORLD of things and vibrations is being cleaned out – all the vibrations opposed to the cellular transformation. But how can one poor little body do all that work! The body is quite aware of being a sort of accumulation and concentration of things (yet there is inevitably a selection – Mother laughs – because if everything had to be worked out in one center like this [her body] it would be ... it would be impossible!). Oh, if you knew how deeply and perfectly convinced these cells are, in all their groups and sub-groups, each one individually and within the whole, that everything is not only decreed but executed by the Divine, everything! They have a kind of constant awareness so filled with... a conscious faith in His infinite wisdom, even when there is what the ordinary consciousness calls suffering or pain. That’s not what it is for the cells – it’s something else! And the result is a state of ... yes, a state of peaceful combat. There is a sense of Peace, the vibration of Peace, and simultaneously an impression of being ... (how to put it?) on the alert, in constant combat. Taken all together it creates a rather odd situation….And within ... oh! It’s like waves, constantly, the equivalent of those nuances of color I was speaking about, waves of this joy of life, the joy of life rippling past, touching; but instead of being.    At times, you see, the body is in a sort of equilibrium (what we, in our ordinary outer consciousness, call ‘equilibrium’ – that is, good health), and then this joy is constant, like swells on the sea (Mother shapes great waves): it seems to flow on behind everything; it comes and shows its face for a moment, then vanishes. In the very tiny things of life – yes, physical life – the joy of these things, the joy life contains, this luminous, special kind of vibration, rises up as if to remind us that it’s here; itis here, it mustn’t be forgotten, it’s here – but it’s kept down by this ... tension…Then, from time to time, everything seems to be on the edge of a precipice; the body doesn’t fall simply because it keeps its balance – but without this higher state of perfect faith, one would surely fall!” The Mother’s Agenda-14.03.1961,
15: “... outwardly, according to ordinary consciousness, I fell ill; but it’s stupid to speak this way – I did not fall ill! All possible difficulties in the body’s subconscient rose up en masse – it had to happen, and it surely happened to Sri Aurobindo, too. How well I understood! How well, indeed. And it’s no joke, you know! I had wondered why these difficulties had hounded him so ferociously – now I understand, because I am being attacked in the same relentless fashion.” The Mother’s Agenda-15.07.1961,
16: “A descent into the subconscient would not help us to explore this region, for it would plunge us into incoherence or into sleep or a dull trance or a comatose torpor. A mental scrutiny or insight can give us some indirect and constructive idea of these hidden activities; but it is only by drawing back into the subliminal or by ascending into the superconscient and from there looking down or extending ourselves into these obscure depths that we can become directly and totally aware and in control of the secrets of our subconscient physical, vital and mental nature. This awareness, this control are of the utmost importance. For the subconscient is the Inconscient in the process of becoming conscious; it is a support and even a root of our inferior parts of being and their movements. It sustains and reinforces all in us that clings most and refuses to change, our mechanical recurrences of unintelligent thought, our persistent obstinacies of feeling, sensation, impulse, propensity, our uncontrolled fixities of character. The animal in us, — the infernal also, — has its lair of retreat in the dense jungle of the subconscience. To penetrate there, to bring in light and establish a control, is indispensable for the completeness of any higher life, for any integral transformation of the nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-763
17: Savitri-635,
18: “It’s quite obvious that the Inconscient, the Subconscient and the semi-conscient are accidental; they are not a permanent part of the creation, so are bound to disappear, to be transformed…Years ago, when Sri Aurobindo and I descended together from plane to plane (or from mode of life to mode of life) and reached the Subconscient, we saw that it was no longer individual: it was terrestrial. The rest – the mind, the vital and of course the body – is individualized; but when you descend below this level, that’s no longer the case. There is indeed something between the conscious life of the body and this subconscious terrestrial life – elements are thrown out as a result of the action of individual consciousness upon the subconscious substance; this creates a kind of semiconsciousness, and that stays. For example, when people are told, ‘You have pushed your difficulty down into the subconscient and it will resurface,’ this does not refer to the general Subconscient, but to something individualized out of the Subconscient through the action of individual consciousness and remaining down there until it resurfaces. The process is, so to speak, interminable, even the personal part   of it.” The Mother’s Agenda-02.08.1961,
19: “Most of the time in sleep, with very few exceptions, one is in contact with all that rises up from the subconscient: a cerebral subconscient, an emotive subconscient, a material subconscient; this is what produces ninety- nine percent of the dreams people have. Sometimes – usually – the mind goes wandering, but ninety-nine and a half percent of the time, one remembers nothing when it returns, because the link is not properly established… The purpose of sleep is to re-establish contact with the consciousness of Sachchidananda. But I don’t think one person in a hundred does so! They enter into unconsciousness far more than into Sachchidananda.” The Mother’s Agenda-05.08.1961
20: “Yes, the Rishis give an absolutely living description of what you experience – and experience continually – as soon as you descend into the Subconscient: all these battles with the beings who conceal the Light and so on. I experienced these things continually at Tlemcen and again with Sri Aurobindo when we were doing the Work – it’s raging quite merrily even now!...As soon as you go down there, that’s what happens – you have to fight against all that is unwilling to change, all that dominates the world and does not want to change.” The Mother’s Agenda-7.11.1961,
21: “The terminology used by Mother and Sri Aurobindo is distinct from the terminology of Western psychology. This is how Sri Aurobindo defines ‘inconscient’ and ‘subconscient’: ‘All upon earth is based on the Inconscient, as it is called, though it is not really inconscient at all, but rather a complete “sub”-conscience, a suppressed or involved consciousness, in which there is everything but nothing is formulated or expressed. The subconscient lies between this Inconscient and the conscious mind, life and body.’” (Cent. Ed., XXII, p. 354)
22: “I was saying to myself, "But what's the way to get out of here?" I concentrated, became conscious again of the divine Presence, but there was something telling me, "Nothing is responding, it's not working." It was horrible. "Nothing is responding, it's not working; it's not working, it can't change, nothing is responding; nothing is responding, it's not working." I was there like that, with two or three people. I sat down (some rooms were higher than others and it made a difference in level between the terraces), I sat down on a ledge, questioning intensely within, "What can I do? What can I do? What's the way? What can I do? Where's the lever?" I was trying to find the lever for changing it all. But I was unable to find it. Suddenly, from the room at the end a little old man came out, very old, who gave the impression of an attachment to old things; just the same (he was all blue), just the same when he arrived (it must be the symbol of an old method or an old discipline), I told him, "Ah, now that you are here, can you tell me the way out of this place? What's the way to get free, the way out?" That started him laughing: "No, no! There's no way, no way out, you must be content with what you have." Then he looked at that poor light above, which really didn't give much light at all, and he said (in a high-sounding tone): "But in the first place, I came to tell you that you must put out that sun! I don't want that dazzling sun here." Ah!... I thought, "That's what he calls a sun!" I was so disgusted that finally I woke up. Something pulled me out abruptly. But with such a strong impression – so strong – that I was gripped by anguish: "What can be done to change that?" The WAY, you see, the way was inadequate – inadequate. That was the anguish: "My own experience is inadequate, it has no effect THERE, so what's to be done? What's to be done? What can be done?" So that's how I was for hours this morning: "What's the way? What's the way? What's the way to change that darkness into light?"…It wasn't very cheering….I'm not giving you all the details, but all sorts of people were there, with all their plans, all their ideas; one would come (what I've just said was only at the end, but before that plenty of people had come) and say, "Oh, look how cleverly I've organized this!" Then another one would come with another plan, then they would confer among themselves, then ... It was just life, you see! A whole mental domain of life… And my experience did not REACH there; there was no contact, I was powerless. What little light that turned on because of my presence and was considered as a dazzling sun was to me a mere street lamp. It was painful…I thought, "Why? Why am I not happy and quiet here, too?" And something answered, "Because I want to change that." If I accepted it, I wouldn't even notice it; it's because I want to change that darkness. So then ... then there will be joy only when we have FOUND the way – and how to find it?. All the methods I use for the yoga and for transformation, all were useless, useless, useless, no action, no action, no effect, no effect.... I've never seen a place so unreceptive! No effect, none at all. And everybody VERY content with what he knew!...It is evidently a mental domain. A mental subconscient. But it's horrible… Horrible…Then in the morning, I asked myself, "What? Is there still a lot like that?" A world! A whole world, a mass of things. And that powerlessness in which you find yourself; which means that unless I am given the key, there is no way. That funny little old man, oh, he almost made me angry (I cannot get angry, but I was almost angry and that's what woke me up), I was indignant. "Aah, aah (Mother takes the old man's rasping tone), so you want to get out of here?! But no one gets out of this place! And why do you want to get out? ... There's no way to get out, can't you see that there's no getting out of here – and why do you want to get out?! ... Anyway, I came to tell you, I only came to tell you to put out that sun! That dazzling sun, you know!"…Well ....Those are my nights…So you get the feeling it will take centuries – centuries to change! Or else a catastrophe…Though even a catastrophe    (Mother shakes her head negatively) it shakes it all up, then everything sinks back to the bottom…(silence) And I kept trying to go down…It must be to reach subconscient and inconscient depths. That's always what gives difficulties – an abyss…I haven't yet tried to take the plunge. So far, nothing ever pushed me to plunge down – several times I did find an unexpected way, but there was never the impulsion: "Too bad, I'll throw myself off."…I don't know why…(long silence) It is becoming increasingly positive – positive. And as if the problem were drawing closer and closer, growing more and more tight and stifling…(silence) It's perfectly obvious that people can live, that men can exist and live BECAUSE they are unconscious. If they were conscious, really conscious of the state they live in, it would be intolerable. And I can see that there is a very difficult period when you go from that unconsciousness (unconsciousness of the habit of living in that state) to a conscious vision of the state you live in. When you become totally conscious of things as they are – of what you are, of your condition– and when you do not yet have the power to get out, like last night, it's almost intolerable. And there was a very clear awareness, very precise, that it isn't a question of life or death: it doesn't depend on that sort of thing, which ultimately changes nothing but a wholly superficial appearance – that's not it! You know, people who are unhappy think, "Ah, a day will come when I'll die, and all my difficulties will be over" – they're simpletons! It won't be over at all, it will go on. It will go on until the time when they get out for good, that is, when they emerge from Ignorance into Knowledge. It's the only way out: to emerge from Ignorance into Knowledge. And you can die a thousand times, it won't get you out, it's perfectly useless – it just goes on. Sometimes, on the contrary, it drags you even further down…That's the thing…But if you know this too soon, there's something ... intolerable, intolerable. For a minute, it's really intolerable. If there weren't the inner faith to answer that there WILL be an end, that you WILL emerge ...It must require a tremendously powerful lever…I suppose people without solid heads become unhinged. Although truly, there is a remarkable Grace, because people are given a dose of experiences exactly according to their capacity. But this morning there was an hour ... an hour when I was absolutely conscious, absolutely conscious, and conscious of one single thing: the powerlessness – the powerlessness to get out of Ignorance. The will to get out of Ignorance and the powerlessness to do so. It gave me a whole hour of tension…When I woke up, the tension was such that my head was like a boiling kettle; so immediately, I said, "Lord, it's Your concern, not mine; it's not my business." And naturally, everything calmed down instantly.” The Mother’s Agenda-19.06.1963,
23: “I think ("I think," like the scientists' "it appears") I can announce that something is getting organized in the Subconscient – it's beginning to get organized – in the subconscient of individuals as well as in the general Subconscient. It's less unconscious (!) It's a bit more ... yes, a bit more conscious, reflective and organized – a very faint beginning of organization, very little, but a growth in consciousness; it isn't quite so unconscious any more.
It's always the last part of the night that I spend there.... You remember that story of the supramental ship and how things were organized by the will, not by external means? Well, that's the action which is beginning to exist in the Subconscient…. No, no! It's not individuals as they know themselves – it is their subconscient. It is in the subconscient. The subconscient is a realm just as the material world is a realm – it's in the subconscient.
There have been many efforts, concentrations, meditations, prayers to bring about the clarification and control of all those semiconscious reflexes that govern individuals – a great concentration on that point. And this experience seems to be the outcome.
There are lots of things which people don't even take notice of in life (when they live an ordinary life, they don't take any notice), there's a whole field of things that are absolutely ... not quite unconscious, but certainly not conscious; they are reflexes – reflexes, reactions to stimuli, and so on – and also the response (a semiconscious, barely conscious response) to the pressure exerted from above by the Force, which people are totally unconscious of. It is the study of this question which is now in the works; I am very much occupied with it. A study of every second.... You see, there are different ways for the Lord to be present, it's very interesting (the difference isn't for Him, it's for us!), and it depends precisely on the amount of habitual reflex movements that take place almost outside our observation (generally completely outside it) And this question preoccupied me very, very much: the ways of feeling the Lord's Presence – the different ways. There is a way in which you feel it as something vague, but of which you are sure
– you are always sure but the sensation is vague and a bit blurred – and at other times it is an acute Presence143 (Mother touches her face), very precise, in all that you do, all that you feel, all that you are. There is an entire range. And then if we follow the movement (gesture in stages, moving away), there are those who are so far away, so far, that they don't feel anything at all.
This experience made me write something yesterday (but it has lasted several days), it came as the outcome of the work done, and yesterday I wrote it both in English and in French:
"There is no other sin, no other vice than to be far from Thee."
Then, the entire world, the universe, appeared to me in that light, and at every point (which takes up no space), at every point of the universe and throughout the universe, it's that way. Not that there are far and near places in the universe, that's not what I mean (it's beyond space), but there is a whole hierarchy of nearness, up to something that doesn't feel and doesn't know – it's not that it is outside, because nothing can be outside the Lord, but it is as if the extreme limit: so far away, so far, so far – absolutely black – that He seems not to reach there.” The Mother’s Agenda-07.12.1963,
24: “In our Yoga we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely repeated or disguised in strange forms can surge up into dream or into the waking nature. For if these impressions rise up most in dream in an incoherent and disorganised manner, they can also and do rise up into our waking consciousness as a mechanical repetition of old thoughts, old mental, vital and physical habits or an obscure stimulus to sensations, actions, emotions which do not originate in or from our conscious thought or will and are even often opposed to its perceptions, choice or dictates. In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate sanskaras, impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by our past, an obscure vital full of the seeds of habitual desires, sensations and nervous reactions, a most obscure material which governs much that has to do with the condition of the body. It is largely responsible for our illnesses; chronic or repeated illnesses are indeed mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body consciousness. But this subconscient must be clearly distinguished from the subliminal parts of our being such as the inner or subtle physical consciousness, the inner vital or inner mental; for these are not at all obscure or incoherent or ill-organised, but only veiled from our surface consciousness. Our surface constantly receives something, inner touches, communications or influences, from these sources but does not know for the most part whence they come.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-216-217,
25: “The subconscious is the evolutionary basis in us, it is not the whole of our hidden nature, nor is it the whole origin of what we are. But things can rise from the subconscient and take shape in the conscious part and much of our smaller vital and physical instincts, movements, habits, character-forms has this source.
There are three occult sources of our action — the superconscient, the subliminal, the subconscient, but of none of them are we in control or even aware. What we are aware of is the surface being which is only an instrumental arrangement. The source of all is the general Nature, — universal Nature individualising itself in each person; for this general Nature deposits certain habits of movement, personality, character, faculties, dispositions, tendencies in us, and that, whether formed now or before our birth, is what we usually call ourselves. A good deal of this is in habitual movement and use in our known conscious part on the surface, a great deal more is concealed in the other unknown three which are below or behind the surface.
But what we are on the surface is being constantly set in motion, changed, developed or repeated by the waves of the general Nature coming in on us either directly or else indirectly through others, through circumstances, through various agencies or channels. Some of this flows straight into the conscious part and acts there, but our mind ignores its source, appropriates it and regards all that as its own; a part comes secretly into the subconscient or sinks into it and waits for an opportunity of rising up into the conscious surface; a good deal goes into the subliminal and may at any time come out — or may not, may rather rest there as unused matter. Part passes through and is rejected, thrown back or thrown out or spilt into the universal sea. Our nature is a constant activity of forces supplied to us out of which (or rather out of a small amount of it) we make what we will or can. What we make seems fixed and formed for good, but in reality it is all a play of forces, a flux, nothing fixed or stable; the appearance of stability is given by constant repetition and recurrence of the same vibrations and formations. That is why our nature can be changed in spite of Vivekananda’s saying and Horace’s adage and in spite of the conservative resistance of the subconscient, but it is a difficult job because the master mode of Nature is this obstinate repetition and recurrence.
As for the things in our nature that are thrown away from us by rejection but come back, it depends on where you throw them. Very often there is a sort of procedure about it. The mind rejects its mentalities, the vital its vitalities, the physical its physicalities — these usually go back into the corresponding domain of general Nature. It all stays at first, when that happens, in the environmental consciousness which we carry about with us, by which we communicate with the outside Nature, and often it persistently rushes back from there — until it is so absolutely rejected, or thrown far away as it were, that it cannot return upon us any more. But when what the thinking and willing mind rejects is strongly supported by the vital, it leaves the mind indeed but sinks down into the vital, rages there and tries to rush up again and reoccupy the mind and compel or capture our mental acceptance. When the higher vital too — the heart or the larger vital dynamis rejects it, it sinks from there and takes refuge in the lower vital with its mass of small current movements that make up our daily littleness. When the lower vital too rejects it, it sinks into the physical consciousness and tries to stick by inertia or mechanical repetition. Rejected even from there it goes into the subconscient and comes up in dreams, in passivity, in extreme tamas. The Inconscient is the last resort of the Ignorance.
As for the waves that recur from the general Nature, it is the natural tendency of the inferior forces there to try and perpetuate their action in the individual, to rebuild what he has unbuilt of their deposits in him, so they return on him, often with an increased force, even with a stupendous violence, when they find their influence rejected. But they cannot last long once the environmental consciousness is cleared — unless the “Hostiles” take a hand. Even then they can indeed attack, but if the sadhak has established his position in the inner self, they can only attack and retire.
It is true that we bring most of ourselves — or rather most of our predispositions, tendencies of reaction to the universal Nature — from past lives. Heredity only affects strongly the ex- ternal being; besides, all the effects of heredity are not accepted even there, only those that are in consonance with what we are to be or not preventive of it at least.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-218-220,
26: “The subconscient is a concealed and unexpressed inarticulate consciousness which works below all our conscious physical activities. Just as what we call the superconscient is really a higher consciousness above from which things descend into the being, so the subconscient is below the body consciousness and things come up into the physical, the vital and the mind-nature from there.
Just as the higher consciousness is superconscient to us and supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature, so the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature.
Men are not ordinarily conscious of either of these planes of their own being, but by sadhana they can become aware.
The subconscient retains the impressions of all our past experiences of life and they can come up from there in dream forms. Most dreams in ordinary sleep are formations made from subconscient impressions.
The habit of strong recurrence of the same things in our physical consciousness, so that it is difficult to get rid of its habits, is largely due to a subconscient support. The subcon- scient is full of irrational habits.
When things are rejected from all other parts of the nature, they go either into the environmental consciousness around us through which we communicate with others and with universal Nature and try to return from there or they sink into the sub- conscient and can come up from there even after lying long quiescent so that we think they are gone.
When the physical consciousness is being changed, the chief resistance comes from the subconscient. It is constantly maintaining or bringing back the inertia, weakness, obscurity, lack of intelligence which afflict the physical mind and vital or the obscure fears, desires, angers, lusts of the physical vital, or the illnesses, dullnesses, pains, incapabilities to which the body-nature is prone.
If light, strength, the Mother’s consciousness is brought down into the body it can penetrate the subconscient also and convert its obscurity and resistance.
When something is erased from the subconscient so completely that it leaves no seed and thrown out of the circumconscient so completely that it can return no more, then only can we be sure that we have finished with it for ever.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-220-221,
27: “But so long as this development takes place only on the highest level of our normal nature, we may have a reflected and limited image of perfection translated into the lower terms of the soul in mind, life and body, but not the possession of the divine perfection in the highest terms possible to us of the divine Idea and its Power. That is to be found beyond these lower principles in the supramental gnosis; therefore the next step of perfection will be the evolution of the mental into the gnostic being. This evolution is effected by a breaking beyond the mental limitation, a stride upward into the next higher plane or region of our being hidden from us at present by the shining lid of the mental reflections and a conversion of all that we are into the terms of this greater consciousness. In the gnosis itself, vijn˜a¯ na, there are several gradations which open at their highest into the full and infinite Ananda. The gnosis once effectively called into action will progressively take up all the terms of intelligence, will, sense- mind, heart, the vital and sensational being and translate them by a luminous and harmonising conversion into a unity of the truth, power and delight of a divine existence. It will lift into that light and force and convert into their own highest sense our whole intellectual, volitional, dynamic, ethical, aesthetic, sensational, vital and physical being. It has the power also of overcoming physical limitations and developing a more perfect and divinely instrumental body. Its light opens up the fields of the superconscient and darts its rays and pours its luminous flood into the subconscient and enlightens its obscure hints and withheld secrets. It admits us to a greater light of the Infinite than is reflected in the paler luminosity even of the highest mentality. While it perfects the individual soul and nature in the sense of a diviner existence and makes a full harmony of the diversities of our being, it founds all its action upon the Unity from which it proceeds and takes up everything into that Unity. Personality and impersonality, the two eternal aspects of existence, are made one by its action in the spiritual being and Nature body of the Purushottama.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-694
28: Savitri-601,

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