From Death By Design
The following article was originally published in Issue 33 of Caduceus Magazine in Autumn of 1996. The article shares the story of Bhaga, one of our contributers here on this CCE blog, and her earliest experiences and awakening of the cellular consciousness in her body. Please click the link below and read the original scanned article…..Enjoy and Be Inspired!
Article: Adventure of Evolution: From Fear to Bliss in My Body Cells
Art by Ariel Browne
By the late Ariel Browne, PhD (a.k.a. Ariela Grace)
I see them, a sea circumscribed, the boundaries of which are out there far, far, holding well of earth hands, kindly gentle strong. And here, hearing them, within them, the purr of motor movement, vibrant vibrating sea of – apricots without pits, soft flesh, perfectly ripe, soft smelling gold orbs, the tiny bounce in each, a peach in fact, larger golden orb round, without pit, or pith, perfect fleshed, alive, asleep for the moment for me, to have a look time, a shy reaching out in my heart hand to invisibly, not to me, or to them, without seeming to move, reach out and touch, touch, caress, hold one as each would be like the perfect newborn, each roundness of part the perfect temperature, the shushing vibration of life-breath, OH, my lips form the OH of AHHHHH. Perfect each one, now they are just alive and ME. My body is this sea of round apricot cells, each and every one to the earth-hand seaholding edge, I don’t see don’t need to sea the edge. Knowing with certitude from this perfection that all is well, all is perfectly well. Orbs of peachy golden cells everythere, seeing from every eye of my pores, the seeing of MY cells, and the flesh of them with each organ wrapped about each other, purring along, passing air from zaloom-ba to tuchiganga atom-point, each moment’s need satisfied by its sister-cell, the energetic flows are threads of quiet exchange, tiniest fingers reaching out, taking in, every single pore is a tiniest finger of threadlike life-energy, I am filled up with myself. Surrounded by myself a sea of each-ones. I breathe and the flow-roll of breath has a sweet syrup full-nest of their bodies giving in pouring in to the sea apricot slightly ro[s]ier place of breath-holding lungs, filling up with blue pearl globes, full of the rare air of universal peace, they whoosh on tricklets of dance, every one, eye-open, sweet soft awake, those eyes all sweet-looking cloud bearers, faces carrying touchprints of whirl, dervish dance from mountain-sides two clicks away, the interpenetration of reverie accessible from their intimacy unending whirl like a puff, the clouds in the mountain upborne by stream, all cells dancing and whirling in each other with no separation necessary, no holding back needed or required, all-giving, all-getting, the exchange works through the fingers of interpenetrating gift, always getting, always giving pinebough, lake water, hibiscus, orange, asoefeteda, heeng, mushroom, wood rot bird dropping breaking air perfume of Constantinople and Essington, Indiana, USA Canary Island Sun slathers the cell-body while it breathes the trickling waters of Hazarazat, Afghanistan brishes into the scarp-blown tears of a weeping child, whirling child in Greenland, snowstorm purity, blown into the whisper of sand from Turkey’s Red Sea and Smoan Rudbeckia flower. As my cells appeal to each other, they appeal to me. The perfumes of their play tumble in and out of each other while they hold their hands and do my body sea in its writhing vibrating ganglionic rush, push, hold, touch, they are a sea of lovers who have no jealousy. I take instruction and already know. They show me a love which gives and takes in a flow like stream rushing downhill giving everything, totally flow-tumble, surrender, not an iota held back WHY NOT, Their awakeness, already there-here-clear grows on me, their eyes which I could see but couldn’t wouldn’t now is there, everywhere eyes and awakeness of such exquisite clarity I go on an instant fast, cleansing all memory to be here with them as my cell nostrils crinkle with a holding back resistance fast-clear them there too. The sharp piquancy of their presence, all with each other, all interpenetrating like earth with root and worm, and branch in light gestured in wind, punky with sap and interwoven by branch-root-trunk veins, sap flowing timely well feeding and aerating from within in its own juice and without in the juice of pure alive air-sunlight-movement of all earth as it dances invisible to human, dance of life to animal and to us, benefiting from the rhythm so basically, instinctually that when it is missing, blown down or away, cut away, removed, we-I feel vacated, abandoned, thrown back and out of rhythmic pattern so life is a little wrong from one tree, or many, one bush, one dead raccoon lying in the road, stilled forever, one dead snake, stopped from its eternal, soundulating part of a dance I counted on in absolute ignorance. As it goes now. So it goes. The color rushes upon me from their endless coloration, all the purple-in-red-green-blue-ochre-jumbo gold-orange-brown-lavender-chartreuse-turquoise-grey-silver-indigo-fleshtoneall fingers of gaseous warmth in vibration, different in their vibration and speed just enough to be distinct form each other so that dance can continue in patterned swirls and twirls . . . . . . . . .
The following article was originally published in October 1996 in Issue 93 of Auroville Today, a monthly magazine with articles relating to Auroville, an international township in south India working on Human Unity and the awakening of Consciousness. This article is an interview with a Brazilian woman named Jussara who has had a long-time relationship with the consciousness of her own cells. Click on the link below and enjoy!
Article: Working With Mitra Cells
By the late Ariel Browne, Ph.d. (a.k.a. Ariela Grace)
As a psychologist and researcher specializing in cellular consciousness and cellular communication, people sometimes contact me with challenging and unusual problems. One came to me the other day from a microbiologist engaged in medical research on meningitis and special pathogens. I quote from her email with permission:
I have a question for you in regard to your view on cells as being their own entities. I was wondering if you had learned much about the recent discoveries through stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells differentiate into all the various cell-types of the body. They can genetically code for a particular cell type, and there is much potential for them to be directed into a particular genetic pathway. There have been findings that several stem cells are maintained and function in the adult body, although at a lesser capacity than in a developing fetus. It is my theory that healing processes such as Reiki [see footnote 2] activate the stem cells and facilitate the genetic pathways to rapidly produce the effect that is needed in the body. What are your impressions of this process, and do you have any other insights on cellular communication that you would like to share with me?
These questions challenged me to reference my graduate research on cellular response in self-healing for a doctorate in psychology ( Willed Cellular Response in Psychology: East & West, 1992). That research culminated in the discovery that I myself had colon cancer. At that point, the research became intensely personal. It was motivated by the pressure of terrifying symptoms. I feared the outcome predicted by my doctors: death within two years. That was in 1996.
Because I have trained myself to be in constant contact with my own cells as well as their vast web of relatives, namely all the cells of matter (ref. quantum biophysicists Rupert Sheldrake, Fritjof Capra, Thelma Moss, Val Hunt, Candace Pert, the less academic but no less influential, Machaelle Small Wright[1], and quantum bio-physician, Deepak Chopra as well as The Mother via Satprem, The Mind Of The Cells), I asked my own cells in their shamanic capacity what my reply to this heartfelt inquiry should be. Their response, which came imagistically as it does so often, showed me this woman’s innate brilliance in referring to her own cells. I saw her turn away from her cells’ bright presence toward me who loomed too large in her biological landscape. Continuing my cellular reference despite my tendency (unfortunately, always the eldest sister and a Leo) to “teach,” I replied:
….you have asked some very interesting questions, reflective of your interest and inquiry into the potential of cellular healing initiated by the cells themselves. It would seem obvious that your experience of cells comes from the scientific side of things which tends to see cells as manipulable entities, albeit biological. Science has begun to infer in cells what they already possess, i.e., independent consciousness (although science doesn’t have a clue yet that cells’ allegiance is to the Divine). Their potential is actually far, far greater than science’s view of them which is limited not by cells but by the aperture through which they are viewed.
Art by Ariel Browne
My side of this cellular experience comes from the inside, from communicating with the cells themselves and listening/being open to their responses. I have immeasurable respect for their ability to heal in all circumstances and into all situations. I have enormous personal experience as well as client experience and much scientific data. You have asked me questions which I believe you could answer yourself since you have both scientific expertise and Reiki[2] experience. I wonder if you have established the several sensing-reference perspectives which are necessary to accurately apprehend cells in their fullness of being. Do you allow yourself to experience cells from the alternate angle of relationship and inviolable interconnection? I also wonder if you allow yourself to ask THEM, and listen open-heartedly, open-minded, for their beautiful response? It comes with the greatest generosity, almost always imagistically since they are themselves images of God. Are you journaling your relationship with cells? Are you drawing your relationship with cells? Please keep in touch with me. I would be willing to dialogue with you.
A reply soon arrived from this very attuned scientist and healer. It corroborated the image my cells had conveyed of her ability to self (and cell) refer.
Thank you for your thought-provoking response. Perhaps it is a limitation I have placed upon myself to think about cells’ potential, trying to comprehend it, as opposed to fully experiencing it. It is the analytical scientist in me that wishes to do so. I agree with you that science’s views are limited. I, egotistically, have wished to infiltrate my ideas within the scientific community, hoping to transform the realm of conventional science. Thus, imagining that I could help the way health care is typically approached by scholars of the (primarily) Western scientific community. Even though there is much potential for me to explore the richness of cells through the realm of molecular biology and learning about gene therapy, I need to surrender to that which is beyond mere thought. Cells do indeed possess independent consciousness; I love the way you describe their ability to communicate with each other and with us as people. I am now curious as to the direction they offer me in terms of understanding the way they work, as opposed to me looking into books written by women and men. Ask the cells themselves . . . that is something that I have not yet done in full faith. How do you suggest journaling about one’s relationship with cells? ….You have mentioned an acquisition of the several sensing-reference perspectives which are necessary to accurately apprehend cells in their fullness of being. Could you please describe this in more detail? I can feel my cells vibrate and shift and can feel the healing and transformation take place. They seem to love to do this, especially when I surrender to the experience and try not to direct it. I think I may be limiting myself in my desire to control their expansion, as if I know how they should grow. Thank you for sharing your insight. I deeply appreciate you and am grateful for our correspondence.
I share this correspondence because it is not so rare these days. More and more of us are choosing to reference the wisdom of our own cells to overcome medical predictions of imminent death or catastrophic disability through surgical or drug intervention. Illnesses have become more devastating, more resistant and more prevalent. Medical experimentation- intervention has become more common and more aggressive. Many people, noting the severity of Western-medical responses to the mutational nature of disease pathogens, consult with me and other experts known for bridging traditional and alternative systems of science and healing.
The other day a client described her friend’s luminous solution to the terrible massacre of small animals along a stretch of country road. She had despaired until she inquired of her own body-cells’ identification with these innocents. She envisioned communicating with the animal kingdoms via prayer (ref. Seat Of The Soul, Gary Zukav and Wright, footnote 1). She described using the web of interconnection which knits all cells together in one communicative spirit. From her cells to theirs, she prayed that the animals protect themselves and avoid the killer road. From the next day henceforward, she never saw an animal carcass along that stretch of road.
I cite these poignant examples because of the dear self-healing communications I have with my own body’s cells. When I was doing my doctoral dissertation, I felt proud indeed of my breakthrough research and the unexpectedly rich data I gathered in the United States and India. It wasn’t long before the immense and mysterious power of body and cells brought me to my senses. Becoming terrifyingly sick myself brought me back to what matters, in its archetypal sense.
Matter’s root word (Latin) is Mater, or “mother.” The body of life is the special territory of women, not only because our bodies source its miraculous cellular beginning. Every month, cyclically and predictably, easily or traumatically, our own life blood’s cells spring outward like Earth’s springs and streams. The hunger for truth, the desire to heal, the necessity of interconnection come naturally to us, originating in our cells themselves. They carry the secret Grail of life and healing.
Unfortunately, in my case and that of many clients, what often compels us to our profoundest discoveries of healing is pain, inner suffering or near-death. These “teachers” help us remember matter-Mother. Cells demonstrate the loving web of matter, and Mother.
So…talk with and listen to the cells of matter, our tiniest, radiant figures of biological embodiment. Each one carries within itself the sacred story, the accessible mystery of life (yes, it IS a loving oxymoron). Do we know everything about cells through microbiology or quantum physics? Even hard-line science would say we have barely begun. Many scientists, plumbing these bio-cellular depths, become mystics.
This is my prayer, ever repeating and inspiring: communicate with your cells; be guided by their beautiful example; listen to them. There is a guarantee which comes with this passionate injunction: you will be much better for the following of it and you and your loved ones will benefit greatly.
(If you would like to read more about Ariela and her cellular experiences and teachings, including an audio guided Cell-Talk meditation, please visit the blog Ariela’s Cells at www.arielascells.wordpress.com)
By Bhaga
From 29th February 1956, upon receiving the first direct impact of the Supramental Consciousness-Force, at long last brought down (after decades of efforts while still in his body until 1950) by Sri Aurobindo, from its own realm far above, straight into terrestrial matter, where it activated the same Power dormant there, the Mother’s body started to react to this new influence in ways she began noting down, and later on telling to a few disciples, particularly one of French origin whom she had named ‘Satprem’.
Over the years his regular by-weekly visits to Mother for the translating and publishing work she had given him in the Ashram, became opportunities for the Mother to share with him some news of the transformative action happening right in her body, through a gradual awakening of the consciousness of its very cells. Having obtained from Mother the permission to record what she was in that way confiding to him, that she called her “Agenda” (a French word for ‘diary’), Satprem also got her authorization to publish some extracts selected by her in the Ashram ‘Bulletin’ coming out every three months.
So, thanks to those short extracts in the ‘Bulletin’, some awareness of the evolutive developments in Mother’s body grew among at least some of the larger crowd of inmates, and also of the youth who had been educated in the Ashram School at the request of their families from all over India and elsewhere.
All of those youths, from the little ones to the older ones, and many of the Ashramites themselves too, were participating daily in the Physical Education Programme of various activities and many sports that the Mother had started in 1948, an extremely unusual and rather shocking thing in an Ashram dedicated to spiritual pursuits… but in that specific Ashram it was very much part of spiritual life, under the supervising, caring eye of the Mother. Sri Aurobindo had expressed his full support of this Physical Education Programme, through a series of articles, ‘The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth’, from December 1948 to November 1950 – just before leaving his body, precisely for completing, faster from behind the scenes, the required Descent of the Supramental.
****
The passage from “Mother’s Agenda’ I have chosen for today is from 1967 – the Volume 8. I felt it is particularly relevant to illustrate at once what I have explained to the best of my ability at the end of my just previous post: for all that concerms our physical bodies, the situation now has changed. It has become different, whether we are aware of it or not, because the consciousness of our body-cells themselves is slowly but irresistibly becoming different.
Here is what Mother had to say about that on that very special day:
(Mother takes flowers) I’ll put them in water… Flowers are the beauty of life.
And there is a progress.
Oh?
At the end of the physical demonstration[[Every year on December 2, all the children of the School and all the disciples taking part in sports carry out a general demonstration of physical culture. ]] [on December 2], all the children will pray in chorus, and the prayer has been written by me. I will read it to you.
But I hadn’t thought about it: they asked me for it, and I wrote it.
They must have read the Bulletin, and then they asked me for a prayer – a prayer that would really be the body’s. I answered:
THE PRAYER OF THE CELLS IN THE BODY
Now that by the effect of the Grace we are slowly emerging out of inconscience and waking up to a conscious life, an ardent prayer rises in us for more light, more consciousness:
“O Supreme Lord of the Universe, we implore Thee, give us the strength and the beauty, the harmonious perfection needed to be Thy divine instruments upon earth.”
It’s almost a proclamation.
There. So we’ll put it into French.
They will say it after their demonstration; it seems they are going to show the whole evolution of physical culture, and then, at the end, they will say, “We have not reached the end, we are at the beginning of something, and here is our prayer.”
I was very glad.
You said there is a progress?
A progress! It’s a tremendous progress! The thought had never occurred to them, never; taken as a whole, they had never thought of the transformation: their thought was to become the best athletes in the world and all the usual nonsense.
The body, you see, they’ve asked for a prayer of the BODY. They have finally understood that the body must begin to transform itself into something else. Previously, they were all full of the whole history of physical culture in every country, in which country it’s most developed, the use of the body as it is, and … and so on. Anyway, it was the Olympic ideal. Now, they have leaped beyond: that is the past, now they want the transformation.
You understand, people were asking to be divine in their mind and vital – that is, the whole ancient history of spirituality, the same old theme for centuries – but now, it’s the BODY. It’s the body that asks to participate. It’s certainly a progress.
Yes, but one can see how in the mind the aspiration sustains itself, how it lives by itself. In the heart too, one can see how the aspiration lives. But in the body? How can one awaken that aspiration in the body?
But good God! it’s fully awakened! It’s been for months in me! So it means they’ve felt it, they are feeling it.
How it’s done? – It’s being done.
But how can one in oneself …
No, no, no. If it has been done in one body, it can be done in all bodies.
Yes, but I ask how…. Yes, how?
Well, that’s what I have been trying to explain for months.
It’s, first of all, awakening the consciousness in the cells….
Well, yes!
Yes, but once it’s done it’s done: the consciousness keeps awakening more and more, the cells live consciously, aspire consciously. I have been trying to explain it, good Lord, for months! For months I have been trying to explain it. And so, that’s just what pleased me: it’s that they have at least understood the possibility of it.
The same consciousness which was the vital’s and the mind’s monopoly has become corporeal: the consciousness acts in the body’s cells.
The body’s cells grow into something conscious, entirely conscious.
A consciousness which is independent, absolutely independent of the vital consciousness or the mental consciousness: it’s a corporeal consciousness.
(silence)
And this physical mind, which Sri Aurobindo said was an impossibility and something going round in circles which would do so forever, without consciousness, precisely, like a sort of machine, this physical mind has been converted, it has fallen silent, and in silence it has received inspiration from the Consciousness. And it has started praying again: the same prayers that were earlier in the mind.
I quite understand all that can take place in you, but…
But since it’s taking place in one body, it can take place in all bodies! I am not made of anything different from others. The difference is the consciousness, that’s all. It’s made of exactly the same thing, with the same elements, I eat the same things, and it was made in just the same way.
And it was as dull, as dark, as unconscious, as stubborn as all other bodies in the world.
By Bhaga
(Read PART I in previous post for the beginning of this experience).
From Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust
Again no thought, no emotion, nothing. Again, without knowing why. I turned around, going back towards the kitchen and towards that pile of trays. And you can imagine, there was not the slightest thought of breakfast in me, it was light-years away from my consciousness!!! But when I was closer to the pile of trays I saw that on this slate there was one more sentence, which was saying:
‘Those who want to have a last Darshan of the Mother can take the bus which will come to Aspiration at 7:15 and go to the Ashram.’
And when I read that, only then did the thought come: ‘Oh, I am never going to see the Mother for my birthday! This is my last chance to see her body!’ And now it gave me a pang, ouch, it hurt suddenly. It hurt so much to know fully at last Who had been in that body, and that She had just left this world. And I could understand fully then the incredible gift I had just been given, of that Cosmic Darshan of the Divine Mother. Pure Divine Grace. I had not even prayed for that, not even desired it. So I needed such a blow, to strike my mental arrogance and put it to pieces, by the contact with the true Reality.
So you see, I had become totally humble. And I knew that I knew actually nothing. Not even what was good for me and was not good – only the Mother knew. So I was aware also that physically there was not enough time. I was in the far away Community Kitchen, I had to walk back to Aspiration, and then to dress up, how could I be ready in time to get into that bus?… It was to come so soon! So inwardly I told to Mother ‘Okay, You alone know what is good for me; if it is good that I see your body, then You do it. I cannot possibly hurry.’ And I walked back home and changed the way I was dressed. For the first time in my life, I dressed all in white – I had the feeling I was a new-born baby. Just when I was ready the bus was there, I went in, and you know, it was so strange to see, everybody in the bus – all those others from Auroville who had been getting in from everywhere – everybody was sobbing, sobbing. Most of the people were not like me, they all had had physical contact with the Mother, sometimes for years. It was the blessing of their life, and now it was gone. That contact they had had for long, and now… So I could see that. I could feel their sadness, their distress. But not in any way that could trouble me. I was in a kind of bubble of peace, of quiet joy, of total trust, and it is in that inner condition that I reached the Ashram .
There was a long queue in the streets around, which I joined along with everybody else. Hardly aware of time passing, suddenly I found myself inside the Ashram, in that Hall downstairs from Mother’s room where they had put the bed of the Mother with her body lying on it. Probably still from my experience early in the morning my inner sight, my spiritual sight must have remained open somehow. What did I see on that bed? Who has seen it then, who still knows about that? What the photographs taken at that time show isn’t what was really there, what I saw. It wasn’t what most people used to see either. I saw what was there. It was tremendous, glowing intensely but softly, almost aflame and yet not, something of incredible beauty. A kind of orange mist was there all around it and it was so strong, you know. What a shock. I couldn’t think anymore. And when I saw this unbelievable sight, my soul jumped right out of me towards Mother’s body, I fell to my knees, and I started sobbing, sobbing…
Of course one couldn’t stay there like that, blocking the whole line, so I was right away put back on my feet and pushed gently towards the exit. I came out into the street and immediately, without thinking, went back into the line that was continuing to form. And again my turn came and I arrived in front of Mother’s body, again she gave me so much, but it was all spilled out, it was all lost. Again I just could not remain calm enough. So things happened in the same way again: up, out, and back into the line again. But then during all the time I was in that line again, I prayed to Mother, ‘Oh Mother, I am too emotional, give me your peace, I must become able to receive the boon which you are trying to give me. Give me your peace. Make me, please make me peaceful enough to receive you!’ So I arrived in front of her body again, but that time I could stand there and drink, drink, drink with my whole being what she was giving me.
When it was finished I started turning towards the exit. I couldn’t stay, I knew that. But in my mind I was already thinking of finding a place again in the line… But then I felt suddenly a strange look upon me, and I looked up… and here was one of the people in the Ashram who have duty there, Ashramites who are big and strong, to keep watch whenever there is a large crowd like that … This man, this Ashramite, was looking at me quite fiercely. He couldn’t openly shout at me, given the circumstances, so in a low but angry voice he said to me ‘I have seen you already when you came before! How dare you!?! One is not allowed to come two times!!!’.
At once I understood two things that the Divine was telling me through this man: the first thing was, the Divine wouldn’t allow me to come another time, for I had been given what I needed, it wasn’t like a little sweet, you know, or a nice meal you want seconds of. But what I saw also on the other hand was how I had been allowed by the Divine to come actually not only once, but two times before, ignorant as I was of the rules; because my nature is to respect law and order; if I would have known that it was prohibited to come two times, that would have hindered me and I would not even have tried to come more than once. So the second thing I was made to understand through that man was that I had actually been meant to come as many times as I really needed it, and the Divine Grace had allowed it to happen in spite of the dutiful vigilance of the human beings.
So I smiled lovingly to that man, who probably didn’t understand why! I was so happy, so grateful for everything… I quietly moved away, on my way out, and back towards Auroville. But now, all along, and at home, all the pictures I saw of Mother were smiling to me!…
And so that has been the beginning of my inner relationship with Her, by pure Divine Grace.
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Here is the end of that account I gave orally of my ‘memories of the Mother’.
I have perhaps to explain at this point that since the year 1956 the Mother’s body was undergoing a tremendous process of transformation down at the cellular level – where most of the cells themselves had awakened to a more luminous consciousness and were actually doing the inner process of the yoga on their own, just as Mother herself was. To the extent that the Mother had been told inwardly that those cells couldn’t die in the normal way anymore, they would be given the choice to go on as Mother’s body until the transformation would be complete, or, if the cells felt it would be even more useful for the general evolution of humanity, to disperse, so that their transformed consciousnesses could directly go and join the cells of many other human bodies that were ready here and there in the world: in those other bodies the cells that had formed Mother’s body would then help start again a process of conscious evolution.
What really happened perhaps was still something different, if enough cells were already transformed to form for Mother a new body made of a new state of Matter, that our ordinary senses wouldn’t necessarily be able to perceive yet: Mother saw that new body of hers several times, but with her inner sight only.
Or perhaps all three things did happen?…
I will explain more about all this when presenting the extraordinary document that are the thirteen volumes of ‘Mother’s Agenda’.
(If you would like to read Bhaga’s personal blog, please visit www.labofevolution.wordpress.com)
(This is the transcript of a talk I, like many other ‘old-timers’, was asked to give about my personal memories of the Mother of Pondicherry (Mirra Alfassa); as it is quite long, I am putting it up here in two parts.)
From Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust
By Bhaga
My memories with the Mother happened with quite a different timing than with most people who would have met with her physically at least for some time. I myself came to Auroville in 1972, in a very peculiar state of consciousness:
Throughout my childhood I had always been a very mystical type of person and then growing up into adult age I had discovered the actual condition of the world and the horrible societies that we have created all over the planet and the horrible way we human beings are treating each other on too many occasions. Around the end of the Sixties my whole understanding of God’s action in the world, my whole feeling of what the Divine is all about collapsed, and within a few years I was unable to bear life the way it is now and to go on participating in the whole scene of the world as it is now. Because I didn’t understand what was going on and what was the purpose of it, and I could not see anymore the Divine‘s action here. Anyway, finally I raised my fist to the skies and I said:
‘You’d better explain to me what this is all about. And quickly, because otherwise I am not going to be remaining here for long, if I don’t know, first of all, why things are the way they are, which is, horrible. And second question: how it can be changed. Because if it cannot be changed, I’m just not going to stay, sorry!’ So it was actually an ultimatum that went up in my angry words.
Luckily, it seems the Divine doesn’t mind!… An ultimatum is not an approach to the Divine that is recommended to you by most religions, but apparently the intensity of the aspiration, of the need in you, is quite enough for the Divine to listen to you and take your questioning into consideration.
So within a few months the Divine had spoken to me, by bringing to me one after the other exactly the right books to make me aware of, first of all, such central keys as the words ‘consciousness’ and ‘evolution’, things like that. You know, I couldn’t get yet clearly the meaning of it all, but those books started orienting my life. And then finally it was ‘The Life Divine’. I got to read the first chapter and that was it. At last everything made sense. And such incredible, wonderful sense! Evolution at once gives fantastic dynamism to the whole thing, instead of having a static world that they tell you is never going to change. The only way out, they say, is out somewhere else, in another dimension. But why this world, the earth, why the entire physical world, why this difficult life here, nobody has any satisfactory answer about that. Some people even will say it is just ‘Maya’, it doesn’t even exist. Nobody can tell you why the Spirit would have invented such a Maya, why our spirits ever got stuck in that. So at last, you know, ‘The Life Divine’ gives the full, the real picture, all the answers are there. And I think I had the first illumination in my life: suddenly I kind of saw innumerable pieces of a gigantic, cosmic puzzle, coming together like that in the sky in front of me and making… a fantastically beautiful picture of the future towards which are going, the world and our lives. So I just sat down and said to the Divine, ‘Now if THIS is what it is all about, well… I’m staying!’
And as you can see I stayed indeed. It was the turning point in my life. And after that everything unfolded quite naturally. I found more books of Sri Aurobindo and of… well, I discovered very quickly that also somebody else called ‘The Mother’ had found the same thing, and that they had worked together, and that there in Pondicherry, there was an Ashram. I had no idea about Pondicherry or anything. I knew nothing about India. When later I heard that Auroville was in India, I cried out ‘Oooh no, no, no !… Do I have to go there, all the way to India?!?. Why didn’t they put their Auroville in a normal place, you know, (laughing) somewhere in Europe, for example?!’
So I came very ‘grumblingly’ to India and I arrived in Auroville and you know I had still a lot to learn about the Integral Yoga. I had understood the big, big thing, the central thing: that one has to become conscious again of being the Divine, because that’s what everyone and everything really is. But beyond that, I had not read yet much about any of the main things that need to be done. I did not understand that there had to be, included in the overall process of Conscious Evolution, that aspect, you know (pointing to the heart), the whole ‘Bhakti’ (love for the Divine) aspect.
As a child something was spontaneously there, I had the feeling that here on Earth was also ‘home’, you know, an inner sense was open, of the Divine present everywhere: the sky, the stars, the little birds, the butterflies, the flowers … but when reaching adulthood all this feeling was gone – not only that: now in the recent years I had been trusting only my mind. I have quite a good mind, but an iron mind built in the Western way, and everything that would come into me, had to come now only through that mind. So I came in that condition to Auroville: as I said, entirely for the yoga, that I had started practicing immediately when I was in France. But I was coming to Auroville not just to practice the yoga (which I was already doing anyway), but more precisely to be part of the unique collective experiment that Auroville was. That’s all I had found in the world which was in my eyes such a plus: instead of simply continuing to do the Yoga alone in my corner in France where I was teaching, to come here and participate in this collective adventure that would some day become a whole very beautiful township, shaped like a galaxy.
So when I arrived I knew nothing about the life of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother as persons, nothing. I arrived on the 2nd August 1972. A few days before the 15th of August I was sick with fever like many people, you know, who arrive in India, and soon their body has to readjust, adapt itself. There was, in the same small Ashram Nursing-Home where I was sent, another young lady Aurovilian whom I knew already, an old-timer. On the 15th morning she said to me:
– We are lucky to be already better and not in bed any more: today is Darshan day.
– ???
– What? You don’t know what is a Darshan day! Today is Sri Aurobindo’s Birthday Centenary. Let’s go to that window there, we might have a chance to see Mother from afar, coming out on her balcony.’
And from that corner of the Ashram Nursing__ (how do you call that small healing center?…) I did see the Mother from afar: a simple frail silhouette on that balcony far away. That was my first time, and it happened to be for Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary, of which I wasn’t even aware a moment before. I consider myself fortunate and blessed that I didn’t miss that unique occasion, as I surely would have without the presence of that friend who knew better.
But did I meet Mother then later?… Well, I cannot say really that I have met her in the way people would expect. Okay, I have gone later on to another Darshan – several actually, but one at least that I remember clearly. I didn’t like at all the profuse demonstrations of devotion I could see at the Samadhi, I would have had to force myself for joining them, but I didn’t have to force myself for being out there with everybody else for a collective Darshan when Mother would come out at the balcony and from the street down below you could see her. It was just such an extraordinary experience: there was a huge crowd, streets were crowded, kids, street-dogs that bark, it was quite noisy. And then suddenly, everything silent – what a silence… and after a while she was disappearing again inside, and down below we all kind of started breathing again. Sharing that moment was quite something.
Still, when I discovered that it was not possible to come closer to the Mother, to be with her in a personal way (even though she would not speak), except for your birthday, I didn’t go for it. I was not really interested. My mind was holding me back, not seeing what tremendous inner benefit I might get from meeting the Mother personally. Well, the Divine Grace saw to it that it happened nevertheless, but in a totally unusual and unexpected manner.
At that time my closest friends were a sister and her brother who were also from France and of my age but who had been in Auroville already for some time. We used to meet especially once a week in Pondy. In those days everybody in Auroville was functioning on cycles, there were no bikes at that time. Once a week we used to cycle out to Pondicherry and have lunch in a restaurant, one of the only two that were existing then, which was the ‘Indian Coffee House’, still in its days of relative glory. So the three of us plus another friend would every week come on that same day to have a lunch there. Then one day, I am coming as usuaI, I see the sister and I see the other friend but not the brother; I ask his sister:
– Where is so and so?
– Oh, today is his birthday, he went to see the Mother.
I didn’t say anything, but I thought, ‘Oh, they too are into that ‘personality cult’ kind of thing (!!!)’ You can see what state of mind I was still in at that time. Well, I went on talking with the two others and I didn’t think about it anymore.
I happened to be sitting with my back to one of the two big front doors there. Suddenly, without knowing why, I start turning around… and there he was, standing within the frame of the door. It was him, and yet not the person I knew, there was a change in him I could not believe. He had light around him and he had peace – a peace so deep it was kind of thick. When finally he came in slowly, that Peace was there entering with him. Slowly he came walking and he sat down with us. And he didn’t talk one word until we all left. All the while when we were there I couldn’t stop looking at him. It was so strong, so strange, I had never experienced anything like that (except in fact some forgotten childhood experiences, but nothing as an adult). So when I went home after experiencing all this, well you know, while leaving my friends, I couldn’t help but thinking ‘She has quite an effect on people, this lady…’(!!!)
After a few months, I finally asked my friends:
– If I want to see the Mother for my birthday what do I do?
– Oh, it is so simple: you go to the Ashram fifteen days before, you ask for your name to be put on the list for that day.
– What?!? Even in the Ashram, even to see the Mother, one has to register!!! What is that administrative business, that bureaucracy?!? I don’t want to have anything to do with all this, come on, if it is like this, I am not going to go.’
And so I didn’t put my name on the register and I just forgot about it. You know, it was for me like it is in Europe, I mean, for people who are from Europe and adults like I was, I still felt about it from the experience of birthdays as it is in Europe: your Birthday means something as long as you are a kid, but when you are grown up people usually don’t celebrate anymore, it is not so important. So I was also thinking about it that way, I was not really taking it as something that could be important, something I should be in a hurry or should worry about.
But one day I woke up with the strangest of feelings: something within me was pulling me, pulling me towards Pondy. I wondered ‘What’s going on?! What’s happening to me?!’ I had nothing to do there, I was not going to go there for nothing, I thought, but try as I did to ignore that feeling, I just had to dress up and get onto my cycle and I found myself cycling towards Pondy. Only on my way did I suddenly realize it was the day of my birthday. I told myself inwardly, ‘Okay, if I’m meant at all to see the Mother for my birthday, okay, let’s see what happens’. I arrived there in front of the Ashram, and when I entered the office, the lady at the table said,
‘Oh, today is your birthday? Wonderful. So I assume your name is on the list for today, then?’
‘Well, I said, sorry madam, it is not on the list…
‘Oh, but it is a real problem. Sorry, if you are not on the list you cannot see the Mother.’
I was stunned. You know, I think I got more or less angry, I made a scene, I must have cried too… nothing doing. I just couldn’t go to the Mother. So in the end I got back on my cycle and went home.
While cycling I said to myself ‘Okay, you stop behaving stupidly now! Next year you are going to put your name on that list, not be a fool like this time, and just see what happens.’ And then after promising that to myself I forgot all about it in the meantime. My birthday happens to be at the end of February. So I had missed my birthday contact with the Mother in February’73, which was my first birthday here. I was now counting on being able to see her the next year, in February’74.
And some months passed again.
At that time I was living in Aspiration, the biggest community in Auroville. At that time already there was a community kitchen, the same that is still there now, but it was used for another purpose and everybody from Aspiration area would for their meals come to the place where Douceur and the Bakery now are, that is, about one kilometer away. That was a simple place like most of us have seen at that time. Just a big hut in the middle of that area, a cement floor and a big circle – a very low wall of bricks – all around it. In fact it was as usual a dining-room called ‘community kitchen’, with the kitchen aspect in the back of it. And on the dining-hall side a counter where you had the pile of trays and then the dishes. You serve your food on your tray and you go and sit on the small individual mats around with small tables in front, eat your food out of the tray, then wash everything and go home again.
So I was there usually early every morning. One day I went there and I was very early, perhaps the first person to come for breakfast. I walked as usual towards the counter with the intention to get my tray. But just next to the pile of trays there was a slate with something written on it. It read: ‘Yesterday 17th November at 7:25 pm, Mother left her body.’
Nothing happened in me, no reaction – in my mind, in my heart, nothing. But I haven’t taken any tray. Without knowing why, just like an automaton, I turned around and started walking towards a place outside of the kitchen where there was a kind of small open garden under the sky. There the strangest thing happened: standing there quite normally with my eyes open, I felt literally that my head was splitting open (without any pain, I hasten to say). It did happen exactly with that weird feeling of my head kind of splitting open vertically, upwards. I discovered that suddenly my eyes, my ears, all my senses were perceiving nothing any more of the outer world. The normal world around us as we know it had totally disappeared.
I was actually in an infinite ocean of light. Not an ethereal light, but a light that had substance, really like an ocean of light. Of total peace too, of total power, and also of total consciousness. It was like the immense body of some infinite Being, and I was just an infinitesimal point in that immense body, although I could feel the total bliss that this infinite body was made of too, that bliss was flowing through my body as well. It was a fantastic experience. I was thinking… Not exactly thinking, but a thought came up in my mind, just like that, that something was wrong; my mind was shrieking ‘Hey, what is happening to you?! Mother has left her body and you are in that joy! Are you going crazy?!?’. But all the rest of my being didn’t listen at all to my mind, it was only answering ‘Shut up, shut up…’ and just enjoying that most wonderful state of bliss it was experiencing. You know, you lose all sense of time somehow, experiencing such incredible things. So I have no idea how long all this lasted, but at one point at the level of my heart I heard a voice – a strong, deep, masculine, almost stern but loving voice, which was speaking to me. It was telling me:
‘This, what you are experiencing now, is what in India they call The Divine Mother, and this is what the person who died yesterday embodied upon Earth.’ And these words engraved themselves somehow as if in gold fire for ever in the depths of my heart.
And then after some more time the strangest thing started happening again: it was as if this infinite ocean started going down around me. It was the only thing existing really, the only real thing, and it started going down. Not going up, but down – it took some years for me to find the explanation by Sri Aurobindo and Mother about this, which explained very clearly how it could happen that way, but at the time I could only observe and see that it was all very real, although I only felt it and couldn’t at all understand it. Into the earth it went, down into the earth. Went down and down, and then my eyes started seeing normally again, and then my ears could hear normal sounds, and finally I found myself still standing just like before, my eyes open and now seeing everything of the ordinary reality.
(If you would like to read Bhaga’s personal blog, please visit www.labofevolution.wordpress.com)
By Bhaga
Petite Mere que j’aime… Deja quarante-deux ans…
Mais ce souvenir-la reste si fort pourtant…
Nous autres, a Auroville, ne savions pas encore,
Mais ce soir-la tu livrais bataille pour ton corps,
Luttant pour que tes jambes ne declarent pas forfait…
Et c’est ton coeur a la fin qui l’a fait.
Il s’est eteint, tout simplement,
Apres un dernier battement.
Depuis, chaque 17 Novembre,
Je t’imagine dans ta chambre,
Mi-allongee mi-assise sur ton lit,
Adossee a la montagne multiplis
D’enormes oreillers empiles.
Tu livrais ton dernier combat.
Comme toujours, tu ne voulais pas
Ceder, abandonner ta tache…
Sans que personne ne le sache,
Que le Divin et toi, notre Mere Divine,
Il s’est alors produit, pas ce que l’on devine
Mais Autre Chose: une cosse qui s’ouvre,
Le Vrai Corps remplacant celui qui le recouvre,
Un dernier souffle qui s’exhale,
Un dernier battement de coeur. Pale
Sur ton lit de “mort”
Gisait ton ancien corps,
Celui qu’on pouvait voir
Et photographier meme;
Autour de ce corps bleme
Se tenait, invisible hormis au vrai regard,
Un vrai corps, aux contours imprecis et bizarres,
Une brume orangee telle un brouillard de feu
Semblant se constituer seulement peu a peu
Mais pleine d’un Pouvoir enorme, inconcevable,
Vibrant d’une Presence eternelle immuable.
C’est Cela qui Etait, le lendemain matin,
Lorsqu’apres une queue sans fin
Je me suis retrouvee devant ton lit, ton corps.
C’est Cela qui Etait, brume orangee encore,
Seule Realite de Toi que je puisse voir,
Seul Nectar de Presence qu’aussi mon corps puisse boire.
Il a bu a longs traits, il a bu, il a bu,
Jusqu’a ce qu’il soit bien plein et qu’il ne puisse plus.
O Mere, Puissante Mere, la “mort” n’est plus obligatoire:
Nos corps baignent en l’immense Mouvement Ondulatoire
Au rythme souverain des Ailes du Seigneur…
Nos cellules aussi apprennent le Bonheur!…
En Francais
by Bhaga
Little Mother whom I love… Already forty-two years…
But that memory remains so strong nevertheless…
We in Auroville didn’t know yet,
But that evening you were fighting for your body,
Struggling to keep your legs from giving up…
And it has been your heart that in the end gave up
It went out, quite simply,
After a last beat.
Since then, every 17th November
I imagine you in your room,
Half-lying half-sitting,
Your back against the mountain
Of piled up pillows.
You were giving your last fight.
As always, you were refusing
To give up, to abandon your task…
Without anyone knowing
But the Divine and you, our Divine Mother,
Something happened then, not what could be guessed
But Something Else: a pod opening up,
The True Body replacing the one covering it,
A last breath exhaled,
A last beat of the heart. Pale
On its ‘deathbed’
Your old body remained
The one that could be seen
And photographed even.
Around this pale image
Stood, invisible but to the true sight,
A true body, its shape imprecise and unclear,
An orange mist, fire-fog of a myriad droplets
Seemingly condensing only very slowly
But full of a Power huge, inconceivable,
An eternal, immutable Presence.
This is What Was, still in the next morning,
When after an almost interminable queue
I found myself in front of your bed, your body.
This is What Was, still that fire-orange mist,
Only Reality of Thee that I could see,
Sole Nectar of Presence my body too could drink.
It drank it in, it drank it and drank it,
Until it was so full it couldn’t drink further.
Mother, Mighty Mother, “death” is no more a must:
Our bodies bathed in the slow blissful Wave
To the almighty rhythm of the Supreme Lord’s Wings,
Our cells as well now are learning Happiness!…
(To read this post in French – en Francais -, click HERE or visit En Francais in the Categories listed to the right.)
By Noel Parent
As science now knows, all of Matter is essentially vibrations. Vibrating energy. We can also say that all of life, not simply Matter, is vibrations. Our thoughts, our feelings, our sensations, our visions, our total human experience is a complex web of a vast Energy which is vibrating itself into different forms, even subtle forms which our minds can’t always grasp, which are not quite the “stable” forms of the physical world that we are so familiar and accustomed with. Matter is simply a more dense vibration, manifesting the forms that it is informed to create from higher vibrations which descend into the reality and awaken new experiences and new realities. When things change in our reality, it basically means that one vibration or collection of vibrations have replaced another vibration. This may sound quite impersonal when reflecting upon how someone in life goes through a very profound change which transforms their very nature or character. These words Energy and Vibrations don’t seem to convey the real living, breathing, personal aspect which is life. But if we can get past the use of these simple words and reflect upon the fact that Energy contains Consciousness, that Energy IS Consciousness in its dynamic, living aspect which builds life itself and animates it, breathes through it, within it, then we can begin to see more clearly. We are all this great dynamic, expansive Consciousness which is both personal and impersonal at the same time. It builds Itself in the forces and material reality of Life, it breathes and moves and feels and becomes. Matter itself is alive! It is Conscious, for there would be no possibility for our own human consciousness to exist were it not involved in the depths of Matter as a potentiality, as something awaiting the right moment to manifest, or as something which is moving and shaping Matter from behind the scenes. We are the result of a supreme Consciousness which is present in the heart of Matter, and which even now is still seeking to manifest its vast infinity of existence. In order for us to truly begin to understand the true nature of Matter, we will have to undergo a profound transformation of our perceptions, of our way of perceiving everything, our reality. We will have to awaken an entirely new psychological poise within us, a psychology of pure Matter, free of the mental and vital constraints which have limited our experience of our physical reality, including our bodily reality. But what is this psychology of Matter? Where is it? How to awaken ourselves into it? We must first be willing to leave behind the old ways, the old mental understandings and perceptions, our old ‘eyes’, in order to open ourselves up to the possibility of a new psychological awareness and experience. A new Consciousness, essentially. There is in the depths of Matter, in the secret cave of our own bodies, the key to this new perception and experience of Matter. The cells, the tiny entities of our bodies animating our existence, breathe with a truth to another way of living. Behind the veils which cover the cells’ true nature, there lies a new psychological experience, a psychological experience which is MATERIAL in its nature, and which will transform our total perception of our human and spiritual realities.
The cellular world is full of vibrations. It IS vibrations, vibrating Consciousness-Force. Every cell is a vibrating 
mass of Consciousness in formation. Indeed, the cells are Consciousness Information. They are the play of Consciousness in its dynamic, living quality, expressing and manifesting the infinite and eternal arrangements of forces which are everywhere, in everything, and being infused into the physical reality from behind a hidden spiritual reality which is the animating power of all of life. This spiritual reality too is Consciousness. It is Consciousness much closer to the origin of things, the Supreme Consciousness which is the foundation of everything, for there is nothing which is not this Supreme Consciousness. The cells are the intimate children of this Supreme Consciousness, images which are vibrating their own unique truth at the core of their nature. Yet these cells are also very fragile in our reality. They are surrendered servers to the Divine, and to us as well. They are formations of something which is Divine in its essence, yet forced to manifest this Divinity in the midst of everything which is not yet Divine, which reflects the Divine’s opposite. There is a great truth to this necessity of Opposition, an Opposition which ultimately is also Divine, as it plays a great role in the unfolding, the evolving, reality of Matter in its field of existence. This field is one of battles which are at once battles of unconsciousness within the vaster Field of an Absolute Consciousness. The oppositions force the progressive movement of life forward towards manifesting ever-more of life’s infinite nature. It moves from the unconsciousness towards Consciousness by way of opposing forces pushing life more and more towards its ultimate Truth, into newer realities which are in essence vaster awakenings of Consciousness. We live in this mixture of forces, this play of ignorance and consciousness, of life seeking its true nature in the midst of confusion and darkness and falsehood. Our cells, because they are such sincere and absolute servers of life, will embody anything and everything that life brings to it. As humans, we are like little vibrating magnets for all the forces of life, both ignorant/unconscious forces as well as those forces of Light and Truth and Consciousness. We are drowning in all these vibrating forces, we are animated by these forces. They play us as puppets since we are truly unaware of their movements and realities. And because we are manifesting these forces, because we choose to allow ourselves to be controlled, more or less, by these forces, our cells too become their slaves. Our cells are always listening. They are ALWAYS listening. To us. To our thoughts about ourselves and life, to our feelings about ourselves and life, to our entire experiential perception of ourselves, others, the world, life. The cells have the capacity to embody anything that we can imagine. This is their power, their truth. Yet because of the vast and complex play of forces around us and within us in life, they end up manifesting those vibrations, those qualities, those aspects of life which are most dominant. For the cells are not simply individual, but collective. We influence our own cells primarily, and yet the cells also vibrate their experience across the field of the cellular world, which is interconnected and intra-connected, which communicates everything in an instant. Our power to influence the nature of our cells and our bodies is immense, especially as we begin to become more and more conscious of the vast fields of the material reality which we live and breathe within. We are a concentrated mass of cells vibrating in our own unique way, but also interconnected with and influenced by everything else, by all the other vibrations of life. Our cells take in all of this, everything we experience. They take it all in and vibrate with it, manifest it or store it, or both. The cells can hold on to vibrations with intensity – they can even imprison themselves within vibrations which are destructive. They are contagious little beings, and can spread whatever vibration they are instructed to spread by the secret Will which is at the core of their existence, the hidden Guide which gives the breath of Life to them. The cells ultimately follow the dictates of the Divine within them, for they are intimately, inherently, innately connected to the Divine Consciousness in their core. Yet just as the Divine has given humanity its freedom to choose and manifest according to free will, the cells are in a way instructed to follow this human free will and choice to a large degree. By being unconscious of our cellular reality and the vibrations of our own cells, we are essentially unconscious of the play of forces that we are throwing upon our cells, forcing upon our cells, and our cells in turn manifest our bodies and our whole physical world experience according to our ignorance, within a field of uncontrolled forces of destruction, separation, falsehoods, and even death.
The call of the cells right now is for us to become conscious of their existence, of their consciousness. Our cells have their own consciousness which perceives physical reality in an entirely different way than what our mental perception does. They are awakening more and more to the truth of their own nature, even freeing themselves from the imprisoning milieu that we have kept them trapped in for millennia. They want to be truly free! Not simply for themselves but for us as well, and mostly for the Divine. For they seek only to manifest the Divine Consciousness, they seek only to serve and to BECOME the Divine. Their vibrating mass tells their story, their many stories, which are OUR stories, for we are integral, intimate players in their truth and their reality. We only must become more aware of their world, their ways, their truths. When we can become open to experiencing what vibrates in the depths of our own cells, and see what they are at their roots; when we become conscious of the living vibrations of Force which is what our bodies and cells are, and become capable of surrendering these vibrations so that they may be transformed, replaced by . . . Something Else, then we will find ourselves in a vaster freedom of life and creation. A creative life which allows a True Matter, a Pure Cellular Reality, to manifest what humans can not yet even imagine or comprehend (because comprehension is still of the dividing Mind) – a Divine Life in a Supreme Embodying Substance.
If you would like to read more of Noel’s articles, poetry, and other writings, please visit his www.truthyoga.wordpress.com
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