Mother’s Diary: 10 August 1963

10 August 1963

HOUSE OF MOTHER’S AGENDA

93 – Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us how to bear and grow in rapture. She has three stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy.

As long as we are dealing with moral things, this is absolutely obvious and indisputable: all moral pain, when you know how to take it, shapes your character and leads you straight to ecstasy. But when it comes to the body…

It’s true that the doctor himself said ([laughing], the doctor [The “doctor” is not an abstraction here, but the person who watches and will watch over Mother up to the end] symbolizes Doubt with a capital D) that if you teach your body to bear pain, it grows more and more enduring and doesn’t get disrupted so fast – that’s a concrete result. People who know how not to be thoroughly upset as soon as they have a pain here or there, who are able to bear quietly and keep their balance, it seems that in their case the body’s capacity to bear disorder without breaking down increases. That’s very important. You remember, in a previous Agenda I asked myself the question from a purely practical and physical point of view, and it does seem to be true. Inwardly, I have been told many a time – told and shown with all sorts of little experiences – that the body can bear far more than people think, provided they don’t add fear or anxiety to the pain; if you can get rid of that mental factor, the body, left to itself, without either fear or fright or anxiety for what will happen – without anguish – can bear a great deal.

The second step is that once the body has decided to bear pain (it really takes the decision to do so), instantly the acuteness, the acute sensation in the pain vanishes. I am speaking on an absolutely material level.

And if you have calm (it requires an inner calm, which is another factor), if you have inner calm, then the pain turns into an almost pleasant sensation – not “pleasant” in the ordinary sense of the word, but there comes an almost comfortable impression. Once again, I am speaking on a purely physical, material level.

The last stage: when the cells have faith in the divine Presence and the divine sovereign Will and trust that all is for the good, then ecstasy comes – the cells open up, become luminous and ecstatic. That makes four stages (this aphorism refers to only three). The last one is probably not within everybody’s reach (!) but the first three are quite obvious – I know it works like that. The only point that bothered me (I told you once) is that it isn’t a purely psychological experience and that enduring pain causes wear and tear in the body. But I inquired with the doctor (I casually made him talk), and he told me that if the body is taught very young to bear pain, its capacity to bear increases so much that it can effectively withstand illnesses, which means that the illness doesn’t follow its course, it aborts. That’s precious.

The last experience (which I’ve had these last few days), in which apparently there was a hitch (it wasn’t really one) was a sort of demonstration. I told you what it was, you remember: it’s like a purge of all the vibrations that are false vibrations, that aren’t the pure and simple response to the supreme Influence (all that in the cells still responds to the vibrations of falsehood, either from habit or from the people around or the food taken – fifty thousand things). Then, with an aspiration or a decision, almost a prayer for purification coming from the body, something happens which, naturally, upsets the balance; the imbalance in turn brings about a general discomfort. The form discomfort takes is habitually the same: first, pains and all kinds of sensations I need not describe; if that state goes on developing, if it is allowed to assume its full proportions, it results … in the past it resulted in a faint. But this time, I followed the process for about two hours from the moment I got up: the struggle between the new balance, the new Influence that was getting established, and the resistance of all the existing elements forced to go away. That created a sort of conflict. The consciousness remained very clear – the consciousness of the BODY remained very clear, very quiet, perfectly trusting. So for two hours I was able to follow the process (while going on with all my usual activities, without changing anything), until I felt, or rather was told sufficiently clearly that the Lord wanted my body to be completely immobile for a while so that He might complete His work. But I am not all alone: there are other people here to help me and watch over everything (but I don’t say or explain anything to them, those are things I don’t talk about – I don’t say what goes on, I don’t say anything), so I sat there wondering, “Is it really and truly indispensable?” (Mother laughs) Then I felt the Lord exert a little more pressure, which heightened the intensity of the conflict, so that I had all the signs of fainting – I understood (!) … I stood up, let my body moan a little to make it plain it didn’t feel too well (!) and I stretched out. Then I was immobile, and in that immobility, I saw the work that was being done – a work that cannot be done if you go on moving about. I saw the work. It took nearly half an hour; in half an hour it was over. Which means there is really … there is a fact I cannot doubt, even if all the surrounding thoughts and forces contradict it: I cannot doubt that the consciousness is increasing more and more – the consciousness in the body. It is growing more and more precise, luminous, exact – QUIET – very peaceful. Yet very conscious of a TREMENDOUS battle against millennial habits. Do you follow?

When it was over, I saw that even physically, bodily, there is a strength: the result is an increased strength.

A very clearly increased strength.

Mother