Preparing for the Miraculous

54 eleven talksbetween the mental and the supramental being, a kind ofoverman who will still have the qualities and in part thenature of man, that is, who will still belong in his most externalform to the human species with its animal origin, butwho will transform his consciousness sufficiently to belongin his realization and activity to a new race, a race of overmen[surhommes]. This species may be considered a transitionalspecies, for one can foresee that it will discover themeans of producing new beings without going through theold animal method ... So we could call overmen [surhommes]those who, in their origin, still belong to the old method ofgeneration, but in their achievement are in conscious andactive contact with the new world of supramental realization.”9Two remarks are in order here.Firstly, the above quotations of Sri Aurobindo clearlyshow the need of a series of “miraculous” transformationsbetween our species of “animal man,” as Sri Aurobindoand the Mother called it, and the supramental being. In thecourse of the evolution of life on Earth the formation of aspecies with a higher consciousness, succeeding Homo sapiens,is inevitable. Between the primates and Homo sapiensin its various appearances the gap was enormous; betweenHomo sapiens and the supramental being the gap is unimaginable.Secondly, where in the aforementioned quotation fromthe Mother there is written “overmen,” the English translatorshave used each and every time the term “supermen,”unaware of significance of the Mother’s words and of thecontents of The Supramental Manifestation. The Mothergave her Entretiens in French, for those talks were actuallyFrench classes for the students of the Ashram School. What9 The Mother: Questions and Answers, 16 April 1958.