Mother’s Agenda 1964

Undated, 1964

(Note from Mother to Satprem)

The old dreams of
the past will turn into
meaningful realities.

January 4, 1964

(Regarding the Tantric guru's visit)

There has been an interesting phenomenon.

I had X told about a rather interesting encounter of mine with Ganapati¹ (quite a few years ago), and how he had promised to give me whatever I needed and actually gave it for quite a long time, certainly more than ten years, and generously so. Then everything changed in the Ashram. It was after the war, the children came and we spilled over; we became much more complex, much larger, and began to be in touch with foreign countries, particularly America. And I continued to be in contact with Ganapati; I can't say I used to do a puja to him (!), but every morning I would put a flower in front of his image. Then one morning I asked him, "Why have you stopped doing what you had been doing for such a long time?" I listened, and he clearly replied, "Your need has grown too large." I didn't quite understand, because he has at his disposal fortunes larger than what I needed. But then, some time afterwards, I had this told to X, who answered me from the height of his "punditism," "Let her not be concerned with the gods, I will look after that!" It was needlessly insolent. Then I turned to Ganapati and

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asked him, "What does all that mean?" And I clearly saw (it wasn't he who answered, it was Sri Aurobindo), I clearly saw that Ganapati has power only over those who have faith in him, which means it's limited to India, while I needed money from America, France, England, Africa... and that he has no power there, so he couldn't help. It became very clear, I was at peace, I understood: "Very well, he did his best, that's all." And it's true that I keep receiving from India, though not sufficiently; especially as since Independence half of India has been ruined, and all those who used to give me a lot of money no longer do, because they no longer can—it isn't that they no longer want to, but that they no longer can.

For instance, M. was greatly interested in my story about Ganapati, and I saw that there was a connection between him and Ganapati, so I told him, "But turn to him and he will give you the right inspiration." And since then M. has been perfect, really; all that he can do he does to the utmost of his ability. So all this is very good.

But there is a considerable difference between the real fact, that is, what this body [Mother's body] represents, and X's conception. He has always remained all the way down. This is what, in fact, had ruined his health for a time. And the odd thing is that every time he was ill and CONSENTED to inform me, he was instantly cured—he KNOWS this, but still his first instinct is always to turn to the gods with his ordinary puja.

It was the same thing with you—I saw that. He regards you like this (gesture of looking down on Satprem), and then, you're not a pundit (!), you haven't had the religious education of the country—he regards you as a beginner, he isn't at all conscious of where your mind is, of where your mind can reach. I told him, but even that he doesn't quite understand. But once, I saw (it was at the time when I was giving him meditations downstairs), he had made a remark that was quite preposterous on the fact that people here meditated with eyes closed and that I, too, had my eyes closed when I meditated. It was reported to me. That was long ago, years ago. He was going to come and see me the next morning, so I said, "Wait, my friend, I'll show you!" And the next day, I meditated with my eyes open (Mother laughs)—the poor man! When he went downstairs, he said, "Mother meditated with her eyes open, she was like a lion!"

That's it, you understand, there's a gap.

He is a very good man, but very ignorant—it seems funny to say that about a pundit, a great pundit who knows Sanskrit better than

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the head of the Maths [monasteries] of the South, but I say that he lacks this: the opening up above. He has a connection in a straight line (gesture tapering off to a point above), and indeed it's very high up, but it's a pinpoint—a sharp point that gives him an experience which is his ALONE: he cannot pass it on to others. You understand, it isn't an immensity rising upward: it's a pinpoint.

Last time, when he came to meditate, just before he came upstairs, all of a sudden I felt the Lord coming (He has a particular way of becoming concrete when He wants me to do something), and He became concrete with the will that I should take advantage of this man's goodwill to widen his consciousness. It was very clear. And He became concrete with a Power, you know, one of those overwhelming Powers... and a wonderful Love. It came like that, and he was caught in the Movement—what he was conscious of, I cannot say. But when he left the room, he said he had had an experience. And this time, he was quite sincere, spontaneous, natural, not trying to... to make a show.² It was very good.

No, you might have gained something [with X], but it's a something you would have found quite small; if you had felt it, you would have thought, "Oh, really, that was it!?"

(silence)

But he has given W a new mantra—a mantra to Kali, with the sound of Kali! Yet W isn't on Kali's side,³ not in the least! It's things of this sort that I don't understand in X. Whereas I know so well the kind of force, the quality of power that not only influences but can be manifested by one person or another, here or there.... X seems to do it according to tradition: you must first turn to this divinity, then to that one, then... regardless of the individual's quality. He doesn't seem to have a very great psychological insight into individuals.

When I sent him D. (you know, she is always ready to believe in any miraculous power), she went to him in good faith. He made outwardly every blunder that was needed to make her withdraw! So she withdrew.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

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Now, let's hope you will...

But still, for years now he has been making me go round in circles. Will I eventually get hold of a little something?

But of course, it's traditional, mon petit! That's the way of tradition: you must always have people go round in concentric circles, and there are times when you must drive them FAR AWAY to increase their aspiration. That's what tradition is all about—I don't believe in it.

It's erudition, that's how it's passed down from guru to chela [disciple], indefinitely.

Now when I see a possibility in someone—bang! I fling it at him—sometimes it stuns him a bit! But at any rate, one goes faster.

He thinks I act the way I do because I am incompetent.

(Satprem laughs in disbelief)

No, I am not imagining things: I know! He said that thing (had Sri Aurobindo been here, he would have had a good laugh!), "Oh, the gods, she should let me look after them, I know better than she does"! You understand, when I was giving meditations in the hall downstairs, they were all there: Shiva, Krishna, all the gods of the Indian pantheon were there, seated like this (gesture in a circle) to follow the meditation.

Krishna... sometimes I walked with him for hours in conversation. At night, when I was very tired from my work, he would come and sit on the edge of my bed, I would put my head on his shoulder and fall asleep. And it lasted for years and years and years, you know—not just once by chance.

After that, I smiled.

Which Aspect or Force is most in affinity with what I am?

Ahh!

Have you read The Mother?

It's the first aspect.

Do you have the book? I saw the text not very long ago and I thought, "Well, this is exactly it!"

(Mother looks for the book)

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But I gave you your name because... There are many people who are very, very different apparently and are in relation with very different aspects of the Mother, yet who all, for a reason which I know, will find the fullness of their being only when, Truth having been fulfilled on earth, divine Love will be able to manifest purely—that's why I called you Satprem. And there are other people, whom I know very well, who appear to be at the other end (how can I put it?) of the realization of their character (they are entirely different in origin, entirely different in influence), and yet who have exactly the same character... with regard to something else, which I will tell only when the time comes. And it's only when divine Love can manifest in its absoluteness that they will have the fullness of their being. So that for the moment they have, like you, but for very different reasons, the feeling that... things don't move, nothing gets done, nothing changes... you know, that all your efforts are useless; or else, for a few who do not have a sufficiently developed higher mind, they don't have faith: they think, "Oh, it's all promises, but..." (vague gesture, up above).

You are saved from that difficulty by the fact that up above you understand fully. But that's very rare—you should be infinitely grateful! (Mother laughs)

Oh, but I AM grateful!

(Mother leafs through "The Mother" by Sri Aurobindo, then reads:)

Here:

Imperial Maheshwari is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them. For she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to the supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the supreme Light, to a treasure-house of miraculous knowledge, to the...⁴

There isn't enough light for me....

But there was a sentence there that suited you marvelously.

(Mother reads again further on:)

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Equal, patient and unalterable in her will she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their Force and the truth that is in them. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts away from her into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom...

You should read all this passage. I am looking for that sentence....

You'll tire your eyes....

(Mother reads further on:)

"Yet has she more than any other the heart of the universal Mother. For her compassion is endless...

I can't see—I am imagining more than seeing....

You're tiring your eyes, leave it.

(Mother reads on:)

"...is endless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha and those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace...."

All this passage. I am sorry, my eyes have become... When there's plenty of light I can see very well.

You're getting tired.

Yes.

But anyway, She is the one.

I simply found a sentence and I thought, "This is just right for Satprem." You understand, I feel it, I know those things, because I feel which Force or Power is acting—when I am with one person or another, there is always something that is the witness and watches

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the play of Forces, and it is this observation that lets me know. If I am asked, "Who is it?"—I know because of this.

ADDENDUM

(Extract from "The Mother" by Sri Aurobindo⁵)

Imperial MAHESHWARI is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them. For she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to the supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the supreme Light, to a treasure-house of miraculous knowledge, to the measureless movement of the Mother's eternal forces. Tranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever. Nothing can move her because all wisdom is in her; nothing is hidden from her that she chooses to know; she comprehends all things and all beings and their nature and what moves them and the law of the world and its times and how all was and is and must be. A strength is in her that meets everything and masters and none can prevail in the end against her vast intangible wisdom and high tranquil power. Equal, patient and unalterable in her will she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their Force and the truth that is in them. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts away from her into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom; those that have vision she admits to her counsels; on the hostile she imposes the consequence of their hostility; the ignorant and foolish she leads according to their blindness. In each man she answers and handles the different elements of his nature according to their need and their urge and the return they call for, puts on them the required pressure or leaves them to their cherished liberty to prosper in the ways of the Ignorance or to perish. For she is above all, bound by nothing, attached to nothing in the universe. Yet has she more than any other the heart of the universal Mother. For her compassion is endless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the

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Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha⁶ and those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace. But her compassion does not blind her wisdom or turn her action from the course decreed; for the Truth of things is her one concern, knowledge her centre of power and to build our soul and our nature into the divine Truth her mission and her labour.

January 8, 1964

(Mother shows a sketch she has just drawn to illustrate the passage in "Savitri" in which Sri Aurobindo speaks of the "sardonic rictus on God's face.")

I wanted to see this "sardonic laugh" of the Lord! So I looked, and instead of a sardonic laugh, I saw a face... with such a deep sorrow—so deep, so grave—and full of such compassion.... It's after that that I said (you remember, it was over there,¹ I was seeing that): "Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord." It was naturally based on the experience that everything is the Lord—there is nothing that cannot be the Lord. So what is this "sardonic" smile?... I was looking at that, and then I saw this face.

So, as I am supposed to do sketches for H.'s paintings, I did the sketch: Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord.

(Mother shows the sketch representing the Lord's sorrowful face.
Long silence)

Sri Aurobindo had the feeling or the sensation that what was farthest from the Lord (I always base myself now on that experience, which is very concrete in its sensation, of the "nearness" or

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"farness"—it isn't a farness in feelings, not that, it's like a material fact; yet it isn't located in space), well, Sri Aurobindo, for his part, felt that the farthest was cruelty. That's what he felt farthest from; that vibration seemed to him the farthest from that of the Lord.

And yet, it sounds bizarre but in cruelty one can still feel, distorted, the vibration of Love; far behind or deep within that vibration of cruelty, there is still, distorted, the vibration of Love. And Falsehood—the real Falsehood that doesn't arise from fear or anything of the sort, that has no reason behind it—real Falsehood, the negation of Truth (the WILLED negation of Truth), is, to me, something completely black and inert. That's the feeling it gives me. It is black, blacker than the blackest coal, and inert—inert, without any response.

When I read that description in Savitri,² I felt a sorrow which I thought I had been unable to feel for a long time—a long time. I thought I was (how shall I put it?) cured of that possibility. And last time, when I saw that, I saw it was still there; and while I was looking, I saw this same sorrow in the Lord, in His face, His expression.

The deliberate negation of all that is divine—of all that we call divine.

The Divine, for us, is always the perfection not yet manifested, all the marvels not yet manifested, and which must keep on growing, of course.

The far end of the Manifestation (assuming that there was a progressive descent... there may have been one, I don't know—there have been so many perceptions of what happened, sometimes contradictory, always incomplete and humanized), but if you consider the aspect of evolution, you tend to consider a far end from which you proceed to another far end (it's obviously childish, but anyway...), or an extreme way of being that grows towards the opposite Extreme Way of Being; well, what seems to me the blackest and most inert, the total negation of "that" to which we aspire, is what constitutes Falsehood.

In other words, this is perhaps what I call Falsehood; because falsehood in the human way is always mixed with all kinds of things—but Falsehood proper is this. It is the assertion that the Divine does not exist, Life does not exist, Light does not exist, Love

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does not exist, Progress does not exist—Light, Life, Love do not exist.³ A negative nothingness, a dark nothingness. And it may be this that clung to evolution and made Darkness, which denied Light, Death, which denied Life, and Hatred, Cruelty and all that, which denied Love—but this is already diluted, it's already in a diluted state, there has already been a mixture.

Oh, if we wanted to make poetry (it's no longer a philosophical or spiritual way of seeing, but a pictorial way), we could imagine a Lord who is a totality of all the possible and impossible possibilities, in quest of a Purity and Perfection that can never be reached and are ever progressive... and the Lord would get rid of all in the Manifestation that weighs down His unfolding—He would begin with the nastiest. You see it?... Total Night, total Unconsciousness, total Hatred (no, hatred still implies that Love exists), the incapacity to feel. Nothingness.

We're on the way. I still have a little bit of it [that total Unconsciousness] left.

Ah, let's get to work.

January 15, 1964

(after a long silence)

There is a curious transitional state in the most material consciousness, the body consciousness. A transition from the state of subjugation, of helplessness, in which one is constantly at the mercy of forces, vibrations, unexpected movements, all sorts of impulses—to the Power. The Power that asserts and realizes itself. It's the transition between the two; and there is almost a swarm of experiences of all types, from the most mental part of that consciousness down to the darkest, most material part.

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And when I want to say something, there immediately comes from all corners a swarm of things that want to be said and rush in all at the same time—which, naturally, prevents me from speaking.

It's a curious state.

The passage from an almost total helplessness—a sort of Fatality, like the imposition of a whole set of determinisms against which you are powerless, which weigh down on you—to a clear, definite Will, which, the MOMENT It expresses itself, is all-powerful.

(silence)

But, as a whole, it gives a sense of treading a very sharp ridge between two precipices.

(long silence)

It's impossible to say....

And this field of experience also includes the physical mind—all the mental constructions that have a direct action on life and on the body; there is there an almost unlimited field of experiences. And everything takes the form not of a speculation or a thought, but of an experience. I'll give you an example to make myself understood. I won't tell you the thing as it occurred, but as I now know it to be.... There is in France someone very devoted, born Catholic, and who was seriously ill. He wrote to me asking what he should do; he said that people around him naturally wanted him to receive extreme unction (they thought he was about to die), and he wrote to ask me if it had any influence on the progress of his inner being and whether he should refuse categorically. I knew none of this [as Mother had not yet received the letter], but I had an experience here, in which a priest and altar boys came to give me extreme unction! (That's how it presented itself to me.) They wanted to give me extreme unction, so I watched—I watched, I wanted to see; I thought, "Well, before dismissing them abruptly, let's see what it is...." (I had no idea why they had come, you understand; someone had sent them to give me extreme unction—not that I felt particularly sick! But anyhow that's how it was.) So before dismissing them, I watched carefully to find out if really it had a power of action, if extreme unction had the power to disturb the progress of the soul and tie it down to old religious formations. I watched and I saw how thin and tenuous it was, without force; I saw clearly that it could have some force only if the priest who performed it was a conscious soul and did it consciously, in

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relationship with an inner power or force (vital or other), but that if it was an ordinary man doing his "job" and giving the sacraments with the ordinary belief and nothing more, it was perfectly harmless.

Once I had seen that, suddenly (it was as if on a screen) the whole story vanished and it was over. It had come only to make me see it, that's all. But it presented itself in that way in order to make me watch intently, seriously, not as a mental consideration: a vision and an experience.

Immediately afterwards, I had a visit from the Pope! The Pope [Paul VI] had come to Pondicherry (he does intend to visit India), he had come to Pondicherry and asked to see me (quite impossible things materially, of course, but they were perfectly simple and straightforward). So I saw him. He came, we met each other over there (in the music room), and we actually did speak to each other. I really felt the man in front of me (gesture of feeling), felt what he was. And he was very worried at the thought of what I was going to say to people about his visit: the revelation I would give of his visit. I saw that, but I didn't say anything. Finally he said (we were speaking in French, he had an Italian accent; but all this, you see, doesn't correspond to any thought: it's like pictures in a film), he said, "What will you tell people about my visit?" So I looked at him (inner contacts are more concrete than pictures or words) and I simply answered him, after staring at him intently, "I will tell them that we have been in communion in our love for the Lord...." And there was in it the warmth of a golden light—extraordinary! Then I saw something relax in him, as if an anxiety were leaving him, and he left like that, in a great concentration.

Why did that come? I don't know.

And one, two, ten, fifty experiences like that—those two struck me. The first, because the NEXT DAY Pavitra told me a gentleman had written to ask me the question I told you: he had been very ill, he was in bed, anyway at death's door, and he had written to ask that question.

Curious, isn't it?

It's not a mental contact that lets you know he has written and so on; no, it was the experience—it always takes the form of an experience, an ACTION: something that has to be done and gets done, or that has to be known and becomes known. It is never the mental transcription of ordinary life.

The Pope... I wonder why: what happened? What does it mean? Why did it happen? But I still see the scene; it was a very

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living reality: he was tall, in the room over there (the music room), and there was a somewhat gloomy atmosphere around him, with a kind of worry. But the inner contact was very strong, very strong, very intense, and it went beyond the man—beyond the man, beyond the physical "Supreme Pontiff"—quite beyond. It touched something. Yet I had never thought of him, of course, nothing.

And all this happens IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, not while I am sleeping. All at once, you know... This story happened to me when I had just had my bath! You understand, it's completely unconnected.... All at once something comes, takes hold of me, and then there's a sort of life in which I live, until something is done—some action—and when that action is done, everything goes away. And it goes away without leaving any traces, as if... (Mother pulls away a screen abruptly).

I am giving these two examples because they are recent and a little unexpected (or at least, they didn't correspond to my occupations or preoccupations), but they come in hundreds! Every day thirty, forty of them will come and take hold of me, and then, all at once, I'll go into a concentration, I'll LIVE a certain thing, until I have seen—seen, known through the vision—something that had to be seen, and as soon as it is seen, pfft! gone away, finished. It loses its interest, it's gone.

I'll go into a sort of concentration for a time during which I am completely isolated, absorbed; then when it's over, hup! it goes away abruptly (gesture of pulling a curtain).

And it doesn't stop me from continuing my activities—I tell you, I was dressing again after my bath! But then all the movements become almost automatic: the consciousness is no longer occupied with its gestures, there is only a delegation of the consciousness to keep watch, that's all.

But all this changes my position—my position vis-à-vis the world is changing. How can I explain it?... It's very strange.

A little later, before Satprem leaves

More and more, there is something that presses to make itself known and is formulated like this: what wants to come for next February¹ is the Truth-Light... (Mother repeats like an incantation)

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the Truth-Light, the Truth-Force, the Truth-Light, the Truth-Force... to prepare the way for the manifestation of supreme Love.

But that is for later on.

But immediate, immediate: the Truth-Light, the Truth-Force. It's becoming precise.

I didn't think about it. It was perfectly blank in my head. I didn't know at all. And then that came.

January 18, 1964

...I saw S.G. this morning, the person who went to America, who knew Kennedy and even spoke to him about the possibility of openly joining with Russia so as to exert pressure on the world and prevent armed disputes (he said, "to settle all border and territorial disputes in a peaceful way," beginning, of course, with China and India). Kennedy had been enthusiastic. The Russian ambassador had been summoned at once, and he had telephoned Khrushchev: enthusiastic over the idea (but this Khrushchev seems to be rather a good man). They were supposed to sort it out during a meeting at the U.N. At this point, Kennedy makes off....¹

But the idea has been taken up again through Khrushchev and he continues to be quite enthusiastic.² It seems (I don't know if it's quite true, because it's Z [a Russian disciple] who says so)... but Z sent him my article "A Dream,"³ on the possibility of creating a small "international center" (I don't like the word "international," but never mind), and Khrushchev answered, "This idea is excellent, the entire world should make it a reality." Well, I don't know whether it's correct, but anyway the gentleman seems to be well-disposed. And this S.G. is very intimate with the U.S. ambassador in Delhi.... In brief, S.G. has sent me the new proposal—the first one, I had approved it, I had even put my blessings on it, and he had gone to see Nehru: Nehru immediately called both ambassadors for

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a conference.⁴ At the time, I worked a good deal and things were moving.... Now, it seems that the new president [Johnson] is, for the time being, continuing what the other did: he won't upset the apple cart.... We'll see.

If it succeeds, it will give some concrete expression to the effort of transformation without violence.

A little later, regarding a new American disciple

...Oh, are they conceited!... And puffed up with their superior realization—they were born to HELP the earth. They have such goodwill! They want to help the whole earth, (in an ironic tone) help the earth. They come here, but instead of asking themselves what they can learn, they come TO HELP; they come to bring some order (there's "no order"!), to set right the things that are wrong, to bring some practical sense into these nebulous minds!

The other conceit seems to me more serious than the American one—the European conceit. Because they really think they are very intelligent. The Americans want "to help"—they're children. But the Westerners are "sages" of the intellect; so it takes some doing to penetrate their minds!... There's nothing they need to learn.

I have very little contact with those people.

Well, exactly! They are the ones: a fortress. It's the entire European "elite."

Especially the French, no?

The French very much so, but almost everywhere in Europe: the Germans, the...

The Italians don't think they have a superior intelligence.

But the Germans, the British...

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Oh, the British, that's a different phenomenon, mon petit! Anything that isn't British is worthless! (Mother laughs) The British alone are practical, the British alone are intelligent, the British alone know how to live, the British alone are powerful, the British alone... In short, there are only the British, the entire earth ought to be British—but the British, I took a thorough dislike to them when I was five years old!⁵ (Mother laughs) I remember, I always used to say, "But our real enemies" (as a child, just like that, between us), "our real enemies aren't the Germans: it's always been the British." And then I had, like Sri Aurobindo, a great admiration for Napoleon, so I had quite a grudge against them for the way they treated him.

Oh, no! The British... (laughing) the only thing that rehabilitated them in the world's history is that Sri Aurobindo went to study in their country! But he clearly said that during his studies there, his whole feeling of intimacy was with France, not England.

Oh, the British... No, the British haughtiness certainly isn't just a legend. What gave them that? Where does it come from? Because, basically, they are Normans, aren't they.

But they became islanders, it's an island.

Yes, that's the main reason.

ADDENDUM

A Dream

There should be somewhere upon earth a place that no nation could claim as its own, a place where every human being of goodwill, sincere in his aspiration, could live freely as a citizen of the world, obeying one single authority, that of the supreme Truth; a place of peace, concord, harmony, where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weakness and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search

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for pleasures and material enjoyment. In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their souls; education would be given not with a view to passing examinations or obtaining certificates and posts, but to enrich one's existing faculties and bring forth new ones. In this place, titles and positions would be replaced by opportunities to serve and organize; everyone's bodily needs would be provided for equally, and in the general organization, intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority would be expressed not by increased pleasures and powers in life, but by greater duties and responsibilities. Beauty in all its art forms—painting, sculpture, music, literature—would be accessible to all equally, the ability to share in the joys it brings being limited solely by one's capacities and not by social or financial position. For in this ideal place, money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social position. There, work would not be for earning one's living, but the means to express oneself and develop one's capacities and possibilities, while at the same time being of service to the group as a whole, which would in turn provide for everyone's subsistence and field of action. In short, it would be a place where human relationships, ordinarily based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in trying to do one's best, of collaboration and real brotherhood.

The earth is not ready to realize such an ideal, for humanity does not yet possess either the knowledge necessary to understand and adopt it or the conscious force indispensable for its execution. This is why I call it a dream.

Yet this dream is on the way to becoming a reality, and it is what we are endeavoring to do at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, on a very small scale and in proportion to our limited means. The achievement is indeed far from being perfect but it is progressive; little by little we are moving towards our goal, which, we hope, we shall one day be able to show to the world as a practical and effective means of emerging from the present chaos to be born to a new life, more harmonious and truer.

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January 22, 1964

(Mother looks tired and seems to have a cold. First she quotes from memory a note she has written in English:)

The true purpose of life: to live for the Divine or to live for the Truth, or at least to live for one's soul....

That's the minimum. And then:

And the true sincerity: to live for the Divine without expecting any benefit from Him in return.

I said this yesterday or the day before, because I was very angry with the Ashram people!... We are going through a very difficult period financially, and so, you know, people... they respect you only as long as you have money; when you have no more money, they don't respect you anymore—and they find it so self-evident, so natural! They don't even feel ill at ease, not at all: it's perfectly obvious that you respect someone only when he has money and holds you in his grip.

I wasn't happy, so I wrote this note.

Then Mother shows another handwritten note:

It's prayers that come out from here (gesture to the heart center), like this, all of a sudden, unexpectedly—they come out all the time, but I found this one interesting. It was again after my bath (!). It often happens at that time....

"To be what You want me to be,
to do what You want me to do...

That was the beginning; then came the sensation, "What's this ridiculous 'me'?" (It doesn't come from the vital or the mind,

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though, not at all: it comes from the body, it's the body's cells that suddenly ask themselves, "But what's this 'me'?") So the experience came, and it was very intense:

"To be You,
at every moment
the supreme Spontaneity."

(silence)

Human beings always do a thing FOR something, with a goal, for a reason, from a motive; even spiritual life, even spiritual effort are FOR the progress of consciousness, FOR reaching the Truth, for... it's a vibration that always has a tail—a tail in front. And these cells have realized that if you can have the vibration without the tail, the power increases tenfold—"tenfold" is nothing! At times the difference is fantastic. And actually, when they said, "To be what You want...," it was a way of expressing a need they felt for that; but once it was expressed, they said, "What's this platitude! What's this 'me' poking its nose in!" Then, all of a sudden, came the True Vibration—the True Vibration, without cause and effect, which at every moment of the universe is total and absolute. And it was translated into: "To be You, Lord, at every moment the supreme Spontaneity."

There was an extraordinarily dazzling light—which didn't last.

(silence)

So the conclusion (afterwards, naturally, when the whole thing had been seen and studied carefully), the conclusion is that the Lord has neither cause nor effect; and all that is is like those pulsations in my experience two years ago (or a year and a half ago, I don't remember—it was in April), the pulsations of Love bursting forth and creating the word, which followed one another but had neither cause nor effect: one pulsation wasn't the result of the one before or the cause of the one after—not at all—each one was a whole in itself.

Each moment of the Supreme is a whole in itself.

And "moment," what does it mean? What does it correspond to in the truth of the Supreme? I don't know—for us, that's how it is translated, because everything is translated that way for us. All change is translated for us as the sense of time—ONE sense of time, a certain sense of time, which may be infinite and eternal,

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but is a time all the time. And for Him, the change is timeless. What is it? What does it correspond to? I don't know.

Because the consciousness [Mother's] is outside time and space, completely, and yet there is this...

(silence)

(Mother starts coughing)

Someone has given me a present: a head cold—a lavish present!

Who gave it to you?

(Laughing) He didn't do it purposely.

But it's a lesson. I could have been cured immediately (it was yesterday). At first, it met with the true consciousness and the true attitude (even in the body), and for hours it was under control. Then came the people who come every day, some in the morning and some in the afternoon (but it was in the afternoon, yesterday), with their truckloads of work—a truckload, you know, it's dumped as when a truck unloads, meaning they don't wait for one to be unloaded before bringing another: they throw it all together. So, all of a sudden, my nose started running, it was over—there was a tension. The Force that was there couldn't withstand it. In the night and this morning, it was brought under control again and could have gone away; then came the usual people with their usual truckloads (each his truckload, there are four of them); so, right in the middle of the work, again my nose started running. It's stupid, but anyway....

And always the same thing (the first vision was quite correct, I mean the vision of the cells was quite correct): it isn't something coming from outside, it's the impulse that comes from outside, it's the wrong vibration that comes from outside, and the difficulty is that you are unable to replace this wrong vibration or, rather, CANCEL it, with the True Vibration. That's what I had already said: the "proportion" isn't sufficient, so it takes time. I can understand that with a sufficient proportion of cells remaining in the True Vibration, the cure should be instantaneous, that is, the effect of the wrong vibrations should be canceled automatically. But I had seen the thing and spent almost an hour, three quarters of an hour [in concentration], and the little bit that had been affected (it was

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in the throat) was canceled—it didn't return. It was canceled. But after those three quarters of an hour, I had to resume my activities, see people, do things, take my bath, too (although the bath is always beneficial), and a sort of memory lingered.... And then, from three o'clock, a quarter to three, the invasion started: first one, then another, then two more, then a third, then... So all at once, because my attention had been DIVERTED to what I had to do (scores of answers to be written, of blessings to be sent, of problems to be resolved—all of it dumped on me), as my attention was diverted to that, naturally all at once I started sneezing and so forth—there was nothing to do but... go through it.

Still, for actions in this domain, actions of transformation, I don't say solitude because that's silly—there is no such thing as solitude—but peace is necessary, that is, the perfect control over the activity: the activity must be kept on a level where it doesn't interfere with the inner work—that's the point. That was why, in fact, I was forced (apparently) to remain upstairs, because downstairs it had become... it was infernal—infernal, no one can imagine! It's always the same principle: "Why not me?" And there are 1,300 of them, you understand... let alone the visitors who come in their hundreds (some days, there are more than 200 or 300 of them at one time); they hear that there is "someone worth seeing," and when I was downstairs and one of the "circus showmen" ([laughing] excuse me!) came, he would bring a troop along.

Now, it's a little better, but it has become "Why not me?" Mother has seen such and such a category of people, therefore the entire category has a right to be seen!... The birthdays¹ too, it depends on the ages and occupations: if I see people of a certain age and occupation on their birthdays, all those of about the same age and similar occupation have a RIGHT to come—they have the right—and it is my DUTY to see them. And when I say that I don't have the time... they're upset.

It's a farce, you know! And that farce has been going on since 1929.

But when Sri Aurobindo was here, I only had to mention something to him and he would send word telling people they should keep quiet. (I found all that in his correspondence, I didn't know; how many times he wrote to people!) But afterwards... afterwards they all gloried in their "faithfulness," because they stayed on at the Ashram and kept some sort of consideration for me! So

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naturally, I was supposed to be infinitely grateful to them—"We have been faithful to the Mother."

At the time, I had all the money (as I did in Sri Aurobindo's time: he never took care of the money, he would hand everything over to me, and afterwards it went on as it was), and that keeps them a little quiet. But when I say, "I don't have any money, I can't pay," then... That's "spiritual life" for you!

Now, according to what I have seen and tested (with "little tests" done casually), there are certainly—oh, being EXTREMELY generous, patient and (what shall I say?) merciful—there are a good third who are here only because they are comfortable: you work if you want to, you don't work if you don't want to, you always eat, you always have shelter and clothes, and, ultimately, you sort of do as you please (you must pretend to obey, that's all). And if you're denied a convenience, you start grumbling—Yoga is simply out of the picture! It's a hundred thousand miles away from their consciousness (their mouths are full of words, but it's only lip service). Sometimes you have a little scruple in order to appear to be doing some work. And some have grown very old or come here because they have become unfit for life outside... so we can't send them away! (It was wrong to accept them—I must say I have little to do with that acceptance: I'll say no, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they'll pretend they heard yes, but anyway... that's life.) So I can't send them away. But I am going to make life ascetic for them: one won't be here to be comfortable anymore—then for what?

Well, we'll see. We have started restrictions—oh, they're not very serious, but anyway...

January 25, 1964

In the Illustrated Weekly they have published photographs of the Pope's visit to Palestine, and there is one in which he is prostrating himself: he is kissing the ground on the Mount of Olives, where Christ, as the story goes, was informed that he would be crucified.

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It put me again in contact with that man.

And his intention is clear: to make religion quite real, in the sense that it isn't a myth, it isn't a legend—it's truly God who came, and so on. So, to him, this is "human greatness" prostrating itself before the "divine sacrifice."

There is another photograph in which he is embracing the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church—heretics formerly, now they embrace each other.

And all the people around him (they are well-dressed, you know, with modern suits) look like puppets, mon petit! Oh, it's awful!... Awful. He at least has a force—or a will, at any rate. And he has a plan, he knows what he wants.

(silence)

He is also the first Pope to travel by plane, so they took his photograph in the plane—he gives a "broad smile," he looks very happy.

(long silence)

In sum, it is the glorification of physical suffering as a means of salvation.

I must say I find the whole story repugnant—that crucifixion being flaunted everywhere. There's nothing so clever about Christ! There are millions others who died without making such a fuss!

That was also my feeling, and it was Théon's too. But Sri Aurobindo... as for him, he clearly said that it had brought a sense of charity, humaneness and fraternity on earth that didn't exist before.

Yes, it certainly did bring something. But they just remain there.

Ah, the Falsehood is to remain stuck there, yes.

A little later

We'll have to revise some of these aphorisms [by Sri Aurobindo] little by little. Do we still have quite a few ready?

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Not many. But at the rate we're commenting on them, we still have at least a year to go!...

(Mother laughs)

I haven't yet had the time to prepare the "Bulletin": I'm catching up with my work.

It doesn't matter. Besides... people are arriving by the hundred. Next month is going to be a bit difficult... although I'll see as few people as possible. But still...

See (Mother takes out an appointment pad), all these are people announcing their coming and asking for appointments—just look! (an endless list)

I could speed things up and prepare the "Bulletin" earlier?

No. I'll be better also (Mother still has her cold), it will give me some time to get better.... Not that the ideas aren't clear (!), on the contrary... there's a sort of very precise and sharp vision of things, but speaking is difficult.

But what I say is hard for people to understand, I find.... I gave that text from the Agenda to A.—he didn't say anything. Which shows that he didn't understand anything. As for Pavitra, he clearly didn't understand anything.

To them it's platitudes, mon petit! They take it just on the surface.

But when Sujata reads it, she understands! Yet she didn't listen to you.

But mon petit, Sujata is trained, she has typed it all, she has gone through it all.

Anyway, I don't care.

Personally, I'm very reluctant to touch up what you say under the pretext of making it more "readable."

Oh, no! It would become absolutely useless.

I'm reluctant to do that—and I don't do it. I could easily make it more "literary."

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No!

But I find it absurd. I've never done it. I can't do it.

It wouldn't be worth the trouble.

Too bad for them!

They just read the words, you know!

Exactly!

They read the grammar of it.

That's right!

For instance, with that "dialogue with a materialist,"¹ my experience lasted for two days, for hours on end. So there were all the arguments and counterarguments. It was extremely interesting. But I didn't say what the arguments were. So Pavitra told me, "It lacks life."

But I find it full! The whole essence is there.

But it isn't "explained."

But it doesn't need to be explained!

It would be very good if there were no need to explain....

But, for example, that "dialogue" was only the memory of the experience. When I have the experience WHILE you are here and describe it to you, it's much stronger.

Yes, obviously.

So it would be better to try to have the experience while speaking to you—or rather speak to you while having the experience.

I remember that while I was having that experience, I had the feeling that all materialism was ESSENTIALLY defeated, that there was a definitive answer, and that the force or power (because there is a Power behind materialism, a sort of sincerity that doesn't want to deceive itself), that that Power was overcome and

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convinced. And so, it has some importance. But the experience itself should be expressed for the power to be there. What I told you was only a reflection.

Anyway...

January 28, 1964

(The following conversation between Mother and a Bengali disciple, B., was not tape-recorded but only noted from memory in English:)

(B.) I am going to Calcutta. There they will ask me one question regarding the present situation—communal riots.¹ What is the solution?

The solution is, of course, the change of consciousness. I know those other people [in Pakistan] behaved badly, like animals—even animals are better than human beings—but if people here also do the same, they would be playing in the hands of the forces that make people do evil and would only strengthen the hold of these forces. Retaliation like this is no remedy.

(B.) People there feel frustrated, they see no remedy, do not know which way to go, whom to look up to. They are going the wrong way, following the wrong lead. Isn't the division of the country responsible for much of these troubles?

Yes, division of religion, of country, of interest! If people felt like brothers—not brothers who quarrel but brothers conscious of their common origin...

(B.) When are you coming?

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Don't be under the illusion that I am not there. I am there, the force, the consciousness are there, but there is no receptivity. During the Chinese trouble, I was in those places in the front, concretely, but I am sorry to say that the only people who were receptive were the Chinese. The impulsion to come forward disappeared. That is receptivity. No one knew why they withdrew! On the Indian side a few were touched and they told me of terrible conditions.

Since World War II, I have been keeping Kali² quiet, but she is restless! Times are critical, anything may happen. If people will only give up their ego!

(B.) I shall suggest a simpler way—to turn to you.

Perhaps the time has come to tell what I have told you. You may talk if an occasion arises. Keep your faith and go like a warrior.

January 29, 1964

Mother reads a few extracts from letters of Sri Aurobindo:

I have here three quotations on difficulties.... They apply so marvelously now! Sri Aurobindo wrote them in... 1946, '47, '48—the dark hours. And things are repeating themselves now:

"The Mother's victory is essentially a victory of each sadhak over himself. It can only be then that any external form of work can come to a harmonious perfection."

November 12, 1937

Then this one, which is very interesting:

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"I know that this is a time of trouble for you and everybody. It is so for the whole world. Confusion, trouble, disorder and upset everywhere is the general state of things. The better things that are to come are preparing or growing under a veil and the worse are prominent everywhere. The one thing is to hold on and hold out till the hour of light has come."

(XXVI. 168, June 2, 1946)

This we could repeat to people endlessly, but it is extraordinarily true just now!

To hold on and hold out.

Till the hour of light has come.

So be it!

(Laughing) Things have never been so bad! And strangely—strangely enough—there is behind all that a kind of SOLIDITY that has never been there before. I have noticed this since yesterday. Outwardly, things have never been so confused, so complicated, so unpleasant, so difficult, yet there is somewhere (as if underneath or within, I don't know how to explain) a solidity, something that has a solid evenness... like a base that NOTHING can shake. This I have never felt previously. I have felt it for the last two days.

As though something were established that is UNSHAKABLE. And outwardly, things have never been so catastrophic. I find this interesting.

And then, even from the point of view of light, there was (till the last few days) a sort of bright light of a more or less childlike trust and a more or less childlike hope (especially among the people here), which... (it's rather comical to say) suddenly went out when the food supplies were cut at the dining room!

(Satprem, in disbelief:) No!

I assure you, it sounds like a joke, but it's true! The supplies were cut—more as a demonstration than as a necessity, that is to say, it didn't save much money: it made a lot of noise, a big hoo-ha, a lot of changes, but it didn't save in proportion; but D. felt that the demonstration was necessary—very well. But what an effect it had!... That sort of childlike trust, like a light of childlike unconcern which was hanging in the atmosphere here: pff!

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—swallowed up (Mother laughs). So I was watching it, thinking, "But this is wonderful!" I watched carefully for that reason... and I saw that that kind of surface sheen—com-plete-ly gone! People were dismayed. At the same time, in the consciousness, such a solidity and stability... as I had never seen before, as if it were decided (Mother brings her hands down in a sovereign gesture), "This is now established."

And it's connected to February 29.

For a long time people have been like bubbling champagne, you know, always wanting to know, "What's going to happen? What can we expect?" A big to-do. I answered, "I don't know." I don't know—I am not trying to know, I am not looking at it, I am not concerned with it: when it comes, it will come. Then, several times (while I was writing birthday cards or letters), several times, it was as if clearly dictated to me, "Prepare yourself for the Truth-Light that is descending." And it's clearly this: the Truth-Light that is going to manifest... the Truth-Light that is descending... the Truth-Light that is preparing its manifestation—all sorts of sentences kept coming to me like that, but always "the Truth-Light." Then I understood that this was what was going to happen.

And now... it's something as solid as cement (which means it's material) and ab-so-lute-ly EVEN, you know, even, not one ripple of form, absolutely flat as a slab of marble, and without beginning or end—limitless, you can't see its end: it's everywhere. Everywhere, and everywhere the same. Everywhere the same. A color... like a sort of gray (a gray, the gray of Matter) that would contain a golden light, yet doesn't shine: it doesn't shine, it doesn't have a luminosity of its own, but it contains light. It doesn't radiate, it isn't luminous, yet it's a gray with a golden light in it—the gray of the most material Matter, of stone; gray, you know. But it contains that light: it's not inert, not insensitive, not unconscious, yet it is MATTER.

I have never seen that before.

It has been there for two days. What is it going to be? What is it going to bring about?... I don't know.

Listen, Sujata had a dream that's exactly what you've just described.

Oh, but she's wonderful, your Sujata!

She was looking at the sky, then she started seeing stars falling

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down everywhere, like a rain of stars over the earth. And then the ground had turned into an even mass of ice, like at the poles: it wasn't bright, but it was like ice everywhere on the ground. And a sort of ship rose on it, with a slightly gray color, with passengers, whose color was also... not bright, but slightly gray, slightly blue, as though they had escaped from old things—as though they had escaped from some catastrophe or were coming out of some catastrophe....¹

Really!

And everywhere, like at the poles, there was that ice.

That's it. Well, it's odd. And the rain of stars... Oh, it's interesting.

(silence)

A solid base, you know, and it's there (Mother makes a gesture at ground level). The feeling of a solid, un-shak-a-ble base.

As if...

Inertia transformed into its conscious principle of immortal stability.

It is evidently a change in Inertia itself.

Then Mother reads another letter by Sri Aurobindo:

"The extreme acuteness of your difficulties is due to the yoga having come down against the bed-rock of Inconscience which is the fundamental basis of all resistance in the individual and in the world to the victory of the Spirit and the Divine Work that is leading toward that victory. The difficulties themselves are general in the Ashram as well as in the outside world....

The description follows. You would think it was happening now:

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"Doubt, discouragement, diminution or loss of faith, waning of the vital enthusiasm for the ideal, perplexity and a baffling of the hope for the future are the common features of the difficulty. In the world outside there are much worse symptoms such as the general increase of cynicism, a refusal to believe in anything at all, a decrease of honesty, an immense corruption, a preoccupation with food, money, comfort, pleasure, to the exclusion of higher things, and a general expectation of worse and worse things awaiting the world. All that, however acute, is a temporary phenomenon for which those who know anything about the workings of the world-energy and the workings of the Spirit were prepared. I myself foresaw that this worst would come, the darkness of night before the dawn; therefore I am not discouraged. I know what is preparing behind the darkness and can see and feel the first signs of its coming. Those who seek for the Divine have to stand firm and persist in their seeking; after a time, the darkness will fade and begin to disappear and the Light will come."

(XXVI.169-170, April 9, 1947)

Very appropriate.

Very well, we have to stand firm.

Oh, it doesn't even make a slight dent! All those things are exactly like... watching a spectacle.

(silence)

It has become absolutely concrete, you know, as concrete as can be.

And yet, difficulties pour in from everywhere, not only with regard to health (which is still linked to moral things: the mood, the state of consciousness, the thoughts and mental formations, etc.), but to money, the "paper money" which refuses to come! And in this connection, lately I have seen in a fairly interesting way the difference in the material mental atmosphere: there was a sort of certainty that all that was necessary would come somehow—it was impossible for it not to come (I am referring to the general atmosphere); then it was replaced by you know, like when you bang your nose against a wall! That sort of very childlike, carefree trust—vanished! It just vanished So I had to look deeply at it, at what was behind, and that's how I saw this change

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in the Inertia (how is it going to express itself? I don't know; in what way?...), which I had never seen before.

It is something there, down below. Before, it was here (gesture to the level of the forehead), like this, in the atmosphere; now, it's there (gesture at ground level), that is to say, very low.

It's something that has happened in the Inconscient.

It's interesting. We'll see.

January 31, 1964

Mother reads the text of a message she has just given:

I wrote it in English yesterday:

The only hope for the future is in a change of man's consciousness and the change is bound to come.

But it is left to men to decide if they will collaborate in this change or if it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crushing circumstances.

Then, at the end, I put:

So, wake up and collaborate.

There seems to be a "push from behind"—I don't know how I could explain it to you.... I feel something, as if from behind a veil something were pushing and saying, "Come on! Move on, now!" As if everything were almost completely asleep and there were, behind, something pushing very forcefully.

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February 5, 1964

Something strange has happened—very, very strange, it's the first time such a thing has happened to me.

G. brought back from Paris a book, an album—an album of photographs. On one side of the book there is a photograph, and on the other a facsimile of the handwriting probably of well-known authors, poets, writers, and so on—I didn't read that. A facsimile and a photograph. They call it Dream Paris!... (Mother raises her eyes heavenwards)

The photos attempt to be very artistic. They are taken from quite unusual angles and some are very fine. On the whole, a little vulgar: too many people kissing, socks hanging in the sun—they confuse the artistic with the uncommon, the unconventional. To be unconventional is very good, but still it could be directed towards the Beautiful rather than... Anyway. I was looking at the book, turning the pages, and while looking I thought, "Well, really, someone who doesn't know Paris at all would get a queer idea of it!" There isn't one single picture that makes you say, "Oh, that's beautiful," except a view of the Seine and also... a few trees, which could as well be in the countryside. And I kept turning and turning the pages. Suddenly I saw (I had my magnifying glass to see better) a view of the banks of the Seine with the boxes of those... what are they called?

The bouquinistes.¹

Bouquinistes, that's right. A bouquiniste.

The album was big and the photo also was this big (gesture).

That photograph was clearer than the others, less confused—it was clearer. And I looked at all the details, thinking, "A pity the boxes weren't open, the books could have been seen, it would have looked better." In other words, I looked at the photo attentively and saw all the details, the different intensities of shade and light: it wasn't just a passing glance. Then I went on looking up to the end of the book and gave it to someone to look at. Naturally, the first thing that someone said to me was, "You don't quite get an

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impression of Paris." I said, "True, but there was one photo that gave a very good impression of Paris: that of the bouquinistes on the banks of the Seine." He looked surprised; so I said, "Of course!" I took the book and started turning the pages. I turned all the pages—my photo wasn't there! So I thought, "I've missed it" (I was looking without my magnifying glass), "I must have missed it." I took my magnifying glass, turned all the pages starting from the other end, very carefully—nothing! No bouquinistes. I turned the pages a third time (Mother laughs), still no bouquinistes! I said to myself, "There's an aberration somewhere... something that makes me turn two pages at a time or that veils my sight." So I said, "All right, I'll look tomorrow morning," and I put the book aside.

The next morning I was alone, concentrating—I concentrated a lot, saying to myself, "I do not want to be under an illusion, I do not want to be fooled by something...." I had seen the photo as clearly as... I saw it, I looked at it for several MINUTES. Which is to say that I am absolutely sure of what I saw.

I looked through the book one, two, three times—nothing. So I thought, "It's not possible, a spell has been cast!" A. was coming that morning. "When A. comes, I'll ask him to look for it." So I told him, "Look for it." He did find bouquinistes, but not like in my photograph, and then I had seen it on this side of the book, while his was on the other side; and I knew his photo quite well (I knew my album by heart, you understand!), it wasn't the same at all, there weren't any bouquinistes, only closed boxes. So it didn't look like much, and moreover it was on the other side of the book.

And it wasn't an "animated view," it wasn't a vision: it was a PHOTO, just like the other photos, the same color as the other photos—a photo which I even studied critically as a photo for the way it was taken. It doesn't exist!

It must exist somewhere.

Maybe they intended to include it in the book but didn't? Maybe the photo is with the book's publisher? But the photo exists, I saw it materially with these eyes (Mother touches her eyes) and a magnifying glass. Anyway... But it isn't in the book.²

(silence)

Some time ago, I was saying to myself, "Some people see physical things at a distance, but I have never seen anything of the sort."

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I have seen things in the subtle physical (very close to the physical, with a very small difference), but that wasn't a physical vision: it was a vision in the subtle physical. Some time ago I said to myself, "That's odd, physically I have no special capacities, I have never observed interesting phenomena!" (Mother laughs) But that was in passing. And now this story! But, mon petit, it took me forty-eight hours to be convinced that it wasn't in the book! I haven't yet got over it! Because my eyes have the eyes' memory, a very precise memory; they were educated by painting and they see things very exactly as they are (well, as they pretend to be materially). You know, I could have sworn that it was in the book. And clearly it isn't. Four people, apart from me, have seen the book, and it's not there!

I found that interesting, it's new.

They intended to publish it.

Possibly.

And then, probably, the photo was found to be one too many and they left it out—something like that. But the photo certainly EXISTS somewhere.

And it exists in connection with this book.

I wasn't in a special state when I saw it. But the second time, in the morning, when I looked at it, I was in a very special state: there was a tension in all the physical cells to know the truth, the truth, the truth... no illusions, and a call to the Lord, and a will for all this world of illusions to disappear—the Truth, we want the Truth. And when I opened the book, there was a great call to the Lord for things to be exactly as they are—not "as they are," but as they are according to the Truth. But the photo wasn't there!

It gave me an extraordinary intensity of aspiration in the body. I spent a part of the night in that tension: may all those illusions disappear, may there be only something wholly true, true, true... ESSENTIALLY true, not what people are in the habit of calling "true"—one shouldn't confuse the real with the true (in this regard the body has made great progress!). But the photo isn't there.

I thought it was perhaps the beginning of a new series of experiences.

There is an experience I have more or less constantly, it is to know exactly when someone is going to enter (the person and the minute when he enters), and to know exactly when the clock is

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going to strike, BEFORE the sound comes out. It began long ago, months ago, but it's growing more and more established, constant... and total.

But that's nothing! It's convenient, but it's nothing.

I'll have to find the way to organize this new type of experience and make use of it—but I need to know how it comes about! Because when I was looking at those pictures, I wasn't at all in a special state, I was looking at them somewhat superficially—I was finding them... hm!... I saw their effort to be "artistic" and I found the perspectives from which the photos were taken interesting, but that's all. The subjects... except for the angler (there were more than four anglers in the book, mon petit!) and people sleeping in the street, things of that sort. And then people kissing everywhere: on chairs, on the banks of the Seine, on benches, in swings in amusement parks. And rather vulgar. But the photos, the patches of light and shade—well taken. I didn't want to tire my eyes reading those people's literature, but it must be very "modern" probably—there were some authors' signatures...! The signature alone was the portrait of the individual: pretentious, affected....

The atmosphere of Paris is unbreathable. When I returned to France, first I fell sick, and then that atmosphere...

Horrible.

Unbreathable. You need to be armor-plated to be able to live there.

Yes, so as not to feel. A great corruption. And spinelessness, cynicism....

It's plain that they can live only thanks to their nonreceptivity. If they were receptive, they couldn't stay there!

Exactly.

That's right! That angler... you need to be an enthusiast to fish in the Seine! (Mother laughs) You see boats passing by in black smoke and the chap unruffled with his fishing rod.... That's it: shut up in his dream—"Dream Paris"!... He must be thinking he is sitting by a little brook in the middle of the countryside.

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(A little later, Mother again takes up Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms for the next "Bulletin":)

96—Experience in thy soul the truth of the scripture; afterwards, if thou wilt, reason and state thy experience intellectually and even then distrust thy statement; but distrust never thy experience.

It doesn't require any explanations.

That is to say, to children you should explain that WHATEVER the statement, WHATEVER the Scripture, they are always a step-down from the experience, they are always inferior to the experience.

Some people need to know this!

97—When thou affirmest thy soul-experience and deniest the different soul-experience of another, know that God is making a fool of thee. Dost thou not hear His self-delighted laughter behind thy soul's curtains?

Oh, it's charming!

You can only comment with a smile: "Never doubt your experience, for your experience is the truth of your being, but do not imagine that truth to be universal; and basing yourself on that truth, do not deny the truth of another, for everyone's experience is the truth of his being. A total Truth could only be the totality of all those individual truths... plus the experience of the Lord Himself!"

98—Revelation is the direct sight, the direct hearing or inspired memory of Truth, drishti, shruti, smriti; it is the highest experience and always accessible to renewed experience. Not because God spoke it, but because the soul saw it, is the word of the Scriptures our supreme authority.

I presume this is in reply to the biblical belief in "God's Commandments" received by Moses, which the Lord is supposed to have uttered Himself and Moses is supposed to have heard—it's a roundabout way... (Mother laughs) to say it's not possible!

"The supreme authority because the soul saw it," but it can be a supreme authority ONLY for the soul that saw it, not for all souls. For the soul that had that experience and saw it, it's a supreme authority—but not for other souls.

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That's one of the things that made me think when I was quite a small child, those twelve "commandments," which, besides, are extraordinarily banal: "Love thy father and mother.... Thou shalt not kill...." Sickeningly banal. And Moses climbed up Sinai to hear that....

Much ado about nothing!

Yes, that's always the feeling it gave me.

Now, I don't know if Sri Aurobindo had in mind the Indian Scriptures.... The Upanishads, then? Or the Vedas—but no, the Vedas were oral.

They BECAME Scriptures.

With God knows what distortion....

Not too much, since they were repeated with all the intonations. Among all the Scriptures, they're probably the least distorted.

There were Chinese Scriptures, too....

But more and more, my experience is that revelation (it comes, of course), revelation is a thing that can be applied universally, but which, in its form, is always personal—always personal.

It's as if you saw the Truth from one ANGLE. The minute it's put into words, it is necessarily, inevitably one angle.

You have the experience, without words or thoughts, of a sort of vibration that gives you a sense of absolute truth, and then if you stay very still, without trying to know anything, after a time it seems to go through a filter and is translated into a kind of idea. Then that idea (which is still somewhat hazy, that is to say, quite general), if you remain very still, attentive and silent, goes through another filter, but then a sort of condensation occurs, like drops, and it turns into words.

But when you have the experience perfectly sincerely, that is, when you don't kid yourself, it's necessarily one single point, ONE WAY of putting it, that's all. And it can only be that. There is, besides, the very obvious observation that when you habitually use a certain language, the experience expresses itself in that language: for me, it always comes either in English or in French; it doesn't come in Chinese or Japanese! The words are necessarily

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English or French, with sometimes a Sanskrit word, but that's because physically I learned Sanskrit. Otherwise, I heard (not physically) Sanskrit uttered by another being, but it doesn't crystallize, it remains hazy, and when I return to a completely material consciousness, I remember a certain vague sound, but not a precise word. Therefore, the minute it is formulated, it's ALWAYS an individual angle.

It takes a sort of VERY AUSTERE sincerity. You are carried away by enthusiasm because the experience brings an extraordinary power, the Power is there—it's there before the words, it diminishes with the words—the Power is there, and with that Power you feel very universal, you feel, "It's a universal Revelation." True, it is a universal revelation, but once you say it with words, it's no longer universal: it's only applicable to those brains built to understand that particular way of saying it. The Force is behind, but one has to go beyond the words.

(silence)

They come more and more often, those things that I scribble on a slip of paper, and they always follow the same process: first, always a sort of explosion—like the explosion of a power of truth; it makes great dazzling white fireworks... (Mother smiles), much more than fireworks! Then it rolls and rolls (gesture above the head), it works and works; and then comes the impression of an idea (but the idea is lower down, it's like clothing), and the idea contains its sensation, it brings the sensation along with it—the sensation was there before, but without any idea, so you couldn't define it. There is only one thing: it's always the explosion of a luminous Power. Then, afterwards, if you look at it while remaining very still, while above all the head keeps quiet—everything keeps quiet (gesture of a stillness turned upward)—then, all of a sudden, somebody speaks in your head (!), somebody speaks. It's the explosion that speaks. Then I take a pencil and my paper, and I write. But between what speaks and what writes, there is still a difficult little passage, with the result that when I have written, something above isn't satisfied. So I again keep still: "Ah, no, not that word—this one"—sometimes it takes two days for the thing to be really definitive. But those who are satisfied with the power of the experience skimp it all and send you off into the world of sensational revelations, which are distortions of the Truth.

One must be very level-headed, very still, very critical—especially very still, silent, silent, silent, without trying to grab at the experience:

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"Ah, is it this? Ah, is it that?" Then one spoils it all. But one must look—look at it very attentively. And in the words, there is a remnant, something left of the original vibration (so little), something remains, something which makes you smile, which is pleasant, it bubbles... like a sparkling wine, and then here (Mother shows a word or a passage in an imaginary note), it's lackluster; so you look at it with your knowledge of the language or sense of the rhythm of the words, and you notice: "Here, a pebble"—the pebble must be removed; so then you wait, until suddenly it comes—plop!—it falls into place: the true word. If you are patient, after a day or two it becomes quite exact.

I have the feeling it has always been this way, but now it's a very normal, very common state; the difference is that, before, one was satisfied with an approximation (when I see again certain things written in that way, I realize that there is an approximation, that one was satisfied with an approximation), while now one is more level-headed, more reasonable—more patient, too. One waits until it has taken form.

In this connection, I have noticed another thing, that I no longer know in the same way the languages I know! It's very peculiar, especially for English.... There is a sort of instinct based on the rhythm of the words (I don't know where it comes from, maybe from the superconscient of the language) that lets you know whether a sentence is correct or not—it's not at all a mental knowledge, not at all (that's all gone, even the knowledge of spelling is completely gone!), but it's a sort of sense or feeling of the inner rhythm. I noticed this a few days ago: in the birthday cards, we put quotations (someone types the quotations, sometimes he makes mistakes), and there was a quotation from me (I didn't at all remember having written it or having thought it either). I saw it—it was in English—I saw it, and in one place it was as if you tripped: it wasn't correct. Then there came to me clearly, "Put this way and that way, the sentence would be correct." (To say this mentalizes it too much: it's a sort of sensation, not a thought, but a sensation, like a sensation of the sound.) With the sentence written this way, the sound is correct; with the sentence written that other way, using the same words but reversing their order (as was the case), the sentence isn't correct, and to correct that sentence where the order of the words had been reversed, it was necessary to add a little word (in that case it was it), and then, with the sound it, the sentence became correct.... All sorts of things—if I were asked mentally, I would say, "I haven't the

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faintest idea!" It doesn't correspond to any knowledge. But so precise!... Extraordinary.

And I understood that this is the way of knowing a language. I always had it in French when I wrote—in the past it was less precise, more hazy, but there was the sense of the rhythm of a sentence: if the sentence has this rhythm, it's correct; if it's incorrect, the rhythm is missing. It was very vague, I had never tried to go deeper into it or make it more precise, but these last few days it has become very accurate. In English I find it more interesting, because, of course, English is less subconscious in my brain than French is (not much less, but a little less), and now it's instantaneous! And then so obvious, you know, that if the greatest scholar were to tell me, "No," I would answer him, "You are wrong, it's like this."

That's the remarkable thing, this knowledge is completely independent of outer, scholarly knowledge, completely, and it is ABSOLUTE, it doesn't tolerate discussion: "You may say whatever you like, you may tell me about grammar and dictionaries and usage.... This is the true way, and that's that."

February 13, 1964

(Satprem kept note of the following conversation despite its episodic character, for it is, alas, a good illustration of the kind of innumerable microscopic "avalanches" that assailed Mother from every side, daily.)

H. was so very vexed because I had this work done by Sujata that she has broken off all relations with me!... Except that she sends me letters of abuse every day!

She wrote that she will no longer have anything to do with the work, with this, with that, with me, and she is sending everything back.

Vanity....

I expected it a little.... You can't think of such things in advance, but when I spoke to her I thought she was going to be

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pleased—oh, she almost flew into a rage! But in front of me, of course... I looked at her and went like this (Mother lowers her thumb): it stopped. But once she had gone, it was the end!

A jealous and vain character is hard to correct.

You see, when she tells me, "I want the Truth, I want the Divine," I take it as sincere and act accordingly—but that gives her terrible thrashings! And I do absolutely nothing but take what she says at its face value. She says she "wants the Truth," "wants the Divine," that it is "the only thing she wants and nothing else." So I act accordingly.

The result is that I have piles of letters with frightful insults: "Liar, hypocrite...." (Mother laughs) It isn't the first time, she has those fits now and then. But after this letter, I received a sort of inner command to make one last attempt, and I wrote to her that it was HER SOUL that had asked me to act as I did. Because when I entrusted this work to Sujata instead of her, I had a moment of hesitation, then I went within to find out, and her soul exerted a very strong pressure for me to act in that way. I had always seen, at every minute, that her aspiration was constantly tainted with that vanity—she always puts on an act for others and for herself. I was waiting patiently for that vanity to go, but her soul wasn't as patient—hers is a very beautiful soul (that's the strange thing, you see, her soul is a very beautiful one), but at times she rejects it violently. So I wrote to tell her that now I had something serious to say to her, that it was her soul that had asked me to act in that way in order to break and conquer her ego's vanity.... She says, "I don't want my ego, I don't want my ego..." but she identifies herself with it to such a degree that when she has those fits, she is the ego; when the fit is over, she clearly sees the difference. And at the end of my letter, I said, "Now, it is up to you to choose between Truth and falsehood"—it was a hurricane!

I am waiting till it's over.

I am waiting.

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February 15, 1964

(After various remarks or observations which, unfortunately, Satprem did not keep:)

Ah, to work now! (Mother laughs) One plays all the time... one has the feeling that life is nothing but play!...

(Then the question comes up of Mother's photograph with a veil and the date when it was taken. That photograph is to be included in Satprem's book on Sri Aurobindo, and Mother had said to date it 1914.)

The photo was taken in 19... (Mother tries to remember).

1903, according to J.

No. That was the first time I went to Tlemcen... it must have been in 1905—at least 1905, if not 1906.¹

I never remember dates, I only remember circumstances.

I know it was the first time I went to Tlemcen. And I remember having said that I began my "conscious yoga" when I was twenty-five (twenty-five, that's in 1908²), what I call my "conscious yoga," that is, certain practices. It was in 1908. And Théon was three years earlier. Only, I had known Théon one year before going to Tlemcen, so it was perhaps 1904, and the photo was perhaps taken in 1905. But you know, I am not much good with dates! Anyway, it was between 1903 and 1908.

But I hadn't changed: my appearance was exactly the same when I came here. So for your book, we'll say 1914, according to the appearance; in other words, that's how I looked when I met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914. Voilà.

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February 22, 1964

(The day after Mother's eighty-sixth birthday. Mother first reads the translation of the message she gave on the 21st:)

It was translated in an interesting way.... I read it, then I concentrated (A. was sitting here, not moving or saying anything), so first I said a word or two to him to "establish the atmosphere." Then I remained quiet, and it simply came—it isn't exactly a translation:

Sa volonté solitaire affronta la loi du monde.
Pour arrêter la roue fatale, cette Splendeur se leva...

Her single will opposed the cosmic rule.
To stay the wheels of Doom this greatness rose.

(Savitri, I.II.19)

I had a strange night last night.

The whole day yesterday, I had an impression—not a vague impression: a very precise sensation—of the Pressure of something that was trying to manifest. But it was so material that it was almost like a physical pressure. And then a kind of Force that not only resisted, but revolted, trying to make a muddle of everything—to create unpleasant circumstances, trouble people, all sorts of perfectly unpleasant little nothings. I was watching all that.

And in the evening the resistance and revolt took a concrete form, as it were. Then, in response, there was in all the cells of the body a call, a desperate call for the Truth, as if all the cells were crying out, "Ah, no! We've had enough of this Falsehood, enough, enough, enough!—the Truth, the Truth, the Truth...." It put my body in a very deep trance. And it had the impression of a very, very intense struggle.

I was looking, and everywhere there were... as if the world were made of huge engines with enormous pistons that were falling—you know, like in engine rooms: they were rising and falling, rising and falling.... It was like that everywhere. And it was pounding Matter—it was frightful. To such a degree that the body felt pounded.

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It was a compression—a mechanical compression—and at the same time (both things at the same time), such an intensity of aspiration! There is in these cells an extraordinary intensity: "The Truth, the Truth, the Truth..."¹ Then, in the middle of all this, I went into a state of very deep trance, a sort of samadhi, from which I emerged five hours later—it lasted from 10 at night to 3 in the morning—five hours later, beatific, and conscious that I had been conscious all the time, but of something inexpressible. And what a light! A light, a light... a fantastic light.

But this morning, the body is a bit... (what's the word?) giddy.

Dizzy?

Not exactly dizzy... the sensation of a sort of lack of consistency. Yes, like when one is giddy—a giddiness, rather. Because it was such a pounding!

Mother, some fifteen days ago, I dreamed that very thing. There was a sort of enormous "drill" boring into Matter; then you came, and you were very interested, as if you participated actively in it. An enormous black drill, like the ones they use to drill wells, boring into a sort of Matter with a color like yellow clay. It struck me very much. About ten or fifteen days ago.... A tremendous power.

Yes, yesterday I had the feeling that I was brought into contact with something that's going on ALL THE TIME.

Then that's it.

Like this, a pounding: you know, those machines that rise and fall and rise and fall.... And there were scores and scores and scores of them... it was endless.

But then (laughing), this poor body was lying underneath! I even heard (although I was in trance), I heard my body letting out little cries, "Ah! ah!..." Just a little "ah"!

So that's how I am this morning, a little giddy. These are powerful methods!

(silence)

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I have never seen such an intensity in the cells, in the consciousness of the cells... you know, an almost desperate intensity: "We've had enough, enough of this Falsehood!—the Truth, the Truth, the Truth...." And then that Light... bah-bah!... They were conscious of the light. Conscious of a dazzling light.

Look, it's the kind of giddiness one has when one has drunk a bit too much—that's it, the giddiness caused by alcohol.

But I didn't have the sense of a definitive thing: I had the sense of a beginning! It's only a beginning!

Which means that the gap between what they are used to receiving through infiltration and a radical descent is a tremendous one.

Several times in his letters, Sri Aurobindo wrote that if the higher Light were to descend abruptly, or if divine Love were to descend abruptly, without preparation... the matter would be shattered. It appears to be quite true!

(silence)

Even now (Mother touches her hands and fingers), one feels... not the pounding, but the aspiration in all the cells....

(Mother goes into contemplation)

Yes, that's what it is, a sort of inebriation.

Somewhere in "Savitri," Sri Aurobindo says, "This wine of lightning in the cells...."²

Oh! Do you know where it is?...

(Satprem looks for the passage in vain)

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February 26, 1964

Mother's left eye is very bloodshot:

Does your eye hurt?

My eye?

It doesn't hurt??

I don't know.... Is there something?

Yes.

Oh! I didn't see.... It hurt this morning, and then... Strange, no one told me anything.

All right, that's all I needed! I won't be able to do anything at all. It hurt, but I didn't give it thought.

Is it very red?

Not as much as sometimes.... But here, when you look down, it's very red. When you lower your eyelid, there is an entire bloodshot area, up to the iris.

So it has started again.... All right.

It's such an avalanche, you know....

If one could do the work quietly, without having to rush... it wouldn't be a problem, it would be nothing. But one has to do in ten minutes a work that should normally take an hour, that's the bad thing.

(silence)

This week, you know, I should have remained quiet (meaning that I would have liked to), because the result of that intensity of aspiration [in the body] is to give me a crystal clear and almost constant perception of the extent to which the material substance is made of Falsehood and Ignorance—as soon as the consciousness is clear, at rest, peaceful, in a luminous vision, falsities seem to come up from all sides. It isn't an active perception, in the sense that I don't "try" to know: these are things that PRESENT themselves

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to the consciousness. And then you realize what it takes to clarify all that, to transform all that—what tremendous power of Truth-Force!... And you notice that the intensity of the aspiration—which hastens the transformation and brings the realization nearer—may well... (Mother touches her eye) yes, here's the result.

And I notice that, all around, those nearer to the center of descent are very shaken up—very. I see very few bodies around me capable of bearing it. But then, if that's how it is, necessarily the descent is so filtered and diminished that... how much will get through?

This morning, it hurt a little, but I said, "It's nothing, it MUST NOT be"—that it has come bothers me. It's a sign that the descent is too strong. So if we have to wait another four years—1968...

And what's going to come?... It'll be like a perfectly innocuous little rain! Which probably will not even be perceptible for the ordinary consciousness.

Maybe the work would go faster if instead of burdening me with such superficial chores—sending blessings, signing photographs...

Yes! Oh yes, indeed!...

And then receiving people. Receiving one after another, one after another, dozens of them.... Each one says, thinks, feels, "But I take just one minute!" But when you add up all the minutes, then...

(silence)

But it also shows one thing: if I let too wide a gap grow between me and the people around, it isn't good either, in the sense that if others aren't able to bear what I might bring down, it will be another kind of catastrophe.

One must have patience.

Patience one has.

Much patience.

A little later:

I have a feeling that people didn't understand a thing in the last Bulletin¹—they didn't dare to say anything, but they didn't understand

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a thing! Even those who, consciously, are supposed to understand: Nolini, Amrita, Pavitra, André... not to mention all the rest who are not as developed intellectually—understand nothing.

I have a feeling, a vague feeling that it will give someone, somewhere, very far away physically, a coup de grace, because I had that feeling while having the experience—what I told you and what you noted down was only the memory of the experience, but while I was having the experience and responding (gesture of mental communication), I had the feeling that, somewhere, someone was touched in a radical way, and that it was important for the intellectual atmosphere of the earth. Who is it? I don't know.

That's why I let that article be published, because otherwise... You see, when I read something or when, for instance, Nolini reads me a translation, I read with the others' consciousness—how flat it had become! Flat, flat: all the Power was gone.

I made some discoveries of this kind on the way people understand and read—very "cultured" people....

They don't know how to read, they read with their brains.

They read with a grammar book at the back of their minds!

Those are the scholars, that's awful, but I've never tried to convince a scholar!

They don't "hear" what's behind, they don't try to capture that sort of music—they just see sentences.

My article gives them a sense of something both very boring and very childish—both at once, so that crowns it all! Because the external form is very simple, of course, without literary pretensions; so it isn't exciting for the brain, not in the least (on the contrary I try to calm it down as much as possible!).

No, those who understand you best are the simple-hearted.

Yes, they are touched.

And their understanding is infinitely greater than that of "cultured" people—they understand better, they are more intelligent.

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More receptive. Yes, they feel.

They feel correctly, they mentalize less.

(Mother goes into contemplation)

Just before Satprem leaves

So, if by our next meeting you feel something or see something or think of something, or have a "dream," you will tell me.... I don't have much hope left... because these last few days there has been a great intensity, rather hard to bear—tremendous—and this morning when I got up, the intensity had lifted a little. The night was good (I perceive the general subconscient and the state of receptivity, the conditions—it wasn't bad, it was rather satisfying), but I noticed that the Pressure, the intensity of the Pressure, had lessened.

It was only during the work here [with the secretaries], that hour of work (labor, not work), I felt something here (gesture to the forehead and temple) that was a bit tired, like a fatigue coming from outside.... Anyway...

Well, now we have to hold on.

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March 4, 1964

So, how are you?

And you?

Experiences... I have nothing to say. It's too much and too little at the same time—too many things, details, innumerable little observations, innumerable little changes; but nothing sensational, nothing to make a "nice picture," no.

But first, I had asked you to tell me if you saw something.

I did see something, but I don't think it's very interesting, or collective either. I seemed to kind myself in an enormous plane, a very powerful one, which managed to take off (a takeoff which, besides, gave me a very pleasant sensation). It took off, but it was hedgehopping, that was dangerous. At first, the space before us was clear anyway, but we were flying very low and skimming the trees. Then, suddenly there were all kinds of buildings that stood in the way, in particular a huge tower, like a church steeple, of a very black color. I don't know how it happened, but the plane (or the force) entered it—oddly enough—and inside it was completely dark; there was only a sort of opening in a watt, and beyond it, a patch of blue sky. It sounds impossible, but the plane tried to go through that hose, and when we tried to, that sort of opening turned out to be covered with very thick glass that stopped us from going through. So I remember that with a pointed instrument I broke the entire window to enable us to go through. We did, but it was too small, the opening was too narrow for such an enormous plane. Afterwards, it's very confused; I only remember that in a hidden place, there was a sort of huge gold ciborium, very beautiful—it was hidden. But all the rest is quite confused.

Oh, but it's interesting....

(silence)

As for me, I only saw one thing: on the morning of the 29th, I woke up ("woke up," I mean "got up") with the consciousness the

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Vedic Rishis called the "straight consciousness," the one that comes straight from the Lord—the Truth-Consciousness, basically. It was absolutely quiet, calm, but with a sort of supersensation of an absolute well-being. Well-being, security—yes, a security—an indescribable peace, without the contrast of opposites. And it lasted about three hours, continuously, solidly, effortlessly (I didn't make any effort to keep it). I only had a definite perception that it was what they called the consciousness of truth and immortality, along with a perception (an observation, rather), fairly clear and precise, of the way in which it becomes crookedness (you know their word).

I hadn't tried to have that experience, I hadn't thought about it or anything—it came as something massive, and it stayed. But I had the feeling it was individual: I didn't feel it was something descending on earth. I felt it was something given to me, given to this body. That's why I didn't attach much importance to it. The feeling of a grace given to this body. And it didn't leave till—it hasn't left, but it has been little by little and very slowly veiled by... you know, that chaos of work, which has never been so chaotic and feverish at the same time.¹ For about two weeks, it has been appalling. We haven't come out of it yet. It has veiled that state FOR ME. But I clearly felt it was something GIVEN to this body.

During the meditation on the 29th, I noticed (I looked), I noticed that for about two days, the atmosphere had been full of a sparkling of white stars, like dust—a twinkling dust of white stars.² I saw it had been there for three days. And at the time of the meditation, it became extremely intense. But it was widespread, it was everywhere.

There seemed to be nothing but sparkling dots—dots that glittered like diamonds. It was like sparkling diamonds everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And it had a tendency to come from above downward. It lasted not just hours, but days; others saw it (yet I didn't say anything to anyone), others saw it and asked me what it was.

But there was nothing stunning or magnificent or astounding about it: nothing of the kind, nothing spectacular, nothing to give the feeling of a "great experience"—very quiet, but very, very self-assured. Very quiet.

Once it was over, after the balcony,³ when I came back from the

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balcony, I said spontaneously, "Very well, then, we'll have to wait another four years."⁴

Something in me was expecting... I don't know what, which didn't happen—maybe something that would have created havoc!

It was very quiet, very peaceful—very quiet, especially very quiet, and nothing marvelous or miraculous, nothing of the sort. So I said, "Very well, we'll wait four years, another four years," but for what, I don't know... the something I was expecting and which didn't happen.

But the external, material life had become very difficult—there were 3,000 extra people from outside. So it made a sort of confusion in the atmosphere, which isn't over yet.

(silence)

I heard from some people that a great number of little miracles had occurred, but I didn't listen, it doesn't interest me (people tell me, but my thoughts are elsewhere). It's possible: the atmosphere was highly charged. In people's consciousness, it may result in little phenomena—a number of little phenomena which they call "miraculous," but which to me are childishly simple and elementary: it's just "the way things are."

(silence)

Your vision... obviously it's mental constructions standing in the way of the takeoff—that's obvious. But it isn't an individual experience: it's a collective thing.

It was very black, and it was a church... like a church steeple. But the gold ciborium, what is that? It was very pretty, besides; it was beautiful, but hidden.

But it's true, that's indeed how it is.

It must be the supramental realization, which is hidden, still buried in Unconsciousness.

When I saw that gold ciborium, it was very confused, but some one was there with me (I don't know who, I didn't see him), and I said to him, "Have you seen this beautiful ciborium!" He replied, "No," but I KNEW he had seen it. Then I understood

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that if he said he had seen it, something bad would occur,⁵ people would come or whatever, anyway it was important that people shouldn't know he had also seen it.

It was important that people shouldn't know it was there.

(long silence then meditation)

The feeling that the cells of the body are constantly subjected to a sort of pounding—it's ceaseless, night and day. Since I told you about it last time, it's been like that all the time.

It seems to be an endless work.

(long silence)

Today the doctor is leaving for America for a brain operation.⁶ It's far from being a safe affair, it's too new, there are still too many unknown elements.

There have been a number of really very interesting things with him, but it's a sort of microscopic work, so it can't be told.... For instance, the way the auras, the vibrations, are mingled—it's very interesting.

I hope he is going to pull through?

He told me he wasn't afraid.

But actually it's nothing but an adventure into the unknown, because there's no guarantee that they won't cure one thing at the expense of another.... You understand, when they start operating on the brain!

Obviously a day will come when these operations will be common practice, but for the time being there are still too many unknowns.

But because we have lived together constantly, there is quite a mingling of atmospheres [the doctor's and Mother's], and when he tried to pull his away... (because he doesn't know yet how to remain everywhere at the same time—not many people know how to do it, so they pull their atmosphere away, which causes a sort

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of dislocation of many things and...). He doesn't admit it to himself, but he is very disturbed.

It's an adventure.

March 7, 1964

I told you last time that when I returned from the balcony on the 29th, it was as if in my concentration I said to the Lord, "Well, we'll wait another four years." That was the impression. And since then (today is the same day as the 29th, it was just a week ago), everything has been like this (quivering gesture in the atmosphere), like hosts of little promises—but promises that haven't come to fruition, in other words, it's always something that IS to come, something that IS to be, something that IS to be realized; something that's drawing near, but nothing tangible. And last night, when I awoke from my usual concentration (it's almost always at the same time: between midnight and half past midnight), I felt something special in the atmosphere, so immediately I let myself flow into it and made contact with it.

I noticed (I've known it for some time, but it was quite concrete this time) that in my rest, as soon as I am at rest, the body is completely identified with the material substance of the earth, that is to say, the experience of the material substance of the earth becomes its own—which may be expressed by all sorts of things (it depends on the day, on the occasion). I had known for a long time that it was no longer the individual consciousness; it isn't the collective consciousness of mankind: it's a terrestrial consciousness, meaning it also contains the material substance of the earth, including the unconscious substance. Because I have prayed a lot, concentrated a lot, aspired a lot for the transformation of the Inconscient (since it is the essential condition for the "thing" to happen)—because of that there has been a kind of identification.

Last night it became a certainty.

And something began to descend—not "descend": to manifest and permeate; permeate and fill this terrestrial consciousness. What a force it had! What a power!... I had never felt that kind of

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intensity in the material world. A stability, a power! Everything in the sense of a power, everything in the sense of a thrust forward—a thrust forward: progress, evolution, transformation. Everything like that. As if everything, everything were filled with a power of transformation—not "transformation," not transmutation, I don't know how to explain it.... Not the final transformation that will change the appearance, not that: it was the ananda of progress. The ananda of progress, like the ananda of progress of the animal becoming man, of man becoming superman—it wasn't transformation, it wasn't what will respond to that progress: it was progress. And with a plenitude, a constancy, and No RESISTANCE ANYWHERE: there was no panic anywhere, no resistance anywhere; everything was enthusiastically participating.

It lasted more than an hour.

And with the feeling that it was something unceasing,¹ but that the consciousness [of Mother] was only changing its position because of the necessities of the work. And this change of position took place in a few minutes, quickly enough, without the sense of losing the other experience; it simply remained there, behind, in order for the work to be done outwardly in a normal way, that is, without too abrupt a change. And the consciousness seemed to revert to a sort of superficial bark: it gave exactly the impression of something hard, rather inert, very artificial, extremely thin, dry, with just an artificial transcription of life—and that was the ordinary consciousness, the consciousness that makes you feel you are in a body.

For a very long time the body hasn't felt in the least separate—not in the least. There is even a sort of constant identification with the people around... which at times is troublesome enough, but which I see as a means of action (of control and action). I'll give an example: on the 4th, the last time I saw you, the doctor left for America. He had his lunch here (I told you he was very moved); he was given a sort of little ceremony for his departure. He was sitting on the floor as usual, next to me (I was seated at the table, facing the light), and they served him his lunch; he turned towards me to receive the things. He was in a state of intense emotion (nothing apparent at all; the appearance was very quiet, he didn't say or do anything extraordinary, but inwardly...). At one point I looked at him to encourage him to eat, and our eyes met.... Then

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there came into me from him such a violent emotion that I almost started sobbing, can you imagine!... And it's always there, in the lower abdomen (really in the abdomen), that this identification with the outside world takes place. There (gesture above the heart center), it dominates; the identification is here (gesture to the abdomen), but the Force dominates (Mother holds up her head); while here (the abdomen), it seems to be still... it's the lower vital, I mean the lower vital OF MATTER, the vital subdegree OF MATTER. It's on the way to transformation, this is where the work is being done materially. But all those emotions have rather unpleasant repercussions.... Even, when I looked at it in detail, I came to think that there must be something analogous in you; you must be open to certain currents of force in the lower vital, and those kinds of spasms which you get must be the result. So then, the solution—there is only one solution, because immediately I called, I put the Lord's Presence there (gesture to the abdomen), and I saw it was extremely CONTAGIOUS. Because I had received the vibrations, they had entered straight in without meeting any obstacles; so the response had a considerable contagious power—I saw it immediately: I stopped the doctor's vibrations; it took me a few minutes, and everything was back in order again. Then I understood that this opening, this contagion was kept as a means of action—it isn't pleasant for the body (!), but it's a means of action.

It's the same thing with that necessity of returning to the superficial consciousness. In the beginning, in the very beginning, when I identified myself with that pulsation of Love that creates the world, for many days I refused to resume entirely the ordinary, habitual consciousness (to which I was just referring: that sort of surface consciousness which is like bark), I no longer wanted it. That's why I was outwardly so helpless; in other words, I refused to make any decisions (Mother laughs), the others had to decide and do things for me! That's what convinced them that I was extremely ill!

Now I understand all this very well.

At any rate, last night's experience was decisive in that it coordinated all those scattered little promises, all those scattered little advances, and gave a TERRESTRIAL meaning to all those little things that came making a promise of progress here, a promise of consciousness there—all those promises have suddenly been coordinated within a sort of totality on the scale of the earth. I didn't feel it as something crushing in its immensity, not at all: it was still something dominated by my consciousness. A little thing (Mother holds up a ball in her hands), which my consciousness

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dominated but which was (for the moment) the exclusive object of my concentrations. And when I returned to the external consciousness (there was a moment when I had both consciousnesses at once), then I saw that the supposedly individual or personal consciousness, the consciousness of the body—of the body—was no more than a sort of convention necessary for maintaining contact. With the feeling that a step or two more—not many—will give THE Will (the supreme Will, that is) full power to act on this body.

It [this body] wasn't much more interesting or important than many other bodies—it didn't at all have the sense of its importance. Even, in the overall vision of the Work, its present imperfections were quite simply tolerated, even accepted, not because they are unavoidable, but because the amount of concentration and exclusive attention necessary to change them does not appear to be important enough to stop or reduce the general work. That's how it was... there was a smile for lots of little things. Finally, as for "the Thing" (the great thing from the "artistic" point of view of the material appearance, great too from the point of view of public faith, which only goes by appearances, of course, and which will be convinced only when there is an obvious transformation), it appeared to be, for the moment, at any rate, something secondary and not urgent. But there was a fairly clear perception that soon (how can I put it?) the state of being or way of being (I think they say the "modus vivendi") of the body, of this fragment of terrestrial Matter, could be altered, ruled, entirely driven by the direct Will. Because it was as if ALL the illusions had fallen away one after another, and every time an illusion disappeared it produced one of those little promises that came in succession, announcing something that would come about later. So that prepared the final realization.

When I got up this morning, I had the feeling that a corner had been turned. But not at all—oh, not at all!—a subjective thing, not at all: a corner has been turned FOR THE EARTH. It doesn't matter in the least if people aren't aware of it.²

(silence)

Amidst all that—that mass of experience—there was, standing out from the rest, the impression of the gorilla, of the fantastic

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power of progress that would turn him into a man.... It was very odd, it was an extraordinary physical power, with an intense joy of progress, of the thrust forward, and it made a kind of simian form moving forward towards man. And then it was like something repeating itself in the spiral of evolution: the same brute power, the same vital force (there's no comparison, of course, man has lost all that completely), the fantastic force of life that's found in those animals was coming back into the human consciousness and, probably, into the human form, BUT with all that has been brought by the evolution of Mind (a painful enough detour), and transformed into the light of a higher certitude and a higher peace.

And, you know, it wasn't a thing that came, diminished and came back again, it wasn't like that. It was... an immensity, a full, solid, ESTABLISHED immensity. Not something that comes and presents itself to you to tell you, "This is how it will be," it wasn't that—it was HERE.

And I didn't feel it went away: it's I who left it, or rather, to say things accurately, I was made to leave it in order to concentrate on this bark, for the necessities of the work.

But it hasn't gone—it's here.

This morning I noted the experience through the same process I told you I was using for revelation. I wanted to note exactly how the experience could be defined (Mother reads out a note):

"The penetration and permeation into material substance of the Ananda of the power of progress in Life."

It wasn't a permeation into the Mind: it was a permeation into Life—into Life, into the material, earthly substance, which had become alive. Even plants participated in last night's experience: it isn't something that was the privilege of the mental being, it's the whole vital substance (vitalized material substance) of the earth that received this ananda of the power of progress—it was triumphant. Triumphant.

And when I came back (it took me perhaps five or six minutes to come back), it was with a sort of quiet certainty that the return was a necessity, and that something else would occur thanks to which it won't be necessary to leave one state for the other (that's the trouble, we still have to leave one state for the other). It hasn't

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left, but it's in the background—it should be in the front.

And then I realized... When I got up, I asked myself, "Am I again going to come up against all the same material drawbacks that come from this sort of... not even contagion, of identification with the people and things around?" The slightest thing causes a reaction—there wasn't even one thought, you see [in the incident with the doctor], not one sensation—yet there was a disorder here (gesture to the abdomen).

Yes, I'm familiar with it.

Then one has to hold still, put the Force and... Now, I am conscious of where it comes from, of what it is, of who it is (when it comes from someone), of all that. And the response can be perfectly conscious and willed. And when I restore order here (gesture to the abdomen), it restores order there, too.

This, in the realm of thought, is something that has been there for a very long time—very long, years and years: the shock that comes from outside exactly as if it were... it's YOUR thought, but it comes from over there, it isn't actually here; and then the response. Since soon after the beginning of the century, this work has been going on. Afterwards, there was all the psychic work, in the same way (gesture of widening): the identification and the response. Then the vital work, which I began with Sri Aurobindo when we were staying over there [at the Guest House]; then the physical work, but there it's... gropingly learning one's job. Now there is a sort of certainty (not absolute and constant, but not far away), a sort of certainty: you see, you come into contact with something, and then you know instantly what should be done and how it should be done; the vibration comes, meets a response, and goes back—and this is going on every minute, all the time.

A sort of assurance and confirmation came last night with that experience.

But we must be patient. And we mustn't think that we've reached the goal—we're still far from it! There is always the joy of the first step, the first step on the path: "Ah, what a lovely path!" (Mother laughs)... We have to go right to the other end!

(silence)

It was luminous—luminous the whole time. That diamond-like sparkling turning into something much more compact, but less

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intense, that is, less bright—far more powerful. There was, above all, that sense of power: a power that can crush everything and rebuild everything. And in such an Ananda! But with nothing, absolutely nothing that had the slightest excitement, nothing of that bubbling which comes from the mind—the mind was like this (gesture, both hands open towards the Eternal), peaceful, peaceful, quiet, absolutely quiet. And while the experience went on, I knew (because the consciousness above was watching it all), I knew that only when the flash—the dazzlingly intense flash of the mental transformation through the supramental descent—only when the Light, the burst of Light, joins the ananda of Power will there occur things that will be a bit... indisputable.

Because in an experience of this type, only the one who has it can be sure. The effects are visible in tiny details that can be observed only by those who are already well-disposed, that is (to translate), by those who have faith—those who have faith can see. And I know that because they tell me: they see examples of those tiny miracles of every minute (they aren't "miracles") multiply; they're everywhere, all the time, all the time—little facts, harmonies, realizations, concords... all of which are quite unusual in this world of Disorder. But while the experience was there, I knew there would be another one, which is yet to come (God knows when!), and which would join with this one to form a third. And it is that junction that will then probably cause something to be changed in the appearances.

When will it come? I don't know. But we shouldn't be in a hurry.

Voilà.

(Just before Satprem leaves, regarding the recent publication of "Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness" at the Ashram, and its distribution:)

...What I wanted was to set a date, to get the book published—I am not particularly keen that people [here at the Ashram] should read it! Because I have a feeling that after some time (now I understand better), when the atmosphere is quite ready, it will do a very useful work over there [in Europe], very useful.

France is a black hole in the atmosphere.

Atmospheres are very interesting.... Yet there is an IMMENSE

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possibility there. But it is buried, as it were.

There are far more possibilities there than in England.

There is a possibility in Russia, too, but of a different nature—mystic, a great mystic possibility there. When the mystic spirit awakens there... It has been repressed, so... (gesture of explosion).

It seems they have now allowed baptisms [in Russia]: they've made a special organization for people who want to be baptized! A special place, maybe a building, I don't know, where all those who want to can be baptized. It used to be done secretly—now it will be a State organization. So those people had made progress, they had emerged from all the superstitions of the past, and now here's their new "progress": they fall back into the pit! They are taking up again the old burden of all the old superstitions....

March 11, 1964

I'll read you something.

It concerns an American who came here full of all the American ideas, who did a survey of everything (the way the services are organized and so on), and who sent me his report in which he says that everything lacks organization, a mental structure.... I didn't intend to answer him, but the day before yesterday, just when I was going to retire for the night, Sri Aurobindo told me insistently—he came and told me, "Here is what you must say to T." And he insisted until I had written it down—I was forced to write it!

Sri Aurobindo has told us (it's he himself who said it) and we are convinced by experience that above the mind there is a consciousness much wiser than the mental wisdom, and in the depths of things there is a will much more powerful than the human will.

All our endeavour is to make this consciousness and this will govern our lives and action and organise all our activities. It is the way in which the Ashram has been

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created. Since 1926 when Sri Aurobindo retired and gave me full charge of it (at that time there were only two rented houses and a handful of disciples) all has grown up and developed like the growth of a forest, and each service was created not by any artificial planning but by a living and dynamic need. This is the secret of constant growth and endless progress. The present difficulties come chiefly from psychological resistances in the disciples who have not been able to follow the rather rapid pace of the sadhana and the yielding to the intrusion of mental methods which have corrupted the initial working.

A growth and purification of the consciousness is the only remedy.

(Then Mother refers to the preceding conversation, of March 7, and to her experience of the ananda of progress in life.)

I feel it as something decisive, because, for me, things have changed. It's not one of those things that come and then go away.

Well... now we have to go farther.

Perhaps that's what I meant when I said "another four years," because I was in a rather strange state when I came back from the balcony on the 29th.... Wait, I'll show you a photo: they have given me photos of that balcony.

(Mother goes and gets a photo, then looks at it)

With the cloak flapping like a wing...

I wasn't seeing physically.... But that expression... that's the state I was in when I said (I was concentrated and something came out of here [gesture to the heart] and said to the Lord), "Well, we will wait another four years."

Four years, that means 1968. Sri Aurobindo said there would be a beginning of supramental manifestation in '67; so perhaps in '68 the two experiences will meet. It's possible.

The photo is clear.

An expression of yours that I didn't know.

That you didn't know...

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You see, it isn't a woman, it isn't a man; very clearly there's neither woman nor man here.

And to me, as I see it, the eyes are the will, while the lower part of the face is the struggle, the difficulty—it represents the difficulty with the earth. But the eyes are the will to make contact (Mother pulls from above downward to make high and low meet).

They aren't eyes of entreaty, look at them closely: they are eyes of will—almost eyes of command.

Yes, as if you were saying, "So?"

March 14, 1964

(About a trip to France which Satprem has to make soon.)

...You'll be able to see your friend B. if you go there.

I've lost the habit of contact with others; it's very rarely that I don't get tired as soon as I meet someone.

Oh, but it's more than tired, it's dazed!

And I'm not used to social life anymore, so I have nothing to say anymore, I'm not there.

I know what you mean!

It's difficult.

No, that's good, very good, it SHOULD be that way.

There is only one solution in such cases, the one I have established: the "bath of the Lord." You make contact within yourself, and you let That flow through you onto others—and then let what happens happen, what does it matter!... It's very interesting, you feel the Force flowing and flowing and flowing through you—some people can hold on a long time. Over there...

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(Mother stops short and looks for a long time)

No, if I look, it's terrible.

As long as you don't look, you can... but if I look, it's terrible: to be plunged in that.... I don't think you will be able to stay long. Unless you're completely alone with your mother in Brittany.

What's most worrying is people's friendliness, far more than their adverse reactions.

Oh, yes! That's much more worrying....

(long silence)

I am not going with a light heart....

I don't want you to fall ill like the first time. That's precisely what I am looking at and studying: whether it's possible to protect you adequately.

But for myself, I know: the first time I went away from here, in 1915 (and I left my psychic being here, I didn't take it with me—I knew how to do it—I left it behind), in spite of that, in spite of the link, when I came to the Mediterranean, suddenly I fell ill, dreadfully ill. I was constantly ill.

So I know, I know very well!

But even before I did the yoga, as soon as I returned to France from America or Africa, I would suffocate instantly, I couldn't stay—l never could. I could breathe in Brazil, I could breathe in Africa or even in Guyana, I could breathe in those countries, but in France, in Europe, I couldn't breathe.

In Europe, yes.

Anyway, I'll see, mon petit.

Ultimately, it will depend on your receptivity. If you can get used to holding the charge—you understand, to keeping the atmosphere around you, in order to protect yourself.

We'll see.

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March 18, 1964

(Mother reads a note she wrote in connection with a quarrel at the Ashram's handmade paper factory:)

The Employer to the Employee

"Nothing lasting can be established without a basis of trust. And this trust must be mutual.

"You must be convinced that it is not only my good that I am aiming at, but also yours. And on my side I must know and feel that you are here not merely to profit but also to serve.

"The welfare of the whole is dependent on the welfare of each part, and the harmonious growth of the whole is dependent on the progress of every part.

"If you feel you are exploited, then I too will feel you are seeking to exploit me. If you fear that you may be deceived, then I too will feel you are seeking to deceive me.

"It is only in honesty, sincerity and trust that human society can progress."

It's just the opposite of the Communist theory—all the Communists preach to them: "If you have the least trust in your employer, you are sure to be deceived and to become miserable; doubt, lack of trust and aggression must be the basis of your relationship." It's just the opposite of what I am saying.

Then Mother takes up the translation of a letter from English to French.

To translate I go to the place where things are crystallized and formulated. Nowadays my translations are not exactly an amalgamation, but they are under the influence of both languages: my English is a little French and my French is a little English—it's a mixture of the two. And I see that from the standpoint of expression, it's

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rather beneficial, for a certain subtlety comes from it.

I don't "translate" at all, I never try to translate: I simply go back to the "place" where it came from, and instead of receiving this way (gesture above the head, like scales tipping to the right for French) I receive that way (the scales tip to the left for English), and I see that it doesn't make much difference: the origin is a sort of amalgamation of the two languages. Perhaps it could give birth to a somewhat more supple form in both languages: a little more precise in English, a little more supple in French.

I don't find our present language satisfactory. But I don't find the other thing [Franglais] satisfactory either—it hasn't been found yet.

It's being worked out.

Each time, something in me grates a little.

It's on the way.

But it's my method for Savitri, too, it's a long time since I stopped translating: I follow the thought up to a point, and then, instead of thinking this way (same gesture of tipping to the right), I think that way (to the left), that's all. So it's not pure English, not pure French either.

Personally I would like it to be neither English nor French, to be something else! But for the moment, what words are to be used?... I clearly feel that to me, both in English and French (and maybe in other languages if I knew any), words have another meaning, a slightly unusual and far more PRECISE meaning than they do in languages as we know them—far more precise. Because, to me, a word means exactly a certain experience, and I clearly see that people understand quite differently; so I feel their understanding as something hazy and imprecise. Every word corresponds to an experience, to a particular vibration.

I don't say I have reached the satisfactory expression—it's taking shape.

And the method is always the same: I never translate—never, never—I go up above, to the place where one thinks beyond words, where one experiences the idea or the thought of a thing, or the movement or the feeling (whatever), and when it's in a particular language, it goes like this (same gesture as before), while in another language, it goes like that: it's as if something up above tipped

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over. I don't translate on the same level at all, I never translate on the level of languages. And sometimes, I notice that for me the quality of the words is very different from what it is for others, very different.

I have given up all hope of making myself understood.

(Mother makes some remarks on the disciples' "understanding," then adds:)

Do you know the story?

It's a story told by the Muslims, I think (but I am not sure). Jesus is said to have raised people from the dead, made the dumb speak, restored sight to the blind... until he was brought an idiot to be made intelligent—and Jesus ran away!

Afterwards, people asked him, "Why did you run away?" He answered, "I can do anything—except give intelligence to an idiot." (laughter)

It was Théon who told me the story.

March 21, 1964

(About a letter from the "doctor," who had gone to the U.S.A. for a brain operation: "The operation was torture for four hours; it is done under local anaesthesia but not effective. They cut and scraped my skull and drilled it without any anaesthesia.... Nursing is not so good, my [nurses] are far better. They have no feeling and do not do things honestly.... Surgeons are also slack...." It may be noted that the doctor was himself a surgeon of repute in Calcutta.)

...And they want to come here to teach everything to the poor Indians who know nothing!

It's disgusting.

If they cure him, it's all right, but I have my doubts.

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... Those Americans are nothing but bluffers—they bluff, bluff, bluff for everything. They come with grand airs, they will right all wrongs, correct all mistakes, enlighten all minds—and they're just at ground level.

Those doctors, when you fall into their clutches...

(silence)

And here he kept complaining that his nurses weren't up to the mark—now he'll understand! At least, after that experience, he will understand that what's here is exceptional—they always have to go outside to have this experience, they aren't sensitive enough to feel that here there is something that isn't found elsewhere. In order to compare they have to go elsewhere, and then be "tortured" a little.

It's too bad—that's the way the world is, it needs to be tortured to understand that there is something else.

March 25, 1964

101—In God's sight there is no near or distant, no present, past or future. These things are only a convenient perspective for His world-picture.

102—To the senses it is always true that the sun moves round the earth; this is false to the reason. To the reason it is always true that the earth moves round the sun; this is false to the supreme vision. Neither earth moves nor sun; there is only a change in the relation of sun-consciousness and earth-consciousness.

(long silence)

Impossible, I can't say anything.

It implies that our habitual perception of the physical world is a false perception.

Yes, naturally.

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But then, what would the true perception be like?...

Well, yes, that's the question!

...The true perception of the physical world—of trees, of people, of a stone—what would it be like to a supramental eye?

That's exactly what cannot be said! When you have the vision and consciousness of the Truth-Order, of that which is DIRECT, the direct expression of the Truth, you immediately feel something inexpressible, because all words belong to the other sphere; all images, all comparisons, all expressions belong to the other sphere.

I had precisely that great difficulty (it was on February 29): all the time while I was living in that consciousness of the DIRECT manifestation of the Truth, I tried to formulate what I was feeling, what I was seeing—it was impossible. There were no words. And immediately, merely formulating things made me instantly fall back into the other consciousness.

On that occasion, the memory of this aphorism on the sun and the earth came back to me.... Even to say a "change of consciousness... a change of consciousness is still a movement.

I don't think we can say anything. I don't feel capable of saying anything, because all that you can say is uninteresting approximations.

But when you are in that Truth-Consciousness, is it a "subjective" experience, or does Matter itself really change in its appearance?

Yes, everything—the whole world is different! Everything is different. And the experience has convinced me of one thing, which I am still feeling constantly: that both states [of Truth and Falsehood] are simultaneous, concomitant, and there's only... yes, a "change of consciousness," as he calls it, which means that you are in this consciousness or in that consciousness, and yet you're not moving.

We are forced to use words of movement because, for us, everything moves, but that change of consciousness isn't a movement—it isn't a movement. So then how can we speak about it and describe it?...

Even if we say "a state that takes the place of another"... takes the place... we immediately introduce movement—all our words

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are like that, what can we say?...

Yesterday again, the experience was quite concrete and powerful: it isn't necessary to move, or to move anything, for this Truth-Consciousness to replace the consciousness of deformation or distortion. In other words, the capacity to live in and be this true Vibration—essential and true—seems to have the power to SUBSTITUTE this Vibration for the vibration of Falsehood and Distortion, to such an extent that... For instance, the outcome of Distortion or of the vibration of distortion should naturally have been an accident or catastrophe, but if, within those vibrations, there is a consciousness that has the power to become aware of the Vibration of Truth and therefore manifest the Vibration of Truth, it can—it must—cancel the other vibration. Which would be translated, in the external phenomenon, by an intervention that would stop the catastrophe.

There is a growing feeling that the True is the only way to change the world; that all the other processes of slow transformation are always at a tangent (you draw nearer and nearer but you never arrive), and that the last step must be this—the substitution of the true Vibration.

There are partial proofs. But as they are partial, they aren't conclusive. Because, to the ordinary vision and understanding, you can always find explanations: you can say it was "foreseen" and "predestined" that the accident would miscarry, for example, and that consequently that intervention isn't at all what made it miscarry—it was "Determinism" that had decided it. And how do you prove anything? How do you even prove to yourself that it is otherwise? It's not possible.

You see, as soon as we express things we enter the mind, and as soon as we enter the mind there's that kind of logic, which is frightful because it is all-powerful: if everything has already been existing and coexisting from all eternity, how can you change one thing into another?... How can anything at all "change"?

We are told (Sri Aurobindo himself has just said it) that to the Lord's consciousness there is neither past nor time nor movement nor anything—everything is. In order to translate, we say "from all eternity," which is nonsense, but anyway, everything IS. So everything is (Mother folds her arms), and then it's all over, there's nothing more to be done! You understand, this conception, or rather this manner of speaking (because it's only a manner of speaking) nullifies the sense of progress, nullifies evolution, nullifies... We are told: it's part of the Determinism that you

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should strive to progress—yes, all this is rhetorical gibberish.

And, mind you, this manner of speaking is one minute of experience, but it's NOT the total experience. For a moment you feel this way, but it's not total, it's partial. It's only ONE way of feeling, it isn't all. There is in the eternal consciousness something far deeper and far more inexpressible than this—far more. This is only the first stupefaction you have when you emerge from the ordinary consciousness, but it isn't all. It isn't all. When the memory of this aphorism came back to me these last few days, I felt it was only a little glimpse you have all of a sudden and a sense of opposition between the two states, but it isn't all—it isn't all. There is something other than this.

There is something else, which is something altogether different from what we understand, BUT WHICH IS TRANSLATED INTO WHAT WE UNDERSTAND.

And That we cannot say. We cannot say what it is because... it's inexpressible—inexpressible.

It amounts to feeling that all that, in our ordinary consciousness, becomes false, distorted, crooked, is ESSENTIALLY TRUE for the Truth-Consciousness. But how is it true? This is precisely something that cannot be said with words, because words belong to the Falsehood.

Does this mean that the materiality of the world wouldn't be canceled by this Consciousness, but would be transfigured?... Or would it be another world altogether?

(silence)

We should be clear on one point.... I am afraid that what we call "Matter" is precisely the world's false appearance.

There is something that CORRESPONDS, but...

You see, this aphorism would eventually lead to an absolute subjectivity, and only that absolute subjectivity would be true—well, it's NOT like that. Because that means "pralaya, it means Nirvana. Well, there isn't only Nirvana, there is an objectivity that's real, not false—but how can you say what it is!... It's something I have felt several times—several times, not just in a flash: the reality of... (How can we express ourselves? We are always deceived by our words)... In the perfect sense of Oneness and in the consciousness of Oneness there is room for the objective, for objectivity—one doesn't destroy the other, not at all. You may have the sense of a differentiation; not that it isn't yourself, but it's a

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different vision.... I told you, all that we can say is nothing, it's nonsense, because the purpose of words is to express the unreal world, but... Yes, that may be what Sri Aurobindo calls the sense of "Multiplicity in Unity" (maybe that corresponds a little), just as you feel the internal multiplicity of your being, something of that sort.... I don't at all have the sensation of a separate self anymore, not at all, not at all, not even in the body, yet that doesn't prevent me from having a certain sense of an objective relationship—well, yes, it leads us back to his "change in the relation of sun-consciousness and earth-consciousness." (Laughing) Maybe that's really is the best way of putting it! It's a relation of consciousness. It isn't at all the relationship between oneself and "others"—not at all, that's entirely canceled—but it might be like the relation of consciousness between the various parts of one's being. And it gives objectivity to those various parts, obviously.

(long silence)

To come back to that very easily understood example of the aborted accident, we may very well conceive that the intervention of the Truth-Consciousness had been decided "from all eternity" and that there isn't any "new" element; but that does nothing to alter the fact that this intervention is what stopped the accident (which gives an exact image of the power of this true consciousness over the other one). If we project our way of being onto the Supreme, we may conceive that He enjoys carrying out many experiments to see how it all plays (this is something else, it doesn't follow that there isn't an All-Consciousness that knows all things from all eternity—all this with utterly inadequate words), but that does nothing to alter the fact that, when we look at the process, this intervention is what was able to make the accident miscarry: the substitution of a true consciousness for a false consciousness stopped the process of the false consciousness.

And it seems to me it occurs often enough—much more often than people think. For example' every time an illness is cured, every time an accident is avoided, every time a catastrophe, even a global one, is avoided, all that is always the intervention of the Vibration of Harmony into the vibration of Disorder, allowing Disorder to cease.

So the people, the faithful, who always say, "Through the Divine Grace this has happened," aren't so wrong.

I only note the fact that it is this Vibration of Order and Harmony

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that intervened (we're not concerned with the reasons for its intervention, this is only a scientific observation), and of this I've had a fairly large number of experiences.

So that would be the process of transformation of the world?

Yes.

An increasingly constant embodying of this Vibration of Order.

Yes, exactly, that's it. Exactly.

Even from that point of view, I have seen... You know, the ordinary idea that the phenomenon [of transformation] must necessarily occur first in the body in which the Consciousness is expressed the most constantly seems to me quite unnecessary and secondary. On the contrary, it occurs at the same time wherever it can occur the most easily and totally, and this aggregate of cells (Mother points to her own body) isn't necessarily the most ready for this operation. It may therefore remain a very long time as it apparently is, even if its understanding and receptivity are special. I mean that this body's awareness, its conscious perception is infinitely superior to the one all the bodies it comes into contact with can have, except for a few minutes—a few minutes—when other bodies, as if through a grace, have the Perception. While for it, it's a natural and constant state; it's the effective result of this Truth-Consciousness being more constantly concentrated on this collection of cells than on others—more directly. But the substitution of one vibration for another in facts, in actions, in objects, occurs wherever the result is the most striking and effective.

I don't know if I can make myself understood, but it is something I have felt very, very clearly, and which one cannot feel as long as the physical ego is there, because the physical ego has the sense of its own importance, and that disappears entirely with the physical ego. When it disappears, one has a clear perception that the intervention or manifestation of the true Vibration doesn't depend on egos or individualities (human or national individualities, or even individualities of Nature: animals, plants and so on), it depends on a certain play of the cells and Matter in which there are aggregates particularly favorable for the transformation to occur—not "transformation": the substitution, to be precise, the substitution of the Vibration of Truth for the vibration of Falsehood. And the phenomenon may be very independent of groupings and

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individualities (it may happen in one part here, another part there, one thing here, another thing there); and it always corresponds to a certain quality of vibration that causes a sort of swelling—a receptive swelling—and then, the thing can occur.

Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning, all words belong to the world of appearances.

(silence)

This has repeatedly been my experience lately, with a vision and a conviction, the conviction of an experience: the two vibrations are like this (concomitant gesture indicating a superimposition and infiltration), all the time—all the time, all the time.

Maybe the sense of wonder comes when the quantity that has infiltrated is large enough to be perceptible. But I have an impression—a very acute impression—that this phenomenon is going on all the time, all the time, everywhere, in a minuscule, infinitesimal way (gesture of a twinkling infiltration), and that in certain circumstances or conditions that are visible (visible to this vision: it's a sort of luminous swelling—I can't explain), then, the mass of infiltration is sufficient to give the impression of a miracle. But otherwise, it's something going on all the time, all the time, all the time, continuously, in the world (same twinkling gesture), like an infinitesimal amount of Falsehood replaced by Light... Falsehood replaced by Light... constantly.

And this Vibration (which I feel and see) gives the feeling of a fire. That's probably what the Vedic Rishis translated as the "Flame"—in the human consciousness, in man, in Matter. They always spoke of a "Flame."¹ It is indeed a vibration with the intensity of a higher fire.

The body even felt several times, when the Work was very concentrated or condensed, that it is the equivalent of a fever.

Two or three nights ago, something like that occurred: in the middle of the night, early morning, there was a descent of this Force, a descent of this Truth-Power; and this time it was everywhere (it's always everywhere), but with a special concentration in the brain—not in this brain: in THE brain.² And it was so strong, so strong, so strong! The head felt as if it were about to burst—yes, as if everything were going to burst—so that for about two hours I

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simply had to keep calling for the widening of the Lord's Peace: "Lord, Your widening, Your peace," like that, in the cells. And with the consciousness (which is always conscious, of course [gesture above]) that this descent into an unprepared brain would be enough to drive you completely mad or absolutely daze you (at the very best), or else you would burst.

This experience, like the other one,³ hasn't left.

It's everywhere, you understand.

And I saw (because I wanted to see, and I saw) that the other experience was still there but it was beginning to be almost habitual, almost natural, while this one was new. It was the result of my old prayer: "Lord, take possession of this brain."

Well, that's what is happening—happening everywhere, all the time. So if it happens in a large enough aggregate, it gives the appearance of a miracle⁴—but it is the miracle of the whole EARTH.

But one must hold out, because it has consequences: it brings a sensation of Power, a Power which very few people can feel or experience without their balance being more or less upset, because they don't have an adequate basis of peace—a vast and very, very, VERY quiet peace. Everywhere, even here at the School, children are in a state of effervescence (I was informed that the best-behaved and generally most regular children had become like that). I said, "There is only ONE answer, one single answer: you must be still, still, and even more still, and increasingly still. And do not try to find a solution with your head because it cannot find any. You must only be still—still, still, immutably still. Calm and peace, calm and peace.... It is the ONLY answer."

I am not saying it's the cure, but it's the only answer: to endure in calm and peace, endure in calm and peace....

Then something will happen.

(silence)

But this experience (this is between ourselves) is an experience I had never had in my life. I always had the impression of a sort of control over what was going on in the brain, and that I was always able to answer with the "blank," you know, the calm, still blank—the still blank. This time (laughing), it wasn't that! And it became so formidable that even the mantra (the words of the mantra) were shooting past like cannonballs! (Laughing) It all seemed like a frightening hail of bullets!

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There was only this to be done: I kept perfectly still, calling—calling for the Lord's Peace and Calm, that ever-widening Peace. The Infinite of the Lord's Peace.

Then it became possible to bear the Vibration.

Now, what it does, its work—that's not our business, it's His. We cannot understand. But that it is at work goes without saying.

But without a doubt, if at that moment there had been a doctor to take my temperature, he would have found there was a tremendous fever—though nothing even remotely like an "illness"! No, it was miraculously wonderful, it gave the feeling that... it was something the earth did not know.

That's how it always expresses itself: something the earth did not know, something new. It is new to the earth. That's why it's hard to bear! Because it is new.

Even now (Mother touches her skull), it feels all swollen, and with a vibration inside (gesture of a trepidation) as if the head were twice as big as before.

(Mother feels her head) I am trying to see if my bumps have gone—they haven't yet!

March 28, 1964

The big difficulty is that all of N.'s experiences are in his mind. He has worked in his mind, transformed his mind; he has experiences, he's had all the experiences—but IN THE MIND: not at all in the body. But then all that I am saying here, all these experiences I have now are in the body—he doesn't understand. That's the difficulty. He cannot understand. And who can?... I don't know:

As soon as it concerns mental things, he understands perfectly well; as soon as it concerns material things, he doesn't understand anymore. But who can understand?...

I can't say I "understand," but...

You feel.

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I transpose. I transpose a truth that I understand mentally. I tell myself it's the same in your body.

Yes, that's closer, but (laughing) it's not quite it!

I see the problem very clearly, because all these experiences (if you reread Prayers and Meditations, you will see), I had them in the mind, even in the vital, and at the time, naturally, what I said was very clear, it made perfect sense; but the body didn't participate: it obeyed. When it's perfectly docile, it obeys, and it didn't stand in the way. But what's happening now is that all this, all these living experiences are taking place in the body itself; and unless one has them HERE, all my explanations of "vibrations" are meaningless

It's only when the experience becomes mental and psychological that people "understand" it.

Perhaps the modern scientific mind that has studied atoms would understand better. It's the same kind of understanding as that of the scientist who analyzes the constitution of Matter. I distinctly feel it is an extension of that study and that it's the only true approach for the most material part of Matter. Any psychological explanation is meaningless.¹

This very morning, I was following the movement, observing the control this Vibration of Truth has in the body in the presence of certain disorders (very small things in the body, you know: discomforts, disorders), I was observing how this Vibration of Truth abolishes those disorders and discomforts. It was very clear, very obvious, and ABSOLUTELY REMOVED from any spiritual notion, from any religious notion, from any psychological notion, so that the person who possessed this knowledge of opposition of one vibration to the other very clearly didn't in any way need to be a "disciple" or someone with philosophical knowledge or anything at all: he only had to have mastered this in order to realize a perfectly harmonious existence.

It was absolutely concrete and irrefutable. It was a lived, absolute experience.

And then all these cells, in a fervor... (it was truly an Ananda, so inexpressible...) hurled themselves at the Lord and told Him, "But it's so much more marvelous when we know it's You!"—the whole body.

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And the light and warmth were expressed, that intensity of Ananda, that bliss... You understand, it wasn't in opposition to but like a COMPLEMENT of this vibratory knowledge, which was... I can't say a "coldly scientific knowledge" because that introduces mental notions, but it was of such a wisdom!... A knowledge so wise, so calm, so imperturbably quiet, absolutely free from any notion of good and evil, of divine, of positive and negative, absolutely independent of all of that—purely material. And with an absolute power. Then in these same cells, which were fully conscious of this knowledge of vibrations as being the supreme means of control for their harmony, suddenly there arose in them a sort of... not a flame (a flame is dark in comparison), a luminous Ananda: Love in its perfect reality.

And it was translated like this: "It's so much more marvelous when we know it's You!"

It was really an experience. It lasted a few minutes (I was sitting at my table having my breakfast), but during those few minutes it was a perfection.

The two poles had met.²

(silence)

Truly the sensation, in the entire body, of Love's perfect Ananda.

The other thing is very fine, it's the vibratory knowledge and the Power—but this, this Ananda...

(silence)

What's very interesting is that all those experiences you've had in your inner and higher beings, in your every state of being, appear feeble, flimsy, like a dream in comparison with the same experiences in the body. There, it becomes so... The Power and Intensity are so fantastic that, all of a sudden, you understand WHY there is a material world.

(silence)

The relationship with the outside world would become difficult if this experience were constant....

And there is such a marvelous Wisdom, which gives all things in doses so that the overall progress may not be at the expense of anything—so that EVERYTHING may move on. Then you marvel at

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that Wisdom—which humanity constantly insults, which they clothe in the most pejorative words: Destiny, Fate.

It is a marvelous Wisdom.

And in spite of all your knowledge, in spite of all your powers, in spite of all your past experiences, you feel very small before That.

That Wisdom is a marvel.

(silence)

You know, one minute of such an experience gives you courage for years—it lasted a few minutes, I was having my breakfast.

Ultimately, that's also what I am waiting for: an experience in the body.

Of course, mon petit!

That may be why I am disappointed with "yogic life."

But I have myself never had much respect for yogic life! Never.

Yes, some days I feel a little bitter, I find that's really "not it."

No, that's not it. That's not it.

But you see, you see all the way I have come.... And I was born with a consciously prepared body—Sri Aurobindo was aware of that, he said it immediately the first time he saw me: I was born free. That is, from the spiritual standpoint: without any desire. Without any desire and attachment. And, mon petit, if there is the slightest desire and the slightest attachment, it's IMPOSSIBLE to do this work.

A vital like a warrior, with an absolute self-control (the vital of this present incarnation was sexless—a warrior), an absolutely calm and imperturbable warrior—no desires, no attachments.... Since my earliest childhood, I have done things which, to the human consciousness, are "monstrous"; my mother went so far as to tell me that I was a real "monster," because I had neither attachments nor desires. If I was asked, "Would you like to do this?" I answered, "I don't care" (my father especially, it would make him furious!³).

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If people were nasty to me, or if people died or went away, it left me absolutely calm—and so: "You're a monster, you have no feelings."

And with that preparation... It's eighty-six years since I came here, mon petit! For thirty years I worked with Sri Aurobindo consciously, without letup, night and day.... We shouldn't be in a hurry.

We shouldn't be in a hurry.

And there was that experience, which of all experiences was truly the most... I could say the most decisive: that was when Sri Aurobindo left his body. Because materially, for the body, it was the complete collapse of a sort of unshakable trust, a sense of absolute security, of certitude that things were going to be done "just like that," harmoniously. Then his departure—the blow of a sledgehammer on the head.... And the entire weight of the responsibility here, on the body. Voilà.

That means quite a preparation—which is as wise as all the rest.

That's what Sri Aurobindo told me very clearly (because, of course, he saw, he knew), he said to me, "Only your body can withstand THAT, has the power to withstand...." It's a bit worn-out, but with the struggle and effort and work it has gone through, there is no ground for complaint: it has withstood—it has withstood very well. And it has been able to benefit from its accidents.

So we shouldn't be in a hurry.... Besides, that's an absolute rule: we shouldn't be impatient.

Yes, but that's not very encouraging for the ordinary human beings that we are.

Excuse me! There is a way.

All that I am doing, all that this body is doing, it has the power to pass on to others—that's precisely what I am studying now. I am studying this. It's a sort of power to put people in contact with the Vibration of the Consciousness (radiating gesture around the head), which is concentrated on a number of people and things (all over the earth, naturally), but also on certain points. It's the Power that came the night when there was that descent in the brain: at any moment I was able to direct a beam here, another beam there, touch a point here, another point there... (gesture like a beacon).

That's what Sri Aurobindo never stopped repeating: "Do not try to do it all by yourself, the Mother will do it for you, if you trust Her."

This I never say to anyone. But it's a fact.

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I never say it. I am saying it to you just now. But it's an absolute fact.

It isn't—you know this—it isn't done for ONE body: it is done for the earth.

But the advantage of the individuality is that you can aim a beam at precise points (same gesture like a beacon) and obtain a result—not in a miraculous way that leaves people open-mouthed and stupid, not that; but when the aspiration is sincere, when the will is sincere... You know, what I do constantly is (gesture of offering): "Lord, I cannot do it, do it for me. Lord, I cannot do it, do it for me...." Well, that's what Sri Aurobindo said: if people around me do not have the direct Contact with the Lord (a contact I brought with my birth, of which I have grown more and more conscious, but which was the very source of this earthly existence), if they don't have that Contact, they can have a conscious contact with me; that's easy, because, of course, it's something visible, tangible, with a real existence. So if one can be in that state of offering (not with words or sentences, but with a truly sincere feeling): "No, I don't know how I can do it all by myself, how can I? It's such a formidable thing to do, how can I?... How can I even discern exactly between the true movement and the untrue, or between the movement that leads to the Truth and... No, I don't know—I give it all to You, do it for me."

And that goes on twenty-four hours a day, and, I can say, as many thousand seconds as there are in a day, spontaneously, sincerely, absolutely (gesture of offering): "Here, I give it to you." Oh, here comes a difficulty; oh, so-and-so has a difficulty; oh, these circumstances are bad, oh... "Here, here, here, I cannot sort it out with the knowledge I have—do what needs to be done; do what needs to be done, I give it to You." It's a gesture of every minute, every second.

Then, after some time, you see such an OBVIOUS Response, you know, so clear that all that has doubts or lacks understanding is compelled first to keep quiet, and then to give in.

Only, I am in a transitional period in which I cannot actively look after people, that is, see them, talk to them, receive them, give them meditations—I can't, it's impossible, the body is unable to do both things. And it is clearly more important for it to attract as much Truth-Force as it can and work like this in silence (radiating gesture) than to help one, two, or three, or ten or a hundred people to progress.

Later on, I can't say.... If a power of ANOTHER ORDER descends

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into the body, and if it recovers from the wear and tear of effort, then things may be different, but for the moment...

Sri Aurobindo said it and some people remember, they repeat it and I don't say no (because it isn't no—it cannot be no: it's true), but I don't insist on it, I never say it.... I am saying it to you because we work together, and also, in fact, because you'll be going to France for some time and during that time it will truly be the way for you to make this progress: to fasten yourself, stand firm and be constantly wrapped in the Force.

Then, as I said the other day (laughing), maybe something will happen!

March 29, 1964

(Note from Mother to Satprem)

March 29, 1964

Satprem, my dear child,

People are raining like locusts!

On Tuesday, I have to see four of them
before you. I will try to rush it,
but I am telling you so that
you take your time
and don't hurry.

With tenderness and blessings

Signed: Mother

(Two lines from "Savitri" sent along with this note, on the occasion of March 29, the date when Mother and Sri Aurobindo first met... fifty years earlier:)

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Because thou art, men yield not to their doom,
But ask for happiness and strive with fate.

(VII.IV. 507)

March 31, 1964

A remark in passing

It is expected that people (here in the Ashram) would have made some progress!... And would not need the physical presence [of Mother] to feel the Help and the Force.

Regarding older Agenda conversations

...I forget completely. I seem to go by so fast, so fast, so fast, that it's impossible to remember—it would pull me backwards.

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April 4, 1964

You gave me two recordings of Wanda Landowska and I have listened to them. In one of them, there's a passage which is a pure marvel.¹

Isn't it!

It doesn't last long—it's like crystal.

Yes, exactly! I found it extraordinary.

It's so beautiful! I've never heard anything so pure.

Pure, yes, absolutely pure!

That's a divine means of expression. It's really a divine manifestation on earth....

Yes, very pure—and simple.

I have always wondered why I wasn't born a musician....

You must have been a musician.

It's really a regret in my life not to be a musician. Writing is NEVER "it." But capturing a note like that one...

Oh, mon petit, yesterday or the day before, I heard something... I don't exactly know what it is—it isn't music, I mean it isn't the notation of some musical instrument: it's the notation of a vibration of... I can't say, I didn't understand.² But in it... At first, you feel exactly as if you had entered a madhouse: it's completely incoherent, disjointed, and everything is unexpected because there is no logic—absolutely nothing mental. So you go from one sound to another, without any transition, and your first impression is exactly like... it's madness. But if you listen, now and then

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there's a sound, which isn't the sound of a musical instrument... absolutely wonderful! But it lasts one second. You would like it to continue—pfft! gone. And now and then there is a voice, quite like the human voice, you can almost hear words, there seem to be words—which made me think that the sound of our voice has its origin elsewhere (below or above, I don't know; where those vibrations come from I cannot say). And after a while, I saw that something in the being [Mother's being] was... I can't say "interested," it was something that enjoyed it, that didn't exactly have a "pleasant" sensation, but almost felt a need for the unforeseen, an unforeseen beyond all that we can imagine: disjointed, no logic, no sense, nothing. It SOUNDS like chaos, but all of a sudden I felt it wasn't chaos, it responded to another law. And when it came towards the end, I really wanted it to go on for a long time.

At first, you start laughing, you make fun of it, you giggle as if you were faced with something absolutely farcical. But now and then, oh!... And you've hardly had the time to appreciate it when it's already gone—a marvel. A marvel: a sound the like of which I have never heard, which no instrument can produce.

You go through all kinds of states, but curiously enough, I discovered in the being, somewhere in the consciousness, a sort of joy or intense interest in the absolutely unexpected—the unexpected, which to the mentality is unspeakably farcical.

Interesting.

April 8, 1964

(This was to be the last conversation before Satprem's departure for France, from where he would return in July.)

Mother looks tired, she goes into a long contemplation:

Will you continue [the Tantric discipline] there?

Yes.... I must say that in my outer consciousness, I don't

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know anything at all. I don't understand anything

You don't understand?

I understand nothing whatsoever.

(Mother laughs)

I simply know that there is "something else," and then I do what I have to do [japa, meditation], but what's happening, where I am, where I'm going, what I'm doing—l have no idea: I understand nothing at all. I have no perception of where I stand.

If it's any consolation to you, it's just like that for me!

I mean that the body doesn't even know whether it's going to last or... to decompose—nothing, it doesn't know anything. It doesn't know anything at all.... What purpose does it serve? Why is it here?... Yes, as you say, we know—we do know somewhere in the background of the consciousness—but the body itself...

You see, it finds it rather painful, in the sense that it never has the feeling of a quiet force, of a complete balance. And then all this suffering, all this, why?

That's just what I was looking at now [during the meditation].

And this poor body says to the Lord, "Tell me! Tell me. If I am to last, if I am to live, that's fine, but tell me so I may endure. I don't care about suffering and I am ready to suffer, as long as this suffering isn't a sign given me that I should prepare to go." That's how it is, that's how the body is. Of course, it could be expressed with other words, but that's it. When you suffer, for instance, when the body suffers, it wonders why, it asks, "Is there something I have to endure and overcome in order to be ready to continue my work, or is it a more or less roundabout way to tell me that I am coming undone and I am going to disappear?"... Because it rightly says, "My attitude would be different—if I am to go, well, I'll completely stop bothering about myself, or about what's going on or anything; if I am to stay, I will have courage and endurance, I won't budge."

But it isn't even told that—I haven't yet been able to obtain a clear answer.

It's not necessary, probably. Only, it's...

I cannot say that a single day passes entirely without my having

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to fight against one suffering or another, one difficulty or another—you know, the feeling that things are grating.

Of course, the body notices that when its entire consciousness is exclusively centered on the Divine, it no longer feels its suffering: if it has a pain, it no longer feels it. But the minute it is slightly aware of the outer world, it sees that the pain is there all right.

There are moments—moments—of illumination. Then it has the certitude of the Triumph. But almost immediately, something comes to contradict it violently, like a reminder: "Don't get carried away! You're not yet there, you know." Voilà. But then that state... How much time must the body last?... I don't know.

No, you're not in an inferior position—that's not it, it seems to be a necessity for the work.¹ But why?... I don't understand.

(silence)

Does it lack faith?... Possibly. It doesn't lack a trusting love—it has that, it accepts anything and everything, it is always full of its trusting love, that doesn't vary. But what is lacking is a sort of... almost an "intellectual faith." In other words, it has the feeling it knows nothing—it knows nothing, it isn't told anything. It knows nothing. It isn't told what will happen. And as long as it doesn't know what will happen, it feels as if... (gesture hanging in midair).

It can switch all at once from a consciousness of eternity to a consciousness of absolute fragility.

On top of this, there are lots of adverse forces, of adverse suggestions (some made of ignorance, others of ill will) that come and harass.... I don't believe them—it doesn't believe them, but it doesn't have the assurance that would allow it to laugh in their face. It doesn't believe them, but...

There's one thing, you know, which is so difficult (Mother has a spasm in her throat), so difficult, it's that Sri Aurobindo left.... That's at the root of everything. Before, my body wasn't like this; before, nothing in me was like this: there was an absolute certitude. That, you know, it was... a collapse.

It clearly came to teach something that could never had been learned before. But it's always on this that the adverse forces base themselves—always. All the adverse suggestions, all the adverse

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forces, all the ill will, all the disbelief—it's all based on this: "Yes, but HE left."

And I know—I know in my deeper consciousness—that he left because he WILLED to leave. He left because he decided that it should be so, that it was the thing that had to be done.

But WHY?...

Well, then, I cannot give you anything more than this.

It's a very difficult period—very difficult.

We are still in the middle of a transition.

(silence)

You must, you must hold on tight to the earth.... Did you get from Sujata the little packet [of rose petals from Mother]? She very much wanted you to keep it always on you—she is right. She is right. Because I know, I know what the atmosphere is over there. You must wrap yourself in a shell.

Voilà, mon petit....

April 14, 1964

(All of Satprem's letters to Mother having disappeared, as we already said, under lock and key in Pondicherry, we thought it fit to throw light on this journey to France by publishing, along with Mother's letters, a few fragments of Satprem's letters to Sujata.)

(From Satprem to Sujata)

Paris

For the past three days, I don't know how I've lived; I feel somewhat like a sleepwalker jostled about here, there and everywhere, walking, walking without quite knowing how, in a thick darkness—all I know is the Force, which I hold on to like a drowning

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man.... All that is left is the feeling of being far from home, far from all that is true, good, restful, the feeling of living in a hallucination—and yet, marvelously, the Force is there every minute, I breathe with it, live with it, otherwise I would drop dead, or simply go mad.

This is the last time in my life I'll return to the West, unless I receive an Order from Sri Aurobindo and Mother to do so—I cannot live here anymore, I feel as if I were going back to the prehistoric age of caves.

...Then they all rushed at me, one on the heels of another—family, friends, etc. I was completely bewildered. I had just enough strength to go into my room from time to time and rest on my bed, wrapping myself in the Force to hold out.

...How empty the days are—they are full of empty things, of empty people and empty movement. You feel you must constantly pull down the Force in order to fill up this enormous Emptiness, or else you would be utterly crushed. I keep my watch by Indian time, so that I always know where you are, although I never know what time it is in France! I have to make a complicated calculation and subtract four and a half hours: it's now 2:30 P.M. in our garden, therefore... 10 A.M. here, and I have an appointment. I will probably see Corréa¹ tomorrow. My friend M. tells me that they definitely agree to publish the book, but they would like to "cut" certain passages!... So I will have to argue to try and keep my book more or less whole! What a world! I will write to Mother tomorrow, once I know what the publisher's demands are.

I have to see a doctor day after tomorrow... but no doctor can close the hole in my heart.

S.

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April 19, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

Paris

...People are miserable in the midst of their wealth, their faces are hard and closed, they are harassed.... There are fine beings, but all their energy is devoured by this devouring life—I will never come back here, I don't belong here, I've never belonged here! The best of their ideal is as aggressive as they themselves are—I like them, but they are thousands and thousands of miles away from any true truth, it will take them many centuries to broaden a little. At any rate, it is clear that no book, no word will be able to change that, another Power is needed. I will nonetheless write that Sannyasin, but afterwards nothing but tales or poetry.

S.

April 23, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

Paris

It's hard, you know, life here is hectic, harried, you always have to see people, always have to run about—life doesn't have time to live, nothing has time to be. My brother, too, suffers from this life and would really like something else, but they are so tied up, bound hand and foot to this Falsehood that they cannot find the way out. They would have to break everything.

I don't know what's going on, but all your letters arrive open—censored in India?? It's the third letter from you that has arrived

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like that, open, with the envelope half torn. Apart from that, the contract with Corréa has been signed and they will publish the book in September, without cuts, 4,000 copies. They wanted to put me on television for an interview about this book, imagine! But I refused—those advertising organizations are as full of falsehood as all the rest. They also wanted my photo; I told them it would be in bad taste to stick my photo in a book on Sri Aurobindo. Anyway, it's done, the book will be published. I am writing to Mother to tell her (it's my second letter).

My own little mother looks so much younger and radiant—truly a natural, living soul, a living force.

It will take me many, many years to make up for these three lost months, because each day is about six months in French time.

April 25, 1964

(From Mother to Satprem)

Satprem, my dear little child,

Here is your second letter. I didn't answer the first one because of my eye, which needed complete rest. Now it's better. But I immediately asked Sujata to write you that I'd rather not have my photo published in the book, and that regarding Sri Aurobindo's, the first one seemed to me the best.¹ Now, if the contract is signed, there is nothing to add.

Yesterday, the 24th, there was a meditation.² It was intense and formulated itself thus:

"Suffocated by the shallowness of the human
nature, we aspire to the knowledge that truly
knows, the power that truly can, the love that
truly loves."

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The words are poor; the experience was strong.

I am with you always, in love and joy.

Signed: Mother

April 29, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

Paris

I have obtained from the embassy my return visa and I am quite relieved, because I was terribly anxious that this visa might be refused—it's silly, but I waited for this visa with a horrible fear.

S.

May 2, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

St-Pierre

I am in silence, gazing at the sea. In fact, I am not in Brittany, not in St-Pierre, not in France, I am in Air-India's waiting room, waiting for July 18.... I am neither happy nor unhappy—I am nothing, I am as if anesthetized, counting hours and days in my waiting room. During my japa-meditation, perhaps I exist a little

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more: instead of a nothing, it's a super-nothing—you see, Nirvana is at the door if you don't hold my string firmly in your hands.

Why do I have to write all those lines in ink when it would be so much simpler to think of you, and lo! I would be with you, I would see you.... Our human life is quite bounded and stupid. In two hundred years, in Eskimo land, we will be colored penguins; you will be sky blue and I, pomegranate red. And sometimes, I will be you and you will be me, red and blue, and we'll no longer be able to tell each other apart, or else we'll become all white like snow and no one will be able to find us again, except the great Caribou who is wise and knows love. And when the snow melts, we will be eider-penguins, of course, a new flying race, emerald, which plays among the northern fir trees on the shores of Lake Rokakitutu (pronounced "fiddledeedee" in penguin language).

S.

May 14, 1964

(From Mother to Satprem)

Satprem, my dear little child,

This onslaught of doubts¹ you are referring to is part of the general work. It is a very direct way of acting on the atmosphere.

You ask me if I see you. You do not come to me in a subtle body, but I am with you very concretely, so concretely that I see through your eyes and speak through your mouth. In this way, you made me meet people whom I don't know at all physically and have strange conversations with them. A useful preparation is certainly going on.

Through repeated, everyday experience, I am increasingly convinced that all disorders in the body and all diseases are the result of DOUBT in the cells or a certain group of cells. They doubt the

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Divine's concrete reality, they doubt the Divine Presence in them, they doubt their being divine in their very essence, and this doubt is the cause of all disorders.²

As soon as you succeed in infusing into them the certitude of the Divine, the disorder disappears almost instantly, and it recurs only because, not having been definitively driven away, the doubt reappears.

I hope you will be able to make out this scribble—I am forever struggling with writing tools, which to me are all equally inadequate.

Regain your health in Brittany and come back revived to resume your work with me. So many things are going to fly away into oblivion....

With all my tenderness and blessings.

Tell your mother that I love her much, very much, because she is YOUR mother!

Signed: Mother

May 15, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

St-Pierre

I have become as brown as an Indian—that's just like me, I do the contrary of the country I am in: Breton among the Indians, Indian among the Bretons. Basically, I'm forming a new race, the Bretondians—what do you say?

S.

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May 17, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

St-Pierre

Of course, Nature is wonderful, the sea is so beautiful, the climate delightful, but ultimately, when I close my eyes and meditate, I feel something fuller and more solid than all the degrees centigrade on a pearly sea. In reality, I spend my days waiting for my hours of japa-meditation, it is the real open sea, the peace that refreshes. It is something, and if it is nothing, it's a nothing that is worth everything. Yet there is no progress of consciousness, I don't see anything, least of all you—you tell me that you know the reason, I would really like to know what it is. I cannot understand why I am so blocked (my Western atavism?). I know the Light, I see the Space, I feel the Force, there is the absolute Truth that rules everything, pacifies everything, but inside there is nothing, not even the tip of your nose—why? I don't see Mother either, it's complete blackout. Inside, there is the Light, without a doubt, but why is it all black outside?—No communication between the two. Do you make sense of it? Drat!

S.

May 21, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

St-Pierre

This morning I have received your letter of the 16th and am surprised that I paid you a visit because, on my part, I didn't see you—still nothing, complete blackout. This too disgusts me—I really

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don't know what I am doing... probably useless and silly trivialities, as usual. But when there are horrors, I am sure to see them. Maybe at night I am an American gangster, or a Zulu, unless it is a good, jet-black Negro.... It's absurd and discouraging. Besides, I seem to be becoming completely null and stupid—which is a pity for you.

S.

May 28, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

St-Pierre

This month of May is interminable, in-ter-mi-na-ble, it is surely elastic. If June is as long, I'll tear the calendar to pieces. But I haven't yet spoken to my mother about returning sooner than planned; I would like to know if Mother approves, it would give me more inner strength to convince my mother. In the meantime, I count the hours (they are also elastic, expandable and sticky; my watch was so weary of those rubber hours that it broke down for good). Is time shorter in India? It seems to have shortened Nehru's life, at any rate—there must be great confusion over there; now all the mud will be free to spread out into the open?... Here the newspapers are full of Nehru's death—one would think a god had disappeared....

S.

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June 4, 1964

(From Mother to Satprem)

Satprem, my dear little child,

There you are! Since my last letter, I have seen you several times, often, even—every time that I go to the place where the moves of nations (their next move) are being worked out. It is a terrestrial mental region, open to the higher influences. It seems to interest you, especially in certain details.

Last night, it involved the countries of the Far East, particularly China and Japan. You were there with me. We were trying to do some good work and to bring about a rapprochement. The details were picturesque and interesting but too long to narrate.

..........
Don't worry about the Bulletin: Nolini has only just finished his translation. I will revise the Questions and Answers with Pavitra, and as for the aphorism, we will see later.

I have received a letter from Bharatidi,¹ who is reading your book with enthusiasm and a fine understanding.

You do not tell me anything about your health. I assume it is good thanks to the air of Brittany and that you will come back with a brand-new system.

See you soon, mon petit, I am with you, but I will be happy to have you back here.

With all my tenderness,

Signed: Mother

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June 27, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

Chatou-Chambery

...I don't feel tired—what tires me is rather human beings with their constant agitation and troubled atmosphere. Anyway, I am happy to be with my brother. The difficulty is that I no longer know how to speak, I have lost the habit of conversation, and people talk and talk, ask questions without giving you time to answer, and in that whirl it is quite hard to pull down true words. In fact, my only rest is when I am alone doing my japa; then everything seems to open, to relax, and I feel I am back home. Otherwise I am like a cork tossed about on the sea and turned in all directions. People don't live—they bustle about. It is painful to be constantly pulled outside, constantly torn from oneself. I am not able to live in this world any longer, I think I would die if I had to stay here.

S.

June 28, 1964

(From Mother to Satprem)

(The following note has a curious history. Satprem had gone off on a journey to see his brother and upon his return, reaching the coast of Brittany, he saw in the sky what Breton sailors call a "wind foot," an immense white cloud shaped like an archangel with wings spread and no head. Satprem was so struck by that cloud, without knowing why, that he told his brother, "Look at that victorious angel coming our way!" Then they went inside. This letter from Mother was awaiting Satprem:)

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Take heart, my dear little child,
Open your wings and soar
above the world, vast.
I look forward to seeing you soon.

With tenderness

Signed: Mother

July 4, 1964

(From Satprem to Sujata)

St-Pierre

Outside, everything is agitated and running around and making noises, but inside I was all along as if on an island of Peace—at home. And even the most beautiful landscapes of the world were not as full, not as quiet as this home in my heart.

S.

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July 13, 1964

(Satprem is back from a three-month journey to France. Unfortunately, only a fragment of this conversation was kept.)

...Did you get my last note on the golden card?

Yes, I did. But you know, I had an amusing experience.... When I came back to Brittany from my trip to Savoy, I was in a car with my brother, and as we approached the Quiberon peninsula, I saw in the sky two extraordinary, immense wings, two clouds that were like immense wings. I said to my brother, "Look!" It really struck me: "Look at those immense wings, look at that victorious angel welcoming us!" It was wonderful.... Then I went into the house, and found your letter: "Open your wings and soar..." It's wonderful!

Very good!

For me, it was a LIVING image. I am not surprised the clouds took the shape: it was a LIVING image. (Mother opens her two arms:) Above the world, vast...

I felt there was something in those clouds—and then your letter!

July 15, 1964

(Mother reads an answer she wrote in English to a disciple, in which she says in particular:)

...to be grateful, never to forget this wonderful Grace of the Supreme who leads each one to his divine goal by the shortest ways, in spite of himself, his ignorance and misunderstanding, in spite of the ego, its protests and its revolts.

June 26, 1964

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What's written here is such a true experience! Never to forget this wonderful Grace of the Supreme who leads you straight to your true goal, in spite of all your revolt, all your misunderstanding—straight, imperturbably.

You cry out, you weep, you protest, you revolt.... "I will lead you right to the end in spite of yourself."

When I wrote it, it was such a wonderful thing!... We are all so silly, so ignorant, so stupid, we cry out and say, "Oh!..." (people who believe in "God"), "Oh, he is cruel, he is an implacable judge"—they don't understand a thing! It's just the opposite! A goodness, an infinite grace that leads you there, just like that, right to the end, prrt! Straight.

July 18, 1964

(Mother translates into French the following letter by Sri Aurobindo:)

"The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect form and frame of life...."¹

It made me see something so interesting.... Automatically, human thought is always convinced (automatically convinced, anyway) that things must "follow the mechanism." For the body, in order to get cured, to change something, they instinctively feel that things have to follow the mechanism. For example, I've had these last few days an interesting experience concerning a question: "What will the form of the superman be like?"... All the conceptions speak of a man with a more perfect form; but that's only an improvement. And man does represent a radical change from the ape

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—but from what point of view? Not so much because of the form of his body as because of his POWER OVER THE MECHANISM OF LIFE. So, following this idea, I had a confirmation of what I had seen, that Matter became plastic and obeyed the will. So everyone had a certain amount of matter at his disposal and gave it the forms he liked.

And I saw that human imagination has great difficulty getting out of a sort of enslavement to the physical machinery. That's what Sri Aurobindo means here.

(complete text of Sri Aurobindo's letter)

The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect form and frame of life; for by this inwardness we shall best be able both to see the truth of the high things which we now only speak with our lips and form into outward intellectual constructions, and to apply their truth sincerely to all our outward living. If we are to found the kingdom of God in humanity, we must first know God and see and live the diviner truth of our being in ourselves; otherwise how shall a new manipulation of the constructions of the reason and scientific systems of efficiency which have failed us in the past, avail to establish it? It is because there are plenty of signs that the old error continues and only a minority, leaders perhaps in light, but not yet in action, are striving to see more clearly, inwardly and truly, that we must expect as yet rather the last twilight which divides the dying from the unborn age than the real dawning. For a time, since the mind of man is not yet ready, the old spirit and method may yet be strong and seem for a short while to prosper; but the future lies with the men and nations who first see beyond both the glare and the dusk the gods of the morning and prepare themselves to be fit instruments of the Power that is pressing towards the light of a greater ideal.

Sri Aurobindo

(Then the conversation turns to Satprem's brother. This person will appear several times in the Agenda, which is why we publish what concerns him.)

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I'd like to talk to you about my brother and sister-in-law. They had an inner opening when they read the book.

I felt that.

And as they are in close touch with me, I'd like to know... I would like you to know and help them. This is my brother's photo.

Oh!... He's younger than you.

Well, well...

There's a lot of substance.

And this is his wife, a Russian.

Ah, I know her.

You know her?

Yes.

What does he do?

He's a doctor.

He is fine.

Very fine, even.

And this is a photo of my friend the publisher, who helped me for the publication of "The Gold-Washer" and the book on Sri Aurobindo.

Oh, a familiar face.²

More substance here [in the brother]. A lot of substance, a lot.

He's fine, your brother.

So he has felt the book?

He has been... (gesture of a wall opening up).

He's a man who gives himself very much to his profession, and he suffers from being too receptive. He gives himself to his patients, so he swallows...

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He receives everything.

As soon as a patient enters his office, he senses whether he will be able to cure him or not. And if he can cure him, he loses all his energy, he gives everything to the patient.

That doesn't matter; what he needs is to learn to receive, to universalize his receptivity. That's just what Sri Aurobindo was saying: that "inwardness." Not to depend exclusively on outward means, but to lean more on the universal Will (gesture above the head) than on the individual will; that way, you always have an inexhaustible source instead of depending on what you eat, how much rest you get, this and that.

That's the method exactly: to broaden your receptivity indefinitely and depend on the forces that circulate constantly in the world, so that only the most physical materiality is dependent on food and sleep. Because even what you eat feeds you differently according to your receptivity, your inner attitude; there is a capacity for extracting the Force from things, which can be gained from a broadening of the receptivity.

He CAN do that, he can.

You understand, to shrink from giving narrows you—you should give generously and receive generously.

(Mother looks at the photo again)

He has quite a considerable vital capacity.... But the true solution lies in the psychic development. Besides, that's how doctors cure people, much more than through medicines—much more. With some doctors, when the patient comes into contact with them, he feels supported, helped.

(silence)

So, you did some good work in France.

(Satprem protests: it is Mother who worked)

To me, it doesn't make any difference!

It's extremely interesting, because it's becoming absolutely concrete. It isn't a thought, it isn't an idea, it's absolutely concrete: all, but all the contacts with people are simply vibrations. There isn't "this person" or "that person," that's not it: it's nothing but

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vibrations, with places or moments of concentration, others of broadening and diffusion. And what's extremely interesting is that constant mass, in constant motion, of vibrations of all kinds: of falsehood, disorder, violence, complication. Then, within that mass, there is a rain, as it were, but a very consciously directed rain, of vibrations of Light, Order, Harmony, which enter that (Mother draws movements of forces), and it all resists, it all works. It's something that lives untrammeled, constantly, everywhere, every second, and in a consciousness... if I use the word "love," it won't be understood, because... That's what is everywhere, constantly, eternally and immutably; nothing exists but by That and in That—in fact, only That exists essentially. And within that mass, there is a sort of struggle—which isn't a struggle because there's no sense of struggle, but an effort against a resistance, an effort so that Order and Harmony and, naturally, eventually Love (but that's for later) overcome the disorder and confusion. And in that Order (that essentially true Order), the greatest contradiction is precisely Falsehood. But those are all vibrations. They're not individual wills or individual consciousnesses: within one individual aggregate, you find the whole range, and not only the whole range, but it changes constantly: the proportion of the vibrations changes; only the appearance remains what it was, but that's very superficial.

This experience is becoming so constant, so constant that's it's difficult for me to adapt myself to the ordinary perception.

For instance, when you show me photos, what I see is the proportion between the vibrations; I don't see a character with a destiny (all that is no longer true, it's only very superficially and relatively true, like a story you read in a novel), but the TRUE THING is precisely the extent to which the vibrations are arranged in a given spot, centralize and spread according to the receptivity to the Vibration of Light and Order, and to the possible use of that cellular aggregate.

People who are quite shut up in their bag of skin, in their vital and mental ego, give you the feeling of something totally artificial, hard—hard, dry and artificial. And exact. That's troublesome, you feel like taking a hammer and bashing them—it happens!

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July 22, 1964

I had an experience some time ago (about something unimportant, but anyway). I took some notes, I don't remember where they are (they were in English, in the form of an answer to a letter).

I saw, almost simultaneously, love as people "practice" it, if we may say so, and feel it, and divine Love in its origin. Both were as if shown to me side by side, and not only were they side by side, but I saw also the difference (it was almost simultaneous) between the two actions: how human action is generated and how divine action is produced or manifests. It came through a series of examples or absolutely concrete experiences, lived one after the other, as if a superior Wisdom had organized a whole set of circumstances (circumstances which in themselves were minor, "unimportant") in order to give me the living example of those two things. It was such a concrete and living whole that I took some notes, very succinct and reduced to the minimum as always, and in English. All that is somewhere around, mixed up with other papers.

(the first note, found again later:)

Unlike human love which is for some and not for the others, my love is for the Supreme Lord alone, but as the Supreme Lord is all, my love is for all equally.

The Lord's love is equal, constant, all-embracing, immutable, eternal.

(the second note:)

Unlike in human beings, the action is not governed by feelings or principles, but by the "dharma" of each being or thing, known through identity.

I will tell you the second experience first, because it's a phenomenon of daily experience, a daily observation. And it's one of the chief reasons why it's impossible for ordinary human beings to understand a being who acts from what we could call "divine impulse." Because all human activity is based on reactions, which are themselves the result of feelings and sensations, and, for people

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who are considered "superior" and who act according to reason, is based on principles of action—everyone has his range of principles on which he bases his action (this is so well known that there's not much point in talking about it). But the other fact is interesting: for instance, when a human being loves someone (what he calls "love") or doesn't love someone, his reactions to the SAME phenomenon—the SAME phenomenon—are, not always opposite, but extremely different, to such an extent that ordinary human judgment is based on those reactions. It would be better to take a very precise example: that of disciples and Master. The disciples almost never understand the Master, but they have opinions of him and of his ways of acting; they see and they say, "The Master did such and such a thing, he acts with this person in such and such a way and with that other person in such and such other way, therefore he loves this person and doesn't love that one." I am putting it very bluntly, but that's the way it is.

All this is based on experiences of every minute, here.

All human action is based on that—for them, that's the way it is; they won't act with this person in the same way as with that one, even in similar circumstances, because, as they say, they "love" this one, but not that one. Therefore, in one case, the Master loves, and in another case, he doesn't—(laughing) simple!

So I said that human action is based on reactions. Divine action, on the other hand, SPONTANEOUSLY stems from the vision through identity of the necessity of the "dharma" of each thing and each being. It is a constant perception, spontaneous, effortless, through identity, of the dharma of each being (I use the word "dharma" because it's neither "law" nor "truth," but both together). In order for this being to go by the shortest way to his goal, here is the curve of the most favorable circumstances; consequently the action will always be modeled on that curve. The result is that in seemingly similar circumstances, the action of the divine Wisdom will sometimes be completely different, at times even opposite. But then, how do you explain this to the ordinary consciousness?... In one case, the Master "loves" this person, while in the other he doesn't "love" him—it's easy!

It was so clear! And such a constant, constantly repeated experience that it's really very interesting. It's very clear that it's impossible for the disciples to understand; even if they are told, "What is done is done because of each being's dharma," for them it's just words; it doesn't correspond to a living experience, they can't feel it.

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So once and for all, I've given up all hope of anyone at all understanding why and how I act. Because it's true, now I can say (it has come about progressively), I can say in an absolute way, after looking at it for several months, that my actions are not the result of a reaction—neither an intellectual reaction nor a mental reaction, nor a vital reaction, nor, of course, an emotional reaction, nor even a physical reaction. Now, even the body instantly refers all that comes to it to the Supreme, automatically.

This experience came regarding a simply personal question, to make me understand how things happen and how useless it is to hope that people will ever understand; it was on the occasion of a host of silly little events that occur constantly and make people repeat, "Mother said, Mother felt, Mother did, Mother..." and so on—and all the squabbles. And I was put forcibly into that whole muddle. For a time, I used to worry, I wondered, "Can't I make them understand?" Well, I have seen that it's impossible, so I don't bother about it anymore. I simply said to those who have goodwill, "Don't listen to what people tell you; when they come and tell you, 'Mother said, Mother wanted...,' don't believe a word of it, that's all; let them say what they like, it doesn't matter."

But the other experience, which came first and is now continuous (it hasn't left me, which is quite rare: usually, experiences come, assert themselves, impose themselves, then they fade away to be replaced by others; but in this case, it didn't go, it's continuous), this other experience is of a more general order....

Human love, what people call "love," even at its best, even taking it in its purest essence, is something that goes to one person, but not to another: you love SOME people (sometimes even you love only certain qualities in some people); you love SOME people, and that means it's partial and limited. And even for those who are incapable of hatred there is a number of people and things that they are indifferent to: there is no love (in most cases). That love is limited, partial and defined. It's unstable, moreover: man (I mean the human being) is unable to feel love in a continuous way, always with the same intensity—at certain times, for a moment, it becomes very intense and powerful, and at other times it grows dim; sometimes, it falls completely asleep. And that's under the best conditions—I am not speaking of all the degradations, I am speaking of the feeling people call "love," which is the feeling closest to true love; that's how it is: partial, limited, unstable and fluctuating.

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Then, immediately, without transition, it was as if I was plunged in a bath of the Supreme's Love... with the sensation of something limitless; in other words, when you have the perception of space, that something is everywhere (it's beyond the perception of space, but if you have the perception of space, it's everywhere). And it's a kind of homogenous vibratory mass, IMMOBILE, yet with an unparalleled intensity of vibration, which can be described as a warm, golden light (but it's not that, it's much more marvelous than that!). And then, it's everywhere at once, everywhere always the same, without alternations of high and low, unchanging, in an unvarying intensity of sensation. And that "something" which is characteristic of divine nature (and is hard to express with words) is at the same time absolute immobility and absolute intensity of vibration. And That... loves. There is no "Lord," there are no "things"; there is no subject, no object. And That loves. But how can you say what That is?... It's impossible. And That loves everywhere and everything, all the time, all at the same time.

All those stories those so-called saints and sages told about God's Love "coming and going," oh, it's unspeakably stupid!—It's THERE, eternally; It has always been there, eternally; It will always be there, eternally, always the same and at the highest of its possibility.

It hasn't left, and now it won't be able to leave.

And once you've lived That... you become so irrevocably conscious that everything depends on the individual perception, entirely; and naturally, that individual perception [of divine Love] depends on the inadequacy, the inertia, the incomprehension, the incapacity, the cells' inability to hold and keep the Vibration, anyway all that man calls his "character" and which comes from his animal evolution.

(silence)

It is said that divine Love doesn't manifest because, in the world's present state of imperfection, the result would be a catastrophe—that's a human vision. Divine Love manifests, has manifested eternally, will manifest eternally, and it's the incapacity of the material world... not only of the material world, but of the vital world and the mental world, and of many other worlds that aren't ready, that are incapable—but HE is there, He is there, right there! He is there permanently: it's THE Permanence. The Permanence Buddha sought is there. He claims he found it in Nirvana—it is there, in Love.

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(silence)

Since that experience came, there has no longer even been in the consciousness that sort of care I took for years not to concentrate too much Force or Power, or Light or Love, on beings and things for fear of upsetting their natural growth—that seems so childish! It's there, it's there, it's there—it is there. And it's for things themselves that it's impossible to feel more of it than they can bear.

(silence)

As soon as I have one minute to meditate, that is to say, as soon as I am not assailed from every side by people, things, events, as soon as I can simply do this (gesture of drawing within) and look, well, I see that the cells themselves are beginning to learn the Vibration.

It is obviously the agent of the creation.

And I said that that sort of "rain of Truth-Light" which came a few months ago¹ announced something—it has obviously prepared, started this kind of permeation of a superior Harmony into the material vibrations. It has prepared not a "new descent," but the possibility of a new perception, a perception that allows an outward and physical action.

(silence)

We should use another word; what men call "love" is so many different things, with such different mixtures and such different vibrations that it can't be called "love," it can't be given a single name. So it's better simply to say, "No, this isn't Love," that's all. And keep the word for the True Thing.... The word amour [love] in French has a certain evocative power because, whenever I pronounce it, it makes contact; that's why I'd rather keep it. As for all the rest: no, don't talk of love, it isn't love.

I said and wrote somewhere, "Love is not sexual intercourse. Love is not attraction.... Love is not..." and so on, and in the end I said, "Love is an almighty vibration coming straight from the One...."² It was a first perception of That.

But it's a fantastic discovery, in the sense that once you have discovered it, it won't leave you no matter what happens. You

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may have your attention turned elsewhere while you are at work, as for instance last night when I had a quite symbolic activity: for an hour I went around all the Ashram rooms, and I wanted to find an armchair in a corner where I could sit down and do a certain inner work—it was impossible! I went from room to room, and in every room there was a group of people, one or two people, or several groups of several people, each with a "marvelous" discovery, a "marvelous" invention, a "marvelous" project—each one had brought the most marvelous thing he had! And each one wanted to show it to me and demonstrate it. So I was looking and looking (they were people I know; it must be the expression of their best thoughts: it was really full of a great goodwill [Mother laughs]), but there were scores and scores of them! I would simply look, say a word or two, then I would take a few steps in the hope of finding a solitary corner and an armchair in which I could do my work; and I was going from room to room, from room to room.... It lasted an hour. One hour of invisible life is extremely long. I woke up, in other words, I emerged from that state... without having been able to find an armchair! I woke up just as I said to myself, "It's no use trying" (there were corners with armchairs, but with so many people that it was impossible to go there), "No use trying, it'll be the same everywhere, it's useless, I'll go back into myself," and as soon as I decided to go back into myself, it was over.

Obviously, in those activities, I don't have recourse to divine Love to find the solution of the problem—I am not allowed to do so. So I understand that this is what was translated in people's thought by the idea that divine Love cannot manifest entirely, otherwise there would be catastrophes³—it's not that at all, that's not at all the way it is. But it's clear that in my consciousness the [supreme] contact has been made (with some degree of limitation, but still it has been made), and nothing takes place—nothing, absolutely nothing, not even the most totally in-sig-nif-i-cant things—without, I can't even say the "thought" or the "sensation" (in English they say awareness, but it's much fuller than that), the feeling (another impossible word), without the feeling of the Lord's Presence, the supreme Presence, being there twenty-four hours a day. Throughout that activity of the night I've just told you about, He was there, the Lord's Presence was there all the time, every second, directing everything, organizing everything—BUT THAT

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WASN'T THERE. And That, which I call Love, that Manifestation, is so formidably powerful that, as I once said, it is intolerant of anything else—That alone exists.... That exists, That is—and it's finished. Whereas the Lord (the "Lord," what I call the Lord) is something else altogether; the Lord is all that has manifested, all that hasn't manifested, all that is, all that will be, and all, all is the Lord—it's the Lord. But the Lord (laughing) is necessarily tolerant of Himself!... All is the Lord, but all is perceived by the Lord through the limitations of human perception!⁴ But everything, everything is there—everything is there; everything, as it is every second; and with the perception of time, every second is different, in a perpetual becoming. This is supreme Tolerance: there is no more struggle, no more battle, no more destruction—there is only He.

Those who have had this experience have generally stopped there. And if they wanted to get out of the world, they chose the Lord's "aspect of annihilation"; they took refuge there and stayed there—all the rest no longer existed. But the other aspect... the other aspect is the world of tomorrow, or of the day after tomorrow. The other aspect is an inexpressible glory. So all-powerful a glory that it alone exists.

It's ONE way of being of the Lord.

(silence)

This experience is a milestone on the road.

To come back to the ordinary world, the result is the epidemic in the Ashram,⁵ it's people who lose their self-control, it's... and so forth. But I CANNOT see things the way they do—I cannot find it so catastrophic! It's like when people leave their bodies, they're in tears—I can't! I just can't. You know, when you put something in a pot to cook, it boils.

(silence)

But the remarkable thing is that you are the only person to whom I can speak—not that I didn't try [during Satprem's trip to France], because I had the feeling that if certain things went away, it might be a pity. I tried with Nolini and Pavitra: nothing comes out, except a sort of mental transcription.

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When I called you Satprem, that's what I meant: you must certainly have the capacity to come into contact with That.

And That is... I don't know if this world (I am not talking of the earth alone, but of the present universe), if this world will be followed by others or if it will itself go on, or if... but That, which I am talking about and calling "Love," is the Master of this world.

The day when the earth (because we were promised it, and they aren't vain promises), the day the earth manifests That, it will be a glory.

I've had very faint and momentary perceptions of what it could be—it was beautiful. It was magnificent.

And the physical world is made to express Beauty; if it became harmonious instead of being the ignoble thing it is, if it became harmonious, it would have an exceptional vibratory quality!... It's rather curious: the vital world is magnificent, the mental world has its splendors, the overmental world with all its gods (who are existing beings, I know them well) is truly very beautiful; but I tell you, since I had that Contact, I have found all that hollow—hollow and... lacking the essential.

And that essential thing, in its principle, is here, on earth.

July 25, 1964

(After reading Sri Aurobindo's "Hour of God" in front of a microphone for the Ashram people:)

...I don't know why they wanted me to read this—it's something quite terrible... quite terrible.

For December 1st they've organized an entire performance at the Theater, with recitation, dances, tableaux vivants, to illustrate it [The Hour of God].

When things happen in that way, I always take them as organized by the Divine for the general progress. Rarely does there come a precise indication: "No." When it's "no," it's categorical. But I always see (Mother draws in the air movements of forces) that things move with a very supple movement: they seem to be heading

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here (gesture to the left), but it's in order to go there (gesture to the right); they seem to be going this way (curve to the right), but it's in order to get there (gesture to the left)—all the time.

July 28, 1964

(This conversation is about Dr. S., who left for the U.S.A. for a brain operation. The operation consists in introducing a needle into the diseased spot and injecting liquid oxygen to destroy the group of affected cells. The first operation took place three months earlier, and the second was scheduled for this month.)

I've just received a long letter from Dr. S.... You know that one side was operated on and that... To make it interesting, I should tell you the story from the beginning.

Before his departure for America, when he spoke to me about the operation, I immediately saw not only that it was dangerous (that was obvious, he himself knew it), but that it couldn't be conclusive, and that at any rate one operation wasn't enough. When he spoke to me with the enthusiasm of someone who at last sees his salvation, I asked him, "Are you really sure it will be conclusive? That one operation is enough and the disease won't come again?" He almost got angry! He thought I was... (laughing) an atheist of medical science!

Anyhow, he left.

Once he arrived there, they immediately told him that as the disease was affecting both sides, both sides would have to be operated on: they would perform the first operation on the right side to cure the left, and six months to a year later they would perform the second operation on the left side to cure the right—the first blow.

Then, the operation was extremely painful, it lasted four hours, and the result was as I had perceived: the result is paralysis. (All they can do is paralyze, then they have to reeducate.) Anyway, it seems his reeducation has gone well. And the American doctor told him it was only a question of will. You see how hazardous that operation

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is which was claimed to be definitive and absolute. Well.

Anyhow, the American doctor told him, "At any rate, there's nothing else I can do for another three months." So he has waited there for three months. And I, all that time—all the time, almost constantly—I kept seeing death written over the second operation. But I knew that if I sent a letter, it would be useless, it would only create an atmosphere of distrust, that's all. So I made formation upon formation, formation upon formation, on the American doctor. Finally, S. asked me for a talisman for the second operation—I sent it immediately, with a great concentration of force so that nothing fatal should happen.

Recently, on July 20, S. enters the hospital for the second operation. The American doctor keeps him two days, three days, then tells him, "I can't, I won't run that risk...." It seems that during those three months, he had operated on several people for whom it was also a second operation, on the other side, as for S., and all of them ended in hemorrhage, paralysis, or death. So the American doctor declared, "I won't run the risk." S. replied, "It doesn't matter to me, I'd rather die than be crippled." But this American very cleverly told him, "I won't do anything without the permission of your 'Mother'!" So they sent me a telegram saying that the American doctor refused to operate because it was too dangerous, and they asked for my opinion. I answered, No operation.

At the same time, there was a telegram from E. (who wanted to be present at the operation), an exultant telegram saying that for her (E.), it was proof that S. would be cured not by surgery, but by a supramental intervention. She said it to S. too, who was rather unhappy (!) Anyway, he is coming back.

But in this case, there was such a precise action of the Force.... And at the same time I had another experience (but a much more personal and subjective one), which confirmed me in my perception... Did you read Rodogune by Sri Aurobindo? In Rodogune, there is a scene in which an eremite meets a young prince and utters these words, "This man has around him the atmosphere of someone who is going to die." (The prince had just won a great victory, anyway all was for the best, and he had decided to go to such and such a place; that's when the eremite uttered those words.) When I read that, I tried to make contact with that vibration the eremite called "the atmosphere of a man who is going to die." And when I received S.'s letter telling me that with the talisman, he was sure all would be well—exactly the same vibration. That sort of exultation, of assertion of power and force, and,

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behind, there was exactly the same vibration. So it confirmed for me what I had seen.

But I was very happy with the American doctor's receptivity.

And when I received El's telegram saying it was proof that S. would be cured by a supramental intervention and not by surgery, in her telegram there was a light—E. is a very impassioned person, but suddenly I saw the light of a revelation. So I thought, "That's why."

But (laughing) S. isn't too enthusiastic! He doesn't have faith, you see. He says he will be "very glad... to be worthy of this Grace," instead of saying, "I have faith that the Grace will..." It's a polite way of saying (Mother laughs), "I don't believe in it."

So he is coming back, crippled.

One side is cured.

The left side. And the American doctor isn't quite happy about the extent of the cure.... Which means, as always, that however things seem to be in the world, when they are brought into contact with the Light, that is to say, a concentration of Truth, they appear in their stark reality: all the ballyhoo about that operation and all the illusion gathered around that miraculous power of surgical cure, it all vanished into thin air. The American doctor himself, according to Dr. S.'s letter, was shaken and lost trust in the absoluteness of his system. But from the first minute, you know, I saw that there wasn't even sixty percent of truth in it. There is an entire obscure field, which they deliberately ignore and which showed itself in broad daylight in order to make itself known. And for Dr. S., it's the same thing: "A doctor COULD NOT be deluded," and he didn't want to admit it. When I told him that one operation might not be enough, he almost got angry: "Why do you say such things!" (Mother laughs) He knew it as well as I did, but he didn't want to admit it.

He will have gone through a terrible experience.

Oh yes, and very, very dangerous—he knew it. But to some extent I can understand: a surgeon who can no longer use his hands...

But from the beginning, I've seen that he couldn't be cured, because he doesn't really have faith. He has a sort of diluted knowledge that there are "forces behind" the material forces, but still, for him, the concrete reality is Matter and its mechanism,

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and so remedies must be mechanical. Because I tried to cure him several times, but there was no receptivity, none—like a stone, you know.

Maybe it will be better now?...

In any case, if he is to be cured in a supramental way, I don't feel called upon to do it, because he has no trust in me—he likes me, he has a sort of... "worship" is too big a word, a worshipful feeling for a god who's very nice (!), but (laughing) from whom you shouldn't expect too much: "He's rather ignorant of the things of this world; now and then he may perform some miracles (Mother laughs out loud), but that's miraculous!"

It's strange that, with that kind of attitude, he came here.

Oh, he left everything to come here.

That's strange.

No, it's very strong inside him; the inner call is very strong: it's the outer reason that veils everything.

He left everything, but he knows darn well that he left everything! He's very conscious of his "sacrifice," which means that in his consciousness there's no correspondence between what he gave and what he has received—what he gave, as when you stake everything on a future benefit.

Anyway, he's coming back.

(Later, Satprem puts in order some loose papers of Mother's, fragments of notes, etc., and stumbles on these lines:)

"Every moment contains the equilibrium of all the simultaneous possibilities."

That was an experience.

It's the same as saying that at every moment, you can change everything; if a force comes and changes that equilibrium, all the consequences are changed.

In other words, there is neither determinism nor law of "cause and effect" or any of that—there is a determinism, but externally.

(another fragment of a note)

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"Sri Aurobindo told N. in a dream that there would be a great change on December 6."

July 31, 1964

(Satprem files all sorts of loose scraps of paper—Mother's "notes"—and stumbles on this one, which he reads aloud:)

"They consent to worship a god only if that god suffers for them."

That was in connection with the new Pope's election, and with Christ on his cross (Mother remains silent).

They [the Catholics] are furiously active in France.

Yes...

Oh, but there has been something new here. Very recently, three days ago, a messenger from the Pope came to visit Pondicherry and, naturally, to meet the archbishop. There was a public reception—and the archbishop invited people from the Ashram officially!... Z was Catholic and he went, and it seems the delegate delivered a great speech in which he kept repeating that the time of division is over, that the time has come for all those who love God to unite fraternally, and so on—it's a step forward.

Afterwards, there was a reception at the town hall. The delegate was sitting on the dais with the archbishop and the Chief Minister of Pondicherry—no one else, all the others sat on chairs below. Then, as nothing was happening, Z thought it was just a waste of time (!), he went up on the dais and asked the minister to introduce him to the Pope's delegate, which he did. Then Z said he was very happy with the delegate's speech and thanked him for bringing such ideas—you can imagine the archbishop's face!

But it's a tiny step forward.

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(Soon afterwards, Satprem comes upon another note, the draft of a letter Mother wrote to a disciple, but never sent:)

"There are too many guides, founders of sects, heads of temples or monasteries, sadhus or saints who intervene between humanity and the supreme Lord under the pretext that they are intermediaries, and who keep for their glorified little persons the waves of gratitude that should go straight, straight to their true goal: the supreme Lord. I always refrain from having anything to do with those people, whether they are on earth or in the subtle world. Whatever the Lord wills for us He will always give us, and I prefer to receive it directly rather than through intermediaries, however great they may be."

(Later, regarding a recent note, which Mother has looked for everywhere in vain:)

...You know, queer things are happening here. There are certain things that literally disappear, and then, after a few days, they reappear! (Mother looks for her note again) I prefer to exhaust all material explanations before making other suppositions. But even someone like Madame David-Neel (and God knows she was positivist in the extreme) herself told me an experience of that sort. I was explaining something to her and she replied, "I am not surprised, because the same thing happened to me...." She had a jewel (it was the time when she used to wear jewels) which she used to keep at the top of a box (inside the box, but at its top). It was a Chinese dragon, and she wanted to wear it one evening. She opened the box, the jewel wasn't there anymore (yet the box was locked inside a cupboard, and there wasn't any sign of theft). She tried, she searched for it, she couldn't find it. Then, four or five days afterwards, she opened the box again, and there was the jewel, just where it was supposed to be!

But the same thing happened to me. At the time, I used to go up on the terrace and I would take a parasol (I had one of those tubes in which umbrellas are put away, and my parasol was there). I looked for it, couldn't find it. I took another one and went upstairs (I looked carefully, examining all the umbrellas one after the other,

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not just casually; my parasol wasn't there). Then I came back downstairs, didn't bother about it anymore—two days later, it was there!

Things like that happen.... Probably little beings having fun. Do you know the story of Sri Aurobindo and the clocks?

Before he broke his leg, Sri Aurobindo used to walk from the street over there up to the garden here, straight through the rooms for a precise length of time. And to make sure he didn't walk for too long or too short a time, he had four wall clocks placed at a certain distance from each other, all synchronized; the last one was here and the first one was in his room, near him. One day, as he was walking as usual, he looked at the first clock: stopped; he looks at the second clock (he used to wind them himself): stopped, at the same time; looks at the third clock: stopped, at the same time; the fourth clock: stopped, at the same time. I was meditating at the time, and I heard him exclaim, Oh, that is a bad joke! And... they all started up again one after the other.

That I saw with my own eyes (and he wasn't under any illusions, nor was I). I asked him, "What happened?" He told me, "See, all the clocks have stopped," and... all the clocks started up again.

So as for these papers... I have my doubts.

(Satprem then explains to Mother the "mystery" of the tape recorder, which, four times in a row, did not work in Mother's room—Mother's recorded voice was very faint, as if vetted by something—while during checkup in the electrician's workshop, four times in a row it worked perfectly well.)

The four times I came to see you, it was the same thing. And every time we test it downstairs, it works fine!

(Mother smiles, amused)

That's mysterious....

It's my voice that doesn't carry.

No, no! When the recording begins, it's clear, I hear your voice very clearly, you speak for a while, then suddenly, hup! l can't hear anything anymore, as if it were veiled. I can hear, but it's very, very faint.

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Very far away... (Mother nods her head).

It works, then suddenly it gets veiled.... The day you spoke of your experience of Love, it was veiled almost throughout.

But still you retrieved it quite well!

Yes, but there's something mysterious there.

Yes...

But the more sophisticated those machines are, the more sensitive they are. A few years ago, when I was still downstairs, they brought me a machine that measured the vibratory waves of speech. They use it, but I don't know what for. They brought it to show it to me. I said, "Wait, let's make an experiment." I don't remember exactly, but I remember having said the same thing twice: once, with my usual concentration, and once, with a full "charge" of the Lord's Presence.... You know, those machines draw kinds of graphs—it started dancing! Everyone could see it, there was no mistake. And as far as I was concerned, I said the same thing in the same way; only, in the first case I said it without special concentration, while in the second case, I put the full charge and concentration—it started jumping and jumping! I said, "See!"

Those machines have a sensitivity.¹

Just before Satprem leaves, Mother comes to talk about money:

...By the way, are finances better?

They're worse!

We have tremendous debts. We've borrowed money from all the people who could give us any.

I don't know....

We'll see! (Mother laughs)

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August 5, 1964

(D., a disciple, sent Mother an eighteenth-century account by a Japanese monk of the Zen Buddhist sect describing a method called "Introspection," which enables one to overcome cold and hunger and attain physical immortality. Mother reads a few pages, then gives up.)

[Hermès magazine, Spring 1963.]

It's better to work out your OWN system—if you want to work one out at all.

That's what people have always reproached Sri Aurobindo for, because he doesn't tell you, "Do this in this way and that in that way...." And that's precisely what made me feel that there was the Truth.

People cannot live without reducing things to a mental system.

They need a mechanism.

Yes, but as soon as there's a mechanism, it's finished.

The mechanism may well be very good for the person who found it: it's HIS mechanism. But it's good only for him.

As for me, I prefer not to have any mechanism!

The temptation comes sometimes, but... It's far more difficult without, but infinitely more living. All this [the Zen account] seems to me... I immediately feel something that's becoming dead and dry—dry, lifeless.

They replace life with a mechanism. And then it's finished.

(silence)

The mistake everyone makes is to consider—to believe—the goal to be immortality. Whereas immortality is just ONE of the consequences. In that Zen story, the goal is immortality, so THE WAY has to be found—hence all those methods. But immortality isn't a goal: it's just a natural consequence—if you live the true life.

You see, I am sure that D. (she doesn't say so, but I am sure of it) imagines that my goal is immortality! At any rate, it's the goal of many people here (!)... Actually, it's something secondary. It's ONE

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of the consequences, it's the sign (it can be regarded as a sign) that you are living the Truth, that's all. Though that's not even certain!

Immortality in this bag of bones, that's no fun!

(Mother laughs) Oh, indeed!... First it would have to be changed.

It wouldn't be worthwhile.

August 8, 1964

...There are some strange things. When I went to Japan, I met a man there who was a striking reproduction of my father—the first moment, I wondered if I was dreaming. I think my father was already dead, but I am not sure, I don't remember exactly (my father died while I was in Japan, that's all I know). But he was the same age as my father, which means they were born together, at the same time. My father was born in Turkey, while this one was born in Japan—but anyway, it WAS my father! And this man took to me with a paternal passion, it was extraordinary! He wanted to see me all the time, he showered me with gifts.... And we could hardly talk to each other, as he knew very little English. But what a resemblance! As if one were the exact replica of the other: same size, same features, same color (he was exceptionally white for a Japanese, and my father wasn't white as northern people are: he was white as people from the Middle East are, just like me).

It always surprised me. You know, people often say, "Oh, they look like each other," but that's not it! He was like an exact replica.

But inwardly too, occultly too?

There was a kind of affinity.

He was an inventive man—my father also had a very inventive imagination. But my father was a first-rate mathematician, while I don't know about this man.... He had invented a "meditating machine"! It was really very interesting, I even brought it back;

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but it worked with batteries and I couldn't replace them, so it's useless now. It must still be around somewhere. But it's a machine... like the prayer wheel, something of that sort, but it was a "meditating machine"! It was very interesting. There are some strange things....

(Regarding an Italian or Spanish reader of "The Adventure of Consciousness":)

The best thing is for them to translate for themselves. That's the best way of reading; when you really want to understand a book, you should translate it.

(Mother again takes up the filing of her loose notes and stumbles on two slips of paper that seem to be two rather close versions of the same experience. The first "version" is as follows:)

"Suffocated by the shallowness of the human nature we aspire to the knowledge that truly knows, the power that truly can, the love that truly loves."

April 24, 1964

The same experience came back to me later; it isn't another "version" or another way of saying it, it's the experience that suddenly came back so acutely, so intensely (Mother reads her note):

"Human beings are so powerless, so imperfect, so incomplete!

The "incomplete" was the strongest of the three—so incomplete!

"Only the all-powerful rule of Truth and Love upon earth can make life tolerable."

It's like a continuation—but it didn't come as a continuation: it's the experience that came back. As if something in the consciousness of THE EARTH felt an urgent and irrevocable need for this change—for the change, for the new creation. As if the consciousness of the earth... The aspiration grows so intense, you know, so acute, so

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constant, so concentrated—under pressure—that something has to burst.

So these are poor words. The experience translates itself into words at a given moment: first, there is the intensity of the experience, then spontaneously—spontaneously—it takes the form of words, so I note them down. But the words are thin and flat, they're poor. But it's... like when you are about to come into contact with your psychic being and you feel the ego's obstruction; there comes a point when you push and push to get through, it's so acute that you feel as if everything is going to burst. And in fact something does burst.

It's the same thing for the earth, the same experience.

It's the consciousness of THE EARTH pushing away like that, absolutely disgusted with what is there, and feeling the need for... for THE THING to come.

Soon afterwards, Mother files another note:

"You ask for the story of their death—but some deaths have no story. It is the tranquil transition from one state of consciousness to another, peacefully entering a silent wait for another period of activity."

There are some things, like this one, that I wrote but never sent. I remember, there were people who had bombarded me with letters; I wrote this immediately, and then it stayed.

Another slip of paper:

"I do not have faith in ceremonies and rites."

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August 11, 1964

(About the Tantric guru announcing his coming visit:)

...He has sent me his usual message: it's a sort of picture with all the colors. You know that Tantrism attributes a value to each color; they make a sort of play of forces with all those colors, depending on what they want to say or express—they're lights, very brightly colored lights. It's very particular; the first time I saw that, it was connected with Tantrism. And the other day there came to me... (in a slightly ironical tone) a very beautiful picture, this big (gesture: about six inches by twelve). So I knew it was coming from him and that he was happy!

Soon afterwards:

There was an experience the night of the 8th, which lasted at least two hours by the clock, maybe more. An experience I had never had before. In fact, it wasn't at all the experience of a "person," because I was very conscious of the return to the personal consciousness, and in a very interesting way: everything was felt as a diminishing. The return lasted nearly half an hour. It's inexpressible with words.

For two hours, it was the experience of Omnipotence—of THE LORD'S Omnipotence—for two hours, with all the decisions that were made then, that is to say, the expression of what was going to be translated in the earth consciousness. There was such a simplicity about it! Such obviousness—what we customarily call "natural." So obvious, so simple, so natural, so spontaneous, without even the memory of what might be an effort—the constant effort you have to make in material life just to live, just to keep all those cells together.

The strange thing is that (I was very conscious, perfectly conscious; the "Witness" consciousness is never canceled, but it isn't in the way) is that I knew, I saw (yet my eyes were closed, I was lying in my bed), I saw my body moving—it had movements of such a Rhythm!... You see, every movement, every gesture, every finger, every attitude was a thing that was being realized. Then what I studied, what I saw during the half-hour that followed (with

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my eyes closed, seeing much more clearly than with my ordinary eyes) was the difference in the body—the difference in the body's movements between that moment [during the experience] and after [when Mother returned to the personal consciousness]. At that moment, the movements were... it was creation! And with an EXACTNESS, a majesty! (Mother stretches out her arms and moves them slowly in a vast Rhythm.) I don't know what other people might have seen, I have no idea, but as for me, I saw myself; I saw especially the arms because it was the arms that acted: they were like the realizing intermediaries... I don't know how to put it. But it was as vast as the world. It was the earth (it's always the earth consciousness), not the universe: the earth, the earth consciousness. But I was conscious then of the universe and of the action on the earth (both things), of the earth as a very small thing in the universe (Mother holds a small ball in her hands). I don't know, it's hard to say, but when it expressed itself, there was also the perception of the difference in vision between that moment [during the experience] and afterwards.... But all this is inexpressible. Yet it is an absolute knowledge—it's another way of knowing. Sri Aurobindo explained this, that all mental knowledge is a seeking: you seek; while this knowledge has another quality, another flavor. And then the power of the Harmony is so wonderful! (Mother again depicts a great Rhythm, her arms outstretched) So wonderful, so spontaneous, so SIMPLE. And It stays there, as if It supported the entire world as it is; it is a kind of inner support of the world—the world leans on it.

But outwardly, that sort of film... it's like a thin film of difficulties, of complications, added on by the human consciousness (it's much stronger with man than with the animal; the animal doesn't have that, very little—it has it more and more because of man, but very little; it's something specific to man and the mental function), it's something very thin—as thin as an onion skin, as dry as an onion skin—yet it spoils everything. It spoils everything ONLY FOR THE HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. At the time [of the experience], it was unimportant. Unimportant, in the sense that it takes away all the Beauty, all the Power, all the Magnificence of the thing—for the human consciousness. For man, it is of paramount importance. But for the Action, it's almost negligible. Basically, it's rather that it makes it difficult for man to become conscious and PARTICIPATE; otherwise, my feeling is that truly the time has come for things to get done: that experience was a NEW descent, that is, something new entering the terrestrial manifestation; it wasn't

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that I became conscious of how the world is: I WAS the Lord's Will coming into the world to change it. That's what it was. And that action was only very slightly affected (assuming it was affected at all) by that stupid "onion skin" of human mentality.

In fact, that was the interesting point: when you come back to the other side (it's not even "coming back to the other side," it's a curious thing that happens..), I remember, when I became conscious again of this body, its gestures had become dry, sterile, thin—stupid. And yet it was still in an intense Bliss and a total self-giving: it was at the height of its joy; and yet what it was doing, its appearance, oh, it all seemed so silly!

Those oppositions are really what gives the consciousness an interesting knowledge. Because I have a feeling that that Action wasn't at all limited to the moment when the consciousness that acts here took part in it: it's going on all the time. If for just a second (gesture of interiorization) I stop speaking or acting, I feel that golden Glory behind—"behind," it's not behind, not within, it's... supporting everything—it is there. But in that experience, I was given two hours of TOTAL participation: there was nothing left but That, nothing existed anymore but That. And all the cells were given an unforgettable joy: they had become That.

What I don't know is, if someone had been looking, what would he have seen? I don't know.

Anyhow, the work is being done very fast. This is truly what Sri Aurobindo called "the Hour of God": it's being done very fast.

(silence)

I remember, the very day when Janina¹ died (she died around 6 in the morning, I think), around 4 in the morning, something made me suddenly take interest in this question: What will the new form be like? What will it be? I was looking at man and at the animal, and then I saw that there would be a far greater difference between man and the new form than between man and the animal. I began to see certain things, and it so happened that Janina was there (in her thought, but a material enough and very concrete thought). It was very interesting (it lasted a long time, nearly two hours), because I saw all the timidity of human conceptions, while she had made contact with something: it wasn't an idea but a sort of contact [with a future reality]. And I had the sense of a more

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plastic Matter, more full of Light, much more directly responsive to the Will (the higher Will), and with such a plasticity that it could respond to the Will by taking on variable and changing forms. And I saw some of her own forms, forms that she conceived (rather like those beings who don't have a body as we do, but have hands and feet when they will it, a head when they will it, luminous clothes when they will it—things of that sort), I saw that, and I remember I was congratulating her; I told her, "Yours was a partial but partially very clear perception of one of the forms the new Manifestation will take." And she was very happy; I told her, "You see, you have fully worked for the future." And then, suddenly, I saw a sapphire blue light, pale, very luminous, with something like the shape of a flame (with a rather broad base), and there was a kind of flash—pfft!—and it was gone. She wasn't there anymore. I thought, "Well, that's odd!" An hour later (I saw that around 6 A.M.; all the rest had lasted about two hours), they told me she was dead. Which means she spent the last moments of her life with me, and then, from me, pfft! went off towards... a life elsewhere.

It was very abrupt. She was so happy, you know, I told her, "How well you have worked for the future!" And all of a sudden, a sort of flash (a sapphire blue light, pale, very luminous, with the shape of a flame and a rather broad base), pfft! she was gone. And that was just the time when she died.

It's one of the most interesting departures I have seen—fully conscious. And so happy to have participated!... I myself didn't know why I was telling her, "Yes, you have truly participated in the work for the future, you have put the earth in contact with one of the forms of the new Manifestation."

(silence)

Do you have anything to say?

(long silence)

I would like to be more conscious.

Of course!

But mon petit, all these experiences are quite recent for me. I was just looking at that (it was yesterday): for some reason or other, on some occasion or other, I was put in contact with certain things that I knew and saw and said just two years ago—it seemed to me to be cycles ago! I remember reading a sentence I had written... I felt as if it had been written in another life! Yet I

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am twice your age, no? More than that. How old are you?

Forty—forty-one!

That's right, more than twice your age. When I was forty, I didn't know all that you have written here (Mother points to the American edition of "The Adventure of Consciousness"). True, I had experiences, but as for knowing what you know, certainly not!

But it's not I who know!

It's never been I who did! That's just the point. Only, according to the instrument... That's what I said: if you take a piano that has three keys, you can't do anything; the keys have to be developed.

Yes, but what surprises me is that I am not conscious—not at all conscious.

Not conscious? Not conscious of what?

...Of what I am, of what I do. I tell you, I am not conscious of what's going on, of the progress I may or may not be making.

That's quite secondary.

But still, at night, for example, I don't see anything.

You told me something you had seen. You told me something very interesting, I don't remember now....

??

I think you have in a corner of your being... what I could call a grumbler. I became aware of that—not particularly for you, but as one of the manifestations of that "onion skin" I mentioned just a moment ago (!) Some people in that way are grumblers, for them everything is an occasion to grumble and complain. It's very interesting, you know, because owing to the work I am doing, all those ways of being or reacting are taking place WITHIN me, and I catch myself being like this, being like that, doing this, doing that, being there—all the things one shouldn't be! Everything comes to me in that form: as if it took place within me. I'll catch myself being like

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that and I'll say, "What!"... Some time ago, I was haunted by this for a long while: something which always sees the bad side of things, the difficulty, which even foresees the difficulty, which is in contact with all that protests, complains and grumbles—I saw that very strongly. Then I started to work and work on it; and when I set to work, there is a sort of awareness that comes to me of the different places or elements where the same thing is: it shows itself very clearly, so then I can do something. But you know, it's an incalculable work of every minute, and for a considerable number of people! Quite a lot. The larger part of the work is impersonal, in the sense that I don't know to whom it's going or what, but it is often as an illustration (you know, like when you tell a story to make an idea better understood; they are illustrations to make me understand the work better), then I see in everyone the different ways of being and reacting. But it's so incalculable in the perception, so constant, that it's very hard to express—I would have to say lots of things at the same time, which is impossible.

No, but there's obviously a link missing between something I sense in the background and something I am here.

There is a part of your being (not far: it isn't something very far away, it's very close), a part of your being which is on the contrary extremely conscious and LUMINOUSLY conscious, and not only conscious but responsive: it receives and responds—it vibrates. I can see very clearly that you aren't conscious of it—oh, in the first place, you wouldn't be pulling that sour face, you'd be laughing all the time if you were conscious of it! Because it's very luminous and golden, very joyful. It's just about the opposite of the grumbler! But it isn't far away! It isn't miles away: it's there. But there is a sort of thin film. It's an "onion skin": all our difficulties are onion skins. An onion skin, you know: it's terribly thin, but nothing can get through.

We have to be patient.

You can't imagine how, as you go forward and as all that Consciousness, in fact, grows more and more alive, true and constant, how at first you feel you are a rotten bundle of insincerity, hypocrisy, lack of faith, doubt, stupidity. Because as (how can I explain?...) as the balance changes between the parts of the being and as the luminous part increases, the rest grows more and more inadequate and intolerable. Then you are really utterly disgusted (there was a time when it used to hurt me, long ago—not so long

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ago, but anyway long enough, a few years ago), and more and more there is the movement (a very spontaneous and simple movement, very complete): "I can't do anything about it. It's impossible, I can't, it's such a colossal work that it's impossible—Lord, do it for me." And when you do this with the simplicity of a child (gesture of offering), really like this, you know, really convinced that you cannot do it, "It's not possible, I'll never be able to do it—do it for me," it's wonderful!... Oh, He does it, mon petit, you're dumbfounded afterwards: "How come!..." There are lots of things that... prrt! vanish and never come back again—finished. After a time, you wonder, "How can that be?! It was there...." Just like that, prrt! in a second.

But as long as there is personal effort, it's... oof! it's like the man who rolls his barrel uphill, and down it rolls again every minute.

But it must be spontaneous, not as a calculation, it mustn't be done with the idea, "It's going to work." It must truly be done with the sense of your complete helplessness and of the very formidable dimension of the task that... "Oh, please do it Yourself; I can't—it's not possible."

Of course, very philosophical or learned people will pity you, but personally I don't care! I don't care. I am not a philosopher, I am not a scholar, I am not a savant, and I declare it very loudly: neither a philosopher nor a scholar nor a savant. And no pretension. Nor a littérateur, nor an artist—I am nothing at all. I am truly convinced of this. And it's absolutely unimportant—that's perfection for human beings.

There is no greater joy than to know that you can do nothing and are absolutely helpless, that you're not the one who does, and that what little is done—little or big, it doesn't matter—is done by the Lord; and the responsibility is fully His. That makes you happy. With that, you are happy.

Voilà.

But there is one thing you must know. I am surrounded with people, even people who are considered great yogis—it's only with you that I can talk. So this isn't to make you inflate (!), it's simply to tell you that there is obviously something there that can receive. And if you have that trust, the trust that THERE IS something and IT IS for this something that you are here, then all will be well.

It's a question of adjustment (gesture of connection).

There's no need to be in a hurry—no need to be in a hurry, no need to be impatient; there's no use. No use in being impatient, it

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only makes the heart go sour—perfectly useless.

When the time has come, it will have come; when the Lord wants it, He will want it: it will be, and that's that. We always worry too much—or rather, all our worries are an onion skin over His work.

August 14, 1964

Last night, and maybe the night before, oh, you and I talked for a very, very long time about all sorts of subjects, and I became aware that there is a place, somewhere in the physical Mind, but very close to the earth, where people must almost inevitably go at night. There are sorts of big meeting rooms where people come and discuss all kinds of problems: they meet, work out programs and discuss problems. I don't know why, I've been going there for the last two nights (I am afraid it is because of all those seminars and all that business where they play tape-recordings of me¹), something pulls me there. And I am literally bombarded with questions by all those people (some I know, others I don't), and I start answering this one, answering that one, addressing a crowd, oh!... When I wake up from it, I say to myself, "Well, how silly can I be!... Physically I am out of it all, but now I am doing it at night!" This morning, I was thoroughly disgusted: I woke up delivering a speech, oh!... There was a crowd, and people were asking me questions—seriously, very seriously!

But you were there, you are always there. So I wonder why you don't remember....

I told you (and even wrote you when you were in France) that I was seeing you. At one time I used to go to the place where the events in the various countries of the world are prepared—you were there, too. And you seemed to be very interested. There were goings-on between China and Japan, and it was very funny because one could see events, people with quite unexpected costumes and

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all sorts of things, ways of life and so on, and it didn't correspond to an active knowledge: it was a FACT, I had gone there. And you were there; you were there with me and you were interested.

I remember once (I wrote to you about it), we spent a long time, a long while, looking at what the Chinese wanted to do, and there were the two kinds of Chinese: the Communist Chinese and the Formosan Chinese. And they were doing things: there were not only ideas, but acts, their actions could be seen. Now I've forgotten the details, but it was really very interesting. There was a place (it was where I wanted to go, and I did go there), the place where the meeting point of those Chinese could be found—I was always leading people and circumstances to a plane where a harmony is worked out.

That was more interesting than the last two nights!

These last two nights (only at the end of the night, around 3 o'clock), it was all the way down.

But very often, the memory has gone, but an image remains. I very often have an image of Pandit Nehru, an image of Khrushchev, an image of a congress in Africa, recently an image in Burma, an image of the Court of England....

That's it!

It doesn't mean anything, it's just an image—what it does, I haven't the faintest idea.

But that's it! It must mean that you go to that particular place.

But what takes place exactly, I have no idea.

True, one doesn't remember much. Personally, I am used to it and if I remain (even after getting up), if I remain sufficiently quiet and absorbed in the consciousness of my dream (not "dream," but anyway of my activity), I find it again, it comes back—I relive it. But usually, one remembers just an image, like you—something that struck and came through to the other side.

In fact, one is very, very active. To succeed in having a part of the night still (not only mentally: a supreme Stillness in that great universal Movement) requires a whole lot of work, a lot of work.

As a matter of fact, these last few nights I've been conducting a sort of review of all the stages my nights went through before being what they are—it's fantastic! I started working on my nights at the

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beginning of the century, exactly in 1900, sixty-four years ago now, and the number of nights when I didn't continue my training is absolutely minimal—minimal.... There had to be something unexpected or I had to be ill; and even then, there was another kind of study going on. I remember (Sri Aurobindo was here), I caught a sort of fever like influenza from contact with the workers, one of those fevers that take hold of you brutally, instantly, and in the night I had a temperature of more than 105. Anyway, it was... And then I spent my night studying what people call "delirium"—(laughing) it was very interesting! I was explaining it to Sri Aurobindo (he was there: I was lying on the bed and he was sitting by the bedside), I told him, "This is what's going on, that is what's going on... and that (such and such and such a thing) is what gives people what doctors call delirium." It isn't "delirium".... I remember having been assailed for hours by little entities, vital forms that were hideous, vile, and so vicious! An unequaled cruelty. They rushed at me in a troop, I had to fight to repel them: they retreated, moved forward, retreated, moved forward.... And for hours like that. Naturally, at that time I had Sri Aurobindo's full power and presence, and yet it lasted three or four hours. So I thought, "How terrible it must be for the poor devils who have neither the knowledge I have, nor the power I have, nor Sri Aurobindo's protective presence—all the best conditions." It must be frightful, oh!... I have never in my life seen anything so disgusting.

I had picked it all up in the workers' atmosphere. Because I hadn't been careful, it was the "festival of arms" and I had been in "communion" with them: I had given them some food and taken something they'd given me, which means it was a terrible communion. And I brought all that back.

I was ill for a long time, several days.

(Soon afterwards, Mother resumes the filing of her old notes, in particular the following, in English, which dates from the Chinese attack on India's northern borders in 1962:)

Silence, silence. This is a time for gathering energies and not for wasting them away in useless and meaningless words. Anyone who proclaims loudly his opinions on the present situation of the country, must understand that opinions are of no value and cannot in the least

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help Mother India to come out of her difficulties. If you want to be useful, first control yourself and keep silent—silence, silence, silence. It is only in silence that anything great can be done.

That was just when the war began; people were criticizing the government as if... To one of them I wrote personally: "If you were up there, would you know what has to be done? No. So if you don't know, you have no right to say anything—keep silent."

But you know, I make a point of reading an Indian newspaper every day.... You get a sense of a great decomposition.

The country? Oh, but it's rotten, mon petit! Oh, it's in an appalling condition.

But what's extraordinary is that there's nobody! There's no opposition, there's nothing.

(After a long silence) It's a subject I don't talk about, first because it's understood that we do not concern ourselves with politics; I made the decision not to concern myself with politics until WE do it, that is, until we are in power. But in spite of this, since the day of liberation (already seventeen years ago to the day—seventeen years!), I have ceaselessly repeated, "These people are going to ruin the country. They have neither consciousness nor knowledge nor will, and they are going to ruin the country." Every time, whenever they made a blunder, I repeated the same thing.

Now the country is ruined.

The famine is much worse than it was when it was supposedly "tragic." Now it's terrible. There's not enough to eat; the country is so large, there's so much uncultivated land, there are so many people without work... and there's not enough food for everyone! And they've closed the borders: they stop the food from coming from outside, and there's not enough for everyone to eat.

But then, the number of stupid ideas these people have tried out to mend the situation—it's unbelievable! And each blunder has made the situation worse. Now it's extremely serious.

Sri Aurobindo said (he said it to me in an absolute way) that nothing could be done as long as WE weren't the government—not that we were going to start governing in person (!), but that those who govern should be people who "receive" and obey. He also said

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that he expected that in '67, not only in India, but in the whole world, governments would begin to receive the supramental Influence. And obviously, he expected things to become EXTREMELY bad before that.... They're bad enough in the world: people are fighting everywhere, people are being killed everywhere—in Indonesia hosts of people have been murdered, in Cyprus hosts of people have been murdered. Anyway, it's an undeclared war, but it's everywhere.

And here, there's TOTAL corruption—total, to such a point that... I'll give you an example. The government meddles in everything, you can't move a finger without its permission: you can't leave the country, you can't enter the country, you can't send money out, you can't open a shop, you can't... nothing, nothing, nothing, not even plow your field without its permission. They meddle in everything, which in itself is pretty stupid. And then they make regulations—the more regulations you make, the more disobedience it creates, naturally.

People no longer grow crops because it's too complicated and with all those taxes (they've scores of taxes to pay), it costs them much more than they can earn. And as there isn't enough food, there are naturally individuals who try and hoard as much as they can to sell it for as high a price as possible.

The situation in which we ourselves are [at the Ashram], this difficulty, doesn't come from anything else: the government's interference in everything, its meddling in other people's affairs and putting spokes in the wheels of everything, but everything. I've got a pile of examples, of proof for every minute—all the proof.

So there are two possibilities: violence, or Transformation. Violence means invasion or revolution—it's hanging in the air, it could break out any moment. The government... Nehru wasn't worth much, but still for the masses he represented a certain ideal (which he was quite incapable of living up to, but anyway...). After him, it's finished; the present Prime Minister is a man with great goodwill, who has no character, to such a point that in the presence of difficulties he falls ill—he's ill! Ill, he can't work! That's where we are.²

Here, in Pondicherry, it's the same muddle.

But you get the feeling that in a country like this one, which in spite of everything is receptive, if one great man (I mean, of

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great spiritual value) arose, everyone would follow.

Exactly! They send me delegates, they send me people to ask me, "What should we do?"

I told them, "I lack a man."

If I had one man, I would see to everything. But I can't do everything myself.

But that's just the question: how is it that in this country one man hasn't arisen, a man you would support from behind?

I think it's the result of having been under the domination of another country for such a long time. People lost interest in politics (people of value, those who weren't after personal gains). I think that's why.

Because I feel very clearly that if one man with a bit of sincerity arose, it would be enough...

Yes, yes!

... for everyone to follow.

Exactly! I tell you, if I had one man and I told people who asked me, "Here he is, follow him," the work would be done.

(silence)

There are two places where it's like this: here and in Africa. In Africa, if there were one man, oh!... And he need not be a Negro: he could in fact be an Indian, for instance (there are many of them there, they're the ones who have enriched the country). But it's not impossible—it's not impossible. There, I am not losing hope.

But not here, either.

But the situation might have to get even worse, until they are quite desperate.

All I would need is one man who had an absolute trust and was receptive, with a power of execution.

Those I have are too old.

But, you know, when it's necessary, the man turns up.

Among the young.

It's not impossible.

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We'll see.

At any rate, they are conscious.... A considerable number of ministers, generals, governors (even ministers of the Central Government) are writing, not positively to ask for advice, but to ask for Help. They're not asking for advice yet (and on the external level you can't give detailed advice, you can only give general ideas). But there are some things they SHOULD NOT be doing.

How to get out of it? They have tied themselves up in knots....

Yes, it's general—everything is rotten.

But everything is rotten because they've made regulations everywhere! Everywhere, everywhere, for everything. And appalling complications, incredibly stupid. It's unthinkable, you can't believe they're true. Regulations far more restrictive than parents give their children! Children have a greater freedom of movement than people here. There is a WILL to control which is so stupid! It's unthinkable.

And it's done almost openly. For instance, they have millions and millions to spend, given them by the Americans—they've forbidden the Americans to give A SINGLE CENT without their permission! And they will give their permission only if they have complete control over the spending. Here, at the Ashram, the Americans have expressed several times not only a will, but a very great desire to give a large amount, several million rupees, for the work—opposition from the government. So we're trying to find a way, but they give answers of this kind: "So long as the Mother has absolute authority, we cannot allow you to receive money, because we cannot give advice to the Mother"! In an official letter, mon petit!... That's how it is, that's where we are—an official letter. It's unbelievable.

Anyway... it means the Moment is going to come, and then...

One thing is obvious, it's that if everything had gone very well, with good results, the need for a higher Help would never have occurred to them; they would have become puffed up with statistics and with satisfaction with their capacities.

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August 15, 1964

(Message for Sri Aurobindo's birthday)

Avoid the imagination that the supramental life will be only a heightened satisfaction of the desires of the vital and the body; nothing can be a greater obstacle to the Truth in its descent than this hope of glorification of the animal in the human nature. Mind wants the supramental state to be a confirmation of its own cherished ideas and preconceptions; the vital wants it to be a glorification of its own desires; the physical wants it to be a rich prolongation of its own comforts and pleasures and habits. If it were to be that, it would be only an exaggerated and highly magnified consummation of the animal and the human nature, not a transition from the human into the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo

August 19, 1964

Mother looks very tired

How are you?

I should be the one asking you. I was told you haven't been well.

It's not that.

There is too much confusion and disorder.... Very busy nights—too busy. And too much confusion here.

Maybe it's fatigue.

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It's especially (for me, for my consciousness) an avalanche of confusion on me, and not enough time to... (how can I put it?) transform it all as it falls on me. So it's a little too much.

And then, all that one reads... I've heard some things written about me, I've heard the stories people have been telling in their "seminars"¹—there's enough to bury someone.

For sure! Their seminars are ridiculous, it's a tangle of paltriness—they're teaching people Sri Aurobindo!

That's right.

They use words without consciousness, without knowledge and without power, so it's just chatter, and unpleasant chatter.

Yes, that's right.

As Bharatidi puts it, they love the sound of their own voices.

But that's exactly the point, she is perfectly right.

I have myself never stopped telling them (you understand, I see the quality of the atmosphere [Mother fingers the air]), I told them that all those people who came worsened the stupidity of the atmosphere very seriously.

Then there are the others, that World-Union—as for them, from the first day (there were five members), from the first day, they have all been quarreling among themselves, they've never stopped quarreling! I told them it was a strange beginning for a "World-Union"—individually they all agreed with this, but they all went on quarreling! And it's still going on.

This time, they decided to name me president. I didn't ask them anything, naturally—they decided. And then, M. has withdrawn. She has written to me today to tell me, "I believe I cannot do anything more in World-Union." If you put the two things together, it's rather funny: the others write to ask me to be president, and M. withdraws—"I cannot work for World-Union anymore."

Anyway, it's a mishmash—you know, like mash for chickens.

But what makes it worse is that there were too many people, and too many people asking to see me—hundreds and hundreds of people who asked to see me. I said, "It's not possible, it's materially impossible." And a minuscule work consisting in signing and signing

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and giving "blessings".... So last night was difficult. This morning, it wasn't brilliant.

We just have to stay still and let the storm blow over.

(meditation)

August 22, 1964

Something peculiar happened to me.... It was the other day, the last time you came. I looked peculiar that day, didn't I?

You were tired.

It's not that! It's never "tired," never "ill"—it's never that, it's something else. But it takes me a few days to find out what it is.

It's that the center of the body consciousness moved (usually it's in the head, in the brain). The body consciousness, the cellular consciousness, the one that responds to the workings of Nature and governs the whole functioning—suddenly it moved, it went out of the body.

I had the experience (I knew what it was, but I didn't know the consequences or how to express it), I had the experience of my body consciousness going completely out of the body (that must be what happens when one dies, mustn't it?), and for... apparently for ten or fifteen minutes, I don't know, it was over, the physical world no longer existed, the body no longer existed. But I was very conscious of a movement of forces and of an action; that corporeal consciousness was even repeating its mantra, that was very interesting: it was repeating its mantra and watching the effect of the mantra on the vibrations of forces. But the consciousness left the body over there (gesture to the bathroom) and came back into it here (on the bed). I was carried.. and what happened between the two, I don't know. But when you reenter your body (that is, when the most material part of the consciousness has left the body, when you faint or go into a state of cataleptic trance, and then reenter your body), it's very painful, very painful—all the nerves

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hurt. So then, suddenly, I felt a lot of pain like that (it lasts two seconds, that's nothing), and then I felt that I was lying on cushions! (Laughing) My last impression was of standing over there!

It's the first time in my life that has happened. Always, whenever I fainted, I would remain conscious of what was happening to my body; often, I would even see it—I would see it lying on the floor, for instance; but I would remain conscious. This is the first time.

But the effect afterwards was queer, as if all the functionings had lost their (what can I call it?), their captain—they no longer knew what to do. And in the head, at first it felt as if it had grown very, very big, and then there were vibrations... You know, I often mention those Vibrations of Harmony that try to enter the vibrations of Disorder (it's something I often see now, even with my eyes open: they come through, enter, there are formations, all sorts of things), but that was going on in my head. My head was big (!), and inside, there were all those dots of the white light of Harmony, moving about with a great intensity and power, within a dark gray medium. It was interesting. But I was conscious only of that—the entire relationship with the body had vanished. And the whole day long I had the feeling of a lack of government in the body, as if everything followed its own impulsion; it was very hard to keep it all together.

That's how it was—very strong. The second day, it was a little less strong; the third day... But there is something that has changed and isn't coming back. And that something gives the sense of a distance (it's the word aloofness) from the natural body consciousness that makes the body automatically do all it has to do. It is as if that consciousness were now at a distance, had almost lost interest in what's happening—not "lost interest," because it's laughing! I don't know why, I feel it's laughing, as if it were making fun of me, of this body—the poor old thing! (laughing) It has a lot of difficulties, it is made to do some strange things.

And that center hasn't returned to its normal place?

No, no! Nothing has returned of what was before.

It's very different from what it was before for so many years—very different. I feel a sort of... Oh, it's an impression equivalent to the one I had when Sri Aurobindo gave my mind silence. It became perfectly blank and empty (gesture to the forehead), blank and empty, and there was nothing anymore: I couldn't think anymore, not one idea, not one system anymore,

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nothing—in a word, total imbecility! It never came back. You see, it went up above, and here there was nothing. Well, this time, it was the same thing for the body consciousness: before, it was everywhere like something holding everything together (to such a point that when there was a difficulty, I only had to stop bothering about it all and let that act, and the difficulty would automatically be sorted out by that body consciousness, which knows far better than our active thought what the body should do), and that day it left DELIBERATELY. The decision had been made the night before, but I was resisting it, as I knew the normal consequence was fainting. But "that" willed it so and "that" chose its own time (when there was no danger, when no accident could happen and someone was there to help me), "that" chose its own time and "that" did it deliberately—gone. And it has never returned.

So the first day, I was almost dazed; I was constantly groping for the way to do things. Yesterday, it was still strong. And this morning, suddenly I began to understand (what I call "to understand" is to have control), I understood: "Ah, that's it!" Because I was wondering, "But what on earth does all this mean? How can I do my work?"... I remember, yesterday I had to see a host of people, people who aren't close and whose atmosphere isn't good: it was very difficult, I had to keep a hold on myself, and I must have looked strange, very absent—I was very far away, in a very deep consciousness, so that my body wouldn't be... you know, that gave it discomfort of sorts—discomfort, yes—it was hard to bear. Yesterday the body was still that way the whole morning; towards evening it got better. But the night wasn't good, oh!... In the night, I am always given a state of human consciousness to put right, one after another—there are millions of them. And there are always all the images and events that illustrate that particular state of consciousness. At times, it's very hard going: I wake up tired, as after a long period of work. And last night, that's how it was; it's always the various, multiple ways which men have of complicating the original Simplicity: of turning a simple vibration into extremely complicated events—where the thing should be simple and flow naturally, there are endless complications, and such difficulties! Unbearable and insuperable difficulties. I don't know if you have experienced that: you want to go somewhere, but there are hindrances everywhere; you want to go out of a room, but there is no way out, or there is one, but you have to crawl on the ground under kinds of rocks... and then something in the being refuses, "No, I won't do it." And with a sense of insecurity, as if at

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any moment the thing could topple over and crush you.... There are people who want to help you, but they can't do anything at all, they only make the complication still more complicated; you start on a road with the certainty of reaching a particular place, then all of a sudden, in the middle of it the road changes, everything changes, and you have your back to the place you wanted to go.... All kinds of things like that. The symbolism of it is extremely clear. But then, it makes for a lot of work.

Anyway, I got up in that state and began to wonder, "Won't there be an end to it?"... It's always, always, always like that. And more and more I have an inner conviction that it isn't a thing you can obtain through effort and progressive transformation—it would take millions of years! It's only... the Grace. When the Lord decides, "It's finished, now it's going to be like that," it will be like that. Then you find rest and tranquillity.

I offered Him my whole night and all the difficulties and all the complications, as I always do. Then a sort of Peace came into me, and in that Peace, I saw what it was and said, "That's odd! The center of the body consciousness isn't there anymore."

From that moment on, it got much better. The sort of vague uncertainty this poor body was in went away. Because, naturally, that center was immediately replaced by the clear Consciousness from above, and I hope that little by little it will have complete control over the body.

In fact, it must be—theoretically it must be to replace the natural, automatic consciousness by a conscious consciousness.

It isn't a consciousness that sees the details: it's a consciousness that establishes and maintains a Harmony.

There. I thought it was amusing to tell.

Otherwise, it's endless!...

Everybody is falling ill.¹ And for me, it's the same thing: it isn't an illness—it isn't an illness, it's a very strong action on the consciousnesses.

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August 26, 1964

(By some quirk of the tape recorder (?) the following conversation, which is so important, was almost inaudible, as if veiled, and Satprem was unable to save the recording, though he was able to save his notes. It should be said that his tape recorder was quite patched up—Mother never wanted him to borrow the Ashram's machines, except for "official recordings.")

I wanted to point out to you an article in the "Reader's Digest" on the structure of the cell according to the latest scientific discoveries.¹ I thought it might throw light on certain aspects of your experiences. They speak in particular of the cells' consciousness; they have discovered rather mysterious things.... You would see the correspondence with your own experiences.

The question I am asking myself is whether the cells have an autonomous existence or whether they must remain aggregated in the way they are, obeying a collective consciousness.² I do not mean the body consciousness, which is an entity; I mean: does the cell, as an individuality, have the will to remain in its present collectivity? Just as an individual willingly collaborates with a society, with an aggregate, does the individual cell have the will to remain in its aggregate, or is it only the central consciousness that has that will?

They speak of the consciousness of EACH cell, which has its own "life code," and communicates with the other cells for a particular work by sending out messages.

What I meant was: if you take a cell, does that cell have a will to remain in its present collectivity, that is to say, the body?

They conducted an experiment and took a piece from the heart membrane. The cells they took from the body started to come together, and... "Then they start to move towards one another, after several hours clusters are formed and the cells in each

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cluster are pulsing in unison," as though they were trying to form a heart again.

Yes, but I also wanted to know whether, for instance, all the cells that make up the body have the will to preserve that aggregate or if... Are they conscious only of themselves?

Not at all, they are conscious of a collective work to be done. And they communicate among themselves to organize that collective work.

Yes, I understand that very well; in other words, the heart cells tend to form a heart again, the liver cells to form a liver again, and so on. But I am up against this problem: here is an aggregate of cells making up this body; do they have a will for this body to continue, or...? But when a body decomposes, the cells do not remain cells: the end is dust.

It's only through the parents' seed that the cell is formed again. After death, the body is reduced to dust.

Yes, so then it's over.

Which means that ultimately... You see, it is said that the work you do to make your cells progress is useful for the whole—but I don't see how? It reverts to dust.

Obviously the transitional being, the being who does the Work, would have to be able to build a new body, or to give his cells a new possibility of action.

Yes, but those cells revert to dust.

Yes.... A new body must be created.

Well, yes! But dust is dust!

During your lifetime, during the lifetime of the one who works, you would have to create a body, you would have to emanate a body whose properties would be different from those of the purely animal body.

Yes, but that's before death.

Yes, before death.

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It's before death.

You see, for our consolation we are told in every possible way that the work done isn't lost and that all this action on the cells to make them conscious of the higher life isn't lost—that's not true, it's absolutely lost! Suppose I leave my body tomorrow; this body (not immediately, but after a time) reverts to dust; then all that I've done for these cells is perfectly useless! Except that the consciousness will come out of the cells—but it always does!...

It's really during the Worker's lifetime that the thing must be done.

Yes, of course!

There's no doubt about it.

It's before. Something has to ENTER here.

Yes, it's in your body, through your body, that a new form must be worked out. But the moment the cells are conscious, there's no reason why that consciousness shouldn't want to follow a different course and make a body different from an animal body.

Yes, but that's not my question.

But after death, it's finished.

It's finished.

It's finished, for sure!

Consequently, it's a waste. We are consoled by being told, "No, death isn't a waste, because everything goes into the general work"—it's not true! It's not true, it's a pure waste.

It's true on the mental or vital level, but on the physical level it's not true.

On the physical level, it's a pure waste. The mind and vital are another affair, that's not interesting: we have known for a very long time that their life doesn't depend on the body—it depends on the body only in order to manifest. That's another affair. I am

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speaking of the body, that's what interests me: the body's cells. Well, death is a waste and that's that.

Yes. Yes, the transformation must be done in one lifetime.

Yes.

It isn't for next life, it's one life, one lifetime. The progress of your cells won't be passed on to another body—unless you create another body.

That is to say, before this body dissolves, a new creation should be there.

Yes, either your own body should be transformed, or else you should create another body in some other way. But during your lifetime.

I am perfectly convinced of that.

What is said is all very well for the mind and vital, because the mind and vital are immortal—they can be, at any rate; they have the possibility of being immortal. Whereas for the physical, that possibility is what is needed: a certain quality of cells should be able to allow the form to become different (the form can change, it changes all the time, it's never the same), but with the conscious interrelationships of the cells persisting.³

But that's not impossible.

It's more than possible, but we have to learn how to do it!

Well, yes! But there's no point in consoling oneself by saying, "Next life" the next life, everything must be done all over again.

Everything must be done all over again, all over again. That's terrible!

There's no doubt, the Transformer must carry out the transformation in his lifetime.

So I don't mean to be pessimistic, but if it ends in a death, I will have wasted all my work.

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Not for the consciousness, naturally—all that is conscious remains conscious, eternally conscious—but for the cells of the body, the work has to be done all over again.

At the most, there might be a greater new ability.

How?

When you are born again, your mind is more developed, your vital is more developed; well, the physical consciousness will be more capable of doing the work again.

Provided dust retains consciousness—and it doesn't retain consciousness.

No, there's no doubt, the work must be done in one lifetime.

Of course!

Well, Sri Aurobindo said that for the work to be done, the minimum is 300 years. We're still far from it!

One has a feeling that it doesn't depend so much on that as on the fact that the world or circumstances aren't ready, and that when circumstances are ready, maybe it won't be a "long-drawn-out work," maybe it's something that will be done in a flash—maybe it's waiting for the moment.

(long silence)

Well. We'll see.

Would it be in the direction of a materializing power?... But those materializations aren't permanent, they have no permanence.

Yet Sri Aurobindo doesn't speak of "materialization," he speaks of transformation.

(silence)

Well. We will see.

Anyway, everything depends on you.

Thank you! (laughing) Thank you for the responsibility.

(silence)

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But the cells are an already very developed thing, in the sense that they are a form of LIFE in Matter; they are a form of life, they're not purely material, inert Matter....

You see, as long as all those things are on the psychological plane, it's very comfortable; very comfortable in the sense that you have the key, not only the key to the understanding, but the key to the action—as long as you remain on that plane. But as soon as it becomes very material, you feel you know ABSOLUTELY nothing, that with all that they know, nothing has been found yet—have they found the way of creating life out of inert matter?... I haven't heard of it.

Some claim to have done so.

Bah!

(silence)

So then, that would be the difference between the subtle physical and the physical—immortality in the subtle physical is even perfectly obvious: it's not only easy to imagine, it's a fact; but the PASSAGE?... The passage, which for most people is like passing from the waking consciousness to the sleep consciousness and from the sleep consciousness to the waking consciousness.... The most concrete experience I have had was like taking a step here and then taking a step there—there is still a step; there is still this-that (gesture of reversal).

But this subtle physical is very, very concrete, in the sense that you find things again in the same place and in the same way: YEARS LATER, I found again some places where I had been, with certain little "inner" differences, if I may say so, but the thing, for instance a house or a landscape, remains the same, with little differences in the arrangement—as there are in life. Anyway it has a continuity, a sort of permanence.

(silence)

But when you want to be absolutely sincere and not to kid yourself, in other words, not to be satisfied with explanations of appearances, you realize that you know nothing. All the experiences I have with people leaving their bodies, the more I have, the more... puzzling it is. For instance, not very long ago, I had an experience with L. The night before she officially died, she came to me in an absolutely concrete manner: she had settled down and didn't want to leave me—wherever I went she followed me. She

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seemed to be clinging to me, talking to me, asking me questions—officially she was still alive. And there was a sort of tall being (those beings are connected to Death; I don't know their exact name, in the traditions they have been given all kinds of names—those are things I don't know at all theoretically). This time, a being of that sort was there, and it was as if he had given her permission to be there for a certain time, as if he were in charge of her and of taking her away once the time was up (all this without words, but "understood"). Then she told me (after literally "sticking" to me: I couldn't do anything anymore, she was taking up all my time), she told me, "I wanted to leave my body on..." (I don't remember exactly, it was a Darshan day, November 24 or August 15, but if it was August 15, then she came to see me on the 14th). So I answered her, "Listen, today isn't the 15th yet; if you want to leave on the 15th, you should go back now." (That was to get rid of her! It was so concrete, you know, like when you have someone in your room and can't get rid of him.) Finally, I looked at that tall individual who was standing there perfectly peacefully and as if indifferent (he was there as an active permission), and I... I didn't tell him, but "communicated" to him that perhaps it was time to take her away. And prrt! she left instantly—he was awaiting my order. None of this corresponds to any active knowledge on my part: that's just how it happened. And when she came back into her body in the morning, she told those waiting around her, "I spent the night with Mother, I was with her, I didn't leave her. She sent me back, but now I am going back to her." I was told this in the morning. A few hours later, she died. So the agreement is excellent, everything tallies. But her intention was not to leave me after her death (she came in the night with the idea that she was dead and that she was leaving me). Well, after she really died, I didn't get a SINGLE sign of her!...

So I sat there wondering, "Is there really a difference of consciousness between the time when there is life in the body and the time when one leaves?..." It was a problem for me for days.

Things of this sort, you understand!

And the more I go into the details, the more I... The more you feel YOU-KNOW-NOTHING. What people call "knowing" is wanting to define, regulate and organize things—that doesn't correspond to ANYTHING.

(silence)

Every passing year brings me closer to a certainty that we know nothing; and yet, the consciousness keeps growing and growing and

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growing.... Everything is becoming a LIVING consciousness, each thing emanates its own consciousness and EXISTS because of it. For instance, as I have already told you, knowing in one's consciousness just a second or a minute beforehand: The clock is going to strike, someone is going to enter, someone is going to move...." And those things aren't mental, they are part of the mechanism of things, yet they are all phenomena of consciousness. The things themselves LIVE (I say "live," but that's not it), they let you know where they are, where you'll find them; other things suddenly go OUT of the consciousness and disappear. It's a whole world—a world of tiny, microscopic phenomena that are another way of living, a world that seems to be the result of consciousness WITHOUT the intervention of what we call "knowledge": it's something that has nothing to do with knowledge or thought.

There are ups and downs, moments when it's more present and moments where it's less so; to be exact: moments when it's active and moments when it isn't. And whenever there is a period during which it isn't active, when it starts again it does so on a higher rung, that is, more intensely and clearly. The whole thing is obviously following a process of development. It's a sort of... the word awareness might be the nearest; it isn't a perception, which still belongs to the mind, it's a sort of phenomenon of vision. And it has an absolute character. For instance, from time to time, when I hear people speak of something or other and say, "It will be like this and like that," instantly there comes a sort of "tactile" vision... how can I explain this?... It resembles touch and sight (yet it's neither touch nor sight, but both together): it's the thing as it is, that's IT; and they may say what they like, that's IT and it is irrefutable. And so far, there has never been any contradiction.

It's a consciousness in which the mental element is absent. It comes just on its own, and it's so clear! It's like an immediate contact with the thing as it is.

It is another way of living.

And I am aware that when I am in that state, I look very absent—I must have the appearance of an automaton; yet, on the contrary, the consciousness is so acute, it's the exact opposite of absence! The consciousness is so awake, so awake—awake—but not mentalized, without mental interference.

(silence)

But all this is the psychological plane, it's very comfortable; as soon as you come down to Matter... you feel the work is endless! You feel

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you're not moving forward and you don't even know what you should do to move forward. And when it becomes very acute, very tense like that, I invariably have an experience. But at the same time with the sensation that He is laughing, that He's making fun of me: "You're still a child, you still need some playthings!" So I am a good girl.

It is clearly a transitional period—it's interminable! If I start thinking and remembering what Sri Aurobindo said—he said it would take 300 years.... We have some time to wait, we needn't hurry.

The only thing is, you have neither a sense of power nor a sense of knowledge, nor even a sense of a relaxation—you're forever keeping hold of the body so that nothing happens to it. As soon as it has an experience, as it did the other day,⁴ it's quite shaken.

We know nothing, we know nothing, nothing. All the rules... Naturally, the inner experience and the inside are very fine, there's no question. But that sort of tension every minute in your every movement... You know, to do EXACTLY what should be done, to say exactly what should be said—the exact thing in every movement... You must pay attention to everything, be tensed for everything: it's a constant, constant tension. Or if you take the other attitude, trust the divine Grace and let the Lord take care of everything, isn't there a risk that it will end in the body's disintegration? Rationally I know, but it's the body that should know!

When there is someone who has made the experiment and naturally has Wisdom, it's so simple! Before, whenever there was the slightest difficulty, I didn't even need to say anything to Sri Aurobindo, everything would sort itself out. Now, I am the one who is doing the work, I have no one to turn to, no one has done it! So this, too, makes for a sort of tension.

One cannot imagine—one cannot imagine what a grace it is to have someone in whose hands you can place yourself entirely! By whom you can let yourself be guided without having the need to seek. I had that, I was very, very conscious of it as long as Sri Aurobindo was there. And when he left his body, it was a dreadful collapse.... One cannot imagine. Someone you can refer to with the certainty that what he says will be the truth.

There's no path, the path has to be blazed out!

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August 29, 1964

(Regarding the definitive break between Satprem and his Tantric guru, with whom he had worked for six years. The occasion for this break was a sort of repetition of what had happened two years earlier, i.e., a swarming little horde of businessmen and "disciples" in search of petty powers, against whom, once again, Satprem wanted to warn X, for he loved him in spite of everything. This break nearly cost Satprem his life, as will be seen later. Thus is it said that those things are fire.)

...I see in a very clear way that even in circumstances in which you seem to have made a mistake, even with things that betrayed a hope and give you proof that what you expected wasn't legitimate, even in such a case, there isn't one circumstance, not one encounter, not one event that isn't EXACTLY what's necessary to lead you to the victory as rapidly as possible.

This, to me, is an absolute thing.

I have noted that whenever something occurred and I said to myself (at the time), "Oh, I shouldn't have done this—I should have done that" or "I shouldn't have felt this way—I should have felt that way...," afterwards, when I looked at it carefully with the higher knowledge and higher consciousness, I saw that it was EXACTLY what I should have done under the circumstances! But instead of doing it knowingly and consciously, I did it in the usual ignorant way of human beings. And if I had had Knowledge, I would have done exactly the same thing.

So, this whole story [with X], the meeting with this man, his coming into our life, I KNOW it was absolutely necessary and that it brought along a whole set of circumstances that have contributed to the Work. Only, one starts with a certain illusion, and after a while one loses it—but one doesn't alter the course of circumstances, which happen as they have to happen.

This to me is an absolute thing, there isn't a shadow of doubt—not a shadow of doubt.

And as always, when there is nothing pleasant to say, it's better to keep quiet. One has no right to give one's Knowledge, which stems from a higher Consciousness, to those who aren't capable of having it; this is why, in fact, from the beginning I decided never to talk to X: I never tell him anything, I will never tell him anything, because there are things I know and see, and I have no right to

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reveal them to those who aren't capable of seeing and feeling. Far more complications and disorders are created by an excess of words than by silence. So one shouldn't say anything, one should just let things follow their course—one knows, one KNOWS perfectly well, one isn't deceived, one knows what's what, but one does what one has to do, without comments.

In your case, I had known it from the beginning. From the beginning, I had seen the proportion between what agreed with the truth and what was the product... (how should I put it?) of the mental hope you placed on X, but I didn't say anything. I knew that his passage through our life here, that contact of a moment, was necessary for certain things to be realized—and I let him enter... and exit.

It's so amusing every minute when you can discern the TRUE THING from what's added on by the mental functioning, by mental creation and activity—the two things stand out so clearly! But Wisdom lets you know that it would be pointless to want to make an arbitrary purification, that circumstances should be left to unfold as they have to so your knowledge may be TRUE, not arbitrary—at the appropriate time, in the appropriate conditions and with the appropriate receptivity.

One must learn how to wait.

Sri Aurobindo said that he who has learned how to wait puts time on his side.

(Soon afterwards, Mother asks what the next aphorism will be for her to comment on. Satprem answers that it is the story of Narada and of Janaka who practiced yoga while leading the ordinary human life.¹)

That's odd! Very recently, a few days ago, after you came last time, again while I was walking for my japa, this whole story of Narada came to me! Sri Aurobindo said that Narada himself was deceived and didn't recognize in Janaka a true spiritual man—it all came back to me suddenly. I wondered, "Well, well! Why am I thinking of this?"

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It's like that all the time! All the time, all the time.

I receive the explanation afterwards.

So I looked, and all sorts of things came....

(Then Satprem reads Mother the first "Playground Talk" for the next Bulletin and tells her that the next Talk is about "exteriorization.")

Again! That's amusing.... Not only the memory of the time when I was occupied with that, but an entire detailed knowledge of the different methods and the vision of what should be done and how—all that has been coming back to me these last few days! It came in the same way as the story of Janaka (Mother indicates a sort of film being projected): it comes, so I am a spectator, I watch—I watch all sorts of things—until the work appears to be over, then it stops, and then it goes away just as it came—I have absolutely no part to play in it.

It's odd.

And it happens every day, for all kinds of things. At times I have happened in that way to be a witness of certain incidents that corresponded to events taking place or about to take place in other countries. But it comes without the precise name or detail that would allow you to "play the prophet." From that point of view, it's very interesting. Different events taking place in different countries come in the same way as that story of Janaka (gesture of a film being projected): it's a story "being told" (not always pretty stories: wars, quarrels, political struggles, all sorts of things that come and unfold). But there isn't the name of the country or the detail that would allow you to say, "Oh, you know, such and such a thing is going to happen in such and such a country." It's only when the news comes from outside that I say to myself, "Why, but that's what I saw!"

I suppose that the lack of precision is to protect you from the temptation to speak! But I never speak about those things, just because they're uninteresting: there are no precise details.

But what's interesting is the agreement: the story of Janaka and the other that come at the exact time.... It's very interesting.

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September 2, 1964

Satprem prepares to start the tape recorder, Mother stops him:

There would be too many things to say. It's a sort of WORLD being worked out.

(silence)

It's still too complicated, it's impossible to say anything.

Better to work.

September 12, 1964

(Satprem reads Mother an old "Talk" of February 24, 1951, in which she refers to the memory of past lives and the unbridled imagination of certain people.)

I didn't name her, but it was Annie Besant. She recounted all her lives with all the details—right from the ape!

I didn't read her books, incidentally.

Oh, I tried several times, but it's really all stories, it gets on your nerves.

Yes, that's what I call "spiritual storybooks." Worse than that: spiritual pulp novels!

It's shallow. And it has done a great deal to devalue true knowledge.

(Mother nods her head)

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(Then Satprem reads a passage in which Mother talks about young children who remember their previous lives, the village where they lived, etc., with precise descriptions.)

That's amusing: a few days ago, after I saw you last time, one day I saw a whole story about that, which came back to me (it takes the form of a memory, but those things come from outside). It was about a seven-year-old child who told all his memories of his past lives. It came all at once, and I thought, "But why am I seeing this?" I watched it all and why and how it happened—a long story. And then it went away. It must have been while you were writing down the Talk!

It keeps happening like that all the time!

I still wonder, "But why has this come?" instead of saying to myself, "Oh, here he is reading this story!"

Amusing.

It's growing more and more precise. I lack a very tiny thing in the receiving set... a very tiny impersonalization. But maybe if it were there the attention wouldn't be caught: the thing would unfold (Mother shows a film being projected in front of her), and then it would go away.

For the moment, it comes, I stop it [the "film"], and then I work on it to clarify the ideas, put things in their place, see all the relationships; and when the work is finished, it goes away.

Only, it takes the form of a memory, so I wonder why I "remember" that—it's a lack of true objectification. That's how I explain it: otherwise, maybe the thing wouldn't be stopped, it would pass on.

But it is an entire "reconstruction" of the mental functioning.

(From the same Talk from the past, Satprem reads a passage in which Mother tells the story of Queen Elizabeth, who, dying, received a delegation from the people in spite of her physician's protests: "We shall die afterwards.")

Is it recent?

It's from 1951.

Again this whole story of Elizabeth came back to me a few days ago!

Since then, a part of the consciousness has been more self-assured, but it hasn't changed its attitude... (how can I explain it?...). Its

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attitude towards the Divine, towards the Work and towards life, is the same, but there is a greater clarity and a greater certainty—and a sort of integrality in the experience.

But I said, "It's recent," because the things that to me are old are those that give me the feeling of having changed my position and of having a completely opposite outlook—this Talk hasn't changed.

This remark, "We shall die afterwards," is my own experience, it wasn't a "dream"—in fact, it's never dreams: it's a sort of STATE you enter VERY CONSCIOUSLY, and all at once you relive a thing.

Even now I can see the picture: I see the picture of the people, the populace, myself, the gown, the person who nursed me—I see the whole scene. And I answered... It was so obvious! I felt so strongly that things are governed by the will that I answered, "We shall die afterwards," quite simply.

In English, not in French!

Just before Satprem leaves, Mother shows him a stack of letters:

There are very funny things all the time: I answer letters I haven't received! Then I receive them afterwards—my answer is already written down!

Things of that sort....

September 16, 1964

103—Vivekananda, exalting Sannyasa,¹ has said that in all Indian history there is only one Janaka.² Not so, for Janaka is not the name of a single individual, but a dynasty of self-ruling kings and the triumph-cry of an ideal.

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104—In all the lakhs of ochre-clad Sannyasins,³ how many are perfect? It is the few attainments and the many approximations that justify an ideal.

105—There have been hundreds of perfect Sannyasins, because Sannyasa had been widely preached and numerously practiced; let it be the same with the ideal freedom and we shall have hundreds of Janakas.

106—Sannyasa has a formal garb and outer tokens; therefore men think they can easily recognise it; but the freedom of a Janaka does not proclaim itself and it wears the garb of the world; to its presence even Narada was blinded.

107—Hard is it to be in the world, free, yet living the life of ordinary men; but because it is hard, therefore it must be attempted and accomplished.

It seems so obvious!

It's obvious, but difficult too.

You see, to be free from all attachments doesn't mean to run away from opportunities for attachment. All those people who assert their asceticism not only run away, but warn others that they shouldn't try!

You see, to be free from all attachments doesn't mean to run away from opportunities for attachment. All those people who assert their asceticism not only run away, but warn others that they shouldn't try!

All that eliminates and diminishes or lessens doesn't free. Freedom must be experienced in the totality of life and sensations.

In this connection, there has been a whole period of study of this subject, on the purely physical level.... To rise above all possibility of error, you tend to eliminate the opportunities for error; for instance, if you don't want to utter unnecessary words, you stop speaking. People who make a vow of silence imagine it gives a control over speech—that's not true! It only eliminates the opportunities to speak, and therefore of saying unnecessary things. For food, it's the same problem: how to eat only just what is needed?... In the transitional state we find ourselves in, we no longer want to live that wholly animal life based on material exchanges and food,

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but it would be folly to think we have reached the state in which the body can live on without any food at all (still, there is already a big difference, since they are trying to find the nutritional essence in foods in order to reduce their volume); but the natural tendency is fasting—which is a mistake!

For fear of acting wrongly, we stop doing anything; for fear of speaking wrongly, we stop saying anything; for fear of eating for the pleasure of eating, we stop eating anything—that's not freedom, it's simply reducing the manifestation to its minimum. And the natural outcome is Nirvana. But if the Lord wanted only Nirvana, there would be only Nirvana! He obviously conceives the coexistence of all opposites and that, to Him, must be the beginning of a totality. So, of course, you may, if you feel that you are meant for that, choose only one of His manifestations, that is to say, the absence of manifestation. But that's still a limitation. And it's not the only way of finding Him, far from it!

It's a very widespread tendency, which probably comes from an old suggestion, or perhaps from a poverty, an incapacity: to reduce and reduce—reduce one's needs, reduce one's activities, reduce one's words, reduce one's food, reduce one's active life, and it all becomes so cramped! In the aspiration not to make any mistakes, you eliminate the opportunities of making them—that's no cure.

But the other path is far, far more difficult.

Yes, I am thinking, for instance, of those who live in the West, who live the Western life: they are constantly swamped with work, with appointments, with telephones... they don't have one minute to purify what constantly falls on them and to collect themselves. In those conditions, how can they be free men? How is it possible?

This is the other extreme.

(silence)

No, the solution is to act from the divine impulse alone, to speak from the divine impulse alone, to eat from the divine impulse alone. That's what is difficult, because, naturally, you immediately confuse the divine impulse with your personal impulses!

That was the idea, I think, of all the apostles of renunciation: eliminate all that comes from outside or from below, so that if something from above manifests, you will be in a fit state to receive

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it. But from the collective point of view, it's a process that may take thousands of years! From the individual point of view, it's possible; but then the aspiration to receive the true impulse should be kept intact—not the aspiration to total "liberation," but the aspiration to the ACTIVE identification with the Supreme, in other words, to want only what He wants, to do only what He wants, to exist only through Him, in Him.

So the method of renunciation may be tried, but it's a method for someone who wants to cut himself off from others. And can there be an integrality in that case?... It doesn't seem possible to me.

Announcing publicly what you intend to do helps considerably. It may give rise to objections, contempt, conflicts, but that's largely made up for by the public "expectation," if we may say so: by what others expect from you. That was certainly the reason for those robes: to let people know. Obviously, you may incur the contempt and ill will of some people, but there are all those who feel, "I mustn't touch this, I mustn't have anything to do with it, it's not my concern."

I don't know why, it has always seemed to me to be showing off—it may not be that, and in certain cases it isn't, but still it's a way of telling people, "Ah! Here is what I am." And as I said, it may help, but there are drawbacks.

It's still childish.

All those things are methods, stages on the way, but... true freedom is being free from everything—including from all methods.

(silence)

It's a restriction, a narrowing, while the True Thing is a blossoming, a widening, an identification with everything.

When you reduce and reduce and reduce yourself, you don't feel you're losing yourself, it takes away the fear of losing yourself—you become something solid and compact. But the method of widening—maximum widening—there, you must... you mustn't be afraid of losing yourself.

It's far more difficult.

What do you have to say?

I was wondering, in fact, how this can be done in an external world that's constantly absorbing you.

Ah, we must pick and choose.

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Certainly monasteries, retreats, running away to the forest or to caves, are necessary to counterbalance modern overactivity, and yet that exists less today than one or two thousand years ago. But it seems to me it was a lack of understanding—it didn't last long.

It is clearly the excess of activity that makes the excess of immobility necessary.

But how to find the way to be what you should be in ordinary conditions?

The way not to fall into either excess?

Yes, to live normally, to be free.

Mon petit, that's why we started the Ashram! That was the idea. Because when I was in France, I was always asking myself, "How can people have the time to find themselves? How can they even have the time to understand the way to free themselves?" So I thought: a place where material needs are sufficiently satisfied, so that if you truly want to free yourself, you can do so. And it was on this idea that the Ashram was founded, not on any other: a place where people's means of existence would be sufficient to give them the time to think of the True Thing.

(Mother smiles) Human nature is such that laziness has taken the place of aspiration (not for everyone, but still fairly generally), and license or libertinism has taken the place of freedom. Which would tend to prove that the human species must go through a period of brutal handling before it can be ready to get away more sincerely from the slavery to activity.

The first movement is indeed like this: "At last, to find the place where I can concentrate, find myself, live truly without having to bother about material things...." This is the first aspiration (it's even on this basis that the disciples—at least in the beginning—were chosen), but it doesn't last! Things become easy, so you let yourself go. There are no moral restraints, so you do stupid things.

But it cannot even be said it was a mistake in recruiting—it would be tempting to believe this, but it's not true, because the recruiting was done on the basis of a rather precise and clear inner sign.... It's probably the difficulty of keeping the inner attitude unalloyed. That's exactly what Sri Aurobindo wanted and attempted; he used to say, "If I can find a hundred people, it will be enough for my purpose."

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But it wasn't a hundred for long, and I must say that when it was a hundred, it was already mixed.

Many people came, attracted by the True Thing, but... one slackens. In other words, an impossibility to remain firm in one's true position.

Yes, I've noticed that in the extreme difficulty of the world's external conditions, the aspiration is far more intense.

Isn't it!

It's far more intense, it's almost a question of life and death.

Yes, that's right! Which means that man is still so crude that he needs extremes. That's what Sri Aurobindo said: for Love to be true, Hate was necessary; true Love could be born only under the pressure of hate.⁴ That's it. Well, we have to accept things as they are and try to go farther, that's all.

It is probably why there are so many difficulties (difficulties are piling up here: difficulties of character, difficulties of health and difficulties of circumstances), it's because the consciousness awakens under the impulse of difficulties.

If everything is easy and peaceful, you fall asleep.

That's also how Sri Aurobindo explained the necessity of war: in peace, people become flabby.

It's too bad.

I can't say I find it very pretty, but it seems to be that way.

Basically, that's also what Sri Aurobindo says in The Hour of God: "If you have the Force and Knowledge and do not seize the opportunity, well... woe to you."

It isn't at all vengeance, it isn't at all punishment, it's just that you attract a necessity, the necessity of a violent impulse—of a reaction to a violence.

(silence)

It's an experience I have more and more clearly: for the contact with that true divine Love to be able to manifest, that is, to express itself freely, it requires a POWER in beings and in things... which doesn't exist yet. Otherwise, everything breaks apart.

There are scores of very convincing details, but, naturally, as they are "details" or very personal things, I can't talk about them.

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But on the basis of the proof or proofs of repeated experiences, I am forced to say this: when that Power of PURE Love—a wonderful Power, beyond any expression—as soon as it begins to manifest fully, freely, a great many things seem to collapse instantly: they can't hold on. They can't hold on, they're dissolved. Then... then everything comes to a stop. And that stop, which we might believe to be a disgrace, is on the contrary an infinite Grace!

Just the ever so slightly concrete and tangible perception of the difference between the vibration in which we live normally and almost continuously and that Vibration, just the realization of that infirmity, which I call nauseous—it really gives you a feeling of nausea—is enough to stop everything.

No later than yesterday, this morning... there are long moments when that Power manifests, and then, suddenly, there is a Wisdom—an immeasurable Wisdom—which makes everything relax in a perfect tranquillity: "What is to be will be, it will take the time it will take." Then, everything is fine. With this, everything is immediately fine. But the Splendor goes.

We can only be patient.

Sri Aurobindo, too, wrote it: "Aspire intensely, but without impatience...." The difference between intensity and impatience is very subtle (everything is a difference of vibration); it's subtle, but it makes the whole difference.

Intensely, but without impatience.... That's it: that's the state in which we must be.

And then, for a long, a very long time, we should be content with the inner results, that is, results of personal and individual reactions, of inner contacts with the rest of the world, and not hope for or will things to materialize too soon. Because that haste people have generally delays things.

If this is the way things are, it's the way things are.

We—people, I mean—live a harried life. It is a sort of semiconscious feeling of the shortness of their life; they don't think about it, but they feel it semiconsciously. So they are forever wanting to go—quickly, quickly, quickly—from one thing to another, to do one thing quickly in order to go on to the next, instead of each thing living in its own eternity. We are forever wanting to go forward, forward, forward... and we spoil the work.

That is why some have preached that the only important moment is the present moment—which isn't true in practice, but from the psychological point of view, it should be true. In other words, let us live every minute to the utmost of our possibility, without foreseeing

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or wanting or expecting or preparing the next minute. Because we are forever in a hurry-hurry-hurry... and we do everything wrong. We live in an inner tension which is totally false—totally false.

All those who tried to be wise have always said it (the Chinese have preached it, the Indians have preached it): live with the sense of Eternity. In Europe, too, they said you should contemplate the sky, the stars, identify with their infinitude—all of which makes you wide and peaceful.

They are methods, but they are indispensable.

And I have observed it in the body's cells: they would seem to be forever in a hurry to do what they have to do for fear of not having the time to do it. So they do nothing properly. Clumsy people (there are people who bump into everything, their gestures are brusque and clumsy) have this to a high degree—this sort of haste to do things quickly, quickly, quickly.... Yesterday, someone was complaining of rheumatic pains in his back and said to me, "Oh, it makes me waste so much time, I do things so slowly!" I said to him (Mother laughs), "So what!" He wasn't happy. You understand, to complain if you have pain means you're soft, that's all, but to say, "I'm wasting so much time, I do things so slowly!" was the very clear picture of that haste in which people live—they hurtle through life... where to?... to end up in a crash!

What's the use?

(silence)

Basically, the moral of all these aphorisms is that it is far more important to BE than to be seen to be—you must live, not pretend—and that it is far more important to realize a thing entirely, sincerely and perfectly than to let others know you're realizing it!

It's the same thing again: when you feel the need to proclaim what you are doing, you spoil half of your action.

And yet, at the same time, it helps you to take stock and know exactly where you stand.

It was Buddha's wisdom when he said, "The middle path": not too much on this side, not too much on that side, don't fall on this side, don't fall on that side—a bit of everything, and a balanced... but PURE path.

Purity and sincerity are the same thing.

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September 18, 1964

I am on the border of a new perception of life.

People's ordinary reaction to the activity of others, to everything around them, their general and ordinary way of seeing things, all of that represents a certain attitude of consciousness: it is seen from a certain level. And when I commented on those aphorisms the other day, I suddenly noticed that the level was different and the angle so different that the other attitude, the ordinary way of seeing things, appeared incomprehensible—you wonder how you can have it, so different is it. And while I was speaking, I had a sort of sensation or perception that this new "attitude" was being established as a natural, spontaneous thing—it isn't the result of an effort for transformation: it's an already established transformation.

It isn't total, because both functionings are perceptible, but I am confident that it is on the way. Then it will be interesting.

As if certain parts of the consciousness were in a metamorphosis from the caterpillar state into the butterfly state, something like that.

It's just on the way. But far enough on the way to make the difference very perceptible. Once it is done, something will be established.

(silence)

From the necessity of certain circumstances, it so happens that I am read things I said ten years ago (statements or remarks I made): I really feel it's somebody else! I find it odd.

Yet, at that time, it was the most sincere expression of the consciousness.... Now I feel, "Ah, I hadn't gone beyond that...." A strange feeling.

And for Sri Aurobindo's writings (not all), it's the same; there are certain things I had truly understood, in the sense that they were already understood far more deeply and truly than even an enlightened mentality understands them—they were already felt and lived—and now, they take on a completely different meaning.

I read some of those sentences or ideas that are expressed in few words, three or four words, m which he doesn't say things fully: he simply seems to let them fall like drops of water; when I read them at the time (sometimes not long ago; sometimes only two or three years ago), I had an experience which was already far deeper

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or vaster than that of intelligence, but now... a spark of Light suddenly appears in them, and I say, "Oh, but I hadn't seen that!" And it's a whole understanding or CONTACT with things that I had never had before.

It happened to me again just yesterday evening.

And I said to myself, "But then... then there are in that certain things... we still have a long, long, long way to go to truly understand them." Because that spark of Light is something very, very pure—very intense and very pure—and it contains an absolute. And since it contains that (I haven't always felt it; I have felt other things, I have felt a great light, I have felt a great power, I have felt something that already explained everything, but this is something else, it's something which is beyond), so I concluded (laughing), "Well, we still have a long way to go before we can understand Sri Aurobindo!"

It was rather comforting.

The sense of a sort of certainty that he has opened the doors, and that when we are able, we will go through those doors.

Just yesterday. It's interesting.

But then, it leaves you... speechless.

(A little later, regarding the last aphorism, about which Mother spoke of the haste in which people live.)

I have noticed this, too (I don't know if you've noticed it): the more quiet and still you are within yourself and the more you have eliminated that haste I was talking about, the faster time goes by. And the more you are in that precipitousness, the longer time is, the more it drags on and on.... It's strange.

Years and months are going by with dizzying speed—and without leaving any trace (that's what is interesting). So, if you look at it, you begin to understand how you can live almost indefinitely—because there no longer is that friction of time.

As Satprem is about to leave, regarding his next novel, "The Sannyasin":

Do you have something to say?

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There's a question I have been asking myself for some time, and I would like you to solve it for me.... I am supposed to write a sequel to "The Gold-Washer"—or rather, they're expecting it, and also I thought I should do so. But I really wouldn't like to do it from an arbitrary decision. I would like... You understand, I wouldn't like it to be "me" who decides.

You told me that some time ago! [in the "dream" state]

(Banteringly) I took a look and saw what you wanted to write, but I won't tell you!

I saw two things, which were, so to speak, concomitant, or superimposed (they occupied the same space). One seemed to me to be what you wanted to write, the other seemed to me to be what you will write. It was the same book, but it was very different—very, very different. Yet it was the same book. I even saw images, I saw scenes, I saw sentences and I saw almost the entire story (if it can be called a story). It was very interesting, because one was matt and concrete (there was a kind of hardness in it, it was precise), while the other was vibrant and still uncertain, and there were sparks of light in it that were calling down something, that were trying to make something "descend." And one was endeavoring to take the place of the other.¹

So I followed that very closely, and then, when the work was finished (gesture as of a screen being pulled up), it went away, as always.

But I didn't mention it to you because I didn't want to say anything; I wanted to see what would happen.

I have the feeling that you will write the book only when that... that old garment has fallen off—when the other has taken its place.

I don't know, it was a few days ago, not very long ago, maybe a week or two, I don't remember (I never keep track of time), but anyway I had the feeling it was something being prepared in your subtle atmosphere, and that when the time has come, it will simply go like this (gesture of a vertical fall), it will drop down on your head (!), and then you will feel the urge to write.

And I was waiting for that.

I don't feel it's really very immediate, but it's clearly on the way to realization. That's all I can tell you on the subject.

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I even saw rather interesting things, because there were events that were like reminiscences of your past lives, and they found a place in your book. Those things are still quite in your subliminal. (They call it "subliminal," don't they? It's something that's neither the subconscient nor the clear supraconscient; it's a sort of subliminal consciousness.) They're there, they have remained as a memory and it is clear. And those reminiscences are like... you know, what they put inside a clay statue to hold it up?

An armature.

They are the armature of the book.

But an armature that, probably, will not reveal itself; it's only something that will give a cohesion—but not a visible one, an unexpressed cohesion.

That's all I saw.

But it's interesting, because when I had finished seeing all those things, I said to myself, "Well, well, would he be thinking of writing his book, by any chance?"

I was thinking about it, but I didn't want it to be an arbitrary decision.

That's it. It isn't ready yet; when it's ready, it will drop down on your head.

(Mother looks above Satprem's head)

It's well established, up there—it's very, very... it's becoming increasingly precise and clear. It is well established. It's above your head, firmly established.

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September 23, 1964

(Regarding a disciple who is following a Tantric discipline:)

..."He" has completely stupefied him. He has to do six to seven hours of japa a day.

From a certain point of view, it's good, because W has never been able to see anything through to the end, it's the first time he has persevered. From that point of view, it's good for his character. But still, I found the amount fantastic! He has to do three lakhs of this, four lakhs¹ of that, some six or seven hours of recitation a day.... It's a lot. And then you have to remain sitting in the same position all the time—he should at least be allowed to do it walking.

Yes, there was a time when I was doing it five to six hours a day.

But did it have an effect on your self-control?

I don't know.

Neither do I!

I don't know what is the fruit of the japa and what is simply the fruit of a sedimentation: I can't tell. I know that when I am doing my japa, there is a rather concentrated force, but I don't know if that comes from the japa or, quite simply, from the fact that I concentrate. I can't tell.

Oh, you mean the words of the japa—those words have only the power given by the generations that have repeated them.

(silence)

There is ONE sound which, to me, has an extraordinary power—extraordinary and UNIVERSAL (that's the important point): it doesn't depend on the language you speak, it doesn't depend on the education you were given, it doesn't depend on the atmosphere you breathe. And that sound, without knowing anything, I used to say it when I was a child (you know how in French we say, "Oh!"; well, I used to say "OM," without knowing anything!). And indeed, I made all kinds of experiments with that sound—it's fantastic, even, fantastic! It's unbelievable.

So then, if around this you build something that corresponds to your own aspiration—certain sounds or words that FOR YOU evoke a soul state—then it's very good.

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All that is traditional benefits from the power of tradition, that goes without saying, but it's necessarily very limited—personally, it gives me the feeling of something shriveled and withered, as if all the juice it could contain had been squeezed out (!) Except if, spontaneously, the sounds correspond to a soul state in you.

I have noticed that this japa automatically triggered the physical mind into a great activity.

The physical mind!

Yes, that is to say, when I begin the japa, I am assailed by a number of material questions, tiny little material things that happened during the day and come back. Uninteresting things. The japa seems to act on that mind, on that bit of physical mind.

Yes, it WANTS to act there. That's why its action is stupefying—it is meant to stupefy that mind. But there are people who can't be stupefied, mon petit!... It's very good for average humanity, it can help average humanity, but on those who have an intellectuality, it cannot act.

(Here, Mother makes various remarks about the Tantric guru and describes certain things she saw about him:)

...It comes with images, it's a sort of perception like a motion picture....

(Then she goes on:)

...There is a whole part of the most material consciousness, the utterly physical consciousness (precisely the one that participates in incalculable, minuscule activity of every day) which, of course, is very hard to bear. In ordinary life, it's tolerable, it's bearable because you take interest in it and sometimes pleasure—all that life on the surface that makes you... you see a pretty thing, it gives you pleasure; you have something tasty in your mouth, it gives you pleasure; anyway, all these little pleasures that are so futile, but help people bear existence. Those who don't have the inner consciousness and the contact with what's behind all that wouldn't be able to live if they didn't have little pleasures. So a host of tiny little problems crop up, problems of material existence, which explain perfectly well that those who no longer had

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any desire, and therefore no longer took any pleasure in anything, had one single idea: "What's the use of it all!" And indeed, if we didn't have the feeling that all that must be borne because it leads to something else of an altogether different nature and expression, it would be so insipid and puerile, so petty that it would become quite unbearable. That's certainly what explains the aspiration for Nirvana and the flight from this world.

So there is this problem, a problem of every second, which I must solve every second by the corresponding attitude that leads to the True Thing; and at the same time, there is the other attitude of acceptance of all that is—for instance, of what leads to disintegration: the acceptance of disintegration, defeat, decomposition, weakening, decay—all things that, naturally, to the ordinary man, are detestable and against which he reacts violently. But since you are told that everything is the expression of the divine Will and must be accepted as the divine Will, there comes this problem, which crops up almost constantly and every minute: if you accept those things as the expression of the divine Will, quite naturally things will follow their habitual course towards disintegration, but what is the TRUE ATTITUDE that can give you that perfect equanimity in all circumstances, and at the same time give a maximum of force and power and will to the Perfection that must be realized?

As soon as we deal with even the vital plane, even the lower vital, the problem doesn't arise, it's very easy; but here, in the cells of the body, in this life? In this life of every minute, which is so constricted, so shriveled, so microscopic.... What should you do when you know that you mustn't bring into play a will to reject all that is a decay, and when, at the same time, you can't accept decay because you don't see it as a perfect expression of the Divine?

It's very subtle... there is something to be found; and it's something that, obviously, I haven't found because it keeps coming back again and again.... At times, I even say, "Oh, for Peace, Peace, Peace..." but then I feel it is a weakness. I say, "To let myself go, not thinking of anything, not trying to know anything," but then something instantly rises there, somewhere, and says, Tamas.²

(silence)

You see, on the mental level, it isn't a problem, all that has been

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solved and it's very fine. But it's HERE, inside here—I can't even say in the sensation because I don't live in the sensations. It's a problem of consciousness, of the consciousness of this body.

And I clearly feel that the problem could disappear only if the supreme Consciousness truly took possession of the cells and made them live, act, move, like that, so they had the sense of the Omnipotence taking hold of them; then it would be over, they would no longer be responsible for anything. This seems to be the only solution. Then comes the prayer, "When will it come?"

"Aspire intensely, but without impatience...."

It's not even that I have the feeling of the years going by—there is nothing like that, it's not that! It's the problem of living from second to second, from minute to minute. I don't at all think, "Oh, the years are going by... ," it's a long time since all that has been over. It's not that, it's... the easy path of passive acceptance, which evidently leads ("evidently," I mean not through reasoning, but THROUGH EXPERIENCE), which leads to increased decay; or else, that intensity of aspiration for the Perfection that must manifest, for all that must be, an aspiration which keeps everything at a standstill in that expectation. It's the opposition between these two attitudes.

The problem is made worse by the fact that the goodwill of the cells (a necessarily ignorant goodwill) doesn't know if one attitude is better than the other, if it should choose between the two, if both should be accepted—they don't know! And as it isn't mentalized or formulated or with words, it's very difficult. Oh, as soon as the words are there... all that has been said comes back, and it's over. It's not that, it's not that anymore. Even if strong sensations or a vital force come up, it's not a problem anymore. The problem is only HERE, in this (Mother strikes her body).

Nights, for instance, are a long awareness, a great action, a discovery of all kinds of things, a taking stock of the situation as it is—but there aren't any problems! But the minute the body (I can't say "wakes up" because it isn't asleep: it's only in a state of rest sufficiently complete for its personal difficulties not to interfere), but from time to time, what we'll call "waking up" takes place, that is to say, the purely physical consciousness comes back—and the whole problem comes back instantly. Instantly the problem is there. And without your remembering it: the problem doesn't come back because you remember it, it's that the problem is there, in the very cells.

And in the morning, oh!... All mornings are difficult. It's odd:

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life as a whole goes by with almost dizzying speed—weeks and months go by like that—and mornings, about three hours every morning, last like a century! Each minute is won at the cost of an effort. It is the time of the work in the body, for the body, and not just one body: for instance, all the vibrations from sick people, all those problems of life come from everywhere. And for those three hours, there is tension, struggle, acute seeking for what should be done or for the attitude to be taken.... It's at that time that I have tested the power of the mantra. For those three hours, I repeat my mantra automatically, without stopping; and every time the difficulty increases, a kind of Power comes into those words and acts on Matter. And that's how I know: without the mantra, that work couldn't be done. But that's why I say it has to be YOUR mantra, not something you received from whomever—the mantra that arose spontaneously from your deeper being (gesture to the heart), from your inner guide. That's what holds out. When you don't know, when you don't understand, when you don't want to let the mind intervene and you are... THAT is there; the mantra is there; and it helps you to get through. It helps to get through. It saves the situation at critical moments, it's a considerable support, considerable.

For those three hours (three or three and a half hours), it's constant, constant, without stop. So then the words well up (gesture from the heart). And when the situation becomes critical, when that disorder, that disintegration seem to be gaining in power, it's as if the mantra were becoming swollen with force, and... it restores order.

And that wasn't just once, or for a month, or a year: it has been like that for years, and it goes on increasing.

But it's hard work.

And afterwards, after those hours, the contact with outside starts again: I start seeing people again and doing the outer work, listening to letters, answering, making decisions; and every person, every letter, every action brings its own volume of disorder, disharmony and disintegration. It's as if all that were dumped by the truckload on your head. And you have to hold out.

Then, at times, it becomes very difficult. You have to hold out.

When you can remain still and quiet, it's fine, but when you have to make decisions, listen to letters, answer... So when it's too much at once and when people who bring it all bring their own disorder in addition, at times it's a bit much.

But it's so subtle in its nature that it is incomprehensible for

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people around you; you seem to be making a lot of fuss about nothing. Those are things which, in their unconsciousness, they don't feel at all, not at all—it takes shouting and quarrels and battles, almost, for them to notice that there's disorder!

Voilà.

I didn't intend to tell you all this because it's... it's useless.

September 26, 1964

I'd rather not talk, because...

It is a terribly dark labor and without clearly visible effects. There are people who proclaim they perform miracles with my name or my force—bringing dying people back to life, wonderful things, anyway. To me, it immediately smacks of the ego a mile off; and the ego means vital entities taking advantage of it. I don't like that.

It's a labor of every minute, without a break, night and day.

Last night again... I went through strange places with people I know very well and whom I am seeing in that way for the first time. As if I went into all sorts of places I'd never been to before, in which fantastic things occur: in which people, whom I know very well physically, appear there in a light and with activities that are truly unexpected—it's dumbfounding.

Last night, it lasted hours.

Unbelievable.

So you wonder, "When will it come to an end?" There's always more and more and more of it.... It is an actual demonstration of new disorders, new ways of seeing things. It's like new aspects of the world.

I go there with full consciousness, I am entirely conscious, conscious with the totality of my consciousness, and I am an outwardly powerless witness of a lot of unbelievable things.

It results materially in all sorts of truly unexpected and rather chaotic circumstances, as if Disorder were going on increasing.

It's undeniably a preparation, but how long will it last?... It's

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as if there was a will to give me a demonstration—a demonstration in detail—of how absolutely closed the world is to the higher Influence: all that comes down to the world, the minute it touches it, is twisted. Twisted, distorted beyond recognition.

Almost as if I were made to touch the rock bottom of insanity, in the root sense of the word.

Well... so might you have anything a little more comforting? (Mother laughs)

I don't know if this will interest you, but someone has presented me with a problem.

Oh, who?

A problem of a "spiritual" order.

Oh!... Who put it to you?

My brother.

Oh, very well, then.

Would it interest you?

Yes, it interests me. Your brother, I've been thinking of him quite a lot lately, quite a lot; that is, to say things correctly, he has certainly been thinking of me ("me," I don't mean me here in this body—you know what I mean).

Tell me.

He's a doctor, you know.

Yes, that doesn't surprise me!

So here's what he writes: "...There is also something exhausting in this profession, it is the Falsehood..."

(Mother nods her head approvingly.)

"...when, day after day, you have to accompany up to death a being who is afraid of death and who comes to drink out of your hand an ever-polished lie. Doctors say that the greatness

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of the profession lies there—that's not my opinion. Yet I am a damn good liar—that's why people love me—but I can no longer stand this so-called charitable imposture, which is self-contempt and contempt of others. And who gave me the right to decide that this one or that one is not entitled to know the Truth, his or her last truth?... Let's leave it at that—neither religions nor science have given me an answer to this question."

Obviously, there could be only one solution: to lose the mental consciousness that gives you the perception or sensation that you are telling a "lie" or a "truth"; and you can obtain that only when you get to the higher state in which our notion of falsehood and truth disappears. Because when we speak from the ordinary mental consciousness, even when we are convinced that we are telling the whole truth, we are not doing so; and even when we think we are telling a lie, sometimes it isn't one. We do not have the capacity to discern what's true and what isn't—because we live in a false consciousness.

But there is a state in which, first, you no longer make "personal" decisions, and then you are like a mirror reflecting the exact NEED, the true (spiritual, that is) need of the patient, for instance, and exactly what he needs to know so that the rest of his life (whatever time he has left to live) brings him the maximum possibilities of progress.

And when you perceive this, you also see that the human way (the human doctor's way) of seeing the illness isn't in accord with the higher vision of the SAME condition of the body; and that in each and every case (not in a general way for all cases), in each case there is ONE thing to be told, which is the True Thing, even if it is, for example, giving the patient the sense of a duration of life. You can shift your consciousness and place it inside that part of the patient's being that lasts.... It is difficult to explain, but I am saying this from experience because it's a problem I have encountered very often. Just now, there is a person here who has had several cancers, who was operated on and was made to last for years with operations and treatments; only, she is told the usual lies; but she asks me, she asks me what I see and what I know. So I had the opportunity to see the answer that should be given....

It is, so to speak, the practical means to compel the doctor to enter a higher consciousness. That must be the crisis that has come to your brother; he has come to a point when he is imperatively obliged—professionally obliged—to enter a higher consciousness.

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Because, in his present state, he must be lying very badly—he says he is a very good liar, but with the perception he has now, the result must be that, along with his lie, doubt enters the patient's consciousness. So he isn't doing what's considered to be the useful thing.

In my opinion, from a practical and external standpoint, I have more often seen cases in which the lie had a bad effect than cases in which the truth had a bad effect. But everything depends on the doctor's consciousness.

I know, and with certainty, that if you can be in that clear consciousness, you see that the state of illness was certainly a necessity, often a WILLED necessity (not only accepted and undergone, but willed) by the soul in order to go faster on the path—to save time, to gain lives. And if you can, if you have the power to bring that soul into contact with the force that governs its existence and leads it towards progress, towards the Realization, you do a work of quite a superior quality.

You know this: the SAME words, the SAME sentences, spoken by someone who sees and knows and spoken by the ordinary ignorant person, change entirely in nature and power—and in action. There is a way of saying things which is the true way, whatever words you speak. And that is the solution: it's inside himself, in the depths of his being, that he must find that light—the light that knows what should be said and how it should be said. And then that feeling of responsibility and of complicity with falsehood is finished, it disappears completely. And necessarily, inevitably, absolutely, he will say the thing that should be said and as it should be said, in the way it should be said.

Oh, what a beautiful realization to achieve! A beautiful work can be done in that way.... To be able to feel and SEE the thing to be said, and THAT'S what should be said—not with the thought, "This man is going to die, I shouldn't make him too unhappy, I should...," all that is perfectly useless. Perfectly useless, and you put yourself in a kind of mental muddle; besides, it doesn't really help, it doesn't have the expected effect. While this inner vision... to see why that being is ill and what that physical disorder expresses in the destiny of the soul of that man or this woman—it's magnificent, magnificent!

And ultimately, saying, "You will be cured," is just as useless as saying, "You won't be cured," both are equally incorrect from the point of view of the true Truth, and unsatisfactory for someone who has had a first contact with a life other than physical life.

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Even when the patient asks you, "I'll be cured, won't I?" or when he asks how long he is going to last, there is a way of answering, even materially, which is neither yes nor no, but is TRUE and has a power of inner opening.

For a long time, would you believe it, I have been in search of a doctor, a man with full medical knowledge, knowing all that they now know about the human body and the way to cure it, AND capable of having the contact with the higher consciousness. Because through such an instrument, one could do very, very interesting things—very interesting.¹

(silence)

There is a domain in which "disease" and "cure" no longer exist, but only disorder, confusion, and harmony, organization. A domain in which everything, but everything that takes place in the body works in that way, and necessarily, first of all, everything that involves the functioning of the organs themselves (disorder in the organs themselves). And there, there is a whole way of seeing things that leads you very close to the Truth.... There remain only the diseases that come from outside, like diseases that are contagious through germs, microbes, bacilli, all that business, viruses—that's still under the aspect of "attacks from adverse forces," it's another plane of action. But there is a point where it all meets.... I would like, oh, I would very much like to discuss certain things or certain details of the body's functioning and organization with a man who thoroughly knows anatomy, biology, physical and bodily chemistry—all those things thoroughly—and who UNDERSTANDS, who is ready to understand that all those things are a projection of other forces, subtler forces; who is able to feel things as I feel them in my own body. That would be very interesting.²

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(silence)

That's the first step. You see, he puts the problem from a purely mental standpoint: to tell what's conventionally called the "truth" (which isn't true), or to tell what's conventionally called a "lie" (which may not at all be what you think it is: it isn't a lie, but simply the contradiction or opposite of what you consider to be the "truth"—same thing). But in order to find the solution, you have to climb up there—where you SEE, where you can see in a totally concrete way that that "truth" isn't absolute and that "lie" isn't absolute, that there is something else—another way of seeing—in which things are no longer like that.

And then... then if you could speak the True Thing, the right word (word or sentence), have the thought which is the TRUE thought in every case—what marvelous power you would have over your patient! It would be magnificent.

You understand, to know all the material, cellular questions with the full knowledge of all the details, and at the same time to have that vision—if you could put both together, you would be... a divine doctor. That would be marvelous.

Emerge from the moral problem in order to make it a spiritual problem. And then it's no longer a "problem."

There, mon petit.

(long silence)

But I often think of your brother.

When did you receive that letter?

Some time ago actually, almost a month ago.

No, not long ago. Just these last few days, I was again thinking of him. Maybe he has written once again?...

(silence)

Ask your brother whether he has seen the different cases: for example, the case in which he had foreseen the end, but the patient was cured, or else the opposite case, in which he was counting on the patient being cured and he left his body; but especially the case (the more interesting one) in which medical science declares that you are incurable, and you get cured—whether he has observed cases of this sort and whether he can give examples. Of course,

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without jargon, simply describing what he has seen; I mean, what happened to the patient and how he came to be cured (that he can't know, but OUTWARDLY he can say what happened).

Does he believe in the possibility of an intervention of another order?

Oh, yes, certainly. On the contrary, he's trying to get hold of...

To get hold of that.... Yes, that's my impression.

(silence)

There are two things.... One, for instance, which I have often observed: an illness is triggered, or a disorder is triggered, and there is a kind of... it isn't a contagion (how can I explain it?), it would almost be like an "imitation," but that's not quite it. Let's say that a certain number of cells give way; for some reason or other (there are countless reasons), they submit to the disorder—obey the disorder—and a particular point becomes "ill" according to the ordinary view of illness. But that intrusion of Disorder makes itself felt everywhere, it has repercussions everywhere: wherever there is a weaker point which doesn't resist the attack so well, it manifests. Take someone who is in the habit of getting headaches, or toothaches, or a cough, or neuralgic pains, whatever, a host of little things of that sort that come and go, increase and decrease. But if there is an attack of Disorder somewhere, a serious attack, all those little troubles reappear instantly, here, there, there.... It's a fact I have observed. And the opposite movement follows the same pattern: if you are able to bring to the attacked spot the true Vibration—the Vibration of Order and Harmony—and you stop the Disorder... all the other things are put back in order, as if automatically.

And that doesn't happen through contagion, you see; it isn't that, for instance, the blood carries the illness here or there, that's not it: it is... almost like a spirit of imitation.

But the truth is that the Harmony that keeps everything together has been attacked, it has given way, and so everything is disrupted (each thing in its own way and according to its own habit).

I am speaking here of the body's cells, but it's the same thing with external events, even with world events. It's even remarkable with regard to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.: it would seem that the entire earth is like the body; that is to say, if one

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point gives way and manifests Disorder, all the sensitive points suffer the same effect.

From the human standpoint, in a crowd, it's extraordinarily precise: the contagion of a vibration—especially vibrations of disorder (but the others, too).

It is an absolutely concrete demonstration of Oneness. It's very interesting.

It is something I have observed on the level of the body's cells hundreds and hundreds of times. And then, you no longer have at all that mental impression of one "disorder added to another, which makes the problem more difficult"—that's not it at all, it's... if you get to the center, all the rest will be naturally restored to order. And that's a fact: if order is restored at the center of disorder, everything follows naturally, without your paying it any special attention.

From the human standpoint, from the standpoint of revolutions, from the standpoint of fights, from the standpoint of wars, it's extraordinarily accurate and precise.

An absolutely concrete demonstration of Oneness.

And it is this knowledge of Oneness that gives you the key.

People wonder how, for instance, the action of one man or of one thought can restore order—this is how. Not that you have to think of all the troubled spots, no: you have to get to the center. And everything will be restored to order, automatically.

(silence)

There, you must get cured, mon petit.

(Towards the end of the conversation, an "urgent" letter from a disciple is brought to Mother. Mother laughs and, without reading the letter, scribbles her answer:)

She already wrote to me the other day, she's upset because I can't read anymore! (I used to read Savitri aloud and she wanted to record me.) I told her, "I can't read anymore, it's not possible." So she wrote to me that I must "make use of my Grace" in order to cure my eyes!

I didn't answer her. But just now, as I finished speaking to you, it came—my answer. It came, that is, He told me, "Write this to her." So I wrote this:

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There is no I to take a decision,
there is only the Lord's Will
that decides everything.
And if He decides that my eyes
will recover the reading capacity,
I will recover.

That's that, finished, no more problem!

Now she must be upside-down because I haven't yet answered!

They can't get it into their heads! You know, for them, when they say that "there is a Grace," the purpose of the Grace is to do what they like, of course, and if it doesn't do what they like, there's no Grace! It's the same thing with those who accept the idea of God only if God does exactly what they like, and if He doesn't do what they like, there's no God: "It's not true, he's an impostor!"

It's comical.

September 30, 1964

W has come back from his "Tantric course"—after having fallen ill! It seems X gave him a new mantra, which must be repeated in three periods of several lakhs each, and he told him, "So far, none of those to whom I have given this mantra have been able to reach the end." And he warned him, "You will be attacked in your thought, your feelings and your body." Sure enough, W got a fever, a sort of discomfort all over, and all kinds of suggestions that sprang up from below. I must say it left me pensive.... To go and do battle with the adverse forces in their own domain, to provoke them, is indeed a peculiar method.... I told W (and in any case I'll see to it that the other two periods don't go the same way) that I would keep those gentlemen at a distance.

To go and seek them out in their own place, on their own ground, and fight them seems to me...

But they are the guardians of a certain power, so if you want that power, you have to go and fight them, don't you?

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It had rather seemed to me that they should be kept at a distance. With Théon, the adverse forces and hostile beings were often mentioned, they occupied a big place in self-development and in action. As for Sri Aurobindo, he used to say that that notion was useful mostly from the psychological and personal standpoint, because struggling with difficulties is easier when you see them as coming from "outside," as an attack from outside, than if you think they are part of your own nature. Not that he denied their existence, far from it, but the path depends a lot on the attitude you take and on the mental construction you have, naturally.

Sri Aurobindo insisted rather on Oneness: he used to say that even what we consider to be the worst adversaries are still a form of the Supreme, which, deliberately or not, consciously or not, helps in the general transformation. This seems to me vaster, deeper, more comprehensive.

And I tried to base action on this rather than on constant battle with opposing forces. Because, granted this idea, it makes sense that if you make the necessary progress, if you have the divine knowledge and consciousness, the very purpose of those forces disappears, and consequently they can't stay.

On the practical level, I have seen obvious examples of this; it was even my great argument with Durga (I told you, didn't I, that she used to come at the time of the pujas and that, two years ago, she "surrendered"), that was my great argument, I said to her, "But the purpose of your existence in this form—in this form of combative action—would disappear if through identification you obtained the powers that render those forces unnecessary." And it's after I told her these things that she surrendered to the supreme Will; she said, "I shall do what the Supreme wants me to do."

It was a very interesting result indeed.

But if we look at it from another point of view, I had noticed—or rather WE [Mother and Satprem] had noticed—that X's presence or contact always brought conflicts, difficulties, a sort of struggle with Nature (personal or surrounding Nature). But judging by the effect of his mantras, that would correspond to his line of action; and because of what he is himself, his line of action is located in a relatively very material domain: the physical, the immediate vital and the physical mind—not the higher, speculative or intellectual mind, no: the physical mind, the one that has an action on Matter, then the vital with all the vital's entities (he always mentions them, and he also gives the ways of mastering

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them, of overcoming them), and then the physical. And when people around him complained about headaches or difficulties, as he once said to me (he himself said it to me, it was downstairs, I remember), "I put them in contact with the non-habitual Nature." Therefore, it's part of his mode of action. And it struck me, I remember, it struck me, because several times when I felt a pressure, a discomfort, something unpleasant, I asked myself, "Is it because the body's cells aren't accustomed to the force that's acting?" So I would do a work of opening, of broadening, and indeed it always succeeded: the discomfort always stopped.

Sri Aurobindo said that all the Tantrics start from below; they start right down below, and so right down below, that's how things must be, obviously. While with him, you went from above downward, so that you dominated the situation. But if you start right down below, it's obvious that, right down below, that's how things are: anything that's a little stronger or a little vaster or a little truer or a little purer than ordinary Nature brings about a reaction, a revolt, a contradiction and a struggle.

I prefer the other method. Though probably it isn't within everyone's reach.

(silence)

W told me that over there, during one of his moments of struggle, as he really didn't feel well at night, "someone" came up to him and ran her hand over his head, and he felt quite well, it put him right again. So he asked X (as for me, I had gone to him consciously, because I received an S.O.S. from him and I went there consciously and brought him relief), but he told X what had happened, and... (laughing) X answered him, "It's a goddess"! I laughed and said to him, "What does he call a goddess?..." Probably whatever isn't in a body is a goddess!

But in this case, it had taken place consciously, I had gone to him consciously, you see, to bring him relief. I asked him, "Didn't you see who it was?" He said, "No, I only saw part of an arm and a sari."

I didn't insist.

Soon afterwards:

It is like the beginning of a new phase.

Previously, the whole action always used to come from here

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(radiating gesture above the head), in the highest, vastest and purest Light; but for a few days now, whenever something or other goes wrong, when, for instance, people don't do what they should or their reactions are wrong, or when there are difficulties in circumstances, anyway when things "grate" and Disorder gets worse, now there comes into me a sort of Power, a VERY MATERIAL Power, which goes like this (gesture of pummeling), which goes at things and pushes terribly hard—oh, what a pressure it makes!... And it comes without my willing it, it goes without my knowing it.

Naturally, the inner Power is put into action (that Power which obviously is always increasing), but it never used to be exerted in that way, in detail, on tiny things of that sort, like someone's wrong attitude or an action that doesn't conform to the Truth, anyway lots of things... pitiable things, which I used to watch: I would smile, put the Truth-Light on them (gesture from above), and would leave them. But now, it's not that way: "that" comes, and it's like something that comes and says to people, things, circumstances and individuals (in an imperative tone): "You shall do what the Lord wills—you shall do what He wills. And beware! you shall do what He wills." (Mother laughs)

It makes me laugh, but it must be having some effect!

It is very material, it's in the subtle physical. And it always takes that form; it doesn't say, "You should do this" or "You should do that," or "You shouldn't do this"...—nothing like that: "You SHALL do what the Lord wills," just like that, "You SHALL do... and, you know, you shall do it, so beware!"

It is a strong Light, with what looks like precise little details (which probably must be translated as details of action, I don't know): they are like lines that make little marks like this (gesture). It's a formation.

It's a force that isn't ordinary in the material world.

You remember, I had that in the past (a few months or years ago), I told you, it was something that would suddenly make me bang my fist... it was so terrible that I felt as if everything would be smashed—it's the same thing, but now organized for a definite aim: it comes fully ready, then it acts, and when it's finished, it goes. It comes, and sometimes it stays long enough: it insists and insists, as though it were pummeling the resistance; and then suddenly it stops, it's finished, it's gone. It comes into the consciousness spontaneously, it goes out of it spontaneously, and I am like a witness. Just a witness who is used as a link—an electric plug.

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It goes towards the person (I see it with the inner vision, you understand) or towards the circumstances or towards the event, and it pummels it without letting go of it: "You will do what the Lord wills, it will be as the Lord wills."

I put it into words, but...

And it's completely outside—outside—human feelings, human thoughts, human perceptions, which means it can go to someone very close, very intimate, just as it can go to someone very remote; it can go to someone full of goodwill just as it can go to someone full of ill will—with perfect impartiality. It's very interesting, there are no nuances in its action, no nuances. There may be a dosage, but the dosage seems to be measured according to the resistance. But no nuances, which means that, for its action, everyone and everything is IDENTICAL—absolutely identical; there aren't those "for" and those "against," that doesn't exist anymore; there's only something that isn't as it ought to be: it isn't as it ought to be—bang! (Mother laughs)

It came again just yesterday.

Generally, I have to be resting or at any rate quiet for it to come (or maybe for me to perceive it).

Voilà, mon petit.

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October 7, 1964

Things (not from the ordinary point of view, but from the higher point of view) have clearly taken a turn for the better. But the material consequences are still there: all the difficulties seem to have worsened. Only, the power of the consciousness is greater—clearer, more precise. Also the action on those who have good-will: they are making rather considerable progress. But the material difficulties seem to have worsened, which means... it's to see whether we bear up!

From the standpoint of money, it's serious, the situation is serious. From the standpoint of health, everybody is sick. And from the standpoint of quarrels (!), the quarrels are more bitter, but they are "indicative," in the sense that those who quarrel realize that they have made a blunder, that it's something serious.

Recently (it began yesterday), something has cleared in the atmosphere. But there is still a long way to go—a long, long way. I certainly feel it very long, we must endure. Endure and endure. That's the main impression: we must endure. And have endurance. The two absolutely indispensable things: keep a faith that nothing can shake, not even an apparently complete negation, even if you are suffering, even if you are miserable (the body, that is), even if you are tired—endure. Hold on tight and endure—have endurance. There. With that, it's all right.

Some letters describing very interesting experiences... People who had been deliberately refusing to understand—they have yielded. Things of that sort. Things that weren't moving, that were stubbornly stuck, you felt as if they would never move—all of a sudden, pop! gone. Only... what spoils everything is the sort of haste people have to get a visible result. That spoils everything. One shouldn't think about results.

(silence)

But according to what people tell me who listen to the radio or read the newspapers (none of which I do), the whole world is undergoing an action... which for the moment is unsettling. It seems that the number of apparently "mad" people is increasing considerably. In America, for instance, all the youth seem to be seized with a kind of curious giddiness, which for reasonable people would be disquieting, but which is a sure indication that an uncommon Force is at work. It is the disruption of all habits and all rules—it's good.

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For the moment, it's a bit "strange" (!), but it's necessary.

The action isn't limited. That is, it's probably limited to the earth... although manifestations from other planets or other worlds seem to be multiplying, too. And there have been experiences lately, rather curious ones.

Other physical planets?

Physical. Yes, physical.

I don't know if you've heard this, it's something P. told me. She was still in Switzerland, and shortly before she came back here, she had a vision (she was in her home, simply meditating, and she had a vision), and in her vision she saw five big "luminous cigars" going past like this, slowly, one behind the other, in single file. When she woke up, she wondered what it was.... And a few days later (maybe the next day or the day after, I don't know), she read in a newspaper the account of people in southern France (I don't remember in which part) who saw above the sea five "luminous cigars" go by, in single file, exactly the same color as those she had seen. But in their case, they saw it with their physical eyes. So that seems interesting.

It was clearly a phenomenon of a subtle physical order (in its origin) or material vital (in its origin), but which manifested physically, and which may very well have come from other planets that are a little more subtle than the earth.

There are many other experiences; this one I remember clearly.

The Action is widespread.

Now, what about you? What do you have to say?

What have you brought? Nothing? Do you have a question to ask?

No... a question of sadhana, perhaps.... Isn't the true attitude at present to try and be as transparent as possible?

Transparent, receptive.

I ask myself the question because you feel that that transparency is transparent indeed, but it's a bit... nothing—a nothing that's full, but still is nothing: you don't know. You don't know if it's a kind of higher "tamas" or...

Above all, one should be trusting.

The big difficulty, in Matter, is that the material consciousness,

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that is to say, the mind in Matter, was formed under the pressure of difficulties—difficulties, obstacles, suffering, struggle. It was, so to speak, "worked out" by those things, and that gave it an imprint almost of pessimism and defeatism, which is certainly the greatest obstacle.

This is the thing I am conscious of in my own work.

The most material consciousness, the most material mind, is in the habit of having to be whipped into acting, into making effort and moving forward, otherwise it's tames. So then, if it imagines, it always imagines the difficulty—always the obstacle, always the opposition, always the difficulty... and that slows down the movement terribly. So it needs very concrete, very tangible and VERY REPEATED experiences to be convinced that behind all its difficulties, there is a Grace; behind all its failures, there is the Victory; behind all its pain and suffering and contradictions, there is Ananda. Of all the efforts, this is the one that has to be repeated most often: you are constantly forced to stop, put an end to, drive away, convert a pessimism, a doubt or a totally defeatist imagination.

I am speaking exclusively of the material consciousness.

Naturally, when something comes from above, it goes vrrm! like that, so everything falls silent and waits and stops. But... I well understand why the Truth, the Truth-Consciousness, doesn't express itself more constantly: it's because the difference between its Power and the power of Matter is so great that the power of Matter is as if canceled—but then, that doesn't mean Transformation: it means a crushing. It doesn't mean a transformation. That's what used to be done in the past: they would crush the entire material consciousness under the weight of a Power that nothing can fight, nothing can oppose; and then they would feel, "Here we are! It's happened!" It hadn't happened at all! Because the rest down below remained as it was, unchanged.

Now, there is a will to give it the full possibility of changing; well, for that, it has to be given free play, without bringing in a crushing Power—this I understand very well. But it has the obstinacy of stupidity. How many times at the moment of a suffering, for instance, when a suffering is there, acute, and you feel it's going to become intolerable, there is in the cells a little inner movement of Call: the cells send out their S.O.S. Everything stops, the suffering disappears. And often (now it's becoming more and more like that), the suffering is replaced by a feeling of blissful well-being. But the first reaction of that stupid material consciousness, its first reaction: "Ha! Let's see how long it's going to last." So,

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naturally, with that movement, it demolishes everything. Everything has to be started again.

I think that for the effect to be lasting (not to be, as I said, a miraculous effect that comes, dazzles, and goes away), for it to be truly the effect of a TRANSFORMATION, one has to be very, very, VERY patient. We are dealing with a very slow, very heavy, very obstinate consciousness, which cannot move on rapidly, which holds on tight to what it has, to what has seemed to it to be a "truth": even if it is a very small truth, that consciousness holds on tight to it and doesn't want to budge anymore. So to cure that takes a great deal of patience—a great, great deal of patience.

The whole thing is to endure—endure and endure.

Sri Aurobindo said it several times, in various forms: Endure and you will conquer.... Bear—bear and you will vanquish.

The triumph belongs to the most enduring.

And then (Mother points to her own body), this seems to be the lesson for these aggregates (bodies, you know, seem to me to be simply aggregates). And as long as there is, behind, a will to keep this together for some reason or other, it stays together, but... These last few days (yesterday or the day before), there was this: a sort of completely decentralized consciousness (I am always referring to the physical consciousness, of course, not at all to the higher consciousness), a decentralized consciousness that happened to be here, there, there, in this body, that body (in what people call "this person" and "that person," but that notion doesn't quite exist anymore), and then there was a kind of intervention of a universal consciousness in the cells, as though it were asking these cells what their reason was for wanting to retain this combination (if we may say so) or this aggregate... while in fact making them understand or feel the difficulties that come, for example, from the number of years, wear and tear, external difficulties—from all the deterioration caused by friction, wear and tear. But they seemed to be perfectly indifferent to that!... The response of the cells was interesting enough, in the sense that they seemed to attach importance ONLY TO THE CAPACITY TO REMAIN IN CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH THE HIGHER FORCE. It was like an aspiration (not formulated in words, naturally), and like a... what in English they call yearning, a longing for that Contact with the divine Force, the Force of Harmony, the Force of Truth and... the Force of Love, and [the cells' response was] that because of that, they valued the present combination.

It was an altogether different point of view.

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I am expressing it with the mind's words because there's no other way, but it was in the field of sensation rather than anything else. And it was very clear—very clear and very continuous, without fluctuations. And then, at that moment, the universal Consciousness intervened, saying, "But here are the obstacles...." And those obstacles were clearly seen: that kind of pessimism of the mind (a formless mind that's beginning to be born and organized in these cells). But the cells themselves didn't care a whit! To them it was like a disease, they said, "Oh, that..." (the word distorts, but it was felt as a sort of "accident" or an "inescapable disease" or something that DID NOT FORM A NORMAL PART of their development and had been forced on them), "Oh, that, we don't care about it!" And then, at that moment, a sort of LOWER power to act on that mind was born; it gave the cells a MATERIAL power to separate themselves from that and reject it.

From that point of view, it was interesting. And it was after that that there was the turning point I told you about: a turning point in things as a whole, as if something truly decisive had taken place. There was a sort of trusting joy: "Ah! We're free from that nightmare."

Usually, I don't say anything until it's firmly established, because... But anyway, that's how it was.

And at the same time, a relief—a physical relief—as if the air were easier to breathe.... Yes, it was a bit like being shut inside a shell—a suffocating shell—and... at any rate, an opening has been made in it. You can breathe. I don't know if it's more than that, but at any rate, something has been as if torn open, and you can breathe.

It was a totally, totally material and cellular action.

But as soon as you descend into that realm, the realm of the cells and even of the cells' constitution, how much less heavy it seems! That sort of heaviness of Matter disappears: it becomes fluid and vibrant again. Which would tend to show that the heaviness, the thickness, the inertia, the immobility, is something that has been ADDED ON, it's not an essential quality of Matter—it's false Matter, Matter as we think or feel it, but not Matter itself as it is.

That was very perceptible.

(silence)

The best one can do is not to have any prejudices or preconceived ideas or principles—oh, moral principles, fixed codes of conduct,

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"what must be done" and "what must not be done," and preconceived ideas with regard to morals, with regard to progress, and then all the social and mental conventions—there's no obstacle worse than that. I know people who wasted dozens of years trying to overcome one of those mental constructions!

If one can be like this, open—truly open in a simplicity... you know, the simplicity of ignorance that knows it's ignorant... like this (gesture, hands open), ready to receive all that comes... then, perhaps, something will happen.

Naturally, the thirst for progress, the thirst to know, the thirst to transform yourself, and above all the thirst for Love and Truth—if you can keep that, then you go faster. Really a thirst, a need, you know, a need.... All the rest doesn't matter, what you need is THAT.

(silence)

To cling to what you think you know, to cling to what you feel, to cling to what you like, to cling to your habits, to cling to your so-called needs, to cling to the world as it is, that's what binds you hand and foot. You must undo all that, one thing after the other. Undo all the bonds.

This has been said thousands of times, but people go on doing the same thing.... Even those who are, you know, very eloquent, who preach this to others, they CLING—they cling to their own way of seeing, their own way of feeling, their own habit of progress, which to them is the only possible one.

No more bonds—free, free, free, free! Always ready to change everything, except ONE thing: to aspire. That thirst.

I quite understand: some people don't like the idea of a "Divine" because it immediately gets mixed up with all the European or Western conceptions (which are dreadful), and so it makes their lives a little bit more complicated—but we don't need that! The "something" we need, the Perfection we need, the Light we need, the Love we need, the Truth we need, the supreme Perfection we need—and that's all. The formulas... the fewer the formulas, the better. A need, a need, a need... that THE Thing alone can satisfy, nothing else, no half measure. That alone. And then, move on! Move on! Your path will be your path, it doesn't matter; any path, any path whatever, even the follies of today's American youth can be a path, it doesn't matter.

As Sri Aurobindo said, if you can't have God's love (I am translating),

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well then, find a way to fight with God and have a wrestler's relationship with Him.¹

(meditation)

October 10, 1964

(For the past few months, Mother has often remarked that she could no longer see and was writing her replies without seeing. Once, she even said, "I am blind.")

That's another odd thing. All of a sudden, for no apparent external reason, even for no apparent psychological reason, I'll see clearly, precisely—it lasts a few seconds, and then... it's over. And it happens to me in entirely different circumstances. For instance, I'll pick up a piece of paper: I'll see as clearly as I did before; I'll notice that I am seeing clearly—and it's finished!

It has happened a little more often lately.

At times, on the contrary, I try; for instance, nobody is here to read me a paper, and I would like to read it—impossible; and the more I try, the more it fades into the mist. At other times, I WANT to see something (with a certain will), and I see it very clearly. It's an apparent incoherence.... It must depend on another law, which for the moment I don't know, and which rules the Physical. But for example, for some time now (a rather long time), at night I have been reading in my "sleep," and I see very clearly: when I wake up, I am reading something that I am holding in my hand and I see very clearly. Therefore, it's not the physical state that influences the night's condition, it's something else.

For a very long time, I used to see—see images, scenes and so on—I used to see, but I didn't hear. Then, all of a sudden, I began to hear; and I would hear the slightest noise, I would hear in a perfectly coherent and natural way. It was as though the sense

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had suddenly developed. Well, there is a certain state of vision as a result of which I read—I read written things; now that I no longer read physically, I read at night. Which means that all this inner development of the physical and subtle physical is still a whole unknown world to be learned.

I don't know its laws, I am only a spectator. And it obeys a will of an absolutely different order from the will at work in the physical world.

(silence)

But you understand, if you walk a path like this one, it may last a hundred years! And more.

There you have to learn everything, you know nothing.

I don't know, but the feeling keeps coming to me very strongly that it doesn't depend on a whole detailed work on this point, that point, that point...

No, no.

...and that in fact, one day, suddenly something will take place.

Yes, that's right. Hints of this sort come and tell you, "Things will be that way, and that will be that," and then it goes away. And when things are that way, they'll just be that way. Yes, you're right. You are right, that's correct.

How many times, you know, it comes, it swells up like a tide, like a rising wave, that aspiration of all, all the material being, of all the cells, towards the Supreme: "All depends on You—all depends on You." A sense of total helplessness and total incapacity, which in a second can be transformed through an Intervention into a total Wisdom.

And it's the cells that feel this—the thought has said... it says all sorts of things, the earth is full of (when you see it in its totality, it's really interesting!), the earth is full of all the human imaginings (which have been turned into "statements of facts"), even the most fantastic, the most contradictory, the most unexpected—it's full of all that, it lives on that, it swarms with that—and the result is that the material world is convinced that all by itself, it can do nothing! Nothing. Nothing, nothing but that: that inextricable and apparently senseless jumble, which is nothing, which is an unbridled imagination in comparison with what can be.

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And then, this faith (it's a faith in Matter) that in a flash (a "flash"... we don't know, of course, it isn't a question of "time" as we understand it materially), a trigger—and everything can be changed. Changed into the harmonious Rhythm of a Will expressing itself; and a Will which is a Vision: a Vision expressing itself, that's really it; the harmonious Rhythm of a Vision expressing itself.

And all that we can think about it, imagine about it, deduce from it, all of that is nothing, nothing—it's nothing, it doesn't lead you THERE. What leads you THERE is the certitude, the inner faith that when the supreme... (supreme what? We can say Truth, Love, Wisdom, Knowledge, all of that is nothing, it's words—the "Something"), when That expresses itself, all will be well.

And all that incoherence—false incoherence—will disappear.

(silence)

What's odd, too, is that this conviction, this certitude is necessarily expressed in altogether different actions according to the person: it's the SAME THING taking on different colorations in the aspiration of different consciousnesses.

For instance, I saw recently a sort of exhibition or procession of all the possible theories of humanity explaining the creation (the world, life, existence). All those conceptions came before me one after another, from the seemingly most primitive and most ignorant to the most scientific—and they were all (smiling) on the same plane of incomprehension... but ALL had the same RIGHT to express the true aspiration that was behind. And it was miraculous! Even the faith of the savage, even the most primitive religions and most ignorant convictions had behind them the same right to express that aspiration. It was wonderful. And then the sense of the "superiority of intelligence" fell away completely, instantly.

It is the same thing for those oppositions, those contradictions that are called "violent and vulgar" between the intellectual (and especially scientific) progress of the human species and, by contrast, the apparently foolish stupidity of those who react against conventions¹; well, that feeling of inferiority or superiority that you find among so-called reasonable beings, all of that disappeared instantly in a perception of THE WHOLE, in which EVERYTHING—everything—was the result of the same Pressure (downward gesture)

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towards progress. It's like a pressure exerted on Matter (same gesture) to draw the response out of it. And whatever form that response may take, it's part of the general Action.

I told you last time what had happened: that sense of liberation; yes, a liberation from suffocation, and a kind of opening and well-being—that has become established. And the understanding (like the understanding of a detached witness) that everything, all those difficulties that come and pile up are absolutely indispensable so that nothing is forgotten in the march forward—so that EVERYTHING goes together; and that it's only the vision of the details that blots out the vision of the whole.

Voilà.

It will be like the chick popping out of the egg all at once: as long as it's inside, to the superficial vision there's no chick; and all at once, pop! out it comes.

Let's hope so!

As Satprem prepares to leave, Mother inquires about his health:

...Now, the last stage is that the body should forget it has been ill; that's very important.

Very difficult.

It's very important.

I am constantly struggling against pernicious suggestions. This physical mind gives me a lot of trouble—a lot of trouble. It has terrible apprehensions and fears.

Oh, absolutely.

You understand, it has received so many blows...

Exactly!

...that it lives in an anxiety which ruins everything.

Yes, yes.

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What can you do?!

Persist.

I saw it in my own case. It was interesting enough, because from my earliest childhood, I was in contact with the higher consciousness (gesture above the head) and in a real stupefaction at the state of the earth and people—when I was very little. I was in a stunned amazement all the time. And the blows I received!... Constantly. Each thing came to me as a stab or a punch or a hammer blow, and I would say to myself, "What? How is this possible?" You know, all the baseness, all the lies, all the hypocrisy, all that is crooked, all that distorts and undoes the flow of the Force. And I would see it in my parents, in circumstances, in friends, in everything—a stupefaction. It wasn't translated intellectually: it was translated by that stupefaction. And when I was very little, the Force was already there (gesture above the head); I have a clear memory from the age of five: I only had to sit down for a moment to feel it, that Force which would come. And I went through the whole of life, up to the age of twenty or twenty-one (when I began to encounter Knowledge and someone who explained to me what it all was) like that, in that stupefaction: "What—is this life? What—is this what people are? What...?" And I was as though beaten black and blue, mon petit!

Then, from the age of twenty or twenty-five, that habit of pessimism began. It took all that time, all those blows, for it to come.

But with regard to health, whenever I had an illness (for me it was never an "illness," it was still part of the blows), I had a trust, a complete assurance that it had no reality. And very young (very young, maybe around the age of thirteen or fourteen), every time a blow came, I would tell my body, "But what's the use of being ill since you'll just have to get well!" And that stayed until I was over thirty: what's the use of being ill since you have to get well? And it faded away only little by little, with that growing pessimism.

Now I have to undo all that work.

But with you, it's the same thing, because you were already conscious when you were small (without being conscious of it), and when all those terrible things² happened to you, there was something that remained conscious, but those things "cultivated" the pessimism—that pessimism of the physical mind. And now you have to undo all that work. And what a work it is, phew!...

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You understand, it was IMPOSSIBLE, impossible for me to believe in ("believe"—even understand) all those movements of betrayal, of jealousy, all the movements of negation of the Divine in human beings and things—it was impossible, I didn't understand! But it came from every side, striking and striking and striking.... So all that had to be undone.

And with you, it was the same thing—I know it very well. I know it very well. And for you it took brutal forms.

But we only have to hold out, that's all.

We must erase the imprint little by little. And in fact, the only way to erase the imprint is to make contact with the Truth. There is no other way—all reasoning, all intelligence, all understanding, all that is totally useless with this physical mind. The only thing is to make contact. That's just what the cells value: the possibility of making contact.

Making contact.

On the material level, japa is very good for that. When your head is tired and you are a little weary of forever contradicting that pessimism, you just have to repeat your japa, and automatically you make contact. To make contact. That's something the cells value a lot. A lot. It's a very good way, because it's a way that isn't mental, it's a mechanical way, it's a question of vibration.

There, mon petit, we must endure.

October 14, 1964

You seem to have quite a cold!

Yes! (Mother laughs) It's odd, I have been with people who had all sorts of things, including fever, and I didn't catch anything;, and the other day, Z came....

They have again made a mess at the School, they are seized with such terrible whims of independence! Do you know the story?... They put together a big display board on "sleep" for the children's education (that's their affair), but then they put at the bottom, without asking for my permission, a quotation of mine, which I

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am supposed to have written in 1952 and in which I am supposed to have said that children should be in bed by 9. Now, they show films till 9:30 or 10. So I received a shower of letters, from kids asking me, "What should we do?..." As for me, I don't understand a thing, and I ask what that "quotation" is. Then I learn that not only did they stick it at the bottom of their display board, but they also circulated a note of mine in which I say, "Children should go to bed at 9." I said, "What!" I never had that circulated! Maybe I said it years ago, but I said it "just like that," like a remark that "it would be better".... It caused quite a to-do, I've been assailed with protests. So when Z came, I asked him to explain this affair. He told me what they had done; it seems that the teachers, seeing that poster with my quotation (probably the teachers who don't like films or who are "against" this one or that one and found this was a good opportunity to kick up a row), said and VOTED among themselves that it should be made into a circular! They simply forgot to ask my permission.

I told Z, "Well, really, that's going a bit too far!" And he was probably upset, because suddenly something came through him: it was like black little darts (they didn't come from him directly—maybe they came from the teachers!), little black darts that rushed at my throat. I felt it: it went ztt! I said, "Oh, what's that?" And I struggled; but I struggled against a sore throat, and indeed it didn't happen—it turned into a cold!

In this School, they have a terrible tendency to turn everything into a system.

Yes, systems, rules....

They make a system, a formula out of everything, they have all their "ideas"...

Yes, yes.

...And they fuss around. The subtle impression I get of it all isn't good.

(Here Mother hands Satprem a letter of explanation from the author of the poster. The letter gives the references of Mother's quotation: a personal letter from Mother to a disciple... written ten years earlier.)

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That's it! A totally private letter! What right do they have to display it?

But they do that constantly, with everything—they cut Sri Aurobindo into bits, they cut Mother into bits, and there you are: it's the Law, the Rule, the Principle.

Exactly, exactly!

They have no common sense. Common sense completely escapes them.

Yes. And now, he [the author of the poster] is in the right and I am in the wrong!

(silence)

When I was there at the Playground,¹ after ten minutes (that was probably because of my presence), all the little children were deeply asleep, and as it isn't cold and they were lying on mats, they would sleep there quietly till the end of the show.

True, at that time films were shown only once a week. Nowadays, you know how it is, it's the competitiveness: everyone wants to bring films. So one turned to the French embassy, another turned to the British embassy, another to the American embassy, another to the Russian, German, Italian embassies.... From all the embassies, they're pouring in. And how do you make a choice? How do you decide without hurting one or the other? Before, it was agreed that films would be shown only on Saturday, so that on Sunday morning they could get up an hour later if they felt sleepy. Now, in effect, it takes place two or three times a week. But that's the fault of these people! Everyone took pride in bringing films from his embassy. How can you refuse some and accept others?

But to me, those film shows aren't the biggest obstacle, I don't think so. What's much worse is all those comics they read—they spend their time reading those things.

And the worst of all—the worst of all—is when the family arrives! Oh!... Those parents are horrid beings, they tell them just the opposite of what we tell them, and then they argue and quarrel in front of them, they tell them all the family's little stories.

I think it's useless to put a child to bed if he isn't going to sleep—

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he needs to be peaceful before going to sleep. If they were given a somewhat peaceful atmosphere, they would be able to sleep....

This brought back to my mind all kinds of things from my childhood, from my infancy. My grandmother lived next door to us, and at night (in the evening after dinner), we used to visit her before going to bed. I can't say it was great fun, but she had very good armchairs (!), and so while my mother chatted with her, I had one of those splendid sleeps there, lying in that armchair—a blissful kind of sleep. But if someone had watched this from outside, without knowing anything, he would have said, "Just look! They force this child to stay awake till 10 instead of letting her sleep." But I'd be resting wonderfully!

So it depends on the child. And if he really feels sleepy, what prevents him from sleeping? What's required is to give them a peaceful atmosphere, as much peace as possible.

But they are constantly trying to make general laws, when it's always an individual question.

Absolutely.

And a question of experience—of speaking from one's experience. But they want a Law, a constant Law in all the details.

It's easier! Yes, laws, laws, laws. They haven't understood yet.

I would have nothing to say against that poster if there had been several quotations, with mine among the others; but what I rose up against is that they used it as a circular which they sent to all the Departments! And it was a private letter.

If at least this quotation had been among several others... but one should ALWAYS put in the complementary quotations—and they never do.

I remember, once, they held an exhibition on Germany at the Library. They put up a long quotation from Sri Aurobindo in which he said, Here is what the Germans THINK OF THEMSELVES... and there followed a whole quotation—oh, what a quotation! Anyway, they are the race of the future, of geniuses, they will save the world and so on. But they put up the whole thing... without the first sentence! So I arrive there (at the time, I could see clearly), and what do I see! I remembered what Sri Aurobindo had written, Here is what the Germans THINK OF THEMSELVES, SO I told

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them, "But you forgot the most important thing, you must add this." You should have seen their faces, mon petit!...

It's this dishonesty that's frightening—they cut out and remove all that bothers them and leave only what suits them.

I've said it many a time: when you put in a quotation from Sri Aurobindo, you should always put in the opposite quotation to show that he said everything and foresaw everything, and that he puts everything in its proper place.

But they don't like it!

There's also the story of that poor T. He gathered up from Sri Aurobindo's books all the passages in which he says that mind is indispensable to man (Mother laughs), that mind is the means of progress, that without mind life would be incomplete, etc.—there are many such passages, of course!... And he forgot all the others. So as I am full of mischief, I gathered up (laughing) all the other passages and bombarded him with them!

He took it as a personal offense!

And all those who come and tell me, "But you said this two years ago, and that three years ago, and this..." I tell them, "Yes, and now I am saying the opposite!... And I may very well say the same thing again in a few years!"

It's difficult to drive it into their heads.

Yes, their heads are like this (padlocking gesture).

That's the real evil at the School, and there is one: a tendency to turn everything into a system.

Yes. Dogmatism.

But that's what changed teachings into religions, everywhere—everywhere.

If you left, it would be terrible....

They had a meeting with people from England or Europe, in which they said, "Oh, the world needs a new religion, now is the time to give it a new religion...." And they wanted to take Sri Aurobindo's name and make a new religion out of it! So I answered them, "The time of religions is over." They didn't understand, mon petit, they were appalled! I wrote it to them without explanation, the way you fling something to shake things up: "The time

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of religions is over, this is the age of universal spirituality" ("universal" in the sense of containing EVERYTHING and adapting to everything). So they answered me, "We don't understand, but anyway... (laughing) since you tell us, we accept it." So I added an explanation in the Bulletin (the explanation isn't as strong, but I had to try and make myself understood), I said that religions are based on spiritual experiences brought down to a level where mankind can grasp them, and that the new phase must be that of spiritual experience in its purity, not brought down to a lower level.²

But this too is hard to understand.

Anyway... it gives me colds!

Yes, that's true, that's what gives colds, it's dogmatism, which rigidifies, hardens, takes away life.

They are convinced that they are right and I am wrong, and it's out of a sort of "benevolent respect" for me (Mother laughs) and of politeness that they don't tell me, "Really, you're exaggerating, we were right."

Ah, let's work!...

I have received a letter from my brother.... Among other things, he says this: "I am in effect too 'dead' to write.... My days are harassed... they're a whirlwind of responses to be given instantly to those who cast on me their suffering, their glance or their question. I have to keep hold of the thread of my great peace through all this so as not to be torn apart."

...These last few nights, an experience has been developing. There is a sort of objectification, like scenes unfolding in which I am one of the characters; but it isn't "me," it is some character or other that I play in order to have the double consciousness, the ordinary consciousness and the true consciousness at the same time. There was a whole series of experiences to show simultaneously the True Thing and the sort of half-death (it's his word that

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makes me think of this—"I am too dead..."), the half-death of the mind. In those experiences, the state of ordinary mentality is something dry (not exactly hard because it's crumbly), lifeless, without vibration—dry, cold; and as a color, it's always grayish. And then, there is a maximum tension, an effort to understand and remember and know—know what you should do; when you go somewhere, know how you should go there; know what people are going to do, know... Everything, you see, is a perpetual question of the mind (it's subconscious in the mind—some are conscious of it, but even in those who are apparently quiet, it's there constantly—that tension to know). And it's a sort of superficial thing, shallow, cold and dry, WITHOUT VIBRATION. At the same time, as if in gusts, the true consciousness comes, as a contrast. And it happens in almost cinematographic circumstances (there is always a story, to make it more living). For instance, last night (it's one story among many, many others), the "I" that was conscious then (which isn't me, you understand), the "I" that was playing had to go somewhere: it was with other people in a certain place and had to go through the town to another place. And she knew nothing, neither the way nor the name of the place she was going to, nor the person she had to see—she knew nothing. She knew nothing, but she knew she had to go. So then, that tension: how, how can you know? How can you know? And questioning people, asking questions, trying to explain, "You know, it's like this and like that...," innumerable details (it lasts for hours). And now and then, a flood of light—a warm, golden, living, comfortable light—and the feeling that everything is prearranged, that all that will have to be known will be known, that the way has been prepared beforehand—that all you have to do is let yourself live! It comes like that, in gusts. But then, there is an intensity of contrast between that constant effort of the mind, which is an enormous effort of tension and concentrated will, and then... and then that glory. That comfortable glory, you know, in which you let yourself go in trusting happiness: "But everything is ready, everything is luminous, everything is known!... All you have to do is let yourself live." All you have to do is let yourself live.

It's as if a play were performed to make it more living, more real—one subject, another subject, this, that.... If you enter a certain state, then another time enter the other state, you can remember the difference and it's useful, but in this form of a play, with the double consciousness, the opposition becomes so real, so concrete that... you come out of it wondering, "How can you go on living

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in this aberration when you have once TOUCHED—touched, experienced the True Thing?"

It's as if the body were being dealt with like a child who has to be educated. Because that mind I am talking about is the physical mind, the material mind (not the speculative mind: the vibration isn't the same at all), it's the mind OF THE EARTH, the mind of everyday life, the mind you carry along in your every movement and which tires the body so much!... Such a tension, an anguish—living is an anguish. Yes, the feeling of a living death.

This morning, when I came out of it, I said to myself, "That's odd...." But the body is learning its lesson; that way, it's learning its lesson. And yet it goes on with that nasty habit of wanting rules, of wanting to know in advance what it should do, of wanting to know in advance how it should do it, of organizing its life within a straitjacket, instead of letting itself live.

Exactly the same story with the School.

It is building an iron cage for yourself and getting into it.

It was exactly that.

Trying to explain to someone, "You know, it's a place like this or like that, and the person there is like this—you know, that person who did such and such a thing...."

You try out a number of landmarks... in order to build yourself a cage. And then, suddenly, a breath—a luminous, golden, warm, relaxed, comfortable breath: "Oh, but it's obvious, that's how it is! But I will be CARRIED quite naturally to the place—what's all this complication!?"

It is the body learning its lesson. It's learning its lesson.

It's also learning the lesson of "illness"—of the illusion of illness Oh, that's very, very amusing. Very amusing. The difference between the thing itself, as it is, the particular kind of disorder, whatever it is, and the old habit of feeling and receiving the thing, the ordinary habit, what people call an illness: "I am ill." That's very amusing. And ALWAYS, if you stay truly still (it's difficult to be really and truly still—in the vital and mind, it's very easy, but in the body's cells, to be perfectly still WITHOUT BEING TAMASIC is a little difficult, it has to be learned), but when you are able to be truly still, there is ALWAYS a little light—a warm little light, very bright and wonderfully still, behind; as if it were saying, "You only have to will." Then the body's cells panic: "Will, how? How can I? The illness is on me, I am overcome. How can I will? It's AN ILLNESS"—the whole drama (and that wasn't in sleep: I was completely awake, it was this morning), it's "an illness." Then something with a general wisdom

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says, "Calm down, calm down, (laughing) don't remain attached to your illness! Calm down. As if you wished to be ill! Calm down." So they consent—"consent," you know, like a child who has been scolded, "All right, very well, I'll try." They try—immediately, that light comes again: "You only have to will." And once or twice, for one thing or another (because the Disorder is something general: you may suffer at any spot, have a disorder at any spot if you accept a certain vibration), on THIS POINT, you consent—the next minute, it's over. Not the next minute: a few seconds and it's over. Then the cells remember: "But how come? I had a pain here..."—pop! It all comes back. And the whole drama unfolds like that, constantly.

So if they really learned the lesson...

Things come from outside, you can't always stop them from coming; it's like what I told you, those little black darts (you don't keep guard, you don't spend all your time protecting yourself!). But if, at that moment, you had the true attitude... It was curious enough, because it came to the throat, and it rather bothered me, I don't like it when it comes there; so I concentrated so it wouldn't be there, and it didn't come there... (laughing) it turned into a cold!

Oh, they are learning their lesson all the time, all the time. Everything, all that happens is ALWAYS a lesson—always. Always, always: all the quarrels, all the difficulties, all the troubles, all the so-called illnesses, everything, all the disorders are to make you learn a lesson—as soon as you've learned the lesson, it's over! But then, you are so slow and heavy, you take so much time to realize that it's a lesson that it drags on and on and on.

And for everything, like that question of money this morning, it was a lesson to be learned. But it isn't an individual lesson, you understand; the trouble is that it doesn't depend on one individual: it depends on groups, or on a certain type of individual, or on a way of being of human life, or... It's the WHOLE that has to learn the lesson.

Maybe... maybe if there is a symbolic being (it's what I am beginning to ask myself), if there is a symbolic being who has the power (it takes a great deal of endurance!), the power to CONTAIN the representation of all those disorders and to work on that symbolic representation, it must help the whole. Because if an entire human way of being has to change for the Victory to be won, it's going to take millions of years! That may be why there are symbolic beings.

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That's what I am now asking myself.

In the realm of ideas, there aren't any problems, everything was resolved long ago—the problem is in the fact, in the material fact of the body.... It is beginning to learn its lesson. It's beginning to learn. And then, instead of the selfish answer that consists in saying, "Ah, no! I don't want that, I don't want any of it! (Laughing) I am above that weakness and disorder," let it come, accept it and see what the solution is. In other words, instead of the old problem—rejection of life, rejection of the difficulty, rejection of the disorder and the flight into Nirvana—it's the acceptance of everything—and Victory.

This is really (as far as I know) the new thing Sri Aurobindo has brought. Not only the idea that it's possible, but that it's the true solution, and the idea that we can start now. I am not saying we'll reach the end now, I don't know, but the idea is that we can begin right now, the time has come when we can begin, and it's the only true solution, the other solution is no solution—well, it was a necessary experiment in the universal march, but flight is no solution: the solution is Victory. And the time has come when we can try.

All ordinary common sense (which is still triumphant in this world) tells me, "What illusions you nurse, my child! You arrange things to your satisfaction, you're sugarcoating the pill for yourself," and so on, it comes like that, regularly, in waves. Well... it's also part of the problem. But a time will come when certain truths will be acknowledged as true and no longer disputed; then the Work will be easier. But in order to get there, there has to be at least a beginning of experience, a beginning of realization that enables you to say, "But here is the proof."

This seems to me to be the process under way.

It is a rather obscure labor that's going on at the moment.... I remember the day when Sri Aurobindo told me (we were still in the other house), he told me, "Yes, you are doing an overmental work, a creation of the Overmind, you will work heaps of miracles and the whole world will admire you!... But that is not the Truth we want." I told you the story. Well, this memory very often comes to my aid. I said, "That's right, we don't care for the fanfare of popular victory!"

It's without glory. But it doesn't need any glory at all! I said to him, "I don't need glory and I don't care a whit for public admiration! (Laughing) That has no place in my consciousness."

But I understand.... Oh, how there are deeper ways to understand things!

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The body is learning its lesson.

(Satprem prepares to leave)

With this cold, I can't see anymore at all, not even to write.

But just imagine, I have some important "birthday cards" to write, and I was warned one month in advance! I was warned, I was told repeatedly, "Write these things down." So common sense says, "But there's time!"—"Write these things down." So I wrote them down. And now, if I had to write them, it would be quite a bother!

All the time, all the time, I receive indications, which seem so trite!... And for everything, the smallest thing: "Don't put this object like this: put it like that" (Mother moves an object on her table), and suddenly something happens and it breaks or falls.... It's really very interesting.

(Mother consults her timetable) Streams, dozens of people write to me, "I WANT to see you, I WANT to see you...." That's how it is: "I WANT to see you on my birthday, I WANT..." Now I answer very bluntly, "Impossible, no time," without any explanation. But some days, I am free, so the list gets longer, there are fifteen, twenty, twenty-five people. If you think about it, it appears impossible; you go there, you put yourself in a certain state, you call the Lord and live in His Eternity—and then it's over before you even know it!

Life is on the verge of becoming wonderful—but we don't know how to live it. We still have to learn. When we truly learn, it will be something.

October 17, 1964

You?

Me, I am going through all the phases, but fortunately very quickly, in a few hours—two, three hours—with new phases.... Anyway, rather unpleasant things.

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(Regarding the cards Mother sends the disciples on their birthdays. Those cards generally contain an indication of the effort or realization to be achieved during the new year.)

...What a work it is, you know!

You understand, with people from outside (about 200 people to whom I also send cards, maybe a little more), and all the Ashram people (except for very rare exceptions), it makes about 1,500 cards a year. There are only 365 days; so you can figure out how many cards have to be written every day.... D. comes every morning with my breakfast and a list of all the birthdays, and before seeing people or starting my work, I have to satisfy all those birthdays!

It keeps you busy!

But now, I have a new tactic: I have been given some of those alcohol [felt tip] pens that are like paintbrushes; I write with them—it takes up a lot of space! So I don't need to say much. And my hand has remained as it was when I used to paint, very self-assured, but my eyes are no longer guiding, so the pen is the guide!

Soon afterwards:

The nights are becoming more and more incredible.

Every night, I meet scores of people whom physically I don't know at all, but with whom I have a relationship of... a sort of intimacy of work, as with someone you meet daily. And it goes on, and every night it's different people. So it makes hundreds and hundreds of people with whom I work.

It's very concrete: concrete like physical life (it's in the subtle physical). Concrete in the sense that when you eat, you have the taste of it; when you touch, you have the feel of it; you have the smell. And what stories! Stories... fantastic inventions! I don't note all that down because it would take hours and anyway I don't find it worthwhile, but what stories it would make!

Fantastic.

Last night... I don't remember at all now, only the impression; and the impression is so strong that after getting up it takes me at least half an hour to emerge from the atmosphere I was in!

All sorts of people. I don't know their names, I don't know their countries, I don't know their languages, yet we communicate very well.

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And in the world, things are chaotic, it seems.

Yes, what is this "resignation" of Khrushchev going to do?¹

It looks serious. It would seem to be a revolt, because his son, too, has been kicked out.²

Does it mean a setback?

Oh, a VIOLENT setback.

It's serious.

Things were on the mend between America and Russia (at China's expense! It was very funny).

This is going to demolish everything.

(silence)

You get an impression (it's precisely the impression I bring back from those activities of the night), the impression of a building cracking—all over. Exactly like just before the collapse: it cracks all over.

Besides, if you are completely outside your usual consciousness, your usual reactions, your immediate circle and your daily activity, if you get completely out of all that, and take a look and wonder, "What's going to happen?"—a black hole, you can't see anything.

And when I say, "What's going to happen?" I don't mean what's going to happen on earth, but through what combination of circumstances or sequence of events is the new creation going to take place?

There is an entire part of the earth's past history that, ultimately, is totally unknown to us. They have indeed made so-called discoveries, but... all those stories, I don't know how much of them is true.

Have they really discovered? I don't know. Do you?

We probably know a little bit of history starting from a particular cataclysm. But how many cataclysms have there been?...

Yes, how many cataclysms have there been?

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(silence)

Now, for great upheavals men want to do without Nature's help. It seems that five nations have atomic bombs, and the bombs of just one of those nations are enough to... vrrf! destroy the earth. So if all this (because it's new, after all) suddenly gets out of control... They don't know how long these things can remain in waiting: if all at once they start exploding—can you see that! (laughing) In all the countries, all the bombs going off at the same time!

Poor earth.

It's worse than a Deluge. All in all, the ways of the Earth were more gentle, Nature was more reasonable.

(silence)

Ultimately, there is only one comfort, it's that nothing will ever happen except what has to happen, so... This is the consciousness in which I live—I don't worry at all, not in the least. But I mean that in actual fact, in an objective manner, we know nothing.

Is it in the wake of cataclysms that the animal became man?... That doesn't seem to be very necessary.

No, the disruptive element is the Mind.

I am not aware of what people nowadays think they know, but, for example, when the animal reign dominated the earth, before it appeared and to make it appear, were there ever any catastrophes?... Of course, you can vaguely feel an earth that slowly grows colder and is first purely mineral, then plants appear little by little—you see that very well (I've even seen very interesting photographs), but is it the fact of growing colder that itself caused catastrophes? Earthquakes, submersions, floods?...

Yes, there was a period of great foldings.

There was a movement of the continents, and so, necessarily, the ice sheets melted and the earth was flooded. But this movement of the continents was probably a consequence of the cooling.

Now they say that they have instruments capable of measuring the fact that the continents are still moving. They even said, a few years ago, that many parts of Siberia, which used to be so cold that nothing could be done there, were beginning to be cultivated,

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and that, necessarily, the tropics aren't so warm anymore.

But these things must be coming about very gradually, so it's always possible to adapt, people can move to other places.

Yes, it happens over millions of years.

There's time to move, to change habits.

(silence)

The historical period is very short. Already, as it is, it's very uncertain, but very short.

Perhaps the conscious effort of the Vedas came after thousands and thousands of years of research, studies, civilizations that didn't leave any trace? Because they have more or less calculated the time of the coming of man on the earth—a few million years, no? How much?

One million, I think.³

Out of that million, we know 5,000 years, you see that!

Poor little ball! How vain we are! We think we know everything.

(silence)

Maybe it's into the past that I wander? It may be into the past, it may be into the future, it may be in the present. I have noticed that the costumes aren't at all like today's or like anything we know. But when I am there, in the activity, it's perfectly natural, you don't notice it: it's like something you see every day, you don't notice it. Only when I come back and objectify a little do I say to myself, "Well, how odd!" (for myself and for others). And I am not at all as I am now, not at all. Moreover, I think I have been what is called "different persons" at different times. There was even a time when I looked to see if it wasn't that I was identifying with different persons, but there is no identification, I don't feel I am "entering someone," nothing like that. But in appearance, I am not always the same person: sometimes I am very tall, sometimes I am small, sometimes I am young, sometimes I am not old but grownup. Very, very different. But there is always the same central

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consciousness, there is always... (Mother collects herself) the Witness who watches on behalf of the Lord and decides on behalf of the Lord. This is the attitude: the Witness who watches—that is to say, who sees everything, observes everything, and who decides, either for himself or for others (indifferently), always. That is the fixed point. On behalf of... of the "something" that's eternal—eternal, eternally true, eternally powerful and eternally knowing. That is there, through everything. Otherwise, there are different things all the time, different circumstances, different surroundings; there are ways of life that are very, very different. And also, if I wake up at the beginning of the night, it's one particular type of thing; if I wake up in the middle of the night, it's another type of thing; if I wake up... "wake up," let's be clear, it isn't coming out of sleep, it's returning to the present consciousness. And every time, it's different, like coming from different worlds, different times, different activities.

And it's clear that "one" doesn't expect me to remember—that doesn't matter at all. It is an ACTION. It's an action, it isn't a knowledge I am given—an action. I am working. Is it "I have worked"? Is it "I am going to work"? Is it "I am working"? I don't know. Probably all three.

And whether I remember or not doesn't matter at all.

(silence)

But there are some points one should nevertheless know... and for which there is no certainty. For instance, to what extent does the presence of a physical body [Mother's body], in the world as it is now, act on the Work that is being done? To what extent?... Is it indispensable? Is it really indispensable? And if it is, what is the effect and the extent? In other words, are there things that one can do only in a physical body, or can the same things be done anyway (except we don't have the opportunity to chat about it, so!...)?

Certainly, there are things one can do only in a body.

Chatting!

No, not chatting!... Otherwise, there would be no need for Avatars.

Yes... so it seems.

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(silence)

But if the stories as we are told them are more or less true, I mean if they have any truth, there isn't ONE Avatar who stayed—they all left. Or else they're hiding well, because... No one has ever met any of them, you see. There are people who go looking for them, but no one has ever met them. And their deaths have even been much talked about and often seem to have played a rather important role.

How do you mean no one has ever met them?

Physically.

You see, it is said that Shiva lived on earth, that Krishna lived on earth. As for Buddha and Christ, we know they lived on earth—it raised enough rumpus! People even made more fuss about Christ's death than about his life. As for Buddha, he professed himself in favor of going away for good (although he didn't actually). But the others...? They have of course told the story of Krishna's death—but they have told many stories.

It's too "old."

But it's not old, mon petit!

Old for our history.

It's not old. Obviously, there was no cinema and no newspapers! But newspapers and all paper things can't last very long. In America, they have made underground shelters for books—they take all the best, then they store it under certain conditions. But what if the earth and the continents move!... And anyway, who will be able to read? Even the Assyrian inscriptions, which aren't old, are still a riddle. They don't really know: they imagine they know. The names we were taught when we were small and the names today's children are taught are totally different, because they hadn't found the phonetic notation.

Ultimately, if we look at things with the slightest care, even OUTWARDLY, we know nothing.

(Mother goes into a deep meditation)

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October 21, 1964

On the 18th, I had an interesting experience. It was the doctor's birthday and I gave him a meditation, and after the meditation, he asked me to write for him what I had seen during the meditation. I had no intention of doing so, but an hour later, that is, at lunch time...

To be clear, I should tell the whole story from the beginning.

Before the meditation, I told him, "You will let me know when you have finished—I don't want to let you know." So I finished what I had to do, then I took a look and said to myself, "Let's see now, let's try." And I simply made a formation and put it on him, saying, "Now, it's over." Then I didn't move, I stayed very quiet. It took about half a minute, even less; he opened his eyes, and then it was over. But when I saw him again at lunchtime, I asked him, "When you indicated to me it was over, what did you feel?" He told me, "I felt (Mother laughs) the Force was going, so I thought it was over..." Well, his answer showed me the exact difference.... He should hew felt. "Mother is calling me, Mother is telling me it's over," but he felt the Force was going.

Then, as he saw I was talking to him, he took the opportunity to ask me, "I would really like to have visions." I answered him all that had to be answered, and I told him that, in the last analysis, it's only the Lord who decides when we should have visions, when we shouldn't have them, when we are making progress, when we aren't, and so on. Then, in the most hypocritical tone (laughing), like someone who says something to be polite but doesn't believe a word of it, he said, "Oh, then we are indeed fortunate, because we have the Lord among us." I pretended to believe he was sincere, and I answered him, "No, no, no! You can't say that, it's not possible—I AM NOT the Lord!" And I explained a little the consciousness I have of the Lord, I said, "You shouldn't think I am the Lord..." (in my thought, it was: "I am not the Lord as YOU imagine Him"), "because if I were the Lord (Mother smiles, amused), you would have visions and you would be cured."

This took place around 11:30. In the afternoon, usually I take my bath and stretch out a little, a good while, over there. I said to the Lord, "And after all, why (laughing) can't I do something for people like this who are really nice? Why can't I work miracles?" I asked Him this half seriously, half in jest. Then all of a sudden,

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it became very serious. All of a sudden, the Presence was very intense and it was very serious. Then l felt something that said in an absolutely positive way (it was translated into words), "You MUST NOT have powers." And the total understanding.

You must not have powers.

And it was a world of... Incidents of this kind bring about a world of parallels, of experiences and so on. So I began writing (it came, as always, through successive "sedimentations"). The first sedimentation gave this:

If you approach me in the hope
of obtaining favours, you will be
frustrated, because I have no
powers at my disposal.

It came in French too:

"Ceux qui s'approchent de moi avec
l'intention d'obtenir des faveurs
seront déçus, parce que je ne
dispose pas de pouvoirs."

But the true version is this one (I replaced s'approchent with viennent and dispose with détiens, and I put the present tense), it's from the last sedimentation:

"Ceux qui viennent a moi avec
l'intention d'obtenir des faveurs
sont déçus, parce que je ne détiens
pas de pouvoirs."¹

And what's almost fantastic is that a whole ARMY OF ADVERSE FORCES WERE REDUCED TO SILENCE—immediately. And the atmosphere was clarified, relieved.

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Then, taking a good look, I understood that it is that mixture in people's thoughts, in people's feelings, in their approach to spiritual life, which is catastrophic—they always "want" something, they always "demand" something, they always "expect" something. In fact, it's a perpetual bargaining. It's not the need to give yourself, not the need to melt into the Divine, to disappear into the Divine—no: they try to take, to obtain what they want.

And for several hours (it lasted several hours, from that moment till night) the atmosphere was clear, light, luminous—and my body, my body was in such joy! As if it were floating in the air.

Afterwards, everything came back—not "everything": something didn't come back, which was definitely settled, but one part of the attacks was clarified.

It was so concrete! I have never felt it so concretely, something seemed to have been completely swept away.

But how is your renouncing or your having no powers sufficient to sweep the adverse forces away?

No, it's the fact that I ANNOUNCED it.

That you announced it?

No powers—I knew very well I had no powers! And I couldn't have cared less because I understood perfectly well that what is being attempted now isn't miraculous events at all, but the LOGICAL and normal and inevitable CONSEQUENCE of the supramental transformation—that is the whole point. That I know and knew, and that's why I didn't even bother about powers; anyway it hadn't even remotely occurred to me that I might work a miracle for the doctor or for this or that other person who approaches me—I didn't think about it, it didn't enter my consciousness. Only, on the 18th, through that occasion it entered my consciousness, and so I asked the question to find out why I never thought about it: "Why?" And I was positively told: "You MUST NOT wield powers, because that's not the way things should be done."

I do understand, but...

But there was a whole mass of adverse forces (I saw all sorts of things, I don't want to go into details) that were trying to PREVENT me from declaring it. And I had to make an effort (Mother makes

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a gesture of driving back an obstructing mass)... not an effort to fight, but an effort to overcome something, as when you are hemmed in, an effort to break a shell so as to be able to proclaim it. And the minute I did that, the minute I took my paper and started writing—pfft! it all went, as if swept away!... That, yes, that I understand! That's the Lord's Power. No intermediate power can do that—it was a splendor, you know! As if all of a sudden the physical world had become a solar world, splendid and radiant, and so light, so harmonious! It was a marvel. For hours.

And it made me understand that one of the most considerable obstacles is that deviation of aspiration into a thirst for something. But who doesn't deviate?... You see, I always start by looking at myself and at all that I know of this being's conscious life (that's my first observation), and all the images come; well, the self-offering, the perfectly pure aspiration that doesn't expect any result—absolutely free from the slightest idea of result—the aspiration in its essential purity... that's not frequent. It's not frequent.

Now the conditions are totally different, but I see the mass of aspirations, of approaches, and I always compare with my attitude towards Sri Aurobindo at that time, when it was he who, to me, represented the Intermediary; well, I understand... I understand that the absolutely pure thing, that is, free of all mixture with the ego consciousness (it's the ego consciousness), free of all mixture with the ego consciousness, is... it's still rare.

And it's this mixture with the ego consciousness (I am speaking here not from the personal, but from the general standpoint) that, when the words were written, was swept away by something as powerful as a hurricane, without the violence of a hurricane—scattered, dissolved, swept away! All those things that were pressing, against which I constantly had to strive in order to move on—swept away! And they didn't come back completely.

That state didn't remain (that state was a state of Victory). But things haven't come back as they were, and they will never come back as they were. Something has really been clarified. And it isn't a personal, individual question: it's something general.

(Mother starts making a fair copy of the last "sedimentation":)

You understand, the word "favor" is deliberate. It's quite deliberate, it really means a favor—to be helped in making the necessary progress is all very well, but what they want is the result WITHOUT

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HAVING TO WALK THE PATH, and that's what is impossible, that's what must not be.

Basically, that's always what men ask of religions; the "God" of religion is a god who must do them favors: "I believe in You, therefore You must do this for me" (it isn't formulated so bluntly, but it is like that), It isn't the aspiration to be guided on the path in order to do exactly what should be done for the Transformation to take place. And that's what I was clearly told: "It MUST NOT be miraculous powers." The power of the Help is there, fully, of course, but the miraculous power that does things without their being the result of a progress achieved, that must not be.

(Mother goes on copying her note)

And I replaced the future tense with the present, deliberately too, because it isn't something new: it has always been that way; it isn't that I now announce they will be disappointed—they have always been disappointed. And asserting this fact is what had the power of dispelling a whole mass of formations: not only formations of beings of the vital or hostile beings, but the false mental formations of human beings.

And here, I wrote: Je ne détiens pas de pouvoirs ["I possess no powers"], which is better than Je ne dispose pas de pouvoirs ["I have no powers at my disposal"]. I had chosen the word dispose in French (chosen, I mean, not mentally), but the word dispose came along with the meaning that the power wasn't at my disposal—there is a nuance. I mean that if, by some aberration (it would really be an aberration), if by some aberration I had the desire to work a miracle, I wouldn't be able to—it would be contrary to the supreme Will. It isn't that I am deliberately making the choice, "No, I won't work miracles"—I can't, that's not the way, it MUST NOT be like that.

You'll have a lot of difficulty driving that into people's heads!

Oh, but there has been a dreadful revolt in the Ashram's atmosphere! Not in their conscious mind, but in the subconscient—a terrible revolt. In order to write down my declaration, in order to formulate it, I had to overcome a whole mass of things, it was extraordinary! There have even been individual reactions: "Then I am going away." I said, "Very well, here is the exact proof."

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It was interesting.

The doctor himself received it as a blow—he was trembling inside.

No, what should be asked, since we're always asking for something, is for the substance to become conscious enough to receive the Force and itself work its own "miracle," get cured, or this or that, anyway do the work.

Yes, it mustn't be a "favor." "Give me the Force to be what I should be," that, yes.

What triggered the whole experience (I forgot to tell you this), when I asked the Lord, "Why? Why couldn't I do something for these people who are really nice?" is that that story of the past came back, when Sri Aurobindo told me, "You are doing a work of the Overmind, you will work miracles that will fill the world with admiration..." and so on, I told you the story. It came back massively, exactly the same thing: "That is not the truth we want...." And that's also why I stopped all those pujas of the Mother in October-November, because they all used to come with the idea of getting something: miracles, miracles, miracles—never for the True Thing. And that's what they expect of God, of course, miracles or favors, illogical and unreasonable things, instead of wanting the Divine's progressive advance.

Obviously, that's more difficult.

October 24, 1964

Mother comments again on her declaration: "I possess no powers."

Oh, it has caused a general upheaval in the atmosphere! I have even received thoughts of this kind: "So then, Sri Aurobindo deceived us!" They're furious, furious.

They haven't understood.... But anyway, it's going on in the subconscient.

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No, no! They DELIBERATELY hadn't understood it before my declaration, because Sri Aurobindo never said we would work miracles! They deliberately hadn't understood. So, naturally, they're furious. But it may be better not to insist outwardly by publishing this.¹ It will come in its own time.

(As Satprem reads back to Mother the last conversation, she stops him at the following passage: "It was a splendor! As if all of a sudden the physical world had become a solar world, splendid and radiant, and so light, so harmonious! It was a marvel.")

And the experience has brought a stability that didn't exist before—a stability and a certainty, an Assurance that all will be well.

Because the body lived for months, almost years, in a sort of constant tension; it was forever waiting for the next minute, the next second, forever tensed forward in a sort of haste or uncertainty, as though the next moment would be better. There was a constant instability, which created a great obstacle for the Vibration to become established (I am talking about the body's cells, naturally). Well, on the 18th, with that experience, there was an assurance of Triumph.

And the body's state didn't revert to what it was before, far from it: there is a sort of peaceful tranquillity that no longer feels, no longer has the sense of a constant uncertainty—that's finished.

October 28, 1964

The nights are continuing to be extraordinary! Last night, it was fantastic, but... I send it back, because it keeps me too busy; one part of the consciousness is busy with it, that's troublesome—I send it all back.

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It's as if a fantastic amount of things were made known to me: people whom I don't know physically, things that I don't know physically. And with the clear vision of the true Consciousness behind it all: the workings of the Consciousness. It's interesting, but anyway... It would be wonderful for a writer, he would have books and books to write! I even hear sentences; when things are written, I see them written—it's even more precise than in a film. And all the answers. And then the two consciousnesses side by side: the superficial consciousness, the way it works in people, and the true Consciousness that moves it all as it would puppets.

It's interesting, obviously.

And for a long while after I wake up in the morning, I only have to stop for a second, stay still for a second, and it comes back, as though a part of the consciousness still remained there—it comes back. And it goes on. Then after a while, I say, "That's enough, I've got other things to do!"

And the earth's political atmosphere? Russia? Do you see something?

No, nothing in particular... I rather had a very strong indication that it was a reaction in the wrong direction.

Did you see the photo of the man [Suslov] who is behind Khrushchev's downfall? Oh!...

I would like to see his photo.

I've never seen a more terrible face.

I have a strong feeling that it is—yes—a diabolic reaction.

It seems they want to put Khrushchev on trial?...

They're held back by all the other Communist parties, which greatly admired Khrushchev and are now protesting. So I think they can't do as they would like to.

(Mother goes into meditation)

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October 30, 1964

I feel we are turning a corner.

It's very narrow. Do you know mountain roads?... All of a sudden, you come to a corner, a sharp turn, and you can't see the other side—below is a precipice, behind is the rock—and the path... it would seem to have grown narrower in order to turn the corner, it's become quite narrow. I've encountered that in the mountains—often. And now, I feel we are turning the corner; but we are beginning to turn it, in the sense that we are beginning to see the other side, and the consciousness (always the body consciousness) is on the verge of a bedazzlement, like the first glimpses of something marvelous—not positively unexpected because that is what we wanted, but truly marvelous. And at the same time, there is that old habit of meeting difficulties at every step, of receiving blows at every step, the habit of a painful labor, which takes away the spontaneousness of an unalloyed joy; it gives a sort of... not a doubt that things will be that way, but you wonder, "Has it already come? Have we reached the end?" and you don't dare think you have reached the end. That attitude, naturally, isn't favorable, it still belongs to the domain of the old reason; but it receives support from the usual recommendations: "You shouldn't give free rein to wild imaginings and hopes, you should be very level-headed, very patient, very slow to get carried away." So there is an alternation of a sort of crouching, timorously moving forward step by step in order not to slide down into the hole, and a glorious sense of wonder: "Oh, are things really that way?!"

This has been the body's feeling for three or four days.

But it keeps increasing, and that sort of "crouching" is greatly lessened by the knowledge and experience that if you are per-fect-ly calm, all goes well—always, even in the worst difficulties.... Very recently, the day before yesterday, there was (always on the physical level; it can't be called "health," but it's the body's functioning) a rather serious attack, which found expression in a rather unpleasant pain; it came with unusual brutality. Then, immediately, the body remembered and said, "Peace, peace... Lord, Your Peace, Lord, Your Peace..." and it relaxed in Peace. And in an objectively perceptible way, the pain went away.

It tried to come back and then went away, tried to come back and went away.... The process lasted the whole night.

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But it was extraordinarily obvious! The physical conditions were absolutely the same, and one minute earlier, there was an almost intolerable pain, which went away like that, in the Lord's Peace.

It's already two days since it went away, and it hasn't come back. I don't know if it will come back.

But then, the body is learning one thing, and learning it not as an effort that has to be made, but as a spontaneous condition: it's that ALL that happens is for progress. All that happens is for reaching the true state, the one that is expected of the cells so that the Realization may be accomplished—even the blows, even the pains, even apparent disorganizations, all that is on purpose. And it's only when the body takes it in the wrong way, like a fool, that it gets worse and insists; whereas if the body immediately says, "Very well, Lord, what do I have to learn?" and responds with calm, calm, the relaxation of calm, immediately the difficulty becomes tolerable, and after a moment, it gets better.

(silence)

If the work were limited to a single body, a single mass or quantity, a single aggregate of cells, it would be very easy by comparison, but the interchange, the union, the reciprocity is automatic and spontaneous, and constant. You feel that the effect going on here [in Mother's body] naturally, necessarily and spontaneously has its consequences very far and wide; only, it makes difficulties worse, and that's why it takes a lot of time. There is a correspondence, you see: something new occurs in the body, a new pain, a new disorganization, something unexpected, and after some time, I learn that this person or that person has the very same thing!

That, too, the body knows, and it doesn't protest—that goes without saying, it's the way things are. But it prolongs the work considerably.... Probably there will be a corresponding endurance. Because there is neither regret nor revolt nor fatigue; really, the body is ready to be very happy, all it wants is to be very happy—it dare not be yet, that's the only point. It's something it dare not be: "Are things... are they really as good as that!" It dare not. But it's very happy: "I have no cause for complaint, everything is fine; there are difficulties, but without difficulties there is no progress."

Yes, what it still has is the fear of joy—not positively "fear," but... a timidity in the face of joy. Sometimes waves of an intense

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Bliss come to it, waves of Ananda, in which all the cells begin to swell with a joyous golden light, and then... it's as if one dared not—one dare not. That's the difficulty.

The people around me don't help. Those immediately around me have no faith.

So that doesn't help, because the mental atmosphere isn't favorable. Mentally, you look at it and smile; but the body feels it a little bit, it feels a little the pressure of defeatist formations around. But it knows why those around are like that—from the material point of view, those around are just what is needed, just what is needed; the body needs such an atmosphere so that material difficulties aren't made worse. So it's perfectly happy, only it dare not be joyous; it immediately says, "Oh, it's still too beautiful a thing for life as it is!"

I don't know how long it will last.

(silence)

Now and then, when I am perfectly at rest and perfectly quiet (when I know, for instance, that I have half an hour of perfect quiet and no one will disturb me), at such time, the Lord becomes very close, very close, and often I feel Him saying (not with words), saying to my body, "Let yourself go, let yourself go; be joyous, be joyous, let yourself go, relax," and the immediate result is that it completely relaxes, and I go into a bliss—but I no longer have any contact with the outside! The body goes into a deep trance, I think, and it loses all contact; for instance, the clock strikes, but I don't hear it.

One should be able to keep that bliss while being quite active and hard at work. I am not referring to the inner joy, not at all, there's no question of that, it's out of the question, it's immutably established: I am referring to that Joy IN THE BODY ITSELF.

That sort of quiet satisfaction which it feels, now it feels it even when there are sharp pains, with the trusting feeling that it's all with a view to transformation and progress and the future Realization. It no longer worries—it no longer worries at all, it no longer frets at all, it no longer even has the sense of the effort to be made in order to endure: there's a smile.

But the glimpses of the True Thing, all of a sudden, are so wonderful that... Only, the gap between the present state and THAT is still wide, and it seems that for THAT to settle in once and for all, It must become natural.

Voilà.

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Now what about you? Has anything happened to you these last few days?

When?... Forty-one years ago!

That's just a way of keeping count!

Today?

What has happened to you since the last time I saw you? Nothing?

But with regard to health, are you better? Or aren't you?

I'm all right.... But I have a very strong feeling of being surrounded by threats.

Threats? All the time?

Yes, like that.

You told me this once.

It's superficial, because as soon as I stand back, nothing matters anymore—it goes to Muttialpeth [the cremation ground] and it doesn't matter. But when I am in this body, I don't have a sense of quietness at all. I don't know why.

You told me this already, and I looked a great deal.... It strikes me as a formation (which may go back a rather long time), which you must have accepted at a particular moment, I don't know why, and which has remained around you. But it doesn't seem to me to correspond to a truth. I looked at it a good deal, often, and I never saw that it was the expression of a truth. I saw that it's what we could call an "adverse formation," not necessarily hostile, but adverse in the sense that it isn't beneficial. But it isn't the expression of something true. And that might well be the point: if you could experience its unreality, that is, its false character, that would help a great deal.

But it's something that's all the way down, that doesn't depend on a reasonable consciousness. Because, otherwise, it doesn't bother me, I am above all that. It's only there, on the material level.

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Don't you know how long it has been there?

I think I lived for years in drama, tragedy, accidents, so there's an old habit: "It's going to come back again." The feeling that things can't happen without a drama, a tragedy, without something terrible.

Yes, it must be that.

For instance, I very strongly feel the need... Yes, something MUST happen—something must happen, change, open up; well, at the same time, I immediately have the feeling that there has to be a tragedy for it to open up, that nothing can happen without...

That's not true. That's precisely what this body also feels, as if it couldn't progress without suffering.

That's it.

But that's not true, it's not true!

Yes, it's the taste for drama, which is justified by the fact that one took part in the drama. But now I am beginning to see clearly: that participation is the result of a tacit consent, and that tacit consent is what gives that inner conviction, and then all that creates the atmosphere in which the drama takes place.

But you know, for hours, sometimes for hours something becomes fixed, really concentrated (in the true sense of the word) on the relationship between Eternity and the Unfolding. More and more, what comes is a vision, a certainty that it's only ONE way of seeing, adapted to our humanized consciousness, and there is a kind of unmoving perception (which has more to do with sensation than with thought), a perception that what is—what truly is—is something else altogether: neither the Unfolding as we conceive of it and perceive it, nor Eternity (coexistent Eternity, one might say) as we can understand it. And it's because of our incapacity to truly grasp the Thing that we are like this, having difficulty combining these two things properly.

I am putting it into words very poorly, but it isn't a vision, in the sense that it isn't an objective perception: it is a vibration, a way of being that you BECOME for a few seconds, and then you understand, but you can't put it into words.

It's odd; from the point of view of Truth, this is the problem

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that's being worked out. And when the concentration becomes very acute and very intense, something seems to burst inside the consciousness, and then spreads—spreads out—in the intensity of a Love. And then it is like an answer, not to a question because it isn't formulated, but to the will to be.

(long silence)

Love is the single, supreme means of manifestation.

And Manifestation automatically implies unfolding. And this conception (because ail this is the way in which the human consciousness is able to approach things), this conception of an eternal simultaneousness—an eternal, coexistent simultaneousness—is a very clumsy and human translation of the state of nonmanifestation. Because Manifestation automatically implies unfolding: without unfolding there is no Manifestation. But human thought, even speculative thought, is so clumsy and childish; it always confuses the two notions: the notion of unfolding and the notion of the unforeseen or unexpected; the notion of unfolding and the notion of the "new" creation, of something that is created and was not—all this is so... (Mother knocks her papers across the table). You see (laughing), my things are protesting!

It's in this "problem" that I have been living these past few days. And mark you, it isn't at all the speculation of a higher being or a being who belongs to other worlds: it's the substance of physical life that wants to know its own inner, deeper law.

(silence)

It's amusing: all the mental constructions men have tried to live and realize on earth come to me, like this, from every side, to be ordered, clarified, put in their own place, arranged, organized, synthesized. So all those supposedly "great" problems come to me, and immediately there is an indulgent smile, as at a child's fumblings; but not at all with a sense of superiority, nothing like that, there's only the feeling that an instrument is used that cannot solve the problem. And a kind of certainty, deep down in Matter, that the solution lies THERE—this is very strong, very strong. Oh, what fuss, what fuss, how vainly you have tried!—go deep enough within, stay quiet enough, and then THAT will be. And you cannot understand it: it only has to BE.

You cannot understand it, because you are using instruments that cannot understand. But it cannot be understood: it has to BE.

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When you are that, then you will be it, that's all, there won't be any more problem.

And all this is down there, at ground level.

But all the great Schools, the great Ideas, the great Realizations, the great... and then the religions—that's still lower down; all of it, oh, what childishness!

And that wisdom!... It's an almost cellular wisdom (it's odd). For instance, I was looking at the relationship I had with all those great beings of the Overmind and higher, the perfectly objective and very familiar relationship I had with all those beings and the inner perception of being the eternal Mother—all that is very well, but for me it's almost ancient history! The me that exists now is HERE, it's at ground level, in the body; it's the body, it's Matter; it's at ground level; and to tell the truth, it doesn't care much about the intervention of all those beings... who ultimately know nothing at all! They don't know the true problem: they live in a place where there are no problems. They don't know the true problem—the true problem is here.

It's an amused way of looking at religions and all the gods the way you would look at... they are like theater performances. They're pastimes; but that's not what can teach you to know yourself, not at all, not at all! You must go right down to the bottom.

And it is this, this descent to the very bottom, in search of... but it isn't an unknown, it isn't an unknown—a bursting (it really is like a bursting), that marvelous bursting of the Vibration of Love; that is... it is the memory. And the effort is to turn it into an active reality.

(silence)

Maybe that feeling of threat is the expression of the resistance and ill will of all that doesn't want to change—it's possible. It's possible. There is everything that doesn't want to change, all that exists only through and for the Falsehood, and doesn't want things to change. It's like those sudden pains in the body, if you look at them, you always see something black, a sort of black thread or black dot—it's something that is unwilling: "I don't want any of it! I don't want things to change, I am ATTACHED to my Falsehood." So the threat may be from everything that doesn't want to change.

Ultimately, we just have to smile. And one day, it will have to change anyway—we'll have given it enough time, we have given it enough rein, no?

Voilà, mon petit, so have a happy year!

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We shouldn't take them seriously: they may shout, they may protest, they may grumble, they may threaten, they may play all sorts of nasty tricks on us—they last only a time, and when their time is up, it'll be over, that's all. We only have to last longer than they do, that's all. And it's very easy to last if we hold on tight to that which is Eternal: it doesn't even require an effort. And it allows us to look at everything with a smile.

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November 4, 1964

(Mother points to a pile of papers on her table:) You see, it's all like that, it's a snowball. All my life it's been like that with everything I touch, everything I do: it snowballs. So when it comes to material things, you're absolutely deluged! And now my time is spent like that. Every day, ten, twenty people ask to see me—it's impossible. And yet, as far as I can, I do it.... Those birthday cards... here alone there are 1,200 or 1,300 (in a year, that makes quite a few every day), but that's nothing, there are all the people from outside, entire families! So every day I write twenty, twenty-five cards....

But one can't say anything, it's good. It's good in the sense that there is a great change in people, they are all much more interested in Yoga, much more, and in an unexpected way. But then difficulties are increasing in proportion, and expenses also are increasing in proportion—that too snowballs!

I have noticed it since I was quite small, that's how it works.... For instance, if I eat something (people are really very nice, they make me taste things, they send me all kinds of preparations—they think it interests me very much!—but they're very nice), and if by mischance I happen to say, "Oh, it's good," instead of one, I get fifty!

It doesn't matter, obviously, there is an outflow: all that I give is things I've received; all the money I have is money I've been given. That's how it is, I act as an intermediary.

We should find the way to make time a little more elastic—oh, it can be done, it can be done. Obviously, the trouble is that we are still based on the mind's mechanical organization, but if we had the suppleness to do a thing just when it needs to be done...

The difficulty is that one lives with others—I understand very well that those who wanted to follow the inner law, the Impulse from above every second, were obliged to withdraw, because then they depend only on themselves (they depend on themselves, on Nature, that is to say, on the rising and setting of the sun, and then on plants and animals—but those make no demands). But in a human life, you need set times to get up, to go to bed, to eat; especially for food: there are those who do the cooking.... It has its advantages: there were periods in my life when I lived all alone (not long ones, not for a long time, but I had some), well, during

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those periods, more often than not I would forget to eat and forget to sleep. That's a drawback.

But there is a great advantage....

(Mother goes into a deep meditation that will last forty-five minutes, then she speaks:)

Time passes like a second!

There is a solidity in the atmosphere, no? Do you feel it? Like the solidity of a presence.

Like a second.

(silence)

For the first time yesterday, I had in a flash—it lasted just a flash—for the first time in my life, I had the PHYSICAL experience of the Supreme's presence in a personal form.

It wasn't a defined form, but it was a personal form. And it came in the wake of a series of experiences in which I saw the different attitudes of different categories of people or thinkers, according to their conviction. And it came as if that form were saying to my body (it was a PHYSICAL presence), as if it were saying, really with words (it was a translation; the words are always a translation—I don't know what language the Supreme speaks (!), but it is translated, it must be translated in everyone's brain according to his own language), as if He were telling me, "Through you" (that is, through this, the body) "I am charging..." (it was like a conquest, a battle), "I am charging to conquer the physical world." That's how it was. And the sensation was really of an all-powerful Being whose proportions were like ours, but who was everywhere at once, and really of a physical "charge" to chase away all the dark little demons of Ignorance, and those little demons were like black vibrations. But He had something like a form, a color... and above all, there was a contact—a contact, a sensation. That's the first time.

I have never tried to see a personal form, and it always seemed to me an impossibility, as if it were childishness and a diminishing; but this came quite unexpectedly, spontaneously, stunningly: a flash. I was so astonished.... The astonishment made it go away.

The first time in my life.

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It was a physical presence, with a form, but a form... It was odd, it was a form... As soon as you try to describe it, it seems difficult. But I still have the memory of having seen a sort of form with a quite special—but MATERIAL—light and quality, and which... Yes, maybe it is (Mother looks silently)... maybe that is the form of the supramental being?... It was very young, but with such power! A power, almost a muscular power (but there were no "muscles"), and there was a charge: he literally charged down on people and things, and everything was immediately scattered and upset. And he laughed! He laughed, there was such joy! A joy, a laughter, and, yes, he said, "Through you..." (it was through my physical presence), "I am charging... ," I am charging down on Darkness or Falsehood, or whatever—words come afterwards and spoil everything—but the idea was... (no, it wasn't an idea, it was something that was said). It lasted just long enough for me to notice it—a flash. Then I said, "Ah!..." I had, you know, that reaction of astonishment.

The first time—completely unexpected.

And now, during the whole meditation, the presence was there, that presence was there, but so concrete! So concrete, so powerful. Maybe it is... maybe there is a will to make me see the supramental form? It's possible. It was PHYSICAL—it was physical. And there was that CONTACT, the physical contact. But the contact, I have it all the time—as soon as I stop, there is a massive contact, and weightless at the same time.

Didn't you feel anything particular?

Yes, I feel this massive thing present.

A presence.

Yes, very strong.

That's right. Oh!...

Yes, it's like what you can see in a flash. It was a form—a form derived from the human form; it wasn't something that contrasted sharply with the human form, but it had something the human form doesn't have: a suppleness and power in the movement. And it was radiant, a little radiant, as though it emanated a little light; but not something that gives you the feeling of the supernatural: not like apparitions in paintings, not that—it was material, it was...

It's the first time. I was sitting like this, as I was just now, the

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same thing, nothing particular. And it filled me with something inexpressible, a sense of fullness, of joy—of triumph, you know.

It was so brief that I didn't intend to talk about it, because words... You're always afraid of adding to the experience. But this presence was so concrete just now, during the meditation, and time passed so extraordinarily quickly, like a flash. And I had the same feeling, oh, such a fullness!...

He said (it was translated into words: I heard them, in what language I don't know, but I understood very well), I heard the words and he said to me: "Through you, I am charging...." I am charging, as if he were launching into a battle against the world's Falsehood. "Through you, I am charging...," that's perfectly clear, and it was against... I saw little aggregates of black dots being scattered.

But at that moment, I felt something like the representation of certain states of mind, certain intellectual conditions, a whole series of things that represented doubts, negations, ignorant attitudes, revolts... and all at once, this came.

And I still see the form I saw: like that, as if he were launching into battle—but only what you can see in a flash.

November 7, 1964

Mother looks very pale.

For the past three days there has been a constant phenomenon: something... I don't know what it is... as if the whole head were being emptied (Mother shows the blood going downward). Physically, that's what you feel before fainting, as if all the blood were leaving the head: the head empties, and then you faint.

The first time it came was the day before yesterday; I was resting (after lunch I rest for half an hour), and at the end of my rest, suddenly I see myself—I see myself standing near my bed, very tall, with a magnificent dress, and with someone dressed in white beside me. And I saw this just when I seemed about to faint:

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I was at once the person standing and the person on the bed who was watching, and at the same time I felt that thing flowing downward, flowing downward from the head—the head empties completely. And the person standing smiled, while the person in the bed wondered, "What! I am fainting—but I am in my bed!" There. And as it was time for me to "wake up" (that is, to return to the outer consciousness), I came back.

And I was left with this problem: who was standing there?... Very tall, with a splendid dress, and then a person (who was a human person, but much shorter), a white person beside me, all white. And just when I become conscious of this, when I see this, the head empties completely of something, and the face of the person standing (who was me) smiles. And then, the other part of me that was lying down in my bed said, "What! It's odd, I am fainting; how is it that I am fainting?—I am in my bed!"

I got up and didn't feel anything physically, it didn't correspond to anything.

I haven't had any explanation. I don't have any clue. What does it mean? I don't know.

Obviously, it's something!

But since then it has been like that, and particularly last night when it was terribly cold [monsoon + windstorm], I was completely still in my bed, with an almost constant feeling of that "something" flowing downward—of the head emptying.

It continued this morning, a very bizarre impression. Yet, physically, I feel fine, I took my food, I...

But you look very pale.

Very pale?

Yes, it struck me. You're very pale, as if you didn't have much blood.

But in the beginning when you arrived and I sat down, it came very strongly—very strongly, as if everything... vrrt! were going away.

So I'm pale, am I?

Yes, you were more so ten minutes ago.

Because I have concentrated.

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It's always the same thing, you know: I strongly feel that the explanation, or even the physical phenomenon, is the translation of something going on elsewhere. But I don't know what it is.... It is a new process.

But once, you had a similar experience with all the symptoms of fainting: when the center of your physical consciousness left you.

Yes, but that's not...

(long silence)

I feel it as something linked to the circulatory system, but...

(Mother goes into a meditation, looking for the real cause)

I don't understand.

And those things keep recurring until you have understood...

So that's troublesome.

At the end of the conversation, Mother consults her appointment book:

There's a crush of people.... I ought to have some peace.

When I have some peace, I am perfectly well. But...

There's obviously something going on, but I don't know what it is.... It seems to be going quickly now, a little more quickly.

But the mind (if we can call that "mind"), the physical stupidity cannot understand the process: what's happening, what's going on, it doesn't understand. The body only has, as soon as it is at peace, the feeling of bathing in the Lord. That's all. But in the body (not in its attributes, I mean when neither force nor energy nor power or any of that is there), in it there is, not something powerful, but a very gentle tranquillity. But not even the feeling of a certainty, nothing. It's negative, rather: the sensation of an absence of limits, something very vast, very vast, very tranquil, very tranquil—very vast, very tranquil. A sort of—yes, like a gentle trust, but not the certainty of transformation, for instance, nothing of that kind.

It's strange, it isn't a passivity; it isn't passive, but it's so tranquil, so tranquil, with a sort of—yes—gentleness.

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I don't know.

We'll see, maybe by the next time I will have found out?

November 12, 1964

Is there anything new?

It's you who had something to find. You said you would look for the cause of those sorts of faintings.

There is something interesting (not the faintings!). You know that Z has started a yoga in the body (I didn't ask her to do anything, she did it spontaneously); she wrote to me her first experiences, and there were observations quite similar to those I had made and with an accuracy that interested me—I have encouraged her. She is going on. I don't have the time to read her letters: they're piling up there. But what I found very interesting is that yesterday I was read a letter from an English writer (a lady): she has a little group there, they meditate together, and they had a sort of Indian guru (I don't know who) who was teaching them meditation. Then they came across Sri Aurobindo's writings, and they began to study and follow his indications and try to understand. As it happened (about a year ago now), during their meditation, instead of their making an effort of ascent to awaken the Kundalini and rise towards the heights, all of a sudden the Force—the Power, the Shakti—began to descend from above downward. They informed their guru, who told them, "Very bad! Very dangerous, stop it, terrible things are going to happen to you!" That was about a year ago. They weren't quite sure that the gentleman was right and they went on, with very good results. Then, yesterday, that lady wrote, giving a detailed notation of their experiences—almost the SAME WORDS as Z! Now that's beginning to be interesting. Because it represents an impersonalization of the Action, in other words it doesn't express itself subjectively according to each individual: it has a WAY of acting.

I was very happy, I wrote her a note to congratulate her.

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And I notice—from letters I receive, from remarks made to me—that the Action is becoming truly general all over the earth, and with SIMILAR effects (a slight coloration according to each individual, but that's nothing), similar effects. And it's a whole discipline, a sadhana of the body—not a mental one: of the body. So it is concrete.

(silence)

There is this phenomenon: as soon as the physical organism, with its crystallization and habits, is put in the presence of a new experience without being carefully forewarned ("Now be careful, this is a new experience!"), it is afraid. It's afraid, it panics, it worries. It depends on the person, but at the very least, in the most courageous, in the most trusting, it creates an uneasiness—it begins with a slight pain or a slight uneasiness. Some are afraid immediately; then it's all over: the experience stops, it has to be started all over again; others (like those English people I was talking about, or like Z) hold on and observe, wait, and then the "unpleasant" effects, one may say, slowly die down, stop and turn into something else, and the experience begins to take on its own value or color.

With those faintings of sorts I told you about the other day, I observed (it went on the whole day), and I saw (saw with the inner vision): it is like the travel—at times as quick as a flash, at other times slow and very measured—of a force that starts from one point to reach another one. That force travels along a precise route, which isn't always the same and seems to include certain cells on its way: the starting point and the arrival point (Mother draws a curve in the air). If you aren't on your guard, if you are taken by surprise, during the passage of the force (whether long or short) you feel the same sensation ("you," meaning the body), the same sensation as before fainting: it's the phenomenon that precedes fainting. But if you are attentive, if you stay still and look, you see that it starts from one point, reaches another point, and then it's over—what that force had to do has been done, and there is no APPARENT consequence in the rest of the body.

I mentioned (not with so many details) the fact to the doctor, not in the hope that he would know, but because (it's amusing) when I speak to him, he tries to understand, of course, and then there is the mirror of his mental knowledge, and in that mirror, sometimes I find the key! (Laughing) You understand, the scientific key of what's going on.

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As a matter of fact, it was after I spoke to him (I mentioned it to him as a sort of dizzy spell) that I was able to perceive precisely those "routes." I wondered if it wasn't the projection on a magnifying screen of phenomena taking place between different brain cells? Because those sorts of dizzy spells always follow (today there hasn't been anything at all), they always follow a moment or a day of intense aspiration for the transformation of the brain. It may be that.... You know, all those brain cells in there are hitched together, and if those "hitchings" are disturbed, generally people become deranged; and it gave me the impression of a magnifying projection enabling me to follow the connections established between certain brain cells, so that the functioning may not be the automatic, semiconscious functioning of the old state anymore and the brain may truly become the instrument of the higher Force. Because the formula of my aspiration is always, "Lord, take possession of this brain," and it's always after this intense aspiration that those kinds of phenomena occur. So it is to prepare the brain to be the direct expression of the higher Force.

This is what I have learned these last few days.

I also noted something down, an experience I had this morning. It lasted half an hour, and during that half-hour... (Mother looks for her notes among a series of little scraps of paper)... You know that with people who have a revelation, their state of consciousness changes all at once, and at that moment they have the feeling that everything is changed; then, the next moment, or after a certain time, they realize that all the work... (how should I put it?) of working out the experience remains to be done; that it was only like a flash lasting a certain length of time and that they have to work it out through a process of transformation. This is the usual idea.

And all of a sudden, I saw—that's not it at all! When they have the experience, at the time of the experience, it is the thing ITSELF, the perfection ITSELF that has been reached, and they are in a state of perfection; and it is because they COME OUT of it that they feel they have to slowly prepare themselves for the result.... I don't know if I am expressing myself clearly, but my notation was like this: perfection is there, always, coexisting with imperfection—perfection and imperfection are coexistent, always, and not only simultaneous, but in the SAME PLACE (Mother presses her two hands together), I don't know how to put it—coexistent. Which means that at any second and in any conditions, you can attain perfection: it isn't something that has to be gained little by little,

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through successive progress; perfection is THERE, and YOU change states, from the state of imperfection to the state of perfection; and it is the capacity to remain in that state of perfection that grows for some reason or other and gives you the feeling that you must "prepare" yourself or "transform" yourself.

That was very real and very concrete.

(Mother gives the text of her note:)

The perfection is there coexistent
with the imperfection and attainable
at each and any moment.

Yes, it isn't something that becomes: perfection is an absolute state that can be attained at any moment.

And then, the conclusion is very interesting (Mother looks for another scrap of paper).... You remember, I told you that for the body consciousness, the problem that remains hard to solve is that notion (to me, it has become just a notion, it isn't a truth), of the preexistence of all things: of the state in which each thing IS, even in its unfolding.... You understand, it would be as if all the POINTS of the unfolding were preexistent.

I was on the threshold of an understanding (an "understanding": I am not talking about a mental understanding, I am talking about the experience of the fact). The experience of the fact is the experience of the coexistence of the static state and the state of development—of the eternal static state and the state of eternal unfolding (indefinite, rather, not to use the same word). Then, at that point, there was this vision (Mother holds out a note):

"When the truth manifests,
the false vibration disappears...

Disappears, it is CANCELED ("cancelled" is the word).

"... as if it had never existed,
before the vibration of truth that
replaces it. This is the real basis
of the theory of Illusion."

Yes, all of a sudden I understood what they really meant when they said that the physical world as it is is illusory.

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You can say it is illusory only if it has no lasting existence, of course. And this experience—which I saw, felt, lived—is that the vibration of truth literally CANCELS the vibration of falsehood, which doesn't exist—it existed only as an illusion for the false consciousness we have.

I don't know if I am making myself understood, but it's very interesting.

It isn't the world that's illusory, it's the perception...

It's the perception of the world that's illusory—the perception of the world, the perception we have of it, is illusory. The world has a concrete, real existence in what we could call the Eternal's Consciousness. But we, the human consciousness has an illusory perception of this world.

And when the Vibration of Truth triumphs, you see and have the sense of the true reality of the world; and as I said, that illusory perception disappears immediately. it is canceled.

Which means that their way of saying or thinking or understanding that "all that is has existed from all eternity" isn't... it isn't "all that is" as they see it and conceive of it, it isn't even the principle of all that is, it is... it is the ONE Truth that's eternal, and the unfolding... It's difficult to say.... The unfolding follows a law and a process that are quite different from what we conceive or from what we perceive.

It's the same thing again: Truth is there, Falsehood is there (Mother presses her two hands together); perfection is there, imperfection is there (same gesture); they're perfectly coexistent, in the same place—the minute you perceive perfection, imperfection disappears, the Illusion disappears.

Only, I am not speaking here of a mental conception of some vague and general state: I am referring to that state of infinitesimal vibration (which they discovered when they tried to find the makeup of Matter: that's what they are trying to reduce Matter to), it is that state of vibration, it is THERE, it's in that state of vibration that, for the concrete world, imperfection must be replaced by perfection. Do you understand what I am saying? Or does it make no sense?

I don't see. You mean it's at that stage, at that level that...

Yes, it's at that level that the change must take place. At the mental or even vital level, it's a psychological question, it's

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nothing, it's not really THE THING (it's the thing expressed in a HUMAN consciousness). Because the other day... the other day, suddenly I went out of humanity. My consciousness went right out of the human consciousness. And then I said to myself, "But... all that they say, all that they know, all that they have attempted, all that so-called knowledge which has been accumulated on earth, it's nothing! It's something that belongs only to MAN—eliminate man... and everything exists! And all the explanations man has given about things are like zero." That's it: everything exists.

I had the experience of the universe outside the human perception of that experience; and then the vanity of that human experience was so obvious, you know, that at that point a door began to open onto something else.

All this is perhaps the Lord taking possession of the brain?

It's hard to explain, but as an experience it was extraordinary. You see, we live INSIDE a formation,¹ which was the human—human—formation, all human knowledge.... Because I was beginning to try to find what we know of human life and life on earth: it's almost nothing at all, a very small thing (Sri Aurobindo wrote somewhere that there were billions of years BEFORE²). So what we know is practically nil. All right. So, to get out of that. And it led me quite naturally to go out of humanity—out of the earth, of the universe; of the earth that has been the product of all that we know (at any rate we are explaining what happened, what was there). And then suddenly, yes, the futility, the vanity of that knowledge appeared very clearly, and there was a sort of flash of something else.

(Mother goes into that flash and remains in contemplation)

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November 14, 1964

...I was read a letter from a young Italian boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, who had remarkable experiences on silence, how he obtains silence and what goes on inside him—truly remarkable. I told you also that I had received a letter from England and the analogy with Z's experiences, with merely the nuance that spontaneous sincerity gives. Then, there are here a few people who hadn't budged for years: suddenly they are on the move, they're beginning to have experiences. But what's really interesting is that those who have experiences are for the most part Westerners, particularly Europeans, as though their past of negation had intensified the aspiration and prepared something in their receptivity—it struck me. Not the Americans... the Americans are still as frivolous as children (Mother laughs). But the Indians... obviously they are ahead, but they aren't where they ought to be: it's as if humanity had followed a curve and those who are (or were, rather) at the summit go down again, and then they have to climb up again—the Indians are climbing up again. The others, the Westerners, seem to have a past that was squeezed, that was as if compressed, and which has burst all of a sudden.

Soon afterwards:

I met V., he had a vision two or three days ago. He saw a peacock coming down, and on the peacock someone was sitting, erect, who wasn't Kali but like Kali (the naked Kali) and was holding in her hand the severed head of a man.

Did he see whose head it was?

No, I asked him if it was a Western head, or a Chinese one, anyway what it was. He told me it rather looked like an Asiatic head.

Asiatic, that's vague.

He told me, "I felt it was the sign of a catastrophe or a war."

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It may be the sign of a victory.

Yes, he said, "Afterwards, there was peace."

V. is a very good clairvoyant.

When you spoke to me, I saw the twisted face of a Chinese.

But it could be a previous formation.

(silence)

The Khrushchev affair has been a bad thing. But generally things in the outer world move in a zigzag; instead of going straight, they go like this (zigzag gesture): action, reaction, action, reaction.... That's what Théon always said: in the outer world, a victory for one side always means a sort of RIGHT to victory for the other side; and then he added, "Those who know must be ever vigilant and on the alert, so that when the enemies win a little victory (which may be a perfectly superficial and insignificant victory), they immediately win a big victory!" (Laughing) He said that with great humor. And I noticed that on the individual level, it's true. On the level of countries... unfortunately, the people who determine the destiny of countries (the outer destiny) are incompetent and stupid, and they miss the opportunity. But that Khrushchev affair gave a right to a victory, you understand. It gave the other side a right to a victory.

I told you I would show you the photo of the man [Suslov] who's behind Khrushchev's downfall.

(Mother looks at the photo) He is only an instrument. I mean he isn't an Asuric incarnation. But a strong will. He isn't a being who acts consciously for the Adversary: he thinks he is doing the right thing.

He's a "theoretician."

Yes.

Oh, he may have violent passions and reactions, and ambitions too, but he isn't one of those beings who know they are instruments of the great Asura—he's not that. He is less dangerous than that. Not like Hitler—who knew, of course.

Hitler asserted that Falsehood should govern the world and that it was governing it. And he was very conscious of being the instrument

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of the Asura who had himself called "the Lord of Nations," who is precisely the present, current representation of the Asura of Falsehood (the one who was born "the Lord of Truth"—a lovely story...).

That's why Sri Aurobindo clearly and openly took the side of the Allies—it wasn't out of love for the British!

(long silence)

What was Kali sitting on?

On the peacock. It wasn't Kali, but like Kali, and naked.

It is clearly a victory through the disappearance of a man or a country.

I don't know why, while you were speaking to me, I saw the twisted face of a Chinese.

There is another thing. Recently, one day, I suddenly... I am extremely sensitive to the composition of the air, from my earliest childhood: "airs," if I may say so, they each had their own taste, their own color and quality, and I would recognize them to such a point that sometimes I would say, "Oh, the air of..." (I was a child, of course), "the air of this country or the air of that place has come here." It was like that. I was extremely sensitive to the quality of pure air, that is, without the elements that come from the decomposition of life and especially from the places where people are crowded together. It was like that to an extremely sharp degree: for instance, if I was moved from one place to another, I could be suddenly cured of an illness from the change of air. When I met Théon, it became conscious, an object of study, and... it still goes on. Perhaps a few days ago (I can't say, time has no meaning), but not very long ago, I said, "There's something new in the air." And something very unpleasant, extremely pernicious; I felt that that something (I didn't say anything to anyone, naturally) had a peculiar, extremely subtle odor, not a physical one, and had the power to separate vital vibrations from physical vibrations—that is to say, an extremely noxious element.

Immediately I set to work (it lasted for hours), and the night was spent counteracting it: I tried to find which higher vibration could counteract it, until I succeeded in clarifying the atmosphere. But the memory remained very precise. And very recently (maybe a day or two ago), they told me that the Chinese had chosen an Indian territory, in the North, to test a certain kind of atomic bomb, and

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that they had exploded a certain bomb there. When they told me this, the memory of my odor abruptly came back.¹

Which means that those vibrations travel very far—the physical vibrations stop at a certain distance (although they go much farther than is believed), but the vital vibrations that are behind (the "nervous" vibrations, if one can say so) must extend TREMENDOUSLY far.

You know, when there was that volcanic eruption in Martinique (it's something much more material), the volcanic dust was picked up after some time in Marseilles—which is far away. Exactly the same dust, carried by the wind. So a bomb of that kind must have considerable effects.

But the vibrations you're speaking of aren't emanated by human beings—by a bomb, you mean?

By the bomb.

Can a bomb have a nonphysical action, a vital or subtle action?

It acts only because it has a subtle action—nothing would move, everything would be inert if it didn't have a subtle action.

It's the vital contained in Matter—it's like the phenomenon of radiation. It's a violent liberation of something contained in Matter. Like radiation. And it spreads out. They have indeed noticed it, but they don't want to know: when they exploded the bomb in Japan, the consequences went much, much farther than they expected, they were infinitely more serious and long-lasting than expected, because the sudden liberation of those forces... They only perceive a certain quantity, but there is all that is behind, which spreads out and has its action. You see, they observe, for instance, that cows are poisoned and their milk isn't drinkable for a certain time (it happened in England), but that's the most crude and outer phenomenon—there is another, deeper one, which is FAR more serious.

So when I said that ["the twisted face of a Chinese"], it seems to be beside the point, but that's because when those two things coincided,² Kali suddenly became furious—I saw Kali furious, as when

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she decides that it will be "paid for." So V.'s vision adds a few landmarks.

Oh, you know, when she goes into a fit of power... you really feel that the earth is shaking.

(silence)

Very well, we will see.

I always say, "We will see," because... in reality, I am not worried, not worried at all, I am very sure—very sure. I have such an absolute certitude that the Wisdom that acts in the world is infinitely superior to all that we can imagine. We are like ignorant and stupid children in front of "something" that acts with a CERTITUDE, and so luminous, so luminous. With a superharmony that turns into harmony the things that seem to us the most discordant.

So when I see the anxious human thoughts trying to know (Mother smiles)—"Don't worry, we will see." And when I say, "We will see," I have the joy of a certitude that what we will see will be a thousand times more beautiful than anything we can imagine.

I read a line in "Savitri" that struck me very much, because I saw a connection with what you said the other day about the coexistence of Falsehood and Truth: "And earth shall grow unexpectedly divine."³

That's right! That's right... unexpectedly divine.

And even the most skeptical will be compelled to see that something is changing, that it's not the same thing anymore.

Sri Aurobindo said (he said it to me personally and he wrote it), The time has come. Because he went away, people thought he was wrong; that was the general effect, they said to themselves, "He thought the time had come, but he went away because he saw he

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was wrong."—That's rubbish.

(Smiling) Besides, he didn't go so far away! I spend my nights with him, and with the most complete variety of work—it's a multiple, innumerable "Him"... and so wonderfully adapted to all necessities: terrestrial necessities and individual necessities.

And for him, it's only one small part of himself; because it's with him (I told you the story the other day) that I had that experience of going out of humanity, going out of the material world: it was with him, in his "company," if I may say so!

I like it when it's with him because it gives me a sort of certainty that it isn't an experience of my subjectivity—it's impersonal, entirely impersonal. Even if my subjectivity is worldwide, I don't want my experience to be subjective: I want every consciousness, whatever it may be, human or nonhuman, every consciousness awakening in that field, to have an identical experience, if it is truly objective. So when it's with him, I am quite sure.

(silence)

He continues to be happy with your book and its effects—besides, it's his book (laughing) as much as yours!

Oh, yes, I have no sensation of being an "author"!

He is happy.

November 21, 1964

Mother looks weary. She is holding her palms on her eyes:

...They stupefy me with material, mechanical things to be done, and as they're all in a hurry and disorganized, they come at the last minute and the thing has to be done "immediately." All this to explain to you that I am completely stupefied.

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If you like, we can do some translation, because then it's you who's working, not me!

But do you have anything to say?... If you do, tell me.

Oh, there are always things to be said, but...

Ah! Tell me, then.

They're personal things.

Yes, fine, tell me.

I don't quite understand my position now. I have the feeling that my existence has grown thin, thin, thinner and thinner—it has thinned down to almost nothing.

Oh, very good!

Except for mechanisms, there's nothing.

It's good, it's a very good sign, it means you are becoming free from your ego.

But if at least, in this nullity, there were experiences...

Listen, yesterday or the day before (anyway after I saw you last time), for a whole day I had exactly the sensation you've just told me. I suddenly remembered sensations or impressions or experiences I had when I was here or there, in France, in Japan, and I had that impression... yes, of a thinning down, a shrinking to the point of nonexistence.

Yes, exactly.

Absolutely nonexistence. And I wondered, "But where is that person I used to call 'me'?... Where is she, what is she doing?"—It had evaporated (Mother blows air between her fingers), absolutely evaporated. Oh, how I laughed, mon petit, how delighted I was! For half an hour I laughed within. I said to myself, "Well, it's a success!" Then I looked at that poor body and thought, "If this too could be changed into something else, it would be magnificent!"

(Looking at Satprem out of the corner of her eyes) It's very good—

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it's very good, it's a sure sign that one has emerged from one's ego.

Yes, but in that nonexistence, only things without any interest remain: the body, the mechanisms.

Because that's what remains. But what to do?... I tell you, the impression was that there only remained what directly concerns this.

Well, yes!

In other words, nothing; it's almost nil.

So the problem arose: "How can THIS change?"

Of course, I had the answer.... I have a calendar with quotations from Sri Aurobindo, and I had the answer in the evening. I don't remember the exact words, but he said, "The Spirit will change this human body too into a divine reality." That was the answer; he said, THE SPIRIT. I said to myself, "Obviously, but how can THIS be transformed?..."

That's the problem.

And the answer is always the same: it CANNOT depend on our effort. Naturally, it goes without saying that we must make ourselves as plastic and well-disposed as possible (I am speaking of the body), but the change CANNOT depend on it, it doesn't have the knowledge and it doesn't have the power; therefore, the change can only depend on the divine Will.

That's exactly it. This has been the experience of the past few days.

But you get a feeling that even aspiration... I can't say it disappears in that nonexistence, but there's nothing, there's almost nothing left.

Mon petit, that's because what you call "aspiration" is a movement of your psychic consciousness, mentally formulated and supported by the vital—but it ISN'T YOUR BODY. And it's only if you are very attentive to the vibration of the cells, if you are accustomed to observing them and feeling them that you can see. Well, I don't know, but I can't complain about my body's cells.... You know, it isn't a perception, it isn't a sensation, it is... a LIVED FAITH in the existence of the Supreme alone—you know, a faith that it's the only Reality and the only Existence. Just that, and everything seems to

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swell up, as if all these cells were swelling up with such joy!... Only, it doesn't take the form of a feeling, not even of a sensation, even less of a thought; so if you aren't very attentive, you don't notice it. But, for instance, when I repeat the mantra, it's repeated by that famous physical mind, which is so stupid (the mantra is the only thing that can keep a rein on it), and now it has become so identified that the mantra is its whole life, it is like a pulsation of its being; but then when I come to the invocation (there is a series of invocations: each one has its own effect on the body), when I come to "Manifest Your Love," I see a sort of twinkling of a golden light, which represents an intense joy in all the cells.

It isn't easy to observe, you must be very, very, very detached from the movement of thought, otherwise you don't notice it. But if you see it, you see that even those cells are there waiting for the Thing.

I don't think that much more can be expected of them, except, perhaps, to get rid little by little of wrong habits and false vibrations (which, naturally, are the cause of what we call "illnesses").

But we can say, looking at it from an external standpoint, that ours is a rather thankless task!... The glory will come afterwards, but will these bodies see it? I don't know. There is such a huge, tremendous difference between what must be and what is. These are poor things, you know, there's no getting away from it, they are poor things.

One may say, along with popular imagination, the taste for the marvelous and all the legends, one may say, "Yes, a sudden transformation," but, but, but... it's just words.

(silence)

I remember having written somewhere, some ten years ago, that I would take it as a sign if my back became straight again.¹ At the time, it wasn't much, but it disgusted me deeply, and I did it as a challenge. Naturally, now it's very far away from my consciousness and my thought, I find it childish, but I remembered it a few days ago also, and I said to myself that now I didn't care a bit about that, because to me it's nothing! All the rest... rail the rest is equally inadequate, incomplete and miserable, you know—miserable. If you think about a divine life, it's miserable.

And curiously, everything comes and presents itself as images and possibilities; so I say to myself, "But if after a time all this

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suddenly stops functioning, what will have been the use of doing all this work?" And there is always something—something that comes from a very absolute region—which makes me feel or understand or grasp the uselessness of death.

Why am I thus made to feel the uselessness of death?...

God knows, never, not one minute in my life, even when things were the darkest, the blackest, the most negative, the most painful, not once did the thought come, "I would like to die." And ever since I had the experience of psychic immortality, the immortality of consciousness, that is, in 1902 or 3, or 4 at the latest (sixty years ago now), all fear of death went away. Now the body's cells have the sense of their immortality. There was also a time when I almost had a sort of curiosity about death; it was satisfied by my two experiences in which, according to the surface illusion, my body was dead, while, within, I had a wonderfully intense life (the first time, it was in the vital, the other time, way up above²). So that even that curiosity (I can't call it "curiosity"), even that question is no longer asked by the cells. But the possibility does present itself: according to the ordinary outer logic, if this isn't transformed, it must necessarily come to an end. And always, always, I receive the same answer, which isn't an answer with words, but an answer with a knowledge (how can I put it?...), a FACTUAL knowledge: "It's no solution." To say things in quite a banal way, this is the answer: "It's no solution."

So we are after another solution, since death isn't considered to be a solution. And it's obvious that it is no solution.

Yes, it's a failure.

No, it may not be a failure if it's the Lord's Will. It's no longer ours. It's not that we run off, you understand: it's He who decides that it's over.

So the answer comes (not from me, it comes from very far and it's quite ABSOLUTE as a vibration): "It's no solution." It means it isn't, in the present case, considered to be the solution.

There must be another one.

Yes, certainly.

Our imagination is very poor. As for me, I can't imagine how it

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could happen! I can imagine novels, what I call the pulp novels of spiritual life, but that's nothing, it's childish.

(silence)

What I had noted was indeed this: "If my back straightens up, I will understand that there is something stronger than material habit."

Now there are quite a few other things besides my back to be straightened out! Life, seen from the external, superficial—very superficial—standpoint, from the standpoint of appearances, the life of this body is very, very precarious, in the sense that the activities are very limited—very limited—and in spite of this, I often feel that the natural need (it is a natural need) for silence and contemplative immobility (the cells have that: the need for a contemplative immobility), that that need is denied by circumstances. So, seen from outside, it's an infirmity; in other words, ordinary human beings with the ordinary thinking would say, "She gets tired easily, she can't do anything anymore, she..."—it isn't true, it's an appearance. But what is true is that the Harmony isn't established, there is still a difference between the body's sensation and that sort of... exhilaration... it's like an inner glory.

(silence)

It is still a condition in which things haven't adapted, there is a lack of adaptation, and also what may seem to be an incapacity for manifestation (?). Yet the body doesn't have the feeling or sensation of being unable to do what it wants to do—it never has; the power to act remains, but the will to act isn't there. And what still gives that sort of ill-being (a physically painful ill-being) is the friction between the body's spontaneous movement and what comes from outside: the imposition of outside wills.

This ill-being is growing in acuteness. It is true that one second of isolation (not a physical one), of a break in the contact [with others], is enough to restore the Harmony; but otherwise, if you don't take care to isolate yourself within, it creates a kind of disorganization.

And the body no longer finds pleasure in any of those things that are usually pleasant to a body: it's perfectly indifferent to them. But slowly, something, or someone, is teaching it to have, not pleasure or anything that looks (even remotely) like excitement,

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but a comfortable vibration in certain things of the senses. But that's very, very different from what it was before.

It is clear that in order to follow its own rhythm, the body should reduce its activities to the minimum; not exactly "reduce," but have the freedom of choice of its movements: nothing should be imposed on it from outside—which is quite far from reality. And yet, if one looks at the whole, there is an absolute conviction, even in the body, that nothing happens that isn't the effect of the supreme Will. Therefore, the conditions in which it finds itself are the conditions that He has wanted and wants—that He wants—at every second. So the conclusion is that there must be in the body a resistance or an incapacity to follow the Movement.

When the problem reaches that point, there is always a similar answer: "Don't concern yourself with that!" I think this is wisdom. There you are.

We must learn to let ourselves live, that's the important thing: "Don't be constantly reacting against this, trying that...—let yourself live."

In reality, the will to progress is still quite impregnated with desire: there isn't the smile of Eternity behind it.

The answer is always the same, which can be translated like this (but there aren't any words): "Don't concern yourself with that."

It is still a remnant of the old tension.

(Mother goes into contemplation)

There is, at any rate, a sort of sensation or perception that you are, for the moment, the only one here who really understands what's happening to me. That's something. I am very grateful, as they say, that at least, from the external standpoint, what's going on will not be entirely useless. Because as I said, the signs of the Power being at work are increasing day by day, day by day; only, if this is crystallized around an experience made perceptible to others, I think it becomes clearer, doesn't it, instead of being something quite diffuse. Therefore, even from this external standpoint of the external realization, you can be satisfied. In the great universal work, your existence has its place and its usefulness.

From the personal standpoint... my own feeling is that you are BOUND to have experiences after some time; they have to come, because that field is the one open. Changing this body is something new; but having experiences already exists, so it has to happen to you, it's bound to happen to you. But I believe your experiences

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will be of a very particular character, in the sense that they will be very positive.

You have categorically refused the experiences that consist in going out of the present existence in search of another—you haven't come for that and you don't want that. What you want is something very concrete—it's a little bit more difficult to have. But it will come.

I am not telling you this to comfort you, but because I SEE it this way: it will come. And what's interesting is that there is an identity in the movement:³ what has happened to you lately, that thinning down, is yet another example; that's precisely what I've been preoccupied with these last few days—that means something.

Perhaps some day we'll be given a little goody!

November 25, 1964

(The following conversation is about the collective meditation of the day before, November 24, a darshan day.)

So, what about you? What's new? Nothing new?—and what's old?! (laughter)

(silence)

Yesterday, during the meditation, I don't know what happened, but when they rang the gong for the end, I absolutely had the feeling it had just started!

As soon as the meditation started, something descended: a stillness, but a very comfortable stillness, extraordinarily comfortable, and then... finished, nothing, blank—completely blank. I was like that all the time at the table,¹ when suddenly (the gong rang) bong! bong! it was over.

Time passed outside time.

It's the first time, because even when I have an experience, even the first time, I remember, when we began collective meditations

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and Sri Aurobindo came down and literally sat on the [Ashram] compound, it was very interesting, of course, and very compelling,² but I was conscious of time. And this time... There have been ups and downs, good experiences and bad ones, all kinds of things, but I have always been conscious of time, while yesterday... I myself was astounded. I heard the gong and I had the feeling it had just started. There was even something in the body that was jubilant like a child: "It's going to last half an hour, it's going to be like this for half an hour" (it was funny, you know)... "ah, the true life at last!" That was the body's feeling, and it was going to last half an hour.... Bong! bong!... As if it had been robbed of its joy!

It's curious.

It started in a strange way: I have a beeswax candle, which smells of honey when it burns, a big candle I was sent from Switzerland. I have already burned half of it: I light it for the meditations. But there was a defect in the wick, it was carbonized, and yesterday it refused to burn. We lighted it—lighted it twice just before—and it went out just at the start of the meditation when they rang the gong. So the body consciousness said, "O Lord, we are so impure that we cannot even burn in front of You!" It was full of spontaneous simplicity: "O Lord, we are so impure..." And immediately, the answer (gesture of massive descent): everything stopped.

Perhaps it was that very childlike, but very spontaneous and very simple movement of the body, conscious of Matter's imperfection, "We are so impure that we cannot even burn in front of You!"—perhaps that's what provoked that answer.

It was a wonder—a brief wonder!

Do you meditate at home?

No, in Sri Aurobindo's room—in his corridor.

It's nice there....

(silence)

Afterwards, for the rest of the day, it was as if the body were asking, or were encouraged to ask (usually, it doesn't ask, it doesn't even ask for health or anything), and for the first time yesterday in the afternoon, it seemed to be saying, with a sort of aspiration almost not formulated in words, but with the feeling and impression:

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"Am I not going to be ready for You to live in these cells? For these cells to be You?..." Words spoil it because they give a somewhat brutal and hard precision, but it was as if the cells were saying, "Never will we have that marvelous Peace...." It was a peace, but a peace full of creative power, and so rich, containing an infinite power, rich with joy; and it gave the body the courage to say, "We will be THAT only if You are here, and You alone."

Sri Aurobindo wrote, "Every event (like every moment of life) will be a marvel when it is the marvelous Whole that lives"—that lives in the body. This was really like the expression of what the body felt. And it is its ONLY raison d'être—there is no other, all the rest... It went through every disgust, every disdain, every indifference, to the point where it asked, "But how can we live? What for? Why, why do we exist, why were we created? Why?... All that is nothing!" And strangely, there was a sort of memory of the eons of time during which people lived in this ignorance of the why and in a sort of bewilderment.... That so much time could have been spent to find the only thing... the only thing that exists! And why all that, why? All that, centuries of absurd sensations.... It was curious: like a slow memory of a futile and useless life—absurd—and so painful! "Why all that in order to find THAT?"

It is curious.

I don't know if it is an answer to this question, but there came today a sort of film show: a long procession of all the stories telling how men destroy what's higher than they, cannot tolerate what's higher than they: the martyrs, the killings, the tragic ends of all those who represented a power or truth higher than mankind. As though that were the explanation—the symbolic explanation—of the reason for the almost infinite time it took for Matter to awaken—awaken to the imperious need for the Truth.

It was as if I were told, "You see, there was a time when they burned you at the stake, tortured you...," memories from past lives. And those memories were associated with the recent story of a Protestant missionary who said, though not in so many words, "We worship Christ only because he DIED for men, because he was crucified for men."

All this seems to have been necessary to knead Matter.

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November 28, 1964

I am continuing to relive forgotten aspects of this life, rejected from the nature, that come back in the form of relived memories, as though someone were, you know, trying to "pick holes" (!) in all the possible movements that have occurred in this body, not only to sweep things clean, but also to purify, correct, and illuminate—all the body's memories (I'm not speaking of the mind or the vital)... extraordinary!

And at the same time the understanding comes of all the people I met in my life and with whom I lived for a certain time: for what reasons, with what aim, for what purpose they were there and what action they had and how they did the Lord's work (unknowingly, God knows!) to lead this body to prepare itself and be ready for the transformation.... It's astonishingly perfect in its conception! It's wonderful! And so "inhuman"! Opposed to all moral and mental notions of human wisdom—all the things that appeared the most insane, the most absurd, the most irrational, the most unreasonable and the most "hostile," all that combined, oh, so WONDERFULLY... to compel this body to transform itself.

And with such a clear vision of the why—why it isn't transformed yet. Oh, there's work to be done....

But it's not a purely individual question.

Indeed, no! Oh, no, it's interdependent with so many things.

Well, yes!

This body is REPRESENTATIVE: as an individual, it is representative of terrestrial modes of being.

And I saw very clearly: some time ago (a year, or maybe more), I believed that the thought and attitude and convictions of certain people [around Mother] were partially the cause of certain difficulties (with regard to age, especially), but that's not true! What people think and what they feel is exactly what's needed to act on this! All that is USED to teach the body what it must know: where its lack of receptivity is, where its inertia is, where... Oh, the slavery to the habit of vibration is a terrible thing, terrible!

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From the standpoint of health, it's terrible. And "health" doesn't exist, it means nothing; it no longer means anything. "Disease" no longer means anything, it really doesn't: it's distortions of vibrations and shiftings of vibrations, and... (what can I call it?) encrustations—from the point of view of movement, it's like bottlenecks, and from the point of view of the cell, it's like encrustations: it's what remains of the old Inertia out of which we came.

But it's double: there is Inertia on one hand, and on the other vital perversion—the NERVOUS perversion of the vital world, of the vital influence. There isn't just Inertia: there is a sort of perverted ill will. You can easily (relatively easily) drive it out and eliminate it entirely from conscious mental and vital life; that work, which in the past was considered as, oh, a tremendously difficult thing—changing an individual's nature—is relatively easy; all in the nature that depends on the vital or the mind is relatively easy to change, very easy. I am not saying very easy for the ordinary man, but very easy in comparison with the work in Matter, in the cells of the body. Because, as I told you last time, their goodwill is undeniable and their thrust towards the Divine has become absolutely spontaneous: all that is conscious is luminous—but the trouble is all that isn't yet conscious! It's the mass of all that isn't yet conscious and is, then, tossed between two influences, one as odious as the other: the influence of Inertia (gesture of dazed sluggishness), of the MASS that stops you from moving forward, and the influence of vital perversion and ill will—it's this influence that makes everything crooked, that distorts everything.

And it has become very subtle, very hidden, difficult to ferret out. When almost everything was like that, it was visible, it was conspicuous; but that state changed very fast: the difficulty is what's hidden underneath and isn't "voluminous" enough to draw attention to itself. And, oh, those habits, those habits.... For instance (magnifying it to make it more easily visible), the habit of foreseeing catastrophes....

And anything that disturbs the Inertia is, for Inertia, a catastrophe. In the world, the earthly world (it's the only one I can speak of with competence; of the others, I have only overall visions), in the earthly world, for Inertia (which is the basis of the creation and is necessary to fix, to concretize things), anything that disturbs it is a catastrophe. That is to say, the advent of Life was a monstrous catastrophe, and the advent of intelligence in Life another monstrous catastrophe, and now the advent of Supermind is the final catastrophe! That's how it is. And for the unenlightened mind,

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it really is a catastrophe! I know cases, for instance, of people who are sick: if they follow the routine of the doctor and medicines and treatment and disease, they get well; if by some mischance (!) they call on the Force and I apply it, the more I apply, the more terrified they are! They feel absolutely unexpected phenomena and they are terrified: "What's happening to me! What's happening to me!" As if it were absolutely catastrophic. The minute the Force comes and they feel just a bit of it, like one drop, they tense up, they resist, they panic, they become absolutely restless. That's right: they become so restless, so absolutely restless! That is, the whole system spends its time rejecting and rejecting all that comes.

It's very interesting.

And I noted it, too, it was that way with the body in the beginning: any unexpected vibration, more powerful, deeper, stronger, TRUER than the individual vibration, and instantly there is a panic in the cells: "Oh, what's going to happen to me!..." Now, thank God, that period is past, but there was a time when it was like that.

So you understand how long the way is.... All that goes on in the mind is child's play in comparison; all their mental difficulties are... to me it's theater—a drama, you know, a drama to interest the public.

Well, I don't know, but there is a long, long way to go—a long way—to change this into a substance plastic enough, receptive enough, strong enough to express the supreme Power. There is a lot to be done, a whole lot.

(silence)

And the popular mind is simplistic, it sees the final result as a natural and almost spontaneous expression; so you aren't so sure, you say to yourself, "After all..." But this also (Mother smiles) is the Supreme's way of doing things—I can see that very clearly.

(A little later, regarding the music composed by Sunil on the theme of "The Hour of God":)

It begins with something he calls "aspiration"—oh, it's beautiful!... I have rarely heard something with so pure and so beautiful an inspiration. All of a sudden, a "sound" comes, which is exactly the sound you hear up above. And it isn't too mixed (the

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fault I find with all classical music is all the accompaniment which is there to give more "substance," but which spoils the purity of the inspiration: to me, it's padding), well, with Sunil, the padding isn't there. He doesn't claim to be making music, of course, and the padding isn't there, so it's truly beautiful.

I have decided not to play this year for January 1st. Even last year, I very much hesitated to play because I was absolutely conscious of the inadequacy—the poorness and inadequacy—of the physical instrument; but there was a sort of reasonable wisdom which knew how a refusal to play would be interpreted [by the disciples], so I played—without satisfaction, and it wasn't worth much. But the music I heard yesterday was so much THAT, SO much what I would like to play, that I said to myself, "Well, now it would be unreasonable to want to keep in a personal manifestation something that has a much better means of expression [Sunil]." So I have decided to say "No" for January 1st. But I will see if Sunil couldn't prepare something on the theme of next year's message, something that would be recorded and played for everyone, in an anonymous way—no need to say, "It's by this or that person," it's music, that's all.

You know that they are printing two calendars, one here and one in Calcutta. In the Calcutta calendar, I look happy and I greet with folded hands; so I wrote underneath, Salut à Toi, Vérité [Salute to you, O Truth]. In English (they're a bit slow, you know!), they wanted something more "explicit," so I wrote, Salute to the advent of the Truth. I am going to give the subject to Sunil: "Make some music on this."

But still, it's a pity for you to give up music.

Mon petit, I would have to play with two or three people present who had an aspiration—a conscious and trusting aspiration—towards the Sound. For instance, when I played for you and Sujata, it was much better. If I were all alone, it could be good... although if I am all alone, there's a risk that I might go off elsewhere (which easily happens to me)! But if I am with someone who finds it tedious or has no trust, or who is bored stiff (assuming boredom makes you go stiff!), or who wonders when it will be over, or else who begins to criticize, "What does that music mean? It makes no sense," then...

Yes, it isn't favorable.

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The atmosphere isn't favorable, and nothing comes. That's all.

Or else, I'll start thinking, "How long have I been playing? Maybe I should stop now?..."

How can anything come in such conditions?

But it would be a pity if you gave it up altogether.

I have no opportunity to play. Now and then, it would be fun, but I can't. I would like, yes, I would like now and then to be able to be there and let my hands go... led by something other than the ordinary consciousness. But for that, I would need some time. I would need time. And then not to be caught in the cogwheels of a regulated life.

But that's obvious, music to order is hardly the right thing!

But NOTHING to order, mon petit!

It's like those messages people ask me every other minute: "Send me a message." That's it: you drop two coins into the box, and out it must come! "I have nothing for the first page of my magazine, send me a message," or else, "My daughter is getting married, send me a message," or else, "It's the anniversary of the opening of my school, send me a message." It's at the rate of three or four a day.... This made me suddenly write a note the other day; I saw the image of those music boxes, you know, you dropped two coins into them and then the music would come out. So I said, "For ordinary men, the sage is like a music box of Wisdom: you only have to insert two coins' worth of question and automatically the answer comes out." Because, really, it has become ridiculous: "We're moving into a new house, send us a message...."

But why do you let yourself get snowed under? You shouldn't send any messages!

But I answer only when it comes. When it doesn't, I say no.

Anyway, this is the spirit nowadays.

And I am obliged to keep regular hours because the entire life of others depends on it. That was why people wanted to withdraw into solitude—there is an advantage and a drawback; the advantage is that I try to make things very automatic, that is, quite outside a conscious will: they should work by themselves. On the mental level, it's very easy, you can detach yourself completely and nothing

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matters; but for the body, it's difficult, because its rhythm... The whole rhythm of ordinary life is a mentalized one; even people who live in vital freedom are at odds with the whole social organization—it's a mentalized life: there are clocks that strike the hour and it is agreed that things must be that way.... Mentally, you can be perfectly free: you leave your body in the cogwheels and stop bothering about it; but when it's this poor body itself that has to find its own rhythm, how difficult it is!... How difficult. Sometimes, all of a sudden, it feels a discomfort; then I look and I see that there is something that could be an experience, but that would necessitate certain conditions of isolation, of quietness and independence, and it isn't possible. Then, very well... as far as I can, I go within and do the minimum (the maximum of what can be done, which is a minimum compared to what could be done).

But of course, Sri Aurobindo always said: "For the Work to be complete, it must be general"—one cannot give up. An individual attempt is only a very partial attempt. But the fact that the Work is general delays the results considerably—well, we have to put up with it. That's how it is, so that's how it is.

(silence)

If the action were individual, it would necessarily be extremely poor and limited; even if the individual is very vast and his consciousness is as vast as the earth, the experience is limited. It's still one aggregate of cells, which can only have a limited sum of experiences (maybe not in the course of time, but undeniably in space). But the minute the identification with the rest takes place, the consequences take place, too: the difficulties of the rest come and have to be absorbed, they have to be transformed. So it amounts to the same thing. It's exactly what's going on now: I don't go out, I have limited my activities as much as possible (I see plenty of people, but still infinitely less than before—before, I used to see them by the thousand), but this reduction is largely made up for by the widening of the physical, material consciousness, to such a point that I constantly, constantly have sensations that seem like individual sensations, but immediately I can see that they are other individuals' sensations, which come because the consciousness is spread out and receives all that in its movement: a movement as if one gathered everything together, then gave it to the Lord.

(silence)

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Ten past eleven! Oh, you see (laughing), the clock is calling us!

And you?... I am asking you, but I know—it isn't that I don't know, but I would like you to tell me.

Physically?... The troubles are starting up again. The body isn't very bright either.

Those new dentists will soon have set themselves up, then you can go and see them. Naturally, it still belongs to the old methods, but we shouldn't brag, you know! We shouldn't think we have arrived before we've reached the end. To the people who write to me, "Oh, I rely on your Force alone, I don't want any medicine," I reply, "You are wrong." Because I, too, take medicine—and I don't believe in it! Yet I take it just the same, because there is all the old suggestion and all the old habit, and I want to give my body the best possible conditions.... But it's quite amusing: as long as it's given the medicine, it stays very quiet, and if it isn't given the medicine, it starts saying, "Why? What's the matter?" Yet when the medicine is there, it has no effect, it doesn't intervene; it's merely... merely a habit.

Not to speak of the cases when it makes things worse. For instance, for those very tooth troubles, the doctor wanted to give me those penicillin pills that you let melt in your mouth to prevent an inflammation; when I take one of those pills (laughing), there's a furious rage in all my teeth! As if all the elements attacked were furious: "Why are you disturbing us? We were nice and quiet, we weren't troubling you!" And everything starts swelling furiously.

It's amusing to follow it consciously, very amusing! And you see: diseases, medicines, all that is part of the old drama.

But we must keep on playing, because there are people who take it seriously! They WANT (it's the habit), they want us to keep on playing: "Keep on playing, don't brag, you still don't know—you still don't know how to cure us or transform us." It's true, I don't deny it, I don't yet know how to transform them, so... One shouldn't be proud, that's very bad.

We'll see.

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December 2, 1964

...Letters are piling up in fantastic numbers, and I haven't answered. People should learn to receive: I answer very forcefully, very clearly, even with words, a precise sentence. If they learned to receive mentally, it would be good. I always answer. And when it's something important and I have some peace, when I have no external action, I even repeat my answer by making a very precise mental formation—they should receive it.

(Mother picks up at random a letter from a Western disciple who asks to change her work or stop her external work, because, she says, it doesn't correspond to her nature. She also complains about her relationship with others and their "hostility." She feels the need for a new way of being and acting.)

She is struggling much more with her old personality than with others. She had a certain kind of extremely personal and superficial relationship with others, and slowly, slowly she is emerging from it, but with the impression that it's others who are hostile to her, while she is truly trying to do her best.

It's a phase.

But I have noticed, especially for those who have had a Western education, that they shouldn't change their external occupations abruptly. Most people tend to want to change their environment, to want to change their occupation, to want to change their surroundings, to want to change their habit, thinking that will help them to change inwardly—it's not true. You are much more vigilant and alert to resist the old movement, the old relationships, the vibrations you no longer want when you remain in a context that, in fact, is habitual enough to be automatic. You shouldn't be "interested" in a new external organization, because you always tend to enter it with your old way of being.

It's very interesting even, I made a very deep study of people who think that if they travel things are going to be different.... When you change your external surroundings, on the contrary, you always tend to keep your internal organization in order to keep your individuality; whereas if you are held by force in the same context, the same occupations, the same routine of life, then the ways of being you no longer want become more and more evident and you can fight them much more precisely.

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Basically, in the being, it's the vital that has difficulty; it is the most impulsive part and has the greatest difficulty in changing its way of being. And it's always the vital that feels "free," encouraged and more alive during travels, because it has an opportunity to manifest freely in a new environment in which everything has to be learned: reactions, adaptations, etc. On the contrary, in the routine of a life that has nothing particularly exciting, it strongly feels (I mean, if it has goodwill and an aspiration for progress), it strongly feels its inadequacies and desires, its reactions, repulsions, attractions, etc. When one doesn't have that intense will to progress, it feels imprisoned, disgusted, crushed—the whole habitual refrain of revolt.

(silence)

When she came here, she was living exclusively in the vital—exclusively and violently. So there's a long way to go.

And that vital—which was used to being at the helm, to governing everything, to deciding everything, anyway it was the master of the house—the vital must first begin with detachment, which generally, when it isn't very refined, turns into disgust. A general detachment. Then all at once (sometimes "all at once," sometimes slowly), it feels that the impulse, the inspiration must come from within, that nothing must come from outside anymore and excite it. And then, if it has goodwill, it turns within and begins to ask for the Inspiration, the Command and the Direction; and after that, it can start doing work again.

For some people, it takes years; for others, it's done very quickly—it depends on the quality of the vital. If it's a refined vital, of a higher quality, it goes quickly; if it is something very brutish, which goes like a bulldog or a buffalo, it takes a little more time.

Anyhow, there's a long way to go for a vital that had the habit of governing everything and thought it was in possession of the truth—that what it felt was the truth, what it wanted was the truth and that truth had to dominate and govern others and life—well... when one was born with that illusion, it takes a long time. What saves is if the vital is somehow SEIZED inwardly, if it feels inwardly that there is something greater than it; then it goes much faster.

For those who run away from the necessary change, it may mean several more lives. Those who have learned to bear up (who generally have enough higher intelligence to govern), those who have endurance, who have learned to bear up and not to worry about the vital's lack of collaboration, for them, it can be done

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relatively quickly.

That's what generally takes the greatest time.

A little later:

Have you seen the latest Illustrated Weekly? You know that the Pope is here, in Bombay, for the "Eucharistic Congress"—but what's the Eucharist, mon petit?

It's the Communion.

Ah, that's just what I thought!... There is in the Illustrated Weekly the history of those Eucharistic Congresses, and it seems a French lady was behind the origin of the first Congress (not so long ago, in the last century, I believe). And then (Mother smiles), there's a magnificent portrait of the Pope with a message he wrote specially for the Weekly's readers, in which he took great care not to use Christian words. He wishes them... I don't know what, and (it's written in English) a celestial grace. Then I saw (he tried to be as impersonal as possible), I saw that in spite of everything, the Christians' greatest difficulty is that their happiness and fulfillment are in heaven.

Instead of a celestial grace, they read to me, or I heard, a terrestrial grace! When I heard that, something in me started vibrating: "What! But this man has been converted!" Then I had it repeated and heard it wasn't that but really a celestial grace.

This is the whole point.

Exactly.

They believe in a divine realization, but the divine realization isn't terrestrial, it's somewhere else, in a celestial world, that is, immaterial. And that is their great obstacle.

Of course, in matters of faith (I don't mean for a very precise and very clear scientific mind), but in matters of faith, there is so far no clear proof that the Lord wants to realize Himself here; except, perhaps, for two or three visionaries who had the experience.... Someone asked me if there had been a supramental realization previously, that is, before historical times (because historical times are extremely limited, of course). Naturally, the question always corresponds to one of the things that are shown to me in moments of concentration. So I answered very spontaneously that there

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hadn't been a collective realization, but that there might have been one or several individual realizations, as examples of what would be and as a promise—a promise and examples: "This is what will be."

I've had some very precise memories—lived memories—of a human life on earth, quite primitive (I mean outside any mental civilization), a human life on earth that wasn't an evolutionary life, but the manifestation of beings from another world. I lived in that way for a time—a lived memory. I still see it, I still have the image of it in my memory. It had nothing to do with civilization and mental development: it was a blossoming of force, of beauty, in a NATURAL, spontaneous life, like animal life, but with a perfection of consciousness and power that far surpasses the one we have now; and indeed with a power over all surrounding Nature, animal nature and vegetable nature and mineral nature, a DIRECT handling of Matter, which men do not have—they need intermediaries, material instruments, whereas this was direct. And there were no thoughts or reasoning: it was spontaneous (gesture indicating the direct radiating action of will on Matter). I have the lived memory of this. It must have existed on earth because it wasn't premonitory: it wasn't a vision of the future, it was a past memory. So there must have been a moment... It was limited to two beings: I don't have the feeling there were many. And there was no childbirth or anything animal, absolutely not; it was a life, yes, a truly higher life in a natural setting, but with an extraordinary beauty and harmony! And I don't have the feeling it was (how can I explain?) something known; the relationships with vegetable life and animal life were spontaneous ones, absolutely harmonious, and with the sensation of an undisputed power (you didn't even feel it was possible for it not to be), undisputed, but without any idea that there were other beings on earth and that it was necessary to look after them or make a "demonstration"—nothing of the sort, absolutely nothing of mental life, nothing. A life just like that, like a beautiful plant or a beautiful animal, but with an inner knowledge of things, perfectly spontaneous and effortless—an effortless life, perfectly spontaneous. I don't even have the feeling that there was any question of food, not that I remember; but there was the joy of Life, the joy of Beauty: there were flowers, there was water, there were trees, there were animals, and all that was friendly, but spontaneously so. And there were no problems! No problems to be solved, nothing at all—one just lived!

An uncomplicated life, definitely.

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But it's far, very far into the past. Because there wasn't at all the feeling of having grown up from below: it was like having landed there, just like that, for fun.

It must have been before the first man born of Nature—not after: before.

They were human forms, but I can't say I remember: if, for instance, I were asked whether they had nails on their fingers, that I wouldn't know! It was very supple and luminous. But anyway, they were like humans.

(silence)

The Pope announced he was going to publish a message for non-Christians; I have asked to see it. Because in my mental conversations with him, two things have remained very precise.... He has a sort of political attachment. He is a very political man, in the sense that he does things for a reason, with a precise goal calculated according to his own understanding so as to make him most effective towards that goal—a political man.

He has a political attachment to the dogma. For instance, after one of my conversations (I had a good number of conversations with him, three or four, on the mental level, and perfectly objective because his reactions were unexpected; to me they were very spontaneous, in the sense that I received answers that weren't at all those I might have expected—which proves it was genuine), but for example, before his election, I met him once (there is a part of his mental being, a higher intelligence, that's very well formed, conscious, individualized), and I had a spontaneous conversation that I hadn't sought and which was very interesting. But at one point, I replied to something he said, and I told him with the force I have there [on that higher plane], "The Lord is everywhere—even in hell the Lord is there." And then it caused such a violent reaction in him that, pfft! he vanished. I found it very striking.... I don't know the dogma, but it seems that in hell, according to the Catholics, what's worse than suffering, the fire and all that, is the absence of the Lord. It seems it's a dogma that the Lord is absent from hell; and me, I was speaking of universal Oneness and I told him that.

There is another thing I remember very clearly, which struck me. It was after his election (but long before his trip to India was decided upon): he had come to India and he came to Pondicherry to meet me (not to meet me: he had come to Pondicherry, then he came and met me). Once in Pondicherry, he came and I saw him

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there, in the room where I receive people. We had a long conversation, a very long and interesting conversation, and suddenly (it was towards the end, it was time for him to go), when he rose, he was preoccupied by something. He told me, "When you speak to your children about me, what will you tell them?"... You understand, the ego showing itself. So I looked at him (Mother smiles) and said, "I will only tell them that we have been in communion in our love for the Supreme." Then he relaxed and left. It struck me. These things are very objective.

But these are the little turns of the nature. Otherwise, his dream is to be the potentate of human spiritual unity.

December 7, 1964

(This conversation took place in the music room. Mother had asked Sunil, the musician disciple, and Sujata to come.)

Can anybody play the harmonica? (laughter) I've just been given a harmonica! It comes from Germany. (To Sunil:) Don't you know how to play it?... No?

(Sujata:) Satprem would very much like to learn to play some instrument, Mother, you know.

(Satprem:) But not the harmonica!

(To Sunil:) Did they tell you why I called you? No? Don't you know French anymore, tell me?—He doesn't dare speak.

Here is the thing: I like your music, and as for me, I no longer play!—I don't have the time. I never have an opportunity, I haven't played for the last twelve months; except when Sujata comes, then I run a finger over the keys. So it's quite impossible for me to play on January 1st, but I thought we could perhaps arrange something.... Today, I'll read you the message for the 1st (it isn't a "message"), I'll read it to you and then we'll try to do something with it.

Do you know this instrument (the organ)? Can you play it?...

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There are pedals, mon petit, enough to make your head swim! I can't play that! (laughter) So Sujata will play the pedals, and I'll play the keys!

If something comes, you can use it and do me some music for the 1st. And then, instead of recording here, we'll record your affair for everybody!

(Sunil:) What you are going to play now I'll keep.

No! I'm not playing—I'll just pretend to! With that you will do something. You understand?

Maybe nothing at all will come! I can't say. This morning... This morning, I don't know, did you think of your visit here? Yes?... I heard magnificent music—magnificent! But it was music... it took at least four hands to play it, or several instruments. If that came...

Wait.... The message (it isn't a "message"!)... There is a photo of me in which I have my hands folded and I look happy (!), so I wrote underneath, Salut à Toi, Vérité. Then I was asked to put it into English—I said, Salute to the advent of the Truth.

So this is the theme.

We'll see now if we find something. This morning, it was magnificent.... But even if that were there, I wouldn't be able to play it: it would take almost an entire orchestra! And moreover, it's no longer there. It lasted ten or fifteen minutes... I don't even remember what it was—it's gone.

We'll try, we'll see.

(music)

There, enough!

But what I heard wasn't that—it wasn't that at all! But it's absolutely gone....

(Mother starts playing the organ again)

It's really a pity I don't remember at all. That was really fine. It was "the hymn to the Truth." It resembled a certain symphony of Beethoven's (oh, I am going to say something dreadful)... without the padding!

All human music always has padding. They have an inspiration, and in between there's a gap, so they fill it up with their "musical knowledge." But this morning, it came straight from above and there was no padding. It was very fine.

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Only, I didn't even make an effort to remember; I thought, "It will come," but it didn't!

(To Sunil:) Didn't you hear some music this morning?

(Sunil:) What you have just played was very lovely.

It's nothing! Anyway, you'll do something with it.

What this morning's music expressed was a sort of ascent of aspiration, like a conquest, and then it suddenly climaxed in a dazzling flash of light—an explosion. An explosion of light. And the explosion of light CASCADED over the world. It was very fine (!)

I still see it, but I can no longer hear it.

But that's how it will be: first the salute, "Salute to You, O Light." You understand, the Light is there, like this: it announces itself. And we salute it. Then the whole aspiration rises in conquest of this Light through successive ascents; that is, one sound rises, climbs, and establishes itself; then another climbs and establishes itself. And then, when we have come before the Light, it makes a sort of explosion, like a bomb exploding, an explosion of light. And afterwards, it falls back onto the world—with sparkles.

And then, I would like at the end the great calm of the Truth.

That will need something very vast and very calm—very vast. Very simple. A few very simple great notes.

Voilà.

Organ notes would be fine.

The organ is fine for aspiration.

The explosion of light?... I don't know which instrument.

And for aspiration, a few human voices, too.

But don't try to imitate what I've just played: it's worthless! You will do something as I said: first the salute—we're happy to see You, you understand: Salute to You, O Light! Salute to You, O Truth!...

You play the ascent in stages, accompanied by and finishing off with a gust of aspiration: a soaring, a great soaring. Then, we touch the Light, it makes an explosion. We touch the Truth, we touch the Light.... That will have to be very beautiful. Then that Light falls back onto the world in a rain, and it's joyous, light, very graceful (gesture like a waterfall). And then the world becomes blissful under the Truth—very calm and blissful.

What time is it?

Seven to eleven.

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I've played as long as that!

I've been chattering away.

You came late.

Ah, Nolini should be scolded for that—not me! (laughter)

(To Satprem:) I'll see you Saturday—Saturday is Mademoiselle's birthday. How old will you be?

(Sujata:) Thirty-nine.

And he?

(Satprem:) Forty-one.

Already...

Well, au revoir, my children.¹

December 10, 1964

(From Sujata to Mother, following a visit to Pondicherry's hospital)

Little Mother, Satprem says he loves you dearly and he asked me how you are.

Your child,

Signed: Sujata

(Mother's answer)

Sujata, tell Satprem that I love him very much and that I am

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with him all the time. If he follows Sri Aurobindo's advice, Live inside, he is sure to feel this.

Tenderness

Signed: Mother

December 23, 1964

(From Mother to Satprem)

Satprem, mon cher petit,

Here is your book, just arrived from America.

I am sending it to you with all my love so that it may be the sign of the arrival of perfect balance and total health.

Blessings

Signed: Mother

End of December, 1964

(From Mother to Satprem. The letter Mother answers here unfortunately disappeared along with the others.)

What you are feeling is entirely in accord with what I saw.

I take it as the definitive turning point in your life.

We will talk about it on January 2nd when you come and see me all alone.

In the meantime, I am with you and my love envelops you.

Signed: Mother

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