The 'psychological preparation' of Satprem for his role as The Mother's confidant, as She narrated her experiences of the 'yoga of the cells' from 1951-1973.
This first volume is mostly what could be called the "psychological preparation" of Satprem. Mother's confidant had to be prepared, not only to understand the evolutionary meaning of Mother's discoveries, to follow the tenuous thread of man's great future unravelled through so many apparently disconcerting experiences - which certainly required a steady personal determination for more than 19 years! - but also, in a way, he had to share the battle against the many established forces that account for the present human mode of being and bear the onslaught of the New Force. Satprem - "True Love" - as Mother called him, was a reluctant disciple. Formed in the French Cartesian mold, a freedom fighter against the Nazis and in love with his freedom, he was always ready to run away, and always coming back, drawn by a love greater than his love for freedom. Slowly she conquered him, slowly he came to understand the poignant drama of this lone and indomitable woman, struggling in the midst of an all-too-human humanity in her attempt to open man's golden future. Week after week, privately, she confided to him her intimate experiences, the progress of her endeavour, the obstacles, the setbacks, as well as anecdotes of her life, her hopes, her conquests and laughter: she was able to be herself with him. He loved her and she trusted him. It is that simple.
(Letter to Mother from Satprem)
Pondicherry, January (?) 1956
Mother, I need to unburden myself of all that is wringing my heart, and if the Divine exists somewhere, it is to him that I would like to express my profound disgust. For all this is profoundly scandalous, absurd and revolting. I know that the external world is absurd and that men live in it vainly; but the world of the Ashram is no less absurd, no less vain. 'Someone' is making fun of us, 'someone' is deceiving us—for if truly there is some witness to this tragi-comedy and if this whole world is his 'game,' it is a cruel game and he is a cheater, for he has all the cards in his hand and he pretends to make us play a game in which we are inevitably the losers—a game we cannot play, for we are helpless miserable, without strength, without light.
All our efforts are vain and sadly ridiculous. At each instant we must begin everything anew, one step seems to lead us forward another to draw us back. We desperately turn in circles and sometimes, in our dizziness, we believe we glimpse lights, but these are only the little, dancing lights of our own fatigue, our own weakness. There is no victory, there are only moments of respite. Meditation brings calm and peace, of course, but so does sleep. We are all seeking release, in love, in opium, in action, in war or in power—or in Yoga; but one means is just as vain as the other. There is no real solution, there are only more or less effective ways of forgetting for an hour, or a day, that we are men alone and helpless.
It is quite possible, even quite probable, that in another hour or another day, I may feel quite the contrary of what I now write. But the person I am tomorrow does not negate he who I am today, it only makes him more absurd, more unbearably absurd. The one who I am right now, for an hour perhaps, needs to cry out his disgust with this nameless farce. We are puppets, fools, and I am ready to admit that everything is just a state of consciousness—but it is still a fool's state of consciousness. Tomorrow's puppet who might ask for grace from the divine, and believe in him, will still be a puppet, a pacified and resigned puppet—but a marionette no less absurd playing a game no less absurd. I understand those who go about planting dynamite everywhere; if they seek death, it is because they desperately wanted to live but found it impossible to live. One cannot live, one can only flee this intolerable existence in one way or another. Mother, it is impossible for a man to look at himself straight in the face in a completely lucid way for more than five minutes—IF HE DID, HE WOULD KILL HIMSELF ... So I wonder if the divine—if he exists—has ever known the suffering of mankind. If he exists, why doesn't he give men the strength to break out of this 'Magic Circle' in which they keep turning like prisoners in a cell. Twelve years ago, when I was twenty, I was turning in circles in a prison cell in Bordeaux,1 awaiting some execution or other—but I am still this same prisoner. If I have advanced during these twelve years, it is in despair, in misery. All this is outrageous, scandalous, should the divine exist.
Page 65
Leave the Ashram?—But the rest of the world is just as absurd. It is man who is absurd, and god—if he exists—is a pure disgrace. Mother, I am SCANDALIZED, and I feel within me the rebellion and despair of all men who surely have not deserved all this.
Signed: Bernard
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