Amal Kiran's Correspondence with The Mother

21 September 1967

Dearest Mother,

You know that H and I have been on the lookout for some place, however small, which by being near the Ashram could serve as an effective point of liaison with the public reached by Mother India. Now we have heard that the small office next to the Ashram Post Office is vacant. Is it not possible to let Mother India have a distributing and receiving centre next to the Post Office?

The post office has asked for this office because they are short of space.

So it is out of question.

21 September 1967

Dearest Mother,

Here is something you wrote to Oscar some time back. May I publish it in the October Mother India? I am sending a translation also. Will you please check it? (Amal sent the French original and the English translation. Only the English is given below.)

ON MUSIC

TWO ANSWERS BY THE MOTHER

X and I play the flute together. We have found a book (Folksongs of North America) whose songs have very beautiful, very simple and easy-to-play airs. We should like to know if the poems of love and death which do not seem to go with our ideal in the Ashram have a bad spirit in the tune. Are the Catholic religious pieces of music, which are played in the churches, bad to play? If so, we shall not play either the airs accompanied by vulgar words nor the religious compositions.

One should suppress the words and keep only the music in both the cases.

If you know how to write the music, make copies of the airs you want to play (without copying the words). If you do not know how to write the music ask someone who does — Jo for example — to do it for you or to teach you to do it.

Do not keep the books with you, for these books can have a bad influence. (1965)