Maude Smith's Correspondence with The Mother

7 October 1957

Mother,

A year ago you said you wanted me to be quite free from M, and not let him push me, to do only what I saw was to be done. Now he wants me to type a screen version of Adam and Eve which he is preparing. It seems to me that this play is entirely unsuitable; it is full of ugliness and horror that much outweigh the little bit of human aspiration for a better future. I'd rather not have anything more to do with it.

Quite right.

But is this the kind of non-cooperation which you meant by what you told me? How can I pass judgment on everything he may ask me to do? After all, I am only a secretary.

Certainly you have not to submit to M. Your surrender must be to the Divine alone.

The day before he left he asked me to take the responsibility for seeing through the press the compilation Food and Life. I was astounded at his asking me, for I was dead tired after almost a month of nursing him and preparing food for him, and I was behind in all my other work. I felt a need for a time of quietness and a chance to "possess my own soul".

This is quite right.

I felt I should not let him push this job onto me. Yet he was a sick man and had no one else to turn to—how could I refuse? I stopped and called for your help. Then the sense of the Presence came so strong and warm and assuring that I felt you must want me to accept this new job. So I said, yes, I would do it. Was I right?

No. You ought not to have accepted.

What did the Presence mean?

To give you the strength to refuse by remembering that you belong to the Divine alone.

It would have been wiser to ask me about it before giving an answer.

Now I must ask you not to do this work and to take for a time a much needed rest.

7 October 1957