Read Maude Smith's correspondence with The Mother - from the period spanning 1955-1970
The Mother : correspondence
THEME/S
Born on 17 May 1910 in the United States, the disciple Maude Smith joined the Ashram on 25 March 1953 at the age of forty-two. At first she worked in the Ashram Library and then for the quarterly journal World Union. In 1965 the Mother placed her in charge of the Ashram Book Stock. Around this time she also became manager of the quarterly journal Equals One. Maude lived in the Ashram for forty-eight years, until her passing on 30 December 1991 at the age of eighty-one.
Maude's correspondence with the Mother covers the years from 1955 to 1970.
Gracious Divine Mother,
You have talked to me and explained many things about humility and openness, about the things in me that hide you from me, about confidence and letting go. But it is very hard for me to be patient and wait gladly and let you do the sadhana. Yet I feel that if I can ever surrender completely to you, it will bring a great sense of relief and peace and joy.
You told me recently that I don't need to seek you within, for when the being is ready you will reveal yourself. You told me that I can't even aspire, because aspiration is something given. Are these things true? Because in class and in the books, you and Sri Aurobindo are always saying that we must aspire.
There must be some omission in the mental transcription, because as it is put here it is not quite true—at least one aspect of the problem is missing.
It must have been a reaction against an excessive reliance on aspiration alone.
Then last week you said, "Surrender, too, is given." I asked, "Then is there nothing I can do but wait?" and you answered, "You can do nothing. Everything is given. But you must try. Try to aspire, to pray, offer and open. Try to surrender, remembering that it is not your efforts that will avail anything. All is given; still you must play the play; you must try."
Obviously all this was said to relieve an excessive tension of the will—but it is only one aspect of the problem.
Help me, Mother, I pray. Teach me what I need to know. Open me to thyself and bring me to thee.
With love and devotion and joy, I offer myself at your feet.
A more smiling confidence in the Grace would surely lead you sooner to peace and joy.
With my love and blessings
c. 1955
My dear child,
I considered, from the beginning, that you had given materially all you had, and that from that point of view your surrender was total—the rest comes little by little with the growth of the consciousness.
I accept the pretty little vase you gave me yesterday as a symbol—but I wish you should keep all the things you are using or can be of any use for you, as in our yoga we are not expected to deprive ourselves of the necessities of life.
15 January 1956
Should I ask for a servant to come three or four hours a week to clean my room? I have always preferred not to have a servant in the house, but nowadays I have no time for cleaning. Or should I take housecleaning time out of my library or exercise hours?
It seems to me that to bring a servant inside your house is not quite advisable. But also to take time out of what is reserved for exercise is not at all advisable ... some other arrangement?
Love and blessings
25 November 1956
I cannot believe that in the Integral Yoga the darkness and ugliness and suffering I have been immersed in for almost three years are necessary. Nor do I believe that it is beyond the power of the Divine to help. Only, something is dreadfully wrong somewhere.
In our last interview you said I should stop doing sadhana.20 The partial stopping I have done since then seems to be ineffective, so now I shall stop completely everything that to me means sadhana (going to you at balcony, going to class and meditation, reading, marching, seeking guidance, trying to be quiet and relaxed). Little good seems to come from these things anyway.
I never told you to stop any of these things which are, on the contrary, the indispensable frame of the life here as they are the means through which I am working to help the inmates in their inner and outer life. There is surely some misunderstanding of what I can have said and on the contrary I wish that you should continue all that in spite of all the resistance you can feel in your lower nature, as it is the best way of conquering this resistance. For instance I expect that you will attend this evening meditation at the playground and I hope you will benefit by it.
If life is all a game of hide-and-seek instituted for the Divine's delight, naturally the more difficult it is and the longer it takes, the greater the delight. So why should I expect anything more than just enough help to keep me in the game?
This is only a way of saying and need not be taken too literally.
I did not come here with the idea that this way is so difficult that the goal can't possibly be achieved in a lifetime. But if things must be that way, I shall try to resign myself to it, I shall do the work given me to do and put far behind me as a foolish and mistaken ambition the dream of aspiration, childlike trust and joyous self-giving, of peace, light, oneness, and of the yoga as a means of becoming an instrument worthy of service to the Divine.
It is not an ambition and far from being foolish it is the right aspiration and the right attitude which must one day be fulfilled.
19 January 1957
Look at the Sun and not at the darkness, and the darkness will melt to an insignificant fly...
Love
23 July 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
I found a suggestion in your book On Education about how to deal with vital rebellion and depression: "At these moments one must remain quiet and refuse to act." Do you mean what these words say? What happens to one's work etc. on such days?
This is a misunderstanding. The sentence in French was clear enough. I meant that at these moments of depression and revolt, no fresh decision must be taken under the impulse of the wrong movement—but practically one must go on with the usual routine quietly and undisturbed.
Mother, can't you tell me whether or not I should persist in my efforts until success comes?
YES, undoubtedly.
You have often said we should persist stubbornly, tirelessly: "Do it ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times." But I am always prevented from doing this because, among other things, you once told me to stop doing sadhana, relax and take a holiday. (You didn't say for how long.)
This was only for a time to relax.
Something within stops me from persisting, but I don't know whether it is you or some hostile force or my own laziness.
Surely it is not me.
Why do you have to be so unapproachable? I can't talk to you, I can't write to you. Many times I have tried but am stopped by a feeling of its utter futility.
Why not write? I have not banned writing and am always ready to answer any reasonable questions.
8 October 1957
I am so grateful for your letter, for your touch, and for the warm, sweet feeling that I belong to you again.
I'm sorry to bother you again, but I'm still con fused about the matter of persistence; the question has troubled me for so long that I feel I must get it straight this time. Here is an example of what 1 mean:
Just now I'm interested in concentrating in the heart; I also feel the need of a change in my attitudes. Should I continue to work on these two things21 persistently until the inner doors open or until I see that my attitudes have changed? Or if my interest wanes and something I read or something you speak of in class awakens an urge in me in another direction—such as remembering the New World, stepping back, controlling my thoughts, etc.—should I drop what I’m working on now and take up the new direction?
The best is to keep all these aspirations living in your heart simultaneously, ready in the background and insist on this one or that one or several at a time when they become prominent in the consciousness. The idea is to be able to follow all without rejecting any, in an all-embracing movement.
At the Playground the evening before I received your letter, thoughts came to me which I felt must be your answer:
“When there is not sufficient support in the will or the nature for a certain movement to continue, it is dropped and the work is shifted to another angle. But your mistake has been in feeling failure and discouragement because of it. You should just keep aspiring and wait until another urge comes. Trying to force yourself is the wrong thing.
“It is like growing plants: you cultivate them a little, fertilize them a little, water them a little, each activity in turn. You can’t give a whole season’s water at one time. Or it is like climbing a steep mountain. You grab at bushes, stones, anything to help you climb. And if the next time a stone gives way under your hand, that is no sign that the first use of the stone was a mistake. Everything you try, even once, is a help, a step forward, a progress. But if a thing doesn’t continue to help you, you mustn’t give up or get discouraged—try something else. ”
Indeed this is a mental translation of what I tried to make you feel and can be used until a better one comes to replace it.
This of course means to persist, but not at any one particular thing. Was this from you?
Yes, in its essence.
Should I do this way?
Yes, but to understand truly you must as far as possible avoid the cut and dry mental rigidity.
13 October 1957
There is something I need to ask you about M before he comes on the 1st. Should I confine my work with him strictly to New Horizon work or should I also do other things I have been doing for him—such as personal and business correspondence, running errands, taking care of him if he is ill?
You might help him as he badly needs it—but not to the extent of taxing your own health.
Another question: What should I do with the suggestions that come to me about various things in the Ashram? When I dust my shutters, I think how windows could be made so they could be more easily cleaned. When I watch the doctor cut and fold gauze for small bandages, I figure out how ready-made plasters can be prepared by his helper to save his time. When servants come to the library who don't know how things should be done, or why, I work out a brief course of training which new domestic servants might be expected to pass.
Suggestions of this kind are always useful. You can make them to those in charge, leaving them free to make or not to make use of them.
Mother, I have given up taking exercise because almost always I was so tired I had to drive myself to do it, and you have told me so often not to push myself. Shall I wait till I have enough quietness and equanimity that I am not constantly fatigued by violent emotions, assuming that when the time is right you will give me the urge to take up exercise again?
Yes.
You spoke once in class about consciously aspiring so that each physical movement involved in our work and other activities may help towards our bodily strength and harmony. Should I try to do this instead of exercise just now?
Yes, provided it does not become an obsession.
My throat infection still bothers me. I went to Dr. N because it was not getting better. After several days of his treatment it seemed better, but now it is as bad as ever. I don't know whether it is serious, but I'm not going to him again unless you tell me I should. After all, if disease is caused by inner disharmony, I don't see the sense of going to a doctor about it. I shall go back to depending on your help alone, praying for your healing, purifying Force, and aspiring for confidence in it and openness to it.
If you can do this sincerely, it is surely better.
19 November 1957
The realisation has come to me that silence has nothing to do with the absence of sound, but is something in itself, a positive quality almost living and vibrant, almost visible, part of the essential nature of things.
Quite correct.
Everything I see—clouds, leaves, flowers, walls, clothing, people, food, the cells of the body—all are silent, and in that silence they do their work according to the law of their nature. The effect of their movement—the rustling of leaves, the striking of hammer on steel—is something quite apart from this silence which is in the nature of the things themselves.
Sometimes I feel like a person alone in a silent world. For a short time I felt that in a few things, especially trees, there was an intense joy of silence and I also could feel that joy.
Mother, 0 Mother, I aspire to become aware of this silence in myself and, if it be the truth, as myself.
Good.
A long time ago, when I was trying to find you within myself, you seemed to say that if the inner road was blocked I might try the outside path for a while—opening myself to beauty and wonder, joy and laughter, as when I was a child. But I was not able or not willing, and I kept crying and pounding at the locked inner door, closing my eyes and my heart to all the things around me which I had always loved.
But Mother, my windows are all on the outside, and the Divine is universal as well as immanent. Surely if I remain open and sensitive to these things which you are showing to me in a new light, responding to them with joy or simply observing them with the wide-open, quiet eyes of a little child, not only will I find you in them, but in the right time and way the inner doors also will open.
Quite true.
All is in your good hands. I trust myself to you utterly.
Your experiences are excellent and quite on the right track.
Go on opening your eyes and your heart to the whole world and you are sure to meet the Divine there.
With love and blessings
18 January 1960
Gracious Divine Mother, Mother of Radiances,
Is it possible that in a former life I found You—found the Self, became a free soul? Is that what You meant when You said in an interview long ago that there is a contact with the psychic being which my mind refuses to acknowledge; and again that I have already surrendered and my heart is joyful and ecstatic? Might that also be why so much of this life has had to be lived before I could "remember"?
Yes, you are a conscious and living soul, come back upon earth to do the Divine Work.
3 March 1961
Here is my offering—some little paintings on cards. They are not as gay as the others, but this time they came this way. Are they too simple? Would you prefer the painting in a particular place, at the left, for example? Are the sizes suitable? Please tell me any way in which I can make them more useful.
They are all very nice and useful. Variety is good, I'm not for a fixed rule—and as they are they bring a touch of joy. I shall be glad to utilise them.
23 September 1962
I have always been able to sleep at night, almost from the time my head touches the pillow. But now sometimes I lie awake for two or three hours before I can go to sleep. I don't know why.
How to use this time of quiet? I have tried many things—calling You, Your Force, the peace, trying to go inside, trying to go upstairs and sit with You, trying just to be quiet inside. But nothing comes from anything I do, only a constant train of thoughts which are often depressing.
What is to be done?
Adopt any of these methods (the one which is most easy and spontaneous) but go on with it steadily even if it has not any immediate result, go on night after night—one night either you will have an experience or you will fall asleep (both good).
With my love and blessings for a progressive new year
24 December 1962
Everything in my being wants to give itself to You. Why is there no way, no help? Why can't it be now instead of in some vague indefinite future! Many times I have asked You, in interview, in writing and in prayer about now, and You have never answered. Why? I am not "expecting great results in a short time", I ask only the minimum essentials—and it is no longer a short time; it is ten years!
I do not see why it could not be now, immediate. It may be much closer to realisation than you believe.
11 January 1963
How can I keep on? I can't live in the old world—it gets more difficult all the time—and there is no way for me to live in the new world yet.
Sometimes quietness comes and I can work happily, but then I feel guilty to keep on calling You, thinking I should just trust You instead. I have tried that for months at a time, tried to let You do everything. And then I always remember Your message about the importance of faithfulness, plasticity, surrender and self-giving. I recall the time we talked about the "baby kitten" way and I asked You, "Then I don't have to do any sadhana at all?" and You answered, "Do what your heart demands." Ah! Mother, that's just it—that's just what I can't do and what is so necessary.
All my attitudes are wrong. I seem to be closed to the Light and the Force that are pouring down, to the Love all around me, to the world of Delight—and I can't see any way to begin changing things.
Mother, what kind of game is this where there is never any solution, where everything I do is wrong, and doing nothing is also wrong, and there is no way to surrender!
Yes, if you could just he simple and spontaneous, and not look at yourself all the time criticising and judging what you do—leave the criticism and the judgment to the Divine—it is not your business.
You are much closer than you think—it is just one personal door to break open without personal effort.
15 March 1963
Gracious Divine Mother.
Is this hunger that 1 feel so much of the time aspiration? When I told You about it in an interview long ago (although then I think I described it as a homesick feeling), You turned Your head away as if in disgust or impatience.
I am not conscious of having had disgust or impatience at anything you told me.
So because of that, and because year after year this hunger was never satisfied, I felt that it must be a wrong movement, a vital desire or demand or impatience, and so I fought against it, tried to quiet it, surrender it, forget it. And since I could never do that, but was only tormented by it, I have hated it and myself and the sadhana.
But lately it has occurred to me that perhaps this hunger is aspiration, aspiration being done in me rather than my doing it.
Certainly hunger is aspiration; the only important point is to know what is the object of the hunger. If it is hunger for the Divine it is quite all right. In the same way in a homesick feeling all depends on the home for which you are sick—if it is for your Divine Origin, it is undoubtedly a very good help for your consciousness to reach there soon.
Mother, is this true? If so, then my whole attitude has to change; I must learn to welcome this hunger instead of dreading or resenting it, and quietly and confidently let it do its work in me.
Is it not that which I meant when I asked you to be more spontaneous?
With all my love and blessings
5 May 1963
Several months ago I started helping M with the proof-reading for the World Union journal. I have continued to do this, feeling rather responsible for it, especially trying to have the manuscripts in proper condition before they go to the Press. I like it, but it takes a lot of time and almost always it has to be done in a great hurry.
I have begun to wonder if I should continue this work. I would rather paint, but for a long time I have felt little inclination for painting. Perhaps there is in me too strong a feeling that painting is play, and play should be done only when work is finished—and with me work is never finished!
What shall I do?
Never exert yourself and never hurry. Do what can be done in the time you have but without strain—in a quiet flow of peace.
All work must be play, but a Divine play played for the Divine, with the Divine.
22 June 1963
To Mother—an offering sent with all my love, I wish it were a million times more.
May I be all Yours and only Yours.
Your heart is worth many million times more and I cherish it very preciously.
30 October 1963
Gracious Mother,
Often these days I find in books and magazines signs of a consciousness one could hardly have seen ten years ago—new images, new ways of looking at things, a new seeing, a new sense of relationship, unity and harmony, a new direction.
Almost immediately I think: "This would be good for the World Union journal" or "I wish everyone could read this" or some other utilitarian idea.
The last few days I have begun to feel that such thinking almost shuts a door on my receptivity and limits my absorption of the message and power of these writings. Even copying or making notes seems to change the mood; it is no longer pure delight, but something I want to do or ought to do.
Mother, would it be better just to enjoy these things, drink them in, open and stretch to make place for them within myself—so that perhaps some day what I absorb will pour out through me like perfume from a flower?
Yes, my dear child,
You have caught the right thing. To make use of your experience you come down from the pure height of it. To be "useful" you descend to a mental level, and as the mind is still very much mixed up, the purity of the experience goes.
Let the "utilisation" come in its time—later on.
With love, much love, and blessings
16 December 1963
It seems more and more clear to me that if there is nothing really but the One; if all our seemingly separate existences and actions are only an appearance, then the only way to do anything effective for World Union is first to get out of the consciousness of appearances and onto the Other Side, into the Reality.
Until then all our attitudes, our speech, our planning and our relationships are superficial and artificial. Even the desire to work for the Divine and the desire for oneness are results of the same false consciousness of separateness. And whatever work we do can have little value in itself.
So to go over to the Other Side, to live in the Reality, to lose my separate self-ness in that vast movement of Being which manifests the One—only this seems to have any importance or value for me right now.
Mother, is this true? If so, what can I do to hasten the crossing over?
Live, yourself, more and more in the consciousness of the One and let Him22 guide you in your daily action; this is the best we can do, at once for ourselves and for the world.
With love
9 January 1964
All last night I was with R, who was very ill. Most of the time I was lying down, but I could not sleep except from 4 to 6 this morning. Yet after only two hours of sleep, today I have been less tired than usual and less sleepy in the afternoon. Can it be related to the fact that all night long I kept calling the Peace? Or is it that the Force you were sending to help R gave me strength also?
Yes, obviously, you received well the Force that was sent to cure her.
Or perhaps I don't need as much sleep as I've always thought I did!
No—once in a while not to sleep is all right, especially when you are bathing in Force, but it would not do to make a habit of it.
My love and blessings
5 February 1964
I am grateful that I feel almost well again so soon. The weakness I had after my other heart attacks has not come this time—only sometimes a slight headache.
Since the last heart attack two years ago I have enjoyed the dancing in As class. And lately I have been taking exercises with F to strengthen my weakest muscles. After so many years I have begun to hope that the body can become graceful, plastic and full of joy. But I realise that I must go about it very slowly and patiently.
The last weeks there has been an unusual sense of joy and physical fitness. But I have not yet learned how to work and exercise without exerting myself.
There must be a way to let the Force do it. Can you teach me?
Is it all right to start to work again on Friday, as the Doctor suggests?
Keep your confidence and hope in the body's possibility. But learn not to exert yourself and to let the Force work harmoniously through the body with a minimum interference of the mind.
You can start work as the Doctor allowed but without any effort, in an unshaken inner peace and calm.
3 March 1964
Simplicity is of all things the best to express harmony.
9 April 1964
Regarding the repainting of the World Union office—is it all right to use the same colours we had when you visited the office at its opening?
The outside gray and white, of course.
The courtyards white.
Inside—white walls, pale blue ceilings, pale blue-gray woodwork, and one deep blue wall and door.
We want most to approach your ideal of beauty and simplicity.
The fewer different colours, the greater is the simplicity!
Blessings
10 July 1964
A few months ago I was wondering why we can't grow more fruit in the Ashram, and I aspired intensely to do something to help the situation. Now a direct answer seems to have come.
A month or so ago I received an avocado (butter fruit) in my fruit bag, and I planted the seed. Now it is a fine little tree. So I told R, and now he is giving me the seeds of all the fruits he prepares for you. I have planted about 100 in sand and water on my terrace! Some have sprouted. When they get big enough to be transplanted safely, shall I send them out to Lake Estate? How good it will be when we can have a whole orchard of these nutritious fruits!
Bravo! I am so glad of the good news! With all my love I will help you and the future orchard to grow and flourish.
11 September 1964
While this emergency lasts, I shall be glad to help in the nursing home for about an hour every evening, or in the bakery early morning—trying always not to hurry or strain!
You are working already quite enough
30 September 1964
My body and mind are very tired. How can I continue unless I learn to work without exerting myself?
Getting the first issue of the World Union journal out of the Press and the next issue in at the same time, as well as trying to keep the Book Stock work going smoothly—and at night the group exercises!
Mother, can't you teach me how not to exert myself, how to live in the peace of the Lord as you told me on my birthday?
The impulse for work must come from within or above, not from the pressure of outer circumstances and wills. If the work of the World Union journal is a strain YOU MUST STOP IT—let somebody else take it up.
The work assigned to you is the maintenance of the "Book Stock" and that, that alone, you can do without straining yourself. Take all the rest you need and use that rest to go deep inside and to find the Divine's Peace there.
31 January 1965
Gracious and Blessed Mother,
It is twelve years today that I first came to the Ashram, and this is the first time you have ever told me to go inside! So much I have wanted to, but there was never any way, any door to enter. It seemed there was no inside in me.
Now that you have spoken, I feel the time has come. I know the Force will be there to make it possible. Show me the door, I pray, and lead me within.
The door is open. You have only to step in.
Is there any way of finding out how to go inside? Is there any way of seeing or feeling or becoming aware of the door that you say is open?
When you want to enter a room, or a house, or a temple, you cross the door and go in.
Do the same.
17 April 1965
After my birthday you seemed to say to me: Just as you tried to be quiet and open when you were with me, do that for five minutes a day, at the time when you are happiest. Don't expect any result. Just do it. It will be good for you. Is this from you?
I have been trying it, but haven't been able to do it for five minutes without a break yet.
Continue the attempt—after some time something may develop.
27 May 1965
What is the matter? I can't find any inside, any door, any opening to "step through". There is no place I can go to hide, to rest, to find any peace.
Why is it that I still can't trust the sadhana to you?
Many years ago when I told you I had a feeling of not being able to do anything, you said that sometimes it is a good thing, for then one surrenders and everything is all right. But 1 still can't surrender and everything is not all right. Sometimes I work happily for months and don't think of these things, but that does no good either. It only distracts me from aspiring, from striving, from doing the yoga.
Mother, what to do? Sometimes I feel like stopping everything—food, sleep, work, exercise—and just call and call until there is a breakthrough, until something opens. There is no sense in going on as I am. I cannot go on this way.
Mother, help me, I pray.
Perhaps if you stop doing "yoga" and just live joyfully—yoga will spontaneously come to you....
In any case, my love is with you.
8 October 1965
The gardening I wish to do need not conflict with my ordinary working hours. Of course the work I am doing is almost unlimited in its possibilities; there is always more that could be done. I have often wondered whether, in being faithful to it, one is justified in doing anything else. You have said that we don't need recreation if we have the right attitude in our work, but where does spontaneity come in?
In principle I have no objection to gardening work, it is a very fine and useful occupation. But I would object very strongly to overtiring yourself and as I know that you will not neglect one work for the other, perhaps both would be too much? ...The right measure in action is a very necessary thing. So you are the only one to know, through experience, what you can reasonably do.
With all my love
4 May 1966
With your statement in the August Bulletin, I agree completely:
"You cannot do yoga if you do not take it seriously. If you are not serious, you have an aspiration for five minutes and then for ten hours you do not have it; for one day you have a great urge and for a month you do not have it, and so on. You cannot do yoga under those conditions. If you forget and relax, you cannot do yoga."
But this is exactly what I do—I forget and relax! Yet you tell me repeatedly: "Don't worry, it is coming all right." You say that the baby kitten way is the best—to take no responsibility for the sadhana—and that I should just live and work joyously (which I can't do either).
Mother, what attitude should I take when I read such things?
And what about the Divine Grace? Do you think it exists to remain idle?
Most have to work, but some are carried and are asked only to keep faith and confidence.
1 September 1966
Most of my life I have driven myself to do what needed to be done or what I wanted to do. But you have told me to do as I feel—which has always seemed utterly impossible. For one thing, different parts of me feel different ways and I never recognise any urge as being “from within or above”, which, you told me, is where the urge for work should originate.
In recent weeks my weight has gone very low, and since my food is not less, I wonder if it may be because my body needs more sleep or more relaxation.
What would happen if I tried for a month doing exactly as I felt? Of course I would do the Book Stock work as usual, but everything else—other work, group exercise, gardening, painting, personal things—I would do only as I felt, not allowing one part of the being to push another. Is this possible before the psychic takes over control?
Shall I try it as an experiment? And will you guide me?
I was not speaking of the body’s feeling, but of the psychic feeling which is wiser than the mind.
30 October 1966
Today after examining my neck the Doctor says that the real cause of my elbow pain is a degeneration of the bones because of age. He suggests some diathermy treatment and perhaps exercises. But this has to be three mornings a week for two or three weeks, and I don’t like to be away from the Book Stock so much.
Mother, surely all this is not necessary? If disease is caused by an imbalance in the different parts of the being, how can it be healed by diathermy? And if health depends on the ability to call the peace and to live in the peace of eternity, that is for you to teach me, not the Doctor. I should much prefer to depend on your Grace and Force for healing. I leave myself completely in your hands.
What you say is quite true. I fully approve and fully collaborate.
29 November 1966
A.B. has asked me if I would be willing to be a vice-president of World Union.
I do not see the necessity of your taking up this burden.
Since my experiences in America I have not had much faith in the organisational approach as a means of changing the world, unless the consciousness is changed.
QUITE RIGHT!
As far as I know, A.B. has got a vice-president and all is well!
29 July 1967
Frequently one hears about that little step in consciousness which makes all the difference. Is there a method I can use to become conscious?
The best way is not to allow oneself to do anything unconsciously ... but!
Even if you just try a little it will help.
12 May 1968
For some weeks I have been having digestive trouble, with occasional headache and giddiness. Dr. S thinks there are two causes: anaemia and a chronic type of colitis. For the anaemia he recommends iron, and for the colitis he proposes to give me a medicine.
Up to now, everything that has ailed the body has always, eventually, become all right by your Grace. So perhaps I can trust that this will also become all right, and need not take the medicine, only the iron?
Keep your faith and take the iron.
19 January 1970
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