The Mother

Agenda

Volume 5

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.

*
*   *

(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, 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! I can't hear anything anymore, as if it were veiled. I can hear, but it's very, very faint.

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)

¹ The mysterious part of it is that the recording of this fragment of conversation survived, while all the rest disappeared.... Was the machine flattered?

Back