The Mother

Agenda

Volume 7

September 7, 1966

I've lost all hope of being on time.... It's hopeless, every day it's the same thing.

And they [the secretaries] make me drudge and slave; it's not that I am just sitting peacefully, listening to them....

And it's not bad will – oh, if they had bad will, it would be very simple, I'd just shove them out!

I thought of sending them a letter, I even wrote them one, which I didn't send.¹ I regret I didn't, it would have had some effect.

I don't think so! I don't think so, because for my part I told them everything I could; I even told them it made me ill.... They don't have the strength to resist: it's the current of the outer world and they don't have the strength to resist it.

And I go as fast as I can, it's not that I fall asleep!... With the transformation, might we have the power to do all this work in less time?

We might have the power to make people understand that they mustn't waste your time!

It's the notion of usefulness that isn't the same [in Mother and in the secretaries].

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(Then Mother sorts out flowers and keeps one aside for the Ashram's cashier.)

I don't have any money either. I owe him 15,000 rupees and the poor man has to pay all the rents.... I have debts everywhere! (Mother laughs)

That's how it is, it doesn't matter!

In the past, when I had money problems, I always had money from here or there, it was easy: I would take it, and as soon as money came, I'd put it back. But now it no longer works! I owe Amrita 20,000 rupees; I owe H. 13,000 rupees; I owe the cashier 15,000 rupees. That's how it is. It doesn't matter, I don't attach any importance to it.

We have an awesome budget; we have the budget of a small village – no, a small town. It's a budget of twenty-six lakhs of rupees² a year, you understand. And then, all those who used to give me money (people who had businesses and so on), have been ruined by the government's wonderful actions. So they can't give me any more. They give what they can, they are very nice, they make great efforts, but...

The only ones who could give me money are the scoundrels! (Mother laughs) They have plenty of money, stolen from everywhere, but they don't want to give it!

It doesn't matter, it'll only last for a time.

There is a sort of wind blowing, like a gust of great confusion; a very dark confusion totally deprived of intelligence. Discernment, clear-sightedness, even enlightened common sense, seem to have disappeared everywhere. It's a phase to go through.

Wealth doesn't depend on the amount of money you have: it depends on the proportion between that money and what you have to spend. To poor fellows without responsibilities except themselves and their family, I would appear extremely rich. I receive a thousand rupees a day easily – but I need seven thousand! I spend seven thousand and receive a thousand, that's the proportion.

You must do something about the scoundrels!

(Mother laughs) You know, there are lots of people who put money in their walls (they hide it with curtains or papers). There's a fortune, several crores³ of rupees: millions hidden away in walls! And then they worry themselves sick, they constantly fear a police raid; while if they gave it away, they would become quite respectable people! They wouldn't be scared anymore, they would have a peaceful life.... I have the possibility of saying that they are anonymous gifts, as in temples; so that's a way for them to turn honest, it would be all to their advantage, but they are more attached to their money than to their life! I said several times (I know some people who have money hidden in their walls), I let it be known through intermediaries that they only had to put it in a suitcase and come and leave it at my door. And I'll say it's an anonymous gift, that's all. And they will be free – not only free, but (smiling) with a blessing, because it's for the divine work.... No, they are prisoners, prisoners of their money.

And the rather interesting thing is that (without any exception so far) all those who had an opportunity to give me money and didn't want to – who didn't want to because of their attachment to their money – lost it. It was taken from them, either by the government or a financial catastrophe or an industrial catastrophe, or simply stolen – lost.

A very long time ago (Sri Aurobindo was still here), an old Tamil financier came here with his wife. He lived to be very old; his wife died and he stayed on. And he gave money: he paid for his expenses, made little gifts now and then, but he was very rich. And when his wife died, he thought, “Ah, what if I gave all that I have?” Then he had second thoughts: “One never knows, the Ashram might come to an end....” And he left all his money with relatives of his who were bankers or whatever, and... pfft! all gone. So he himself said, “There's my folly! I don't have it, anyway I don't have that money; if I had given it I would have had the credit of giving it; now I have neither the money nor the credit!” (Mother laughs)

Ah! What have you brought? “Questions and Answers” for the Bulletin? What is it about?

A talk about money!

Oh, see!

(Satprem reads the Talk, then Mother comments)

That's why I spoke to you about money – see how it is.

Yes, that's odd!

It's amusing.

I say it's amusing, but I know, it's like that all the time – all the time, all the time, for everything. I am in a state of... (what should I call it?) of contemplative stillness, with that sort of constant aspiration for... for the Perfection we want to have: That which we want to bring down into this world. That's all. And then, from every side, from just everywhere, all kinds of things come (gesture of communication): I am suddenly thinking of that, or I suddenly have an answer to this, or I suddenly... And when the work is over, I immediately see: this (gesture to the forehead) has remained quiet, still, not even interested. It's like a transmitter – a receiver-transmitter – in a telephone set. And I simply transmit. But I don't even have the curiosity to know why this or that came. That's how it is: it goes out and comes; the answer goes out, the transmission, then the answer. And everything remains quiet (gesture to the forehead). So I know how things happen, but as I don't say to myself, “Oh, this or that or this is the reason,” when the outward proof comes [such as this Talk about money], it's amusing!

It's a strange thing.... The state of consciousness of the body's cells is a sort of keen, constant thirst for... what must be: the vibration of Harmony, of Consciousness, of Light, Beauty, Purity. It isn't even expressed in words, but it's... an aspiration, and nothing but that. Nothing but that, nothing else. And then, [in that silent aspiration] things come like that, from every side. And the rather peculiar thing is that there are also pains, discomforts, appearances of illness – and it all comes from outside. And with always the same answer (gesture of Descent): put the divine Consciousness – put the divine Consciousness, on everything. The Consciousness that contains the Peace, the Light, the Force....

¹ In that letter which he never sent, Satprem ingenuously tried to make the secretaries understand that these conversations with Mother might have import for the whole world, and that if Mother was an hour late for her conversations with Satprem and tired by a heap of trifles and petty personal matters, the atmosphere was not conducive for her to recapture the thread of her experience. But Satprem clearly saw the uselessness of stressing these obvious facts and saw that he would have quite simply been assumed to be indulging in “self-promotion.” So be it. (This footnote was written in 1966.)

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² One lakh= 100,000 rupees (about 6,000 U.S. dollars in 1990).

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³ One crore = ten millions.

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