The Mother

Agenda

Volume 8

October 30, 1967

I have been asked for a message to be broadcast on February 21 all over India by radio. I said, “All right, I'll give one.” But they want to have it in advance. And I saw so clearly that if I gave it now, it would belong to the period of Kali, of the struggle – I have a strong feeling that from next year the atmosphere will... (gesture of lifting) will clarify. I don't know why. So it would be better to wait till January. Because mentally one can always imagine and say something, but with me it doesn't work like that: it comes or doesn't come. So a whole number of things come, but they belong to a certain state of consciousness, and it's not the state of consciousness of next year.

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(For Satprem's birthday, Mother gives three cards which all depict ships, as well as a metal tray on which a ship is also painted.)

This [the tray] is for fun!

(Mother gives her cards) Three of them: one, two, and three.

Nothing but ships!... Am I going to travel?

No, no! To travel in space.

You'll read afterwards, it's not important....

(the first card)

“...For the awakening of the Supreme Consciousness and its power of vision.”

(the second)

“...So the most beautiful dreams may become living and true realities.”

(meditation)

About these ships, you asked if they indicated a journey.... As you know, it's always the symbol of the yoga, the discipline one follows, and everyone has his own form of transport (!) For some it's a plane; for others, a train; yet others... But most often it's a ship, especially this great, classic sailing ship. And for you, it's very clearly the symbol of your advance towards realization. So all year long, whenever I receive a ship, I put it aside for you!

Am I getting on?

But this time, everything came together as if... It was clearly with Sri Aurobindo's humor (many of these cards have his portrait). And in the end came the tray! When I received this tray, “Oh,” I said, “this is perfect!” (Mother laughs)

And Sri Aurobindo himself was very insistent because... To tell you the truth, I asked him (for that vision you would like to have, that state of vision), I asked him that it may be given you, that you may have it since you aspire for it. Then he said to me (on one of the cards I wrote what he said), the vision you will have is the vision of the Truth-Consciousness. It's the supreme vision, the true vision. (One may have visions in the subtle physical, in the vital, also a lot in the mind, but... none of that is satisfying, one always gets a sense of a not quite accurate transcription.) But the true vision is the vision of the Consciousness, the supreme Consciousness. And he told me that's what you would have.

The ship is the development, the means of advance towards that realization. It all came like that.

So I have every reason to hope it will be for this year. Because it came like that.

I also worry a lot over this book, this “Sannyasin” I am rewriting.... That difficulty of a PURE transcription.

(After a long silence) As for me, I have always felt that writing was your way of doing the sadhana. That is, not meditating or anything of the sort, but writing, is your way of doing the sadhana. When you write, I see a sort of transmutation taking place in you. Not only something you call “personal,” something which is “your” way of writing or “your book,” not only that, but formulating things in the most accurate, the most precise fashion, is your way of doing the sadhana. It's a sadhana up above.

Which is to say that to my vision, the process of expression is more important than the outer result. There is an inner result (which isn't expressed in words), and it's far more important than the outer result. The last time, when you wrote the book on Sri Aurobindo, it was perfectly clear; with the last book too [the first version of the Sannyasin], but even more so: there was that sort of inner transmutation which was far more important than what you were writing – to my vision.

It's a process of inner fashioning of your consciousness.

And what happened at the end [of the first version of the Sannyasin, which Satprem rejected] was simply because the time of the final transmutation (I don't know how to explain... or transformation – more than transformation), of the final transmutation hadn't come yet. It was near, but still at a tangent. That's why. It was like that (gesture showing two lines coming closer), drawing nearer.

That's what I kept seeing all the time.

And the expression – the expression that will give you a sense of... that will make you say, “Ah, this is it!” will come with the culmination of the sadhana.

That is also for this year. It's very near, but at a tangent. It's drawing nearer and nearer, and...

Ah, a happy new year.