September 21, 1968The Mother
Agenda
Volume 9
September 21, 1968
Mother, it would be good if I could have your protection, and Sujata too – both of us.
Why?
We're not in good physical health.
Oh! What's wrong?
Sujata has been running a temperature for several days, a high temperature; last night she fainted and was as if “thrust” against the wall: she hurt herself. As for me, last night too I caught a fever.
Bah!... What's that?
I don't know. Both of us. There's something trying to bother us.
(after a long silence)
I don't know.... I told you at the beginning that I had felt something coming from there [the Vatican].
There is something.
There is something... a kind of relentless fury, something disrupting everything with relentless fury.
It's well veiled, in the sense that I can't manage to find precisely what it is. But it's... I'll give you an example: no later than yesterday evening or this morning (or in the night, I don't know), the body said, “But what have I done that everything keeps grating like this all the time?” And then, “that” (who? I don't know) shows me things from my life.... This time, it showed me something rather recent, that is, from my life in India (not things from the beginning but from my life with Sri Aurobindo), and in what a manner!... A manner in which all I did, all I thought, my whole way of acting, it all becomes so ugly, mon petit! So egoistic, so narrow, so petty, so ugly... Then, the immediate conclusion: “The state you are in is quite natural!...” It was something like that.
What is it?
So there is only one response (gesture with hands open upward): unshakable calm, and putting the Supreme here, and that's all. But... it [the attack] doesn't really affect, yet it's still there, that is, it's not repulsed, not dissolved: it's there (gesture as if encircling Mother). And it's been like this since I told you right at the beginning: a formidable formation.
But Mother, almost every night I wake up with headaches.1 My nights are tiring, very tiring.
And with me, every time I go into an inner state of peace and tranquillity, something PULLS me like that, as if out of malice, and shakes me as though a catastrophe had happened!
Where does it come from?
There is a malice. Yesterday, I felt that malice.
Ah?
Oh, yes! I saw waves of suggestions.2 And especially those nights that are so difficult – why?
You understand, we live every moment in a world where everything is tangled together. In a normal way (I don't mean “normal” for everyone, but it's always been normal for me), things work out; they work out all right, you feel the Protection. And that's what has gone! There's something struggling against that.... Until now, there has never, never been the feeling of anything that really had a power [against Mother]: I just had to do like this (gesture of sweeping away), and it was over. But what I can do now is to mend harmful effects or repulse them – it's intolerable!
And it's mostly mental, it comes with a sort of sense of fatality: “You are the one who caused this to happen, you're getting your just deserts.” Like that. Then the body's answer is very simple, it says, “We're all in the same state! The whole of Matter is like this, it's full of ignorance and incapacity.” That becomes “faults” in the human mind, but it's not faults. Or else, it's hopeless: if what has been is indefinitely the cause of the whole future, it's hopeless.
So all that can be held at arm's length, it can be calmed, but I clearly see it's not going away. And the body truly has trust, it has faith, that's what saves it, otherwise...
That also points out the consequences: for instance, yes, precisely, the incapacity to protect others, to give them the needed condition, to do what's needed for them – all that is pointed out with... you know, unrelenting fierceness. To such a point that this poor body started weeping! Like that. Then naturally, there is the faith that sets everything right. But you know, it's as if you were a monster that had created all the disorder everywhere. It's frightful!
Yes, at one point last night, I saw kinds of waves of mud beating; I was protected by a wall and those waves kept beating and beating like that.
That's it.
Brown waves, you know, like mud. They kept beating and beating....
(after a silence)
The body is convinced that all its difficulties are tolerated because they're part of the tapasya [discipline], so it doesn't refuse them – it doesn't complain, doesn't refuse – but... it's a fierce tapasya.
And it's not merely the play of forces: it's conscious.3 It's conscious and has the obstinacy of a conscious will.
(long silence)
I saw P.L. [the disciple from the Vatican] yesterday. Have you seen him?
Yes.
He too asked me to protect him.
Surely! He's fine, this man.
Yes.
Has he left?
This afternoon.
(long silence)
Are you still running a temperature?
A little, I think. But Sujata, yesterday, had a very high fever. It's gone, so now there's weakness.
Bah!
And what do you do to treat yourself?
Nothing.
You're not doing anything?
I take aspirin once in a while. But she isn't taking anything.
You must go and rest, mon petit.
(To Sujata:) And you're going to bed!
(Sujata) After two days in bed, I get tired of the bed!
(Satprem) But I have trust – entirely.
Naturally! But still, it mustn't last, we've had enough, haven't we?
Something feels like getting very angry, but I dare not – the body dare not. Something that feels like, oh, like striking very strongly, but... Because that it has full power is certain! I've had proof of it – not just once, many times. But...
If I knew. If I knew in a totally precise and certain way where those attacks come from, then...
(silence)
It's like this: the body is absolutely convinced that there is only one Will – one Consciousness, one Will. Consequently, whatever happens is part of that Consciousness and that Will. That's how it is, you understand. So it can't get angry. It has one spontaneous tendency: let the aspiration be more intense, the surrender more complete, the trust more total. It gets formulated like this: “That – That which is everything and is one – is nevertheless, despite all appearances, it is nevertheless the Supreme Goodness, the Supreme Beauty, the Supreme Harmony... everything reaches out towards That. That is it. And we too reach out towards That.” There, that's the body's “philosophy.” But not in the manner of the other parts of the being: quite spontaneous, and with a sort of indisputability.
(silence)
You see, the body is convinced – absolutely convinced – that it can receive blows only because its faith isn't sufficient. Not total enough, not complete enough, not absolute enough.
It's very conscious of its imbecility and... (how can I explain?) at the same time it has the feeling that that very consciousness of its imbecility is an obstacle; that it should only feel it is... the supreme Truth, the supreme Reality. And then everything would be well.
Ah, go and take rest.
We're fine here!
Do you have enough to eat?
1 This was going to last for months.
2 Before going to sleep, Satprem saw all kinds of suggestions pass by, in particular one showing Sujata thrown down into a water tank that is being dug in the garden. A few hours later, Sujata was thrown down very near the water tank, against an iron bar in the wall. Thus the really serious accident was averted and turned into a minor one (which, nevertheless, barely missed piercing Sujata's eye).
3 Mother means those attacks are the result of a conscious will somewhere.