November 6, 1968The Mother
Agenda
Volume 9
November 6, 1968
(Regarding a visit paid by Satprem to Bharatidi, an old French disciple, at the Vellore hospital where she is to be operated on. Bharatidi, a member of France's Far East College, is well known for her sparkling wit and liveliness and her biting irony.)
So did you go and see Bharatidi?
Yes, Mother. She is fine, this Bharatidi, what force she has! And what sense of humor – she is really a queen.
Yes.
There's a great nobleness in that woman.
Oh, yes.
Did you give her my note?
Yes, tears came to her eyes.
They're going to operate on her tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning.
But I wondered if it was really indispensable. They don't even know if it's cancer.
It's a tumor, which may be cancerous or a simple tumor.
Anyway, she is making arrangements, she has already distributed all her money.
They say that if they don't operate, it will go from bad to worse.
Yes.
How old is she?1
Over seventy, I think. They're preparing her with blood transfusions. She's physically very weak, emaciated. But she has that energy....
She didn't know she had that?
No.... But it's heartening to see a human being with such dignity ...
Oh, yes.
... and recounting with humor the visit of missionaries and sisters trying to convert her (because it's a Protestant hospital)....
Is it?
So there are bishops, nuns, and once they came into her room to try and convert her. She tells the story with such humor: “I am not afraid of death, I know we are born more than once!” So the others have nothing left to say.
Yes, she sent me a message through M.: “I am not afraid of dying because I know we do not die.” It's good.
(long silence)
There was a strange relationship between my mind and hers.... When I used to observe things and talk about them, I would have Bharatidi's voice and manner of speaking and seeing! I always wondered why, until I looked: there was a life when we were together, in a single body. That was very long ago.
Strange. It was very interesting.... All of a sudden, I would speak with her voice: the sound, the words, everything was quite like her.2
Yes, she has a lovely mind, really lovely.
Before coming here, she was Buddhist3 and Communist – fervently Communist.
(silence)
Are they militant Protestants in that hospital?
Oh, yes! There are big signs everywhere in the rooms: “He died for our sins,” and verses from the Bible all over the place.
Oh!
They are Protestants through and through. You can hear religious chants all the time....
(after a silence)
Those Protestants are much worse than the Catholics.
I always remember a Danish woman (she was the mother of Hohlenberg4 who came here), who once happened to come to Paris, and whom I had at lunch with me one day. If you had seen that woman... I don't remember the occasion, but the talk turned to the Catholics, and she flew into such a rage! She shouted, “Those idolaters!...” (Mother laughs) It was frightful!
They're worse.... I've known both, seen both: the Protestants are worse. They are much more... they're hard. Very hard. They did away (laughing) with all that was artistic in the Catholic religion! They've turned it into something...
It's mental moralizing.
Yes, that's right.
Do you know the story of that “evangelist” (I think), a pastor who used to live in the house where H. now lives? Naturally he had contacts with the Ashram, and I don't know how, he came across a few “messages” [given by Mother], and thought I was claiming to be a god – declaring I was a god. And that would make him hopping mad! He would shout, “Aah! Aah! Our god at least died on the cross, he suffered for us....” Like that. “...But look at her living comfortably....”
It's frightful.
“...At least that's something worthwhile: he suffered for us, he died on the cross!”
Yes, I saw that in the hospital, there was a big sign: “He died for our sins.”
How horrible!
A sign big as this [gesture]
Oh, how horrible.
It's barbarism, that's all.
Yes.
(silence)
They are relatively few, far fewer than the Catholics.
But their religion is so shallow, so shallow and hollow that in reality it's nothing. The day it gives way, they'll be quite dumbfounded.
Yes.
That's what is happening in America, besides: it's giving way right and left. With the Catholics, there are still a few roots....
There was a time when I did a comparative study of all that I used to see and feel in all the religious sanctuaries, and that's really something interesting. In Protestant temples, it stopped at the mind, there was nothing else – nothing: dry, very dry. A mind, and behind it, nothing.
As for the Catholics, it depended a lot on the church or the cathedral – on the place – a lot. Varied. So then, I would compare with all the other sanctuaries.... You understand, in the course of my travels I would always go and see – very interesting.
Buddhist temples are VERY FINE. Obviously nihilistic, but there is always a very concentrated atmosphere – concentrated and SINCERE. A sincere effort.
In temples here... Oh, I met all kinds of things (lots of little devils), but all kinds of things. Here it was really interesting.... In one temple the godhead came to me and asked me to help her have influence on people! She told me, “I'll give you all I have, but you must see that...” (she didn't use those words – I am translating). I was riding in a car towards her temple, and on the way she landed in the car! It was so unexpected! She told me, “Do come. See that my power increases and I'll give you all I have!...” (It's
in that temple that once a year they cut the necks of hundreds of
chickens.5) So I said to her, “No.”
If I could have prevented all that slaughter!...
But I like the atmosphere of many temples here.
Yes.
There's such an old vibration, so old....
Yes.
You feel you are finding again millennia that are so familiar.
Yes.
(long silence)
Did they put those “notice boards” in her room?
Yes, yes, everywhere.
She didn't ask for them to be removed, did she?
There's even a Bible in one corner.... No, no, no question of having that removed!
In her room!
Yes.
And when you were ill there, did they put a Bible?
No, I didn't see the Bible, but there was also a sign (I forget what).
They propagandize.
Oh, yes, of course.
(long silence)
Is there nothing, no work? Do you have anything?
V. has again seen something. Something unexpected. Every evening, he comes to meditate at the Samadhi, and there he has never seen anything in his whole life: for years there has just been Sri Aurobindo, that's all, never anything else. The other day he came, and all of a sudden he had a vision: he saw Kali coming out of the Samadhi from the spot where Sri Aurobindo's head is – an all-blue Kali, covered with gold ornaments.
On which day?
Some four or five days ago.
(Mother remains silent for a long time,
then a misunderstanding follows)
I don't much like feeling her in there.
What surprised him was that instead of being naked, she was covered with gold.
What?
Oh, excuse me! You're speaking of Bharatidi!
Never mind, what did you say about Kali?
What surprised him was that she was covered with gold instead of being naked.
She was coming out of the Samadhi?
No, that doesn't surprise me.6
But my reflection was regarding Bharatidi.... That is to say, she mustn't die, because that's a very bad place to die.
Yes. When I was hospitalized there, I had a dreadful impression.
Yes.
I kept saying, “I must get out of here, I must get out of here....”
Oh, yes, I constantly wanted you to get out of that place.
Very well.
ADDENDUM
(A letter from Mother to Bharatidi)
(written about 1963, at a time when Mother was not receiving any disciple, except sometimes people about to marry. Bharatidi, then seventy-three, had written to Mother to ask her if she should marry to be entitled to see her....)
O Bharatidi, our dearest friend!
Do not marry, that would be such a great pity for all – for you would have to leave the Ashram, at least during the honeymoon....
Let me tell you the truth. If I do not see you, it is because I cannot speak, and worse still, cannot hear, and how could I see you without hearing all the very interesting things you always have to tell me?
My program is generally five minutes' meditation, sometimes even less – how can I ask you to climb two flights for that?
If you do not mind, let us wait a little until the pressure (not the blood's!) has subsided.
As for me, you know this, I have the great advantage of being with you without need of the physical presence, and your voice often resonates to my inner hearing – and I always answer in silence.
I now add this long written discourse to send you my best wishes for the new year.
With all my tenderness
Signed: Mother
1 Suzanne Karpelès, or Bharatidi, was born on March 17, 1890, in Paris.
2 See in Addendum a letter from Mother to Bharatidi, showing well enough the sort of relationship that existed between Mother and Bharatidi.
3 Bharatidi was a specialist of Pali (used by the southern schools of Buddhism) and Sanskrit.
4 The painter who did a portrait of Sri Aurobindo in profile, standing.
5 Mother told this story in Agenda 2 of April 29, 1961.
6 Let us recall that gold is the color of the supramental.