The Mother

Agenda

Volume 10

September 20, 1969

Have you seen this?

(Mother holds out a note)

Auroville is the ideal place for those who want to know the joy and liberation of not having any more personal possession.

It's the last thing that has come. “Personal possession” in the singular: I mean the sense of personal possession.

(silence)

Your healer has arrived, I am told.

Yes, this morning, I think.

So I asked A. to bring him to you – you're the one he has come to see.

Me!

Yes, of course (laughter), the author of your book!... No, you can speak with him and see. You'll tell me how he is .... I put him up at “Castellini” because there's a large garden – I hope he'll be comfortable there. But you'll see, you'll try to make him tell a little what he is seeking by coming here.

What he is seeking.

That especially Also, there are people here who don't want doctors or medicines, and I'd like to try – if he intends to do something here.

In fact, I think he'd rather need to be protected, because as soon as people hear he's a healer, everyone will rush to him.

Ah, but I haven't told everyone.

But the word will get about!

We'll have to protect him there, we mustn't let people, that would be dreadful.

He should just say that people can come and see him only with Mother's permission.

Yes, that's right. But it depends on the gentleman, and that's just what I'd like you to see – whether he is a man who needs to be protected... or who needs to be calmed!

His photo gives an impression of someone very solid, not impassioned.

Yes.

But of course, he mustn't be too mentalized either, so... I don't know what he will understand.

Oh, you know, there in the West, everyone is mentalized.

But he understand better on a subtle level.

Yes.

(silence)

But this thing – healing hands – don't you have it too?... Because A. told me that when he has some pain, he just has to put his hand and concentrate – and it goes away. As for me, I've been doing it for... (I was going to say for centuries!), even when I was small I used to do it. I always found it something quite natural.

But concentrate in which way? You apply your hand, and then? You call ...

You apply your hand and concentrate on... what you conceive to be a higher force – or a Force of Harmony, or a Force of Order. Like that. You apply your hand, and you feel it flow through, like that, and enter.

I think every human being has it in potentiality. At any rate, I always found it a perfectly natural thing. And when you develop it, it develops as anything else. Of course, when it takes on miraculous proportions, it's different.

But it's very instinctive. I don't know, even when I was quite small, if I had a pain somewhere, or a toothache, I would do it – and when you're very small, you don't have any thought in mind – I would do it just like that (Mother presses her cheek), and it would relieve.

I'll try!

Yes (poking fun at Satprem).

What do you bring?

I should first give you news of G. I saw him this morning, he told me that since I spoke to him he has been feeling better, much better. Afterwards there haven't been any more attacks in the night.

Ah!

And he says that since then, he has been feeling a little above his head as if Sri Aurobindo were “pouring” something into his body, something that enters his body and is very material, he says.

Yes. That corresponds to something I did. It's good.

Do you see him regularly?

No, never!... When he wrote that letter, he wondered, “Whom am I going to give it to?” Then, apparently, my image came to him before his eyes. But I never used to see him.

He did very well, in any case, he made no mistake!

But he says, “Since I stopped meeting Mother, I have been obliged to make do as best I can within.” And he added, “Very often, when I have difficult, material problems to be solved, I concentrate, I call Mother, and suddenly 171 see white hands come, as it were, and they start sorting out everything. So when I see those hands come, I feel sure that everything is going to be sorted out!”

Oh, that's fine, very fine.

He feels that material, concrete help. When he has problems and turns to you, it gets sorted out.

But I don't know why people don't feel this concretely! This New Consciousness is thoroughly concrete, mon petit. Thoroughly concrete.

It's a lack of vision. One does feel the Force, but one feels it's... spread out, general.

But it Is like that.

But is it particular too?

Yes, both. It's particular to the point that it gives precise suggestions for a very small thing. At times it comes and obliges me to say a word, or makes me take an attitude with regard to something – very small things, which, in the consciousness of the being, are quite unimportant. But this Consciousness finds it amusing! It plays with everything like that, all the time.

It's very useful: sometimes, when I forget where I kept a piece of paper, it tells me. It says, “Here.” It's really very interesting! And most of the time, it's this Consciousness that makes me write, especially with regard to Auroville.

But I told you (did I see you after I saw the President?), I told you that when the President was here, suddenly this Consciousness started pressing on my head: “Say this.” I didn't feel like speaking, so I kept quiet. Then the pressure became so strong that I started perspiring all over! So I made up my mind and spoke. And it was over. It was... Without the Force in it, it's a platitude, but at the time, it had the power of a revelation, you know, when it made me say...

(Mother tries to remember)

What did I say?

“Let us work...”

Ah, it was in English – that's it (I was trying to remember in French!), “Let us all work for the greatness of India.” You understand, it's a platitude – it became a revelation. I notice this: when it makes me say something and I see it later with the ordinary consciousness, I find it such a platitude! Or something perfectly obvious, or which isn't worth saying. But when it descends, it takes such a force! And it HAS a force (Mother brings down her two fists). It has told me all kinds of things like that; it told me, “If this person” (Indira, for instance), “if this person had said this” (in her meeting, when she is in difficulty), “everyone would have been won over.” And it's such a compact Power that you feel as if you could cut slices out of it, you understand, so material it is! It's a rather deep golden color (rather deep when it comes like that), and then it goes like this (gesture of pressure on the head), you feel it might very well crush you (!) And it has an extraordinary action on people.

On that day, it was really remarkable.

Yesterday, I had the visit of the Vice-President¹ – an intellectual. I am told he is a very remarkable lawyer, a man of law, and he's read Sri Aurobindo's books, he regards himself as a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. He came from Delhi with his whole family specially to see me. He came: the Consciousness didn't manifest in the very least – nothing. It was like that (impassive, outspread gesture). Like that, still, nothing, absolutely nothing... That's curious. He gave me books to sign (he had just taken or received them, I don't now), a book by Sri Aurobindo, my photo .... Anyway, he behaved like a disciple, he had brought his whole family along and the whole family expressed a lot of devotion and so on – nothing. I don't know if it was there, but it didn't manifest: it was like this (same impassive gesture). It's curious.

But it feels the way people are, because did I tell you what the President said while leaving?

Yes, in Auroville: “It is a work of God.”

Yes.

This Consciousness is very interesting! I'll see how it behaves with our healer... With the Persian, the Persian inventor who was here (he's leaving today), it behaved quite well. It wanted me to give him “blessings,” it was very active. With other people, nothing – it ignores them. It's quite curious.

But to correctly perceive what “That” wants, one has to be very pure.

Yes. And ABOVE ALL without any mental preferences: it's mostly the mind that stands in the way Material desires, things of that sort, it doesn't care, but mental ideas, rigid conceptions, oh!... It doesn't seem to be touched by that, it's not interested.

It's very hard to know what comes from the true source and what's an old reaction from our makeup.

Oh, no, mon petit! Oh, no! It's... it's as if you told me that alcohol is like milk, you understand! (Mother laughs) No.

For example, I see all kinds of people who come and see me; well, I never know if my reaction is the true one, or if it's simply something coining from some makeup in me .... I try to be as tranquil as possible, and to see what comes ....

Yes, that's it.

But is what comes really “that,” or is it ...

But is the head silent?

Oh, yes, there are no ideas in my head.

Ah! Then it's fine.

But I fear old reactions above all. Ideas, no, there aren't any.

Then...

But old reactions.

(after a silence)

When I take your hands like this, here, do you feel something?

Ah, of course!

You do?

There's your Power.

Well, mon petit, it's like that: you feel That enveloping you.

Oh, but that I feel constantly-with varying degrees, but I constantly feel the Power. But I never know if it's the True Thing .... I REALLY aspire to do the True Thing, I aspire to...

As for me, I have trust. I have trust in your reaction.

(Satprem opens his hands)

With the Consul's wife, for instance, it was perfect! It was just what was needed.²

I don't know why, sometimes I am impelled to be quite brutal... Why? I haven't the least idea.

But you can see: if you are impelled to be very brutal but feel no... (what should I say?) no displeasure or repugnance or... of course no anger, and on the contrary, a constant feeling of unchanging goodwill, even, like this (immutable gesture), with a will for the best. When it's like that, when within your consciousness there is that thing which is really to work for the Lord alone (to put it as simply as possible), not, “Oh, what an idiot!” or “What a fool! What a wicked thing to say!”, nothing of all that, but the same even goodwill, then if one is compelled to say something stem, it's good. It's if there were some vital STIR at the same time that one should beware, but when there's nothing...

(silence)

Do we have some work to do?

There's the Bulletin: the “Questions and Answers.”

Is it worth publishing?

Oh, yes, certainly! Certainly.

(Mother laughs)

They're FINE, these Talks.

Are you taking up the old ones again?

Yes, of 1953.

(Satprem reads out the Talk of August 19 which first deals with the power of stones. Mother comments:)

Some stones can contain a force of protection. That's remarkable, mon petit! You can accumulate in a stone (amethysts especially) a force of protection,. and the protection ACTUALLY protects the person wearing the stone .... That's very interesting, I experienced it. I knew someone whom I'd given such a stone (an amethyst) full of a POWER of protection, and while he wore it – it was wonderful; then he lost it, and almost met with a catastrophe .... Especially amethysts: the power of protection.

(Then in the same Talk, a child asks Mother the difference between what she calls “the Divine” and what people call “God.” Mother puts off the question until later.)

Did I reply?

No, you didn't.

Oh, good!

You didn't say the difference. Would you say it now?

Maybe... though it doesn't like to be formulated in words: it instantly becomes very small.

Not now! (Mother laughs)

(Then Satprem reads out this very beautiful passage:)

“Human beings have the sense of their limitation, and they are under the impression that in order to grow, to increase, even to live on, they need to take from outside, because they live in the consciousness of their personal limitation. So, for them, what they give leaves a hole which they must fill by receiving something .... Naturally, that is wrong. And in truth, if, instead of being shut up within the narrow limits of their little person, they were able to broaden their consciousness to the point of not only identifying with others within their narrow limits, but also to break out of those limits, to go beyond, spread out everywhere, unite with the one Consciousness and become all things, then, at that point, the narrow limits would vanish – but not before. As long as you have a sense of narrow limits you want to take, because you are afraid to lose. You spend, and you want to get back. That's why, my child! Because if you were spread out in all things, if all the vibrations that come in or go out expressed the need to merge in everything, to broaden, to grow, not remaining in our limits but breaking out of them, eventually identifying with the whole, you would have nothing to lose anymore, because you would have everything. Only, you don't know, so you cannot do it. You try to take, to accumulate and accumulate, but it's impossible, you cannot accumulate: you must identify. And you want to get back the little you have: you give out a good thought, and expect some gratefulness; you give out a little of your affection, and expect to be given some .... Because you do not have the capacity to be the good thought in everything, do not have the capacity to be the affection, the tenderness in everything. You feel like that, all cut off and limited, and you are afraid of losing everything, afraid of losing what you have because you would be diminished. While if you are capable of identifying, you no longer need to draw to yourself. The more you spread out, the more you have. The more you identify, the more you become. And then, instead of taking, you give. And the more you give, the more you grow.”

What year was it?

1953, Mother... sixteen years ago.

That was the condition of my mind, it was full of light – it's gone away, but... At the time, it was very useful!

But all this isn't just the mind!

It's an enlightened mind.

It receives.

I mean that the Force expressed itself through the mind, while now... You know, Sri Aurobindo had said that the physical mind (that is, the body-mind) was hopeless-he had tried. And I am sure that as long as the real mind is there, this body-mind doesn't budge, doesn't progress. But since the mind was driven away, this one has slowly, slowly, slowly started forming and forming... and now, it's beginning to express itself. And it has NONE of the other mind's difficulties; for instance, it doesn't have the sense of its superiority in the least: very modest, just like the body And always, with the least thing: the need to learn – it knows it knows nothing, needs to learn everything, and it's constantly open, like that. With any new knowledge, it doesn't have... it doesn't “put on airs,” you understand.

(silence)

While you were reading, it just had one or two GREAT emotions – emotions that make you take a leap forward.

It's moving, this text, there is much in it ....

(silence)

I'd like you to see the healer and tell me about him; then I'll have him come – because I don't speak; after a conversation one can get something out of people, but as I don't speak, it won't do: they stay put, and when people don't speak, most of the time they put on a nice little shell!

That was the interesting thing, I told you: with the President, “that” opened up; with the Vice- President, nothing – because it was an intelligent man.

It's very interesting!

Yes, I am quite convinced that the greatest fortress is the intellect.

Yes, yes ....

I am convinced of it.

Because it gives people confidence, it makes them believe that they know.

¹ G. S. Pathak.

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² Satprem sent her packing bluntly, telling her, “You are a poor little thing” (!)

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