The Mother

Agenda

Volume 11

February 7, 1970

(We will never know how or why, but a perceptible change in Mother's condition can almost be dated from that day.)

Someone has given me a fantastic cold, I cough and cough and cough. The whole day yesterday, I was unwell.

I feel as if we are going through a storm.

Oh!... Oh, it's worse than a storm.

(silence)

Ill wills, denunciations, the government is alarmed. I have been told to beware of someone you know... a marquis.

Oh, yes, I know.

Do you?

Yes, they've been pursuing this man. For ten years, they prevented him from entering India. He is blacklisted, suspected of ...

Spying?

No, no, smuggling.

Oh, all right. I find spying disgusting, but I don't care about smuggling!

But the best part is that there's no smuggling! The thing is that ten years ago, he bought from the Nizam of Hyderabad a magnificent palace which was used by the Begum, a very beautiful palace. It aroused jealousies and they harassed him out of it, anyway a loathsome affair. So they heaped all kinds of accusations on him, and for ten years they prevented him from returning to India.

Oh!... They told me to beware, as if they were doing me a “great favor”!

What a nerve!

I answered, “I saw this man, I found him fine!” (Mother laughs)

I know him very well, they've suffered a lot, especially his Indian wife, whom for ten years they prevented from returning to India.

They're stupid.

So they've been blacklisted and they can't extricate themselves from this affair. Wherever they go, they are followed, spied upon, undressed and searched at airports – it's infernal.

I'm glad I told you about it, because one thing I don't like is spying, I don't care about the rest. And that's precisely what you can't find out, because even while denouncing they take great care not to say anything. I simply answered, “I saw this man, he is very fine.”

But he's a true marquis, a knight.

He is a gentleman.

What I'd like is for him to be freed from this thing weighing down on him.

But governments are the slaves of their red tape.

(silence)

This morning I was much better, and then it fell back on me (gesture like a truckload being dumped).... It will pass.

Yes, one does feel a tension, the atmosphere is a little difficult.

There is a rage somewhere.

Yes.

Exactly like something raging.

The trouble is all those people who bring me this.... I'll manage to put things more or less back in order, and then brrf! they'll dump another truckload on me, and it all comes back.

(silence)

Materially, the people of the [French] Consulate are set against us, and they've succeeded in getting into the Ashram an old lady who does “charitable works” and wants to take S. away to keep her company I told S., “If you can convert her, go and come back with her” (she was to come back in six months), “come back in six months after converting her....” Very rich, a very rich lady... who's wasting all her money in “charitable works.” It seems they have kinds of homes where they distribute clothes and food, while putting on airs... – horrible, horrible.

Yes, charity is a horrible thing.

Oh, for me it's a horrible thing. It's a way of puffing oneself up.

So I told S., “If you can convert her...” She is very rich (laughing), it would be quite useful!

But you said that the Consulate is against us?

Yes, she is a friend of the Consulate.

I think the Consul's wife never forgave me for what I told her.

Oh, but they're ACTIVELY against us.... They've accused us of hospitalizing or anyway receiving those hooligans who came recently, who take drugs and all that – there's a whole band of them putting up at Parc a Charbon,¹ and they say we had them come.

But, Mother, I find those “hooligans” much better than all those consuls!

(Mother laughs)

At least, something there has become emancipated (in a certain way).

Yes, but... not all are really fine.

Of course, there's a bit of everything. But there's nothing worse than people shut up in their righteous certainty.

Oh!...

(silence)

But it has touched from here to here (Mother points the top of the chest, throat and nose): all that's in relationship with people. It was as if full of knots, there were difficulties; so the time has come when it had to be clarified. That was quite all right, I felt the Work, but then it has been made worse with all kinds of things which didn't exactly “fall” on me, but which were brought to me. It has become a bit difficult.

It was from here to here (same gesture), what's in relationship with the world. It was still here this morning.

So it began with the nose, the throat, and then it came here (chest), coughing and coughing and coughing....

Anyway, I am happy with your marquis. That business was getting on my nerves.

(silence)

It's the same thing: now they are hypnotized with this business of “exchange.” It comes from the collective imbecility which has accepted all those rules of exchange – it should never have been subjected to rules, because, naturally, the minute there is a rule, it's meant to be broken. And then, everyone does it on the sly, oh!... I got a letter from a man (I didn't get it directly, it came through someone), a man who offered, if I gave him the dollars I receive (I receive a good deal of them – not a huge lot, but still, regularly enough), if I gave him the dollars, he offered to give me eleven rupees a dollar, sometimes twelve.... I didn't answer. But then, they're all there, watching whether there's anything to... It's disgusting.

The man said, “I don't do it for everyone, I give the regular ten for one, but FOR YOU I'll do it” (!) You know, it didn't have a pleasant smell. I said, “Yes, so people can say, ‘The Mother does it’ – thank you very much!”

Basically, its the pleasure of cheating more than anything else – one or two rupees more, what does it matter? It's nothing. You EXCITE people – when you tell them it's “prohibited,” they're instantly eager to do it.

Oh, please (pointing to the tape recorder), you must erase that because... it's dangerous!

(silence)

Still, I felt there was something.... What?... Ah, the Aphorisms.... Have you read yesterday's?

On the anarchic state?

Yes! It's fine, isn't it?

(Satprem reads)

320 – The anarchic is the true divine state of man in the end as in the beginning; but in between it would lead us straight to the devil and his kingdom.

And what do I answer to the previous aphorism?

Ah, yes....

319 – Governments, societies, kings, police, judges, institutions, churches...

Yes, he put everything into it: religions and police together!

Yes, it goes together!

I was delighted.

... laws, customs, armies are temporary necessities imposed on us for a few groups of centuries because God has concealed His face from us. When it appears to us again in its truth and beauty, then in that light they will vanish.

And what did I answer?

You said:

“The anarchic state is the government of everyone by himself.

“And it will be the perfect government when everyone is conscious of the inner Divine and obeys Him and Him alone.”

I'll write, then a sequel will come, but I don't have the time to note it down.

Someone from Auroville wrote to me that he thought he had come here to obey no one but himself (or words to that effect), but he noticed there are rules and laws. And he said, “I am not going to do any of this; I am a free man and refuse to do this.” This was reported to me, naturally,² so I wrote to him (I don't remember): “One is free only when one is conscious of the Divine and conscious that it is the Divine who makes decisions in everyone, otherwise one is the slave of one's desires, one's habits, of all conventions....” I sent him that, and he kept quiet.

That's what I wanted to add here [to this aphorism]. We should say: One is free only when it is the Divine who makes decisions in each of us, otherwise men are the slaves of their desires, their habits, of all conventions, all laws, all rules.... And the more they think themselves free, the more bound they are!

(silence)

What do you have to say?

Have you been told that recently in France, some six or seven students have set themselves on fire?

What?!

Yes.

Set themselves...

... on fire, and they died.

How horrible!

Seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boys.

Oh!...

Students.

It's the latest fad – here also they wanted to do the same thing.... What's that?

A protest against this suffocating society.

How horrible....

In France?

In France.

(silence)

Do we know what was in their minds?... Because I said this to myself: if... what I know, for instance, the fact that death really does not exist, that it's... a very small difference (people think it's a huge difference – it's a very small difference), but if people were to know that too soon, A LOT OF THEM would go away....

So I'd really like to know what was in the minds of those boys who went away? Whether they knew, whether they were boys with a spiritual life or...? Because, of course, the first stage once one knows that... if one knew that death really isn't such a total difference as people think, if they knew what it really is without having the inner realization of self-giving, all those who felt hurt would say, “I'm going!...”

All at once I understood that, and I said to myself it's an infinite Wisdom again, an infinite Grace that man does not know – does not know what death is, he thinks it's the end.

That would be interesting to know.

As far as we've been told, the students who have reacted are from a very average milieu. One of them said it was in protest against the slaughter in Biafra....

Where?

In Africa. One entire African tribe (the Ibos) has been half annihilated with the complicity of the English, the Russians, these and those others and so on.

Why?

Because they wanted to secede.

That's incredible!... No, I am not aware of what's going on.

Those territories used to belong to the British, they were unified under the thumb of the British, and when the British left one whole tribe wanted to secede and the other side tried to prevent secession with weapons from Britain, weapons from Russia, weapons... So little by little they have been crushed. The only country which did protest is France.

Ah!

Anyway, there's a whole political affair which isn't very pretty. But in the mind of one of those students, it was to “atone for the slaughter in Biafra.”

Oh!...

In fact, it is a protest against this society... this false society without future.

Yes, what's going on on the earth is really ugly.

Yes, it's ugly.

(silence)

A few days ago, I had the visit of a woman from Vietnam (I think she is from Vietnam), whom I had already seen many years ago. So she came back and saw me. She sat down in front of me (a small woman, short and plump, very sweet), and she said, “I have come because we have been at war for twenty-five years....” And there was such sorrow in her atmosphere, it was... oh, so pitiful! “For TWENTY-FIVE YEARS we have been at war,” she told me, “so I have come: can we hope for peace?...” And I felt... (Mother closes her eyes).

(silence)

That's it: they are so proud because they go to the moon, and they're slaughtering each other on the earth.

(long silence)

There are many things I understand now.... When I am in the terrestrial consciousness, there are GREAT waves of something so miserable, so... such a pitiful sorrow.... It comes in waves. Then, if I am perfectly quiet, still, doing nothing, in response to that the Force descends like this and enters, penetrates into it. And it does a lot of work.

That atmosphere is full of an anguish that so much calls for a response, and so it comes, and after... (sometimes it takes a long time, hours) but it penetrates, it spreads. But I don't always have the time. In the morning especially, I always see lots of people (Wednesdays and Saturdays³ are the two days when I've done away with it, but even then I'll see some twenty people before you!), and that causes a dissipation of forces. So that's the form it takes (Mother points to her throat): increased disorder. Otherwise, when I am alone, that is at night (it's only at night), when I am like that, lying on my bed, then... then its all right. But it's the anguish of the world! Now I understand (I am not aware of what goes on), but it was so dreadful! I felt, I said to myself, “What is it? What's going on that can cause this?...” People themselves are so unconscious. Did I tell you the story of those poor little seals?...⁴

Such unconsciousness! If they could only feel a little the suffering they inflict on others, it might make them stop (?)

So it's this part (Mother points to her throat, coughing), it's in relationship with the world.

(long silence)

This traveling from Inconscience to Consciousness has been going on for a long time – but how much longer will it have to last?... It's... at bottom it's a horrible thing.

But I understand one thing, it's that there should be EITHER the Supreme Consciousness OR inconscience; it's the transition between the two that's horrible: a half consciousness is still worse.

(long silence)

The sort of artificial harmony the body lives in is due almost entirely to the unconsciousness it lives in, and as soon as a little consciousness comes in, it throws everything off balance; if too much comes in, the body can't bear it anymore. I see that now.... So, on a tremendous scale...? I remember, I had two or three nights... (Mother shakes her head inexpressibly).

(silence)

A few people here fell ill suddenly and unexpectedly, and some of them were conscious: they wrote to me that they suddenly became conscious of “something else” – something they didn't know – and it was in the imbalance caused by their illness that they suddenly caught that.

There's a VERY STRONG action. But, of course, people expect everything to go smoothly according to their conception, and then they are surprised: how come this divine Consciousness is at work and there are so many difficult or painful or unexpected things?... – They don't understand. But this body understands very well! Not for one minute has it complained. It hasn't even... not for a second has it put the blame on others. It only said to itself, “Poor thing, you still have quite a lot of this old Disorder.”

Oh, a lot remains to be done.

(silence)

And then, I get letters (from children) asking me, “Why? Why has the Supreme Lord allowed things to be like this?...” That's what I receive most often.

But as soon as there is a TRUE CONTACT... it's over.

Then there are those who said (I forget who, in what religion), “But God does not suffer!...” (Mother laughs) So that made people still more furious: “Yes, HE doesn't suffer; he makes us all suffer while HE doesn't!” (Mother laughs) Maybe he finds it amusing!

I remember that poor Bharatidi (she was a rebel), once, long ago, we prepared together a play to be staged, and one day she told me (we were with all those who were going to play), “To think that God sees all this and tolerates it!” (Mother laughs) I told her, “Maybe he doesn't see it as we do!”

I found it amusing because she was a very intelligent woman. But that... (Mother laughs).

(silence, Mother coughs)

What time is it?

Twenty past eleven.

Already... I was going to propose a meditation, but it's too late.

(Mother takes roses)

Here, today I'll do this way....

(Mother gives the yellow rose for Sujata together with the red rose for Satprem)

(Taking Satprem's hands:) My hands have no cold!

¹ One of the Ashram's guesthouses.

Back

² One of the most irritating practices in that Ashram was the compulsive habit almost everyone (at least among those who had access to Mother) had to “report” to Mother, as in a boarding school. As if they had nothing better to do. And Mother would “absorb.”

Back

³ The two days of the week when Mother sees Satprem.

Back

⁴ See Agenda X, 11 October 1969.

Back