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Satprem
Notebooks of an Apocalypse
Volume 1. 1973 - March 1978
Translated from the French by Marie Pontacq with Roger Harris
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Apocalyptic (literature)
For a modern mind, the word “apocalypse” means a great world disaster. But in fact, it is the transcription of αποκαλυψιζ a Greek term which simply means “laying bare,” “unveiling.” Uncommonly used in non-religious Greek, it appears rather often in the biblical translation of the Septuagint, where it refers to a “laying bare” in the material sense, but above all, in the figurative sense, to the “revelation” of human or divine secrets.
To Sujata
with whom, step by step, we went through those terrible ordeals, supported by
our sole love for Mother
and our desperate will to continue Their Work until the end
Contents
मा
From age to age, the “avatar” comes to “change the law.”
We do not realize what this “law” means because we are in it and it seems to us that it can be nothing but an improvement of our habit of being or, on the contrary, the age-old destruction of one civilization after another, only to start again a little better or take up the same old worst, with a few modifications of borders or vocabulary; and what we think “differently” is still a difference within the same animal and human law with perhaps a greater “intelligence” — but it is still the intelligence of a certain law we are confined in or limited to, as were the ichtoids under the waters. And it seems now that with the demoniac means at our disposal, the “difference” will doubtless be catastrophic and pulverizing or asphyxiating — and one starts all over again, perhaps on another planet, with means that will be those of the old law. The crab’s pincers will have acquired intelligent thumbs and forefingers to pinch the same old world.
But we have perhaps had enough of it and could feel inclined to dream of some definitive Nirvana on some plateau of no Tibet, which would no longer be the possession of this or that race, unrepentant and cruel.
But someone came to “change the law,” and this is prodigious and incomprehensible, for we only understand our old walls and pincers or additional ones as the case may be. This “someone” was called Sri Aurobindo-Mother.
Who
understood them among the very ones who called themselves their disciples?
Perhaps they were able to understand abstractly and in their minds, but what
about the Means or the Power to go there? What about the path to go there, the
terrestrial and material footsteps?
*
Then came that tragic 1973. Mother left, as did Sri Aurobindo before her; the last link of the Mystery shut itself in a tomb, after so many thousands of earlier tombs. On that first evening, a child of man, standing in front of this tomb yet to be cemented and sealed, cried out in his heart:
“we are going to pull her out of there.”
It sounded like a cry breaking through the walls — our Walls — and touching something that is very high or very deep at the bottom of all tombs, like an all-there and all-beating Future, an Impossible exploding and piercing all the old possibles.
It will be. We have to do it.
*
Immediately, the old denial, the old Forces that rule the world, the old law, savagely rushed on this child of man, all claws out. Instantly, it was the no that every time had seized upon the grain of Truth to turn it into a new solemn and sacred Falsehood, blessed by the very blood of the one who strove to change the law.
And to begin with, the little man on the edge of that grave had this prodigious Document, Mother’s Agenda, this journey into the unknown of the Earth: the “that-which-could” undo all the graves and the walls of the old, so-called human species. The Means.
He was all alone amidst a hostile crowd which did not
understand, or understood too well that I knew too much 
and
that I would disturb the “yogic” or “spiritual” business (once again), the “new
religion” of Sri Aurobindo and Mother — whom they had pushed into the tomb.
For that rebellious heretic knew that that handful of managers, those impeccable and white-dressed high priests, were mere assassins — well-mannered assassins, of course, family almost, without daggers, but armed with a whispering and perfidious poison, when it was not openly brutal: “I am hanging from a slender thread in an absolutely rotten atmosphere,” Mother told me. “They keep repeating: She is old, she is old ...” Mother said with that poignant pain. “They don’t want you anymore.”
Some ten years before, Mother had with a strange smile recounted to me what she had already told Pavitra in the presence of Sujata, at the end of 1950, just after Sri Aurobindo’s departure: she had received a letter from Mrs Alexandra David-Neel, an “old friend” of hers she had known well in Paris, who in her letter had predicted that Mother would be “murdered by her own disciples.”
That letter must still exist in the Ashram archives.
The plateaux of Tibet may prefer Buddhist Nirvana, but Mother, just like the little man who writes these words, wanted things to change and Earth to be freed forever from this reign of Falsehood and of Death.
*
The nightmare.
It was Sujata who prevented me from unleashing the pack
too soon, or else I would have lost my life before I could talk — it would only
be three years later that they tried to kill me. It was she again who dissuaded
me from burning myself alive at the Ashram door, so outraged was I by this
odious falsehood. I had to speak out. Nobody
knew what this prodigious Agenda of Mother was, or what Power was
contained in it — the Path. The single path
at the end of so many millennia of Sorrow, the Response to our souls and 
our
bodies which had so long burnt in vain, suffered so much in vain in this or that
prison, under this or that Inquisition, or disappeared in a vain Revolt of
outlaws. This time, the law was to change, it had to be said, as well as the
Means. And the extraordinary, abyssal underground storm They had triggered off —
digging a hole in their own body — and which was to shake the very foundations
of the world. So I wrote this superhuman (or non-human) Trilogy, as if I
were expecting death every day: I had to go quickly — at times, I fainted from
exhaustion at my table after five or six hours of fierce concentration in a
total, “listening” Silence.
Then, I wrote letters upon letters to friends, to the Government of India and even to the President of the French Senate, so as to make them understand what was at Stake — dozens of desperate letters like a call and a cry coming from my soul. No one knew of that Treasure, I was all alone, it was a crushing responsibility amidst all those daily, perfidious, underground assassinations — I understood then Mother’s moans amidst the people around her: “I feel like screaming,” she would tell me. Then I understood so many things, without knowing that I was “digging a tunnel” like her in that Fortress of Falsehood through my own body. That is when I understood what praying with one’s body meant, and calling for that Divine Future through a thousand and a million “human” Negations: the Gestapo was charming and visible compared to those countless, perfidious, hypocritical and invisible cruelties — “cosmic,” as it were, as if it were the very world that was called into question, and so too the hideous Forces that rule this world. Then, yes, you see everything laid bare, without seeing anything except through the wounds of your body and your soul.
And you see the prodigious Grace that carries you
through everything and in spite of everything, bringing about the required help,
the required persons, the required human intervention and the supreme protection
just in time, at the last desperate second. And you also realize, materially and 
physically,
that the path is accomplished, or else you
could never have taken one step in there. One understands what Sri Aurobindo
said in his very discreet way: “Something will be done this time.” This time,
after so many other bloody and millennial times.
So, I unleashed the whole pack by stating that I would no longer oversee the Bulletin of the Ashram, which I had published with Mother for so many years, and by announcing to the “managers” of the Ashram my intention of publishing this Agenda.
It was the opening round of the “battle of the Agenda.”
Immediately they asked to see my papers and tape
recordings so as to “consider” what would be “desirable” to say and release to
the general public. Censorship was there, obviously (but it had been there since
1973, as my letters were spirited away by the post office, while I was being
rather indiscreetly shadowed and my house kept under surveillance). This time,
they were shamelessly shouting; even Mother’s family actively interfered to
cover up their trickery and slanders with its authority and respectability. I
had “stolen” Mother’s papers, I was an Ashram “employee” who had betrayed
“their” trust. All the Indian authorities were warned, from the printers to the
booksellers to policemen and magistrates, and above all the Home Ministry in
charge of foreigners — for I was a foreigner,
don’t forget it! — they tried to take away my visa, to expel me from India; I
was prosecuted for theft and “forgery” because, of course, my manuscripts were
forged and my tape-recordings “fake.” They even printed a false Agenda to
nullify in advance my attempts at publishing it, and — it was the most serious
thing that happened to me, even worse than the attempted murders — they went to
see my publisher in Paris — this dear Robert Laffont — with the family up in
front led by Mother’s son, an honorable septuagenarian, in order to have their
“false Agenda” accepted, to tell him of my “betrayal of Mother” and to make him
understand that they could take him to court, because they were the “owners” of
Mother and 
of
all my books originally published by the Ashram... I was being strangled on all
sides.
There is truly a sublime grace that made Robert Laffont feel what I really was, the same grace that sent Mr J.R.D Tata, the Director of Air India, to help me ensure the safety of all the tape-recordings of my conversations with Mother and all my precious papers by sending them to France. And finally, Sir CRN. Singh, an emissary of Indira Gandhi, who instilled some fear into their cowardice.
From the extent of the onslaught launched on this little man one can deduce the importance of the Work and the power of the Forces that strove to strangle me. But this was only the first part, sordid and murderous, of my struggle — the true part was yet to be.
Yet, after many hesitations, we decided to publish, in this first volume of my Notebooks, some of the countless letters I wrote, like a cry to “make people understand” who Mother was, what She was doing and what She wished for the earth, along with my brief, succinct and elliptical notes on the then ongoing events.
*
But the Purpose of these Notebooks, the true battle, lay still before me: to incarnate, to bring into my own body what they prevented her from doing while she was alive. Doubtless, it was what “to pull her out of there” meant, to release her from that unacceptable tomb, for this step-by-step into the unknown of the Earth to be thrown into the terrestrial consciousness, through a simple human body giving itself body and soul to a mysterious Future and a species yet to become.
It was not until 1982 that I said to myself, “Let’s try!” after having materialized and said all that could be said in our human language and after their last attempt to make the Supreme Court of India acknowledge Sri Aurobindo’s teaching as a “new religion”...
The
next volumes of the Notebooks will tell of this long journey of which we
do not know whether it is death or the beginning of a new Life for the Earth and
for man. A non-path, dark and unknown, on which you tread step by step
unknowingly, with from time to time visions of the New Consciousness that so
concretely and graciously show you what step you have to take, or the meaning of
the step, the danger ahead and the “situation” in the world or around you,
people’s intentions and faces in all their reality, with an unthinkable, if
enigmatic at times, sense of humor and material exactness, and a Divine Smile,
as if to tell you: “Look, I am here, I walk with you....”A marvelous, impossible
path, supremely Possible thanks to this Love that carries us and carries
everything.
I will slowly open out into these Notebooks, but in fact the step-by-step in the Dark and that crying breaking through the cells of a body had begun as early as that fateful 1973, and perhaps some centuries before.
From age to age, the same story repeats itself, but this time...
And in Mother’s hands!
Satprem
December 20, 1998
Prologue. Visions and Facts Before Mother’s Departure
My First Vision
(It was the first vision I had ever had. I was in Pondicherry, in the Governor’s Palace. I had seen Sri Aurobindo and Mother in 1946. Then I had read in a book of Purani’s that “dreams” had a meaning. I was a total materialist and a complete Westerner to boot. That evening, I said to myself: “Ah, let’s see what it is...” Here is what I saw that very night. It was the portent of the whole forthcoming journey, before and after Mother’s departure, for the individual I was and for the Future of the earth.)
I was in a rather dark medieval citadel — a western
citadel, it was in the West — walking down a narrow street paved with huge
flagstones. I can still see them, solid, polished, uneven; there were also high
walls that seemed to lean toward me, with little wrought-iron balconies. I was
walking there, very small, among an obscure and foreign crowd. It was this crowd
which had a particular smell. A strangely silent crowd: each being was shrouded
in silence. And a subterranean smell. I could see myself in their midst, very
small, almost dark, as if viewed from above my shoulders. I was walking toward a
gate, I knew there was a gate at the bottom of the
street1. But as I moved forward, I sensed that I
was not dressed properly and was not behaving properly, that I was not like
them, perhaps from another place or another time, a sort of intruder, and that I
was being stared at. And those stares grew increasingly threatening and
aggressive. The more I felt my own strangeness, the greater their hostility. It
oozed from everywhere, even from the walls and the stones — a world of stone. I
did not know what I was to do, I desperately tried to find the right word, the
right gesture: I bent over, hugged the walls, filling myself with grayness — it
was no use. I was singled out by that mute crowd. I felt a growing uneasiness
becoming almost unbearable and stifling, as if my clothes were false, odiously
false, as were my face and my color — I was caught in a kind of gnome-self, who
was me nevertheless, and I did not succeed in finding anything that would suit
me; I was unable to imitate them, I did not know the password, the proper
gesture, and everything felt oppressive. Furthermore, the policemen were sure to
come and I had no passport either, I had nothing. I was shut in, a prisoner in
that awful stone fortress.... And suddenly, a huge white horse appeared in the
middle of the street, springing from I don’t know where — white, luminous, oh! a
marvelous, tall animal, so tall it almost reached the top of the walls and
towered over the crowd. A formidable, gigantic breast. Before I could understand
what was happening, I found myself on its back, breaking into a gallop : a
fantastic, godlike gallop. Everything gave way before me: the crowd, the gates,
the guards, nothing could resist. Then, all at once, there were open space,
freedom, clean air — all the rhododendrons of the Himalayas in one breath. I
filled my lungs, felt myself expanding, widening, almost glowing — I was
regaining my height and my color. A liberation.
I could still feel that white mane in my hands, the warm sides against my thighs, the wind lashing my face, and the sheer joy running through my veins, as I was carried away by a triumphant, irresistible power.... We were entering a forest.
PS:
This vision, still fresh and alive years or even decades later, has been
recorded exactly in By the Body of the Earth or The Sannyasi. But how
many years or decades do we need to understand the reality or the true meaning
of what we have once seen? Important things of life can be read backwards, like
geological strata, layer after layer, with an increasingly deeper mystery.
What I did not understand at the time is that the medieval fortress not only represented the (religious) Middle-Ages of the eleventh century, but the scientific Middle-Ages of the twentieth century. Which means the whole West. And what I did not know either at the time, is that the formidable white horse, in Indian tradition, is the mount of Kalki, the last “avatar” (for us, Sri Aurobindo) the one who comes at the end of the human cycle to “change the Law” of reigning Death and Falsehood, in order to establish the reign of Divine Life and of True Man.
Mother’s Island or The Three Boatmen of My Life
A Vision of Sujata’s
(This
vision prefigured the whole journey of Sujata, not only the past and present
journey but the forthcoming one, after Mother’s departure as well. Let us bear
in mind that Sujata, following her father, came to Pondicherry for the first
time in February 1935 to meet Mother and Sri Aurobindo, after her own mother had
passed-on, when she was just nine. Then she came back for good in 1938, when she
was twelve and a half, in order to live near Mother.)
This afternoon is the day I must take a class (geometric drawing). But I have fallen asleep.
I saw my mother
(Suhag Kumari)2 standing by the edge of a lake in the middle of
which was a temple, like a Jain temple in Bihar (it reminded me of the
Jalamandir of Pawapouri). It was crumbling. A number of buildings in a rather
bad state of repair could be seen on the shore. My mother thought (I could hear
her as if she were speaking aloud):
“I have been three times to this town and I have never seen this temple!”
At that point, I suddenly awoke, but I did not feel at all like getting up. My watch said that it was 1:20. “Oh, I can stay a few more minutes in my bed,” I thought. So, I turned and went back to sleep. And I went on with my dreaming.
My mother and I were in a small wooden boat, a boat like those one could see on the Ganges in former days. It was the same lake, I think, but the water was limpid, and above all, very quiet. I have a vague impression that my father, too, was in the boat with us, but I am not sure.
Then, all of a sudden, I had a glimpse of my mother walking on a kind of bridge that was linking the shore to the temple, which was standing right in the middle of the lake. My mother walked straight to the temple, without looking right or left. At that point, I looked round and I saw that the little boat I was seated in was some ten or fifteen meters from the shore. (I have also a very vague impression of having seen buildings on the shore, seemingly in ruins.)
Then the scene abruptly changed. This time, I was with Mother. It was Mother’s boat. She was the “captain,” and She bustled about, giving instructions to one or another — for this time there were quite a few people on the boat. It was a big boat, perhaps a “schooner.” I know nothing about boats, so I cannot say. In any case, there was the sea around us; this time, we were really out at sea, and it was rather quiet. Mother’s boat moved fast, but without jerking. This lasted a long while. I could not see the shore any more.
Then there was another abrupt change. This time, we
were really in the open sea; it was
Satprem’s3 (Bernard’s) boat. There
were not many of us. Satprem clearly was the captain, this time. It was a small
boat, like a dinghy, and he was the one who steered it. But what a heavy swell!
Huge waves indeed! At times, we were on the crest of a wave and the next moment
thrown into the trough. We were shaken (to put it mildly!). Waves gave way to
waves, ceaselessly. I could see the captain’s face. Serious, without a smile
anywhere: he was concentrating. “Grim,” I should say.
Then, when we were the most shaken, I caught a glimpse of an island. We were moving toward it.
Almost at the same time, ahead on the left, I saw a liner, a steamer of old, and how huge! But it was sinking... And the passengers were sinking with it, or rather most of the passengers, for a number of them were trying to swim in the sea. Many seemed to have lost their sense of direction. But a few of them were trying to swim to the island.
As I was looking at it all, I was knocked out and lost consciousness, probably by the force of the landing. When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on the ground, flat on my stomach. I saw Satprem, who had got off the boat onto the shore. And there was another person in the boat, but I don’t know who it was, for he had his back to me. I think that at the beginning there were several persons, but only one was left in the end. I also caught sight of one of the swimmers of the liner, who had succeeded in approaching the coast of the island (but he had not completely set foot on the ground: he was grasping it).
There were a few trees on this island, I have forgotten to mention it. But as I looked round, I saw a sort of big tree, or high mount. It was Mother.
Then I knew: “We have reached Mother’s Island.”4
1960
The Brackish Flood, the Great Passage
A Vision of Mother’s
Something interesting happened last night exactly between ten and eleven. I was in some kind of vehicle. I didn’t see the vehicle but I was in it. Someone in front of me was driving, though I could only see his back; I didn’t bother about who it was — he was simply the one meant to do it.
It was as if the doors of destruction had been flung open. Floods — floods as vast as an ocean — were rushing down onto ... something ... the earth? A formidable current pouring down at an insane speed, with an unstoppable power. It was brackish water — not transparent, but brackish. And it was imperative to reach a certain spot before the water. Had the water reached there ahead of me, nothing could have been done. Whereas if I got there first (I say “I,” but it was not I with this body), if I got to the other side before the water, I would be completely safe; and from this safe position, I would be able, I would have a chance to help those left behind.
And this vehicle was going faster than the flood (I saw
and felt it by its motion) — a formidable flood, but the vehicle was going still
faster. It was so wonderful....In 
places
there were some especially difficult and dangerous spots, but I
always got there
before the water, just before the water barred the way. And we kept going and
going and going. Then, with a final effort (there was no effort, really, it was
willed), with a final push, we made it to the other side — and the water came
rushing just behind! It rushed down at a fantastic speed. We had made it. Then,
just on the other side, it changed color. It was ... it changed in color to a
predominant blue, this powerful blue which is the force, the organizing force in
the most material world. So there we were, and the vehicle stopped. And then,
after having been looking straight ahead the whole time we were speeding along,
I turned around and said, “Ah, now I can start helping those who are behind.”
Here, I’ll draw you a little sketch:
The water was flowing off toward the right. From time
to time there were these fissured dips or depressions along the vehicle s path
where the water rushed through, and in fact it must have rushed through each one
just as soon as I had sped past. It was most dangerous, for if you had reached
there a second too late, the water would already have flooded in and you would
no longer have been able to get across; it was such that with even only a few
drops, you 
would
no longer get across. Not that they were very wide, but... And the water was
pouring in (“pouring in” ... our words are very small), it was pouring in, and I
could see it ahead, but then the vehicle would arrive at full speed and instead
of stopping, in a wild roller coaster-like movement it would plunge through,
vroom! — just in time, exactly like a roller coaster. I always arrived just in
time to get through. And then again the same thing, broken here and there (in
this way there were many fissures, though I’ve only drawn two; there were quite
a few, five or six at least), and again we would dart across, then race on until
we would reach the spot where I have drawn the water turning.
Right at the end, there was a place where the water had to turn to run down — this was the Great Passage. If you got caught in that, it was all over. You had to reach this spot and cross over before the water came. It was the only place you could get across. Then a last plunge, and like an arrow shot from a bow, full speed ahead, I crossed over and there I was.
And once on the other side, without even a rise in ground level (I don’t know why), it was immediately safe. And the current went on and on, waves upon waves, on and on, as far as the eye could see, but it was channeled here at the Great Turning; and as soon as it went past this point, the inundation was total, it spread out over something ... over the earth. And the current turned — it turned — but I was already on the other side. And down below, everything was finished, the water rushed down everywhere. Only, as soon as I was on the other side, it could not touch me — the water could not get across, it was stopped by something invisible, and it turned away.
Moreover, it seemed that everything had already been prepared, as if the way had been made to divert the water.
There, down below me, below the vehicle, I had the impression that it was the earth, it really seemed like the earth, and the water was rushing down toward it.
The vehicle’s path was not on earth, but up above
(probably in interstellar regions!), a special path for this vehicle. And 
I
didn’t know where the water was coming from; I couldn’t see its origin, which
was off beyond the horizon. But it came raging down in torrents — not
precipitously like a waterfall, but rather like a rushing torrent. My path
passed between the torrents of water and the earth below. And I saw the water
before me, everywhere, in front and behind — it was so extraordinary, for it
looked like ... it was everywhere, you see, except along my path (and even then,
there was some seepage). Water speeding everywhere. But there was a kind of
conscious will in this onrush, and I had to reach the Great Passage before this
conscious will. This water resembled something physical, but there was a
consciousness, a conscious will, and I had to ... it was like a battle between
the will I represented and that will. And I passed each fissure just in time.
Only when I reached the Great Turning did I see the will that impelled this
water. And I reached there just before it. And passed through at a fantastic
speed — like lightning. Even time ceased.... I crossed over like a flash of
lightning. And then, suddenly, respite — and it was blue. A square.
At the time, I didn’t know what it all meant. Then this morning, I thought, “It must have something to do with the world situation.”
It had all the dimensions of something almost... the earth seemed small in comparison, you see. It was similar to what happens here when water is unleashed on earth, during floods for instance, but on a much greater scale.
What was ... pleasing, and really quite interesting, was this tremendous speed, like an arrow, and I always arrived in time, just in time, just in time. Once I had crossed over to the other side (I clearly felt that nothing would be left, for it was such a powerful deluge), the danger was finished, there was no longer any possibility at all of being touched — this was the main feeling. Everything was stopped. Nothing could touch.
I turned around and saw all this water rushing down,
and I thought, “Now let’s see if we can do something here.” There was
someone behind who interested me, someone or something — it was still something;
it was very likeable and had something of the blue color that was here on the
other side. (Not really individuals, but more like beings representative of
something that was following me quite closely. When I was there, it also was
there, but it could not keep up, it kept losing ground — as my speed increased,
its decreased. It could not keep up). But it interested me in a special way.
“Oh, he’s so close (he or it); he might just make it,” I thought. And at that
moment, I saw that all this destructive will with its instrument of water,
symbolically water, had rushed past and was spreading out everywhere. But there
was still a chance of saving all those who were along this path. And that’s immediately what I thought of, it was my first wish: “Let’s see if they can
still get across, if I can manage to get them across.” I remembered some
especially dangerous spots (while speeding past, I had remarked, “Oh, here we
might still be able to do this, there that could still be done” — my
consciousness moved at the same speed, and I noted everything along the way),
and once I was firmly there on the other side, I started sending back messages.
Down below, the water was having a grand time; it was ... it was hopeless. But here, along this path, there was still a hope, even after the water had passed; I probably had a certain power at my disposal to help others cross these fissured places. But because I woke up, I didn’t see what it was. So that stopped everything. Probably because I woke up rather abruptly, I could not see what it meant.
All this is a translation in human language, actually, because really it was ...
And it happened quite early in the night — at such an early hour, they are not visions or things you observe: they are things you do.
I’ve been seeing for a long time that nights are actions. They are no longer images or symbols or representations — they are all actions. And they take place certainly not on a human scale.
(Satprem:) Does that indicate war?
I don’t feel any war.
S.M.5 came the other day.... He’s quite informed about events as only the government knows them. He brings me government news — not what they feed to the public. It doesn’t look good. But as he has confidence, he wanted to know (so much confidence that he goes and tells Nehru and others, “Oh, Mother said this, Mother said that.” And it turns out true, fortunately!). So after describing things at some length, he asked my opinion.
Logically, according to reason, war seems unavoidable. But as he asked, I looked — I looked at my nights, precisely, as well as other things. And then I said, “I don’t feel it. I don’t feel any war.”
And again this morning, when I looked at this vision, I asked myself, “Will there be war?” — I don’t feel it will be like that....It may be worse.
You see, it didn’t seem human.
I remember wandering about one night some time ago.
It’s no longer very clear, but one thing has remained — I had gone out of India,
and then when I returned to India, I found huge elephants installed
everywhere — enormous elephants. At that time I was not at all aware that
the Communists in India had adopted the elephant as their symbol; I only learned
that later. “What does this mean,” I said to myself. “Does it signify the Indian
army?” But they did not resemble war elephants. These elephants were like
immense mammoths, and they looked like they were settling down with all the
power of a tremendous inertia. That was the impression — something heavy in an
inert and very tamasic way, forever immovable. I did not like this occupation.
When I came back, I had a rather painful feeling, and for several days I
wondered if it did not mean war. Then by chance, in a conversation, I learned
that the Communists had
selected the elephant as their symbol whereas the Congress had chosen the
bullock.... In my vision, I was moving (as I always do), I was moving among
them, and nothing moved. And if I needed room, some of them even tried to stir a
little.
But when human beings are involved, I believe that visions take on a special form — it’s a special image. Not an inundation like this. That was very, very impersonal. They were forces. A feeling of floodgates bursting open, of something being held back, retained or prevented, then suddenly ...
The vehicle and the forward movement are the sadhana [yogic discipline], beyond the shadow of a doubt. I understood that the speed of sadhana was greater than the speed of the forces of destruction. And it ended in certain victory, there is not a shadow of doubt....This feeling of power once I was firmly grounded there (in the “square”), enough power to help others.
These were universal forces. I can’t say it means war. I’ve foreseen many wars — widespread wars, local wars, so many wars — and up to now they have never been presented to me in that form. They’ve always come as a fire — flames, flames, the home burning. Not as an inundation.
A cataclysm?
Ah, that, we’ve already had some. From all around, people are proclaiming that in 1962, there will be ... some people have even foreseen the end of the earth, but that’s foolish! For the earth was built with a certain purpose, and before things are done, it will not disappear.
But there may be some ... changes.
(Agenda I, July 23, 1960)
1961
Mother’s Departure. A Vision of Satprem’s
(Satprem:) Last night I had a dream about you that
made a vivid impression on me. It’s probably absurd, but it was so real!... You
had called me because you were going to leave your body: you had decided to
leave and you wanted somehow to say good-bye. It was so real! I came to you and
for a moment you placed my head on your knees, and I was filled with light; it
was very tender. But at the same time, I knew you were saying goodbye, you were
going to leave your body, and I wept in my dream. Then I went to sit in a corner
because there were other people who probably had come to see you as well. I
remained in that comer, stricken — it seemed so real, you understand! Just then,
a man I didn’t know entered the room (I knew he was French), a stranger dressed
all in black, and he started making a loud commotion. He was smoking a pipe, a
very coarse man, and he wanted to make all the people there, the disciples, get
out of the
room...6 It was so real! I awoke with a start and almost cried
aloud, “Ah, it’s a dream! It’s only a dream!”
(Mother:) Oh, it was that real!
Yes, it was that real! It was during the first hours of sleep, at 11:40 p.m. It was very, very vivid. I awoke with a start, exclaiming to myself, “Ah! It’s only a dream!”... But it seemed so true! It left a deep impression on me. I remained awake for a long time, wondering, “What can this mean?...” You had a tiny, pinched face (you were dressed all in white), such a pinched face, very ... (how can I express it?) emaciated, as though you were suffering.
(Mother remains silent for a long while, then replies:) Quite evidently, the adverse forces are not only trying to convince everyone but me too, that this is how it’s going to turn out.
But I have as yet had no indications.
I have asked to be forewarned, not for reasons of... It can happen any time at all, I am always ready. I can do nothing more for the work than what I am doing now, and I haven’t a single practical measure to take because I have already taken them all. So that isn’t why, but to ... as much as possible to withdraw from the body all that has been put into it. There is such an accumulation inside it of force, consciousness, power, oh!... All the cells are impregnated and it would take some time if it all had to be taken out.
.........
It all began with some extremely violent attacks. So if your dream is not premonitory, then it must be the result of “their” formation, by which they intend to disseminate the conviction everywhere, as much as possible, that this is the end.
.........
Two nights ago, I saw a formation of illness over the
entire Ashram, a kind of adverse formation trying to prevent me from leaving my
room, and I had to hide to get out, leave clandestinely.
Oh, what a terrible atmosphere, so heavy, so gray — everybody was ill.
.........
I rather feel that your dream is another part of this present mass attack, but...
There was one bizarre little detail: someone told me you were leaving because you had swallowed something — I understood it to be a “grain of rice” — and that was why you had to leave! You had swallowed something... and that was making you leave.
(After a long silence) This would rather indicate those who disapprove of my non-asceticism. It would seem to originate from those particular forces.
.........
We shall see, mon petit! We’ll see what’s going to happen (Mother laughs).
But I have no doubts about that! It just came to me — not because I was consciously concerned about your physical future: this dream simply came so unexpectedly and vividly ...
No, no — I know that! I tell you, it can only be one of two things: either a good kick from the Enemy who is still trying to find a support in someone’s mentality, or else premonitory.
I certainly hope not!
Yes, the grain of rice rather makes me think otherwise — that it comes from that quarter.
We shall see, we shall see! We have only to wait. One day we are sure to know!
.........
Anyway, I don’t need to tell you that the best attitude
to take
regarding this dream is: “May Your Will be done,” and tranquil, tranquil.
You can even receive the answer yourself and know where this dream comes from — simply turn toward the supreme Truth, remain like that (immobile) and say, “May Your Will be done.” It has to go very high, very high, to the highest, to that which is supreme Freedom. And then, if you are absolutely silent, you will have, not a thought or a word, but a kind of feeling, and you will know.
For me, at the moment, your dream does not correspond to a precise fact. So good-bye, mon petit.
(Mother gets up to leave when suddenly, turning upon the threshold, She looks at Satprem with her eyes like diamonds and, in a tone of voice he has never heard before, as if it were a Command from above, says:)
In any case, one thing: never forget that what we have to do, we shall do; and we shall do it together because we have to do it together, that is all — like this, like that, in this way, in that way (Mother tilts her hand from right to left as though to indicate this side of the world or the other, “life” or “death”), it has no importance. But this is the true fact.
There, petit.
(Mother’s Agenda II, February 11, 1961)
1962
Satprem is Pushed Away by the Crowd
A Vision of Mother’s
(Mother:) Mon petit, last night for the first time I saw you, just as you are, coming to me. “How wonderful!” I said to you. You came up like this (Mother makes a gesture close to her face) and looked at me. “He’s conscious!” I said to myself.
You weren’t conscious?
(Satprem :)?. . ..
It was around three o’clock in the morning.
I have seen you very often in visions, symbolic visions in the mental realm, but that’s not what it was. It was in the subtle physical, this close (same gesture); you came deliberately, and you looked at me. “Oh,” I told you, “how nice!”
I had a dream about you, but I felt the subconscient made it up.
No, it must be a transcription.
A strange dream, very strange. A crowd of people was
waiting for you to come out, and you did come, you appeared.
Then suddenly you fainted. I’m not sure why you fainted, you were physically
sick or something. So you were carried away. A crowd was waiting to see you and
they shoved me to the back (by the way, I noticed I was dressed as a Sannyasin).
Finally, I came up close to you all of a sudden, leaving the crowd behind; I
came up very close and then... you told me certain things, I don’t know what.
You seemed so frail — all white, very frail and tired, as if you had just
fainted. Anyway, things like that, you
see...7
No, I wasn’t sleeping, I was concentrating; and in this concentration, while I was fully enveloped in those forces, through that you came to me. It was truly fine!
Good. It will come; it’s a good sign. I was very pleased: “Ah, something is happening!”
It will come.
.........
Yes, last night I remember saying, “Ah, at long last! That’s good. We’ve made it at last!”
It is going to materialize.
I saw you just as I am seeing you now, exactly the same, only with a more intense and vibrant vibration. For me, you know, the physical world is always veiled, as if it were being snuffed out like a candle; well, there was no snuffer, it was you exactly, same features, same expression, but... intense, intense. And you were looking at me (Mother makes a gesture showing Satprem peering right into her face), as if to say, “Ah! So that’s what you look like.” (Laughter.)
I
was very glad. Very glad. “Ah, at last we’ve made it!” That was my feeling —
here we are at last.
(Mother’s Agenda III, July 14, 1962)
1963
The False Mother
A Vision of Sujata’s
(Letter to Mother from Sujata)
Little Mother,
I had a dream this afternoon. I told it to Satprem, who said I should write to you about it.
I was on a staircase that looked like the one leading to the meditation room. Two Ashram girls, about sixteen or seventeen years old, were there, waiting to go upstairs to see “mother.” When I heard that, I was seized by a sense of great danger. Because I knew that You weren’t there. So I began to give instructions to the two girls, whom I knew, in fact, one especially. I don’t remember what I told them but it was a matter of will — of life and death. The girl who knew me well promised she would do as I said, the other didn’t seem to understand, and time was running out. In fact, the first girl had hardly had time to understand when the door opened and the “mother” was there to receive us. I had a glimpse of her. She was shorter than You in size, but her face resembled yours, though not the look. Also she had all over her round black spots (not jet black, rather brownish black). But for that, she was white.
After
that glimpse, I turned and went back, because, Little Mother, I felt that if
that false Mother could lay her hands on me once, I would never come out alive.
Whereas if I could go out of that place, I might find a way to save the life of
at least one of the girls. So before my absence was noticed, I started
downstairs. The staircase has become narrow. The door is shut and a dark-looking
guard is there. He is surprised to see me and does not want to let me out. I
insist that he must open the door. He asks whether I saw “the Mother.” I answer
yes. He doesn’t seem convinced. I add that she is covered with black spots. He
is obliged to let me out but thinks that the second guard farther on may stop
me. I go downstairs; I see the second guard but go another way; then there are
closed doors everywhere, and I open some doors which, according to them, I
should not have been able to open. Finally I come to a courtyard, with the last
door closed behind me. I still had to cross the courtyard unseen and climb over
the high walls that surrounded the house. At that point, I was awakened by
servants before I knew whether or not I was able to get out.
With my pranams8 at your feet.
Your child who loves you,
Signed: Sujata
*
(A few days later, on June 29, regarding Sujata’s vision:)
(Satprem to Mother:) Did you see anything particular regarding Sujata’s dream?
Oh, I forgot to tell you. It’s an excursion in the vital. You can tell her she got off lightly.
From the occult standpoint, if, for instance, she had
said to the people who guarded the doors, “In the name of the Mother,
let me out,” probably doors and people and everything would have vanished. It’s difficult to remember those things in dream. But anyway, she has an inner trust,
and thanks to it she got off lightly.
It was not chance that she was woken up — it wasn’t chance: she was helped.
Quite likely, someone other than she wouldn’t have seen the spots.
Ohh!
It was her sincerity that made her see the spots. And it was because she disclosed what she had seen that the guard was unable to stop her, because it was the sign of a power of inner sincerity.
It left me a bit pensive ... in the sense that I don’t find it quite admissible that some persons [the false “Mother”] play that kind of game — though I know it does happen, I know there are such persons.
But I think it has helped to cleanse the atmosphere a little.
Yes, I told her to write to you because, besides her, there were also two Ashram girls who seemed to be in danger.
Yes. Oh, but there are many who are in danger — because they’re not sincere, anyone can deceive them. You know, in such cases, for occult danger, the one thing that’s absolutely indispensable is sincerity. It’s the safeguard and security. Sincerity is security. For example, in the presence of that being, insincere people would have said, “Oh, it’s the Mother.” They would not have seen, you understand. But she saw-it’s her sincerity that saw.
The only thing ... (but it doesn’t matter, it will
come) is that if instead of trying to escape she had taken a determined attitude
and said, “In the name of the Mother, open the door,” brrrt! she would have seen
everything vanish. But that... I don’t think it will happen again, but if it
does, she will
know what to do next time. It’s a kind of sense of the battle.
You did well to ask her to write, it was important enough that I should know, because I have to cleanse the area a little. But I tell you, there are too many, too many insincerities, that’s what opens the doors — insincerity is just like a sentry who opens the door, it’s nothing but that. And unfortunately, there are lots and lots of insincerities....
But anyway she got off lightly.
Here, let me give you a rose for her. A big one, a very big one, there!
(Mother’s Agenda IV, June 26 and 29, 1963)
1964
The Rain of Stars, the Survivors of the Catastrophe
A Vision of Sujata’s
(Satprem:) Listen, Sujata had a dream that’s exactly what you’ve just described.
(Mother:) Oh, but she’s wonderful, your Sujata!
She was looking at the sky, then she started seeing stars falling down everywhere, like a rain of stars over the earth. And then the ground had turned into an even mass of ice, like at the poles: it wasn’t bright, but it was like ice everywhere on the ground. And a sort of ship rose on it, with a slightly gray color, with passengers, whose color was also ... not bright, but slightly gray, slightly blue, as though they had escaped from old things — as though they had escaped from some catastrophe or were coming out of some catastrophe...9
Really!
And everywhere, like at the poles, there was that ice.
That’s it. Well, it’s odd. And the rain of stars ... Oh, it’s interesting.
(Mother’s Agenda V, January 29, 1964)
1972
On the night of April 1-2, 1972
“One Thousand Years”
A Vision of Sujata’s
We enter the courtyard of a building, Satprem and I. We see sad-faced people. Head bent, solemn and silent. The Mother is dead. Everybody thinks that the Mother is dead.
A few are scattered here and there, individuals or groups of three or four. But most go out from a side door to our left. Another door is to the left at the top of a stairway which mounts from the courtyard below and ends in a sort of bridge or passage. I see one or two persons going out from this bridge-door. Turning to the right, this passage leads straight to the Mother’s room.
We enter Mother’s chamber. The Mother is lying on a
bed. She is dressed in white satin or silk (the couch also). Four or five people
are inside, disconsolate. Slowly they wander out. One or two pass to the
adjoining chamber. One person remains (a man), who seems to wander round the
room without seeing Mother. He keeps gazing at a picture on the wall, as if
interested in it more than in anything else. Finally only Satprem and I remain.
He is near the Mother’s bed. The Mother sits up and starts talking to Satprem.
She is explaining to him about the transformation of the body. She talks for a
long time. I
am standing a little away and behind.
Suddenly Sri Aurobindo beckons me from the adjoining chamber which is His. He too is lying on a cot. I draw near Him. He puts two fingers (index and middle) on my right palm, and says, “You have to carry faith and aspiration for one thousand years.”
Satprem and I come out from the Mother’s chamber and take the passage leading to the left (exit) door to announce to the world that the mother is alive.
My dream ends before we have crossed the threshold.
(Mother’s Agenda XIII, April 2, 1972)
Before Mother’s Departure
(I did not note everything in my notebooks, or only succinctly, for I feared “searches” from the staff of Pranab, Mother’s “bodyguard.”)
April 7, 1973
Sleeping Beauty. Mother: “All of them will think it’s the end.” S.: “I can tell them.” Mother: “Will he believe you?” Enter Pranab. Outburst of anger from Pranab. Afterward, Mother says to Satprem: “Will you be able to come every day?”
Satprem to Abhay Singh [Sujata’s brother]: “One day, Pranab will close Mother’s door on me.”
Pranab to Pradyot [one of the Ashram’s trustees]: “Get ready for Mother’s departure.” Pradyot, shocked, comes to see Sujata.
Sujata
comes across André M. (Mother’s son) and tells him the horrible things Pranab is
spreading. Sujata, astounded, hears him reply, “He is right, people must be
prepared.”
They are all in league together.
May 15. 1973. in the afternoon10
“Krishna in Gold”
A vision of Sujata’s
A place similar to the Playground. A few people, here and there, are talking or going about.
I am standing somewhere in the middle of the ground, in front of Mother’s door.
From the main gate enters a vehicle — half-cart half-cab — drawn by two bullocks. It comes to a stop a few feet away from me. The driver makes the bullocks kneel down. Out steps a gentleman. The cart is driven away.
The gendeman is dressed in white, Indian-fashion (dhoti, punjabi). He is round-faced and fair-skinned. Reminds me of a Zamindar [landlord] from the North. In fact he is the new proprietor11 coming to take possession.
The doors behind me are locked. He has the keys.
But he is not supposed to open one particular room: the one I thought was Mother’s. But he goes straight there and unlocks that door.
He enters. I too, as if I had the right to do so.
We
weave our way to the bottom of this room. I have a vague impression of a small
window on the end wall. And in the left corner, is a richly decorated high
throne. Seated in it is a Divinity.
He is quite small on that huge throne (about two feet or so).
He is made of solid gold.
At his feet are signs and objects of worship.
As we approach him, a sort of intense prayer or aspiration takes hold of me. We stand in front looking at him — my whole being is one intense prayer or invocation. The Divinity comes alive. He smiles slightly, then steps down.
He barely reaches my breast and seems to me like a little boy of eight or ten.
The three of us come out of the room. The scene has changed. Now it is countryside. A vast, unlimited expanse stretches in front. A few plots are cultivated, but most of the land is untended.
We walk. We walk on a narrow ridge by the side of a cultivated rice-field, which is to the right of us. It is green. I am nearest to it. The gentleman is the farthest. The Divinity is between us. He has a funny walk. He is so heavy (being made of solid gold) that he seems to lurch from side to side. I feel concerned and hold his arm to help him. I feel a tenderness also as for a child.
Then I turn my face toward him to reassure him. But instead of me looking down it is he who looks down on me! I am really astonished to see how tall he has grown during this short walk of but a few steps! Now it is I who hardly reach his shoulder. He seems to have grown to a lad of 13 or 14.
As I look up, he looks down at me and smiles. Ohh, what a smile! Utterly sweet and full of mischief. It contained a world: “You see, I am quite all right. Now you will see what fun we’ll have!”
We walk on. To our left, sitting cross-legged, head
bent, is M. [a disciple very learned in Sanskrit texts]. As we advance, I think,
“What a pity, we shall pass right in front of him, but he would not even know
who passed by!” But as
we near, he raises his head and sees. I feel glad for M.
We walk on. Now the scenes change fast. We meet more and more people. Trees. Roads. Still more people. Wherever we go there is trouble, disturbance, confusion. As if the Godhead were sowing disruption everywhere. The Zamindar gets annoyed. He had brought out the Divinity to show people what a fine fellow he was! Everybody should have great respect for him, obey him, for is he not the Proprietor? But the God had just the opposite effect! He should no longer be abroad. He must be put back where he belonged, and relocked.
So we return to the sanctuary. This time I remain outside. The Zamindar takes the God inside. And tries to shut the door.
But the Godhead will not be shut in.
I can see the gold God growing, growing.
The ceiling falls in. The god’s head and chest go through the ceiling. He tears down the walls and throws bricks everywhere. The Zamindar has disappeared under the debris.
The gold God grows. Taller and mightier. And will brook no resistance. With His mighty hands, He pulls down the walls of His old sanctuary.
When I woke up, I called Him “Krishna in gold.”12
(Mother’s Agenda XIII, May 15, 1973)
The last meeting with Mother.
On the night of June 20-21, 1973
A Vision of Sujata’s
Kumud, Mother’s assistant, standing at the top of the stairs, at Mother’s door, with a syringe in her hand: “No one will be allowed to see Mother before he or she has been inoculated.” Sujata catches a glimpse of Mother in the half-light. Everyone gets inoculated, even Nolini, who has a hard time climbing up the staircase with someone’s help and can hardly walk. Though Sujata does not like this, she accepts it to avoid causing a scandal. They try to take a sample of her blood, but no blood gets out! — they cannot inoculate her.
The collective inoculation of the Falsehood has begun.
(Message from Sujata to Satprem. Sujata, like Satprem, could not see Mother any more, but she let him know the few pieces of news she could get from the “circle” of people around Mother.)
Are you fine? The news from Mother is good. She is walking! With so much tenderness.
(Message from Sujata to Satprem)
Sweet Mother is very interiorized this morning. She took much time and ate hardly anything.
Keep yourself in good health.
Douce
(A letter to Yolande Lemoine, the friend of J.R.D. Tata, the Director of Air India, who was to play an important part in the release of Mother’s Agenda)
Yolande,
Here is a postscript to my latest letter. Perhaps you don’t know the present situation in India — turn on any radio set, listen to the loudspeakers screaming at every street corner and emitting a mixture of European jazz intermingled with sitar and Hawaiian mewings, look at the cinema posters which bring to every Indian village the wrigglings of the Moulin Rouge via Konarak. We are faced with a general degradation of consciousnesses, an organized, mind-destroying action, an exploitation of the lowest — but how lucrative — instincts. I have been following this degradation step by step for almost twenty years in India and have found it all the way up to the villages of the Himalayas.
There would truly be a memorable and salutary work to do there for a whole people.
Satprem
October 1, 1973
(Message from Sujata to Satprem)
This morning again while at the Samadhi,14 I heard Mother moaning. So, I took no flowers for you.
I love you very much.
Douce
October 31, 1973
(Note from Sujata to Satprem)
This morning, just after the breakfast, I heard Mother crying out. And do you know what? At the entrance of Nandanam,15 this morning, a whole part of the wall collapsed near the pond.
Here, the rain is starting again.
See you soon, very soon.
Tenderly
Douce
On the night of November 10-11. 1973
The strange way Mother announces her departure to me:16 Mother on all fours like an animal, a dog, all luminous before a bright, empty plate or bowl (like platinum or an extraordinary gilded silver) — “As You will.” She pretends to bark. Then she stands up and suddenly falls on the ground, as if fainting. Pranab’s staff arrives and takes her away immediately.
In French, we also say: “to treat somebody like a dog.”
November 14, 1973
Around midnight, Mother asks to walk, “Otherwise, I will become paralyzed.”
November 16, 1973
Mother to Pranab: “I want to walk.”
November 17, 1973
Mother’s departure.
1973
After Mother’s Departure
Isis
seated on a sarcophagus
November 18, 1973
I have hardly sat down in front of this body... when Nolini17 sends for me. I refuse to translate Nolini’s “message”: “Her body was not meant to be the New Body.”
While Mother is lying there, in the midst of the crowd, in that “meditation hall” where they have carried her down only a few hours after she left, I hear a formidable sound pealing over the universe:
no obstacle — nothing impedes
no obstacle — nothing impedes...
November 20, 1973
8.15 a.m. — The lid is screwed on Mother, while a voice from the top of the Ashram emits solemn lies — I feel like running away. All this is a horrible Falsehood, including Mother’s “dead” body.
8.20 a.m. — Mother is lowered into the Samadhi. Sujata, from the corridor upstairs, at the very place where Mother stood 23 years before, as they buried Sri Aurobindo, sees Mother’s face appear on the temporary lid of the Samadhi, a very young and smiling Mother, with a round face.
November 22, 1973
Kumud’s speech: “We really did the best...” She tells a prophecy she has heard: “She will lose the link.”
The link, yes = Satprem, on whom they closed the door.
*
The
terrible “why?”
I hear Mother saying to me with a rather formidable voice: “You don’t want it all to be a failure? — well, do it!”
November 26, 1973
Satprem to Sujata: “We have to find a key. She left for us to find something.”
November 27, 1973
To pull her out of her coffin, something is needed on our side.
November 28, 1973
Ten years ago, in 1963, I wrote in The Adventure of Consciousness (p. 322): “And then death enters the picture. Between the two functionings, the old and the new which must substitute the true Vibration for the symbolic organs, the line separating life from death is sometimes very thin — perhaps we must even be able to cross over the line and return in order to really triumph? This is what Mother called dying unto death.”
December 1, 1973
A telegram from Harper & Row, New York, asking for the
world English rights for a wide publication of The Adventure of Consciousness.
Counouma (the chief trustee of the Ashram) suggests that we sell the rights to
Harper for five years
only. The reason is: the Ashram’s income. Everyone cares about income, nobody
cares about the Goal.
December 3. 1973
Vision
A large black cleft right in the middle of a desert, like a chasm I had to cross over (not very large) with a single sharp crest across the chasm, too narrow for anyone to walk on. I went down on my stomach and crawled on this crest to reach the other side ... with my bicycle on my back. Impossible for me to advance: two arms pulled me onto the other side.
The bicycle = the symbol of the yoga. It is not the yoga that carries me, but I who carry the yoga.
December 4, 1973
Pranab makes a speech at the Ashram Playground. Nirod introduces the speech: “Pranab has protected the Mother... he is identified with the Mother ...” The general inoculation. “I was fully prepared from the beginning,” says Pranab. He concludes: “It makes no difference to me.” (Mother s departure).
December 13, 1973
I have started reading Mother’s works again for my book. Pranab goes for a picnic. The “released bird.”
December 14, 1973
(Satprem
to Sujata:) The five pillars of the Ashram: Pranab [the “bodyguard”],
Counouma, Dyuman [two of the trustees], Nava [the “proprietor”], Andre M.
[Mother’s son] ... With this kind of beings and forces, the outcome is
predictable. One could expect the disintegration of the Ashram, and it might be
a Grace, but the Falsehood is too solid to let itself be disintegrated. Let us
get ready. They will not take the Samadhi away from us. But I fear for Mother’s papers.
December 20, 1973
(Indian Express, December 19: A plane of Lufthansa hijacked and eight Western hostages killed on board the aircraft, which landed in Kuwait: “The commandoes started beating one of the women hostages in front of the microphone and announced to the control tower in Athens: ‘You can hear — this woman is going to die.’ Suddenly, they dragged a woman to the microphone and she began screaming, says a spokesman for Lufthansa.”)
(Satprem to Sujata:) Things have begun to speed up ominously. We are going straight to the hole... or to the beginning of Something Else. Everything may soon be outdated. Something has vibrated very strongly. The West allows its women to be beaten, heard by the whole world (in the Lufthansa mike), so as to get petroleum from the Arabs and to sell them arms.
December 21, 1973
(Message
from Sujata, with a flower from the Samadhi)
Here is the response of the Grace:
Victory
very tenderly
Douce
December 23, 1973
We can only see one little card then another of the big House of Cards collapse, because we see things day by day — but the whole house has collapsed. It is the end of the Machine. The world is wrecked.
In my “editor’s note” announcing Mother’s Agenda’s imminent publication (in parts),18 I wrote: “Perhaps there will be no need to say: we will see.” Perhaps even this Agenda will be outdated — and we will realize that the path is accomplished. Besides, I wonder whether we shall still have presses!... I expect a military government in India. As for the West... will they try, in a last thrashing of their ruin, to bring down their fist on the last Arab sheiks who hold the keys of the machine? Then who will be facing whom?
Read in the weekly Le Monde of December 10th: “A new era of the world’s history opened up in November 1973” (about the “petroleum war”). They may not know how right they are, nor to what extent.
December 24, 1973
Last
night, I saw a huge flock of black birds (smaller than crows) appear in the sky
and rush onto a tree which stood near me (like the mango tree below my window)
in order to eat its fruits. What does this tree mean?
This morning, Sujata submits to Nolini our intention of publishing Mother’s Agenda in parts. Would this tree be Mother’s Agenda?19
December 28, 1973
My brother (François) commits suicide.
December 31, 1973
(Message from Sujata, with a flower from the Samadhi)
Here is the flower “aspiration.”
May the year end with our constant and intense aspiration!
How I love you
Your Douce
January 1, 1974
(Message from Sujata to Satprem)
“May our aspiration have the power to reveal what is hidden and to manifest the unexpected.”
*
(Letter from Satprem to his mother)
January 1, 1974
My little mother,
Your telegram arrived yesterday, just when I was going to send the attached letter.
We are sharing the same sorrow.
All those pains prompt me to go still deeper inside, to the Source which alone is Real. This is what we must rejoin, or else everything is like a painful illusion.
I pray for you. I know what you are going through.
I saw François several times lately, perhaps at the very moment he was leaving, and those were affectionate meetings, such as we had not had for years, as if he were close to me again. All what is needed is done for his crossing to be as safe as possible. I don’t know the outer circumstances of his departure, but what I saw assures me he left without losing contact with the Light — his soul is with me.
Did he tell you about me before his departure? In the latest letter I wrote to him, I told him to come and join me here....
There remains an important thing: all the letters I
have written to my brother. I put the best of my heart in them for years upon
years — I gave to François more than to any being in the world. This
correspondence was a struggle against death. I would like it to help, one day,
other people like François and perhaps spare them some painful paths — may this
poor boy’s suffering help others at least. So, I would like to
get back all this correspondence — I don’t know in what way.... You see, at
least, let’s allow something positive for the world and those poor wretches to
emerge from this disaster. One day, I will make up a book with these letters and
some of François’s most beautiful letters. Oh, my little mother, all we can do
is to draw some light of help and compassion from this whole disaster. After
Mother’s and François’s departure, my life is somewhat broken. I don’t know how
long I am still to live, but I want to use my remaining years or days to give
all of myself to the best of my Art, for that is all I am able to do. This is
not our sorrow, but the sorrow of the world.
With love,
I am with you
Satprem
January 2, 1974
How could I be free, while my brother is in hell?
January 16, 1974
(Letter from Satprem to his mother)
My little mother,
I received your first letter yesterday; since François left, I have got a letter from Colette and this laconic telegram.
I have important things to tell you. You know, life is soon over and it is important for us to understand why we came at all and to make the progress for which we came into a terrestrial body. Had François really tried to understand, he would not have left and would have made the progress he had to — we die because we are unable to make the required progress.
Your
son François, my brother whom I loved like no one else in the world, was not an
ordinary being (neither is your son Satprem, for the same reason), but those
uncommon beings also have uncommon difficulties, which cannot be resolved but
through uncommon means. François, like your son Satprem, had been born to
incarnate something of the divine Love and to create something through the force
of this Love. But divine Love has nothing to do with the sentimental love of
humans — it loves everything and everywhere, but it shuts itself in nowhere. It
is a universal force. François’s difficulty has been summed up in a few words by
a sentence of Colette’s, who did not know how right she was: “His poor heart was
not commensurate with his love.” Great was his love indeed, because it came from
a divine source, but he tried to shut this Love in a family, a home, in children
or in medicine — and he lost everything. For this Love was not meant to live in
such limitations, it was not to be confined to a little right-minded story (the
“doctor of souls,” the “ideal father,” and so on), it was meant to be vaster
than that, more universal, and to create. François never could create because he
was never able to put his love on a higher plane and the creative force he did
not use turned into a destructive force. No, François was not an ordinary man,
but his heart was not commensurate with that which strove to pass through him.
And you all kept pushing in the wrong direction: you wanted to give him a “cushy
cozy home,” the right “medicine” and surround him with the very limitations he
had to get over if he was to survive. And in the end,
Lorient20 — there were good grounds for killing oneself indeed.
That was not what could have saved him. On the contrary, he should have found
the strength to send his family packing, along with his job and his mother, and
opened out into his own Reality, his Source of Love — he should have become
universalized. That was what he was
born for. But it is not the first time François has committed suicide — I have
known my brother for several lives and each time he made the same silly mistake,
he had not the strength to take the plunge, he was falsely shut up by a family
which only wanted what was “good” for him — but a small good, religious, moral,
medical or what not, which had nothing to do with him. François has been the
victim of “good” more than of “evil,” and when he jumped from one extreme to the
other — drugs, sexual excesses and what not — it was still an attempt to be
delivered from a “Good” which stifled him. I know what it is: it took a
concentration camp and a few solitary hells for me to be freed from my good
education and family once and for all — or else, I would have ended up killing
myself like François. Like him, I committed suicide more than once in other
lives — which is why I know my brother well and well understood his illness and
what could have saved him. There is a knot of fate, and each time we come back
here below to unravel the knot, that is, to progress, to widen, to love more
widely — we were born for that. And if we don’t unravel our own knot in this
life, we have to come back again and again until the work is done and we are
free at last to accomplish the mission of our soul.
You are closely linked to that knot; more than once you
have witnessed the tragic destiny of your two sons, François and Satprem. This
subconscious memory is what gives your pain a particular intensity. But this
also is the reason why you must understand — in other words, you too have to
make the required progress and widen yourself. The tragic mistake must not be
made again. I don’t know if you understand my language, but for once at least,
the Truth will have been told. For what is the use of life if it is not to put a
little more truth in it and to grow up? Old truths have to be broken for one to
move to a larger truth — or else one shuts oneself up and dies, or wastes away
in a negative suffering. My mother is not an ordinary being either, and her
trials are not ordinary, but she must have the courage to use extraordinary means
and go beyond her limitations. Then she will have fulfilled what she was born
for and will be more able to help François unravel his knot. Your maternal love
did not help François, quite the opposite, though you may have had illusions
about it. This illusion was so strong that you even write: “He seemed to be so
well ... we thought he was out of danger ... he went to Lorient to meet the
owner ...” But I saw death coming closer to him step by step, and I knew
he would die if he stayed near you and I never stopped saying: Do send him here,
thrust him into the plane, this is the only thing that can save him. Yes, he
went to the port of Lorient — the Orient — he did not have the courage to embark
for the Orient and he killed himself.
It is like that. Nobody is to blame, everyone did their best according to their own thinking. But everyone would do well to understand, to reach the true Meaning of their own lives. You are not meant to end your life without its true meaning and give way to a selfish pain — for in truth one only cries over oneself.
Love — true Love — is not of this sentimental and right-minded or right-willing sort, which wants to bend people in a certain way: it is above, it radiates purely, without willing anything whatsoever; and through its own sole force, pure and radiating, it transmutes everything around, without even trying to transmute. And it is sure to do this well because it does not want this or that, it does not even want good (for once again our so-called good is questionable and always turns out to be unsuitable for our neighbor and even — above all — for our own children.)
.........
So, if you want to come to Pondicherry, you may have an
opportunity to face the real deepness of your life — it is not a question of
coming here to “hide your sorrow,” but of taking the plunge and finding what
lies behind the sorrow — the Source — and unraveling the knot. And if you
unravel this knot in your heart and your mind, you will have done what can help
François best, even on the other side, and help us all.
Then you will be really, purely radiating, and your life will have its meaning.
Because my little mother is not an ordinary being and it is unworthy of her to
end up overcome by suffering — that is, ultimately, overcome by selfishness
because we only suffer because of ourselves.
So, I invite you to come. You will bring me the big carton of this correspondence and also François’s diary — we will collect all this to make a book, a beautiful book, for here again, we have to give things their meaning, instead of letting all that crumble into the dust of sorrow. You clearly will not come to see your “son,” but to find what is to be found. I am truly your son only insofar as you get out of the family and climb into the vast light — there we are together again and love flows naturally, without trying to take anything or even to give anything (oh, that “giving” which is only the reverse of “taking”!). Besides, I have had a lot of serious work since Mother’s departure and have completely withdrawn to be able to write the book I have to write on Mother — here again, I strive to find a positive Sense; we must always find the upward sense. So, we shall meet, but not on the same footing as before — without constraint and whenever it is necessary or strongly felt within ourselves. You will be tranquil at Reg’s, you will immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the Samadhi, and I am sure, or rather I know that Sri Aurobindo will help you take the plunge and get out of there wider, greater, and of real help for everyone. Your son exists only insofar as he is Satprem — Bernard is an old dead man who does not need to be stirred in his coffin.
And Satprem loves you
in the Truth — see you soon.
Satprem
January 31, 1974
Andre
Brincourt at
Deer House21
February 16. 1974
A vision of Sujata’s
Mother Resumes Her Activities.
The sores in her back are healing.
(Conversation recorded on January 6, 1991)
(Satprem:) I would like you to visualize again, to pull down the vision you had a very short while after Mother’s departure. It took place in February 1974: three months after she left.
(Sujata:) Yes.
(Satprem:) I wrote down in my notebooks: “Mother resumes her activities, the sores in her back are healing.” I wrote only three lines, you know, because ... I did not want this to be put down in black and white (!).
(Sujata:) Yes!
And I wrote that on ... Wait, I’ll try to find it.
You told me it was on February 16.
Yes.
It is dated February 16, 1974 in my notebooks.
And we are ... What’s today’s date? January 6, 1991 — bah-bah!
Well. You know, for me it was more or less connected to Indira’s [Gandhi] visit.
Did she come to the Ashram?
Yes, she even spent the night at Pavitra-da’s, as far as I can recall. Well, I remember it was around that date. I think I had this vision in the night, most probably (because I have many visions in the afternoon, too). So, I was on the verandah where the fruitroom is now situated, you know? Just behind me, there were the door and my father’s office; I was in this line. I was standing there, looking toward the sea, that is, eastward. And from this spot, I had an overall view of the Ashram courtyard. (At the far end of it, there was Bula-da’s room.) There I stood, and suddenly, I saw Mother walking, walking very fast. I saw her turning the comer — she was probably coming out of the meditation room ...
Yes, the place where they put her into her box.
Yes. The place where they left her chair... They had carried her down and put her there, in this meditation hall.
Yes.
Well, that’s where she was coming from, when she
turned the room’s corner. And this is where I saw her appear. She was walking
very fast. The more she walked, the closer she came to me (thus she was coming
from the east and was heading westward). And the more she walked, the taller she
got — in any case, she was very tall, I remember. Very tall indeed. And she was
looking nowhere: as if
she were just coming out of a sleep or... something else, I don’t know — she was
coming out. I had the impression that she was emerging from that shock of being
put into a box. Nevertheless, she advanced. I don’t know how many steps she
took, but she walked with giant footsteps! Then she drew level with the Samadhi,
passed it a little and arrived in front of Pujalal’s window, which is on a level
with the bottom end of the Samadhi.
Yes, that’s where Sri Aurobindo’s head lies.
Is it at that end? Is his head westward or eastward?
His head is eastward.
It was the small end, that is, westward, at the feet of Sri Aurobindo.
The moment she came there, I suddenly realized (Mother did not look at me, she went on walking) that her dress, which seemed to drag on the floor (it was wrapping her completely, you know, and probably reaching to the ground, I don’t know exactly), or a bit of her dress, had made an effort to brush a man aside. And this man rolled down toward the Samadhi (without touching it), down to one end of the Samadhi.
He rolled on the ground.
Indeed he did, brushed away by the dress. Mother did not pause, she was walking.
She did not even look around.
She didn’t look around, nothing. I don’t think she had her eyes closed, but she did not look around: she was staring straight ahead.
And this man?
I
was quite amazed to see this man rolling like that toward the Samadhi. Well, it
was Navajata! I was so amazed to see him ...
Brushed away.
Brushed away by the hem of her dress. It was quite amazing. Mother made no effort at all, she was walking, she did not pause for a fraction of a second, but she did it with the hem of her dress (which was long), as if the dress itself had made an effort to brush this man away, from left to right, like this. He rolled down to the courtyard ground, you know, and he was brushed away. (Laughing) I was dumbfounded at realizing it was Navajata.
But Mother did not stop, as I told you, she went on . walking. That is to say, she was coming nearer and nearer to where I stood.
Then she took a few more steps and she reached... how could I say? Do you know this staircase climbing up to Pavitra-da’s?
Yes.
Well, once again, but without any effort, the dress made another man roll down, and brushed him away... Well, this second man was Barun Tagore!22 Strangely enough!
Brushed away.
Completely. Like a dead leaf, you understand. Like a fallen leaf you sweep away, it does not require any effort.
But
for the first one, there had been an effort.
Yes, I felt the dress had made an effort for the first one. But not for the second: swept away like a dead leaf. Those were the two sweeping aways I witnessed. After that, Mother kept going and she went right to where I stood. (Meanwhile, I had not moved, I was just an onlooker, gazing at it all. I did not sense I had to move.) Then Mother came to me. At that moment her size was somewhat back to normal — tall nevertheless. She was tall. And she showed she was happy to see me. (I have the impression there were some other persons). Then she called to me, and all of a sudden I noticed a sort of wound on her left arm. I don’t know how you say it, in English they call it a “bedsore,” you know?
A bedsore.
Yes, I saw that. It hurt me. It was bleeding, you know. And there were blood stains on her dress ...
Really?! (with a sobbing in his voice:) The bastards! rhose bastards — those assassins. And impeccably dressed in white, at that!
And Mother told me she wanted to have a bath, she asked me to prepare everything, so that she could take a bath. That’s all. The vision stopped there.23
(silence)
Later on, I asked about that, because I did not go to see Mother at all after they closed her door [in May 1973]. And when we arrived, on the morning of November 18, there was already a kind of barrier...
Ah,
yes!
...it was impossible to approach Mother. But I made inquiries. There were Vasudha [Mother’s assistant] and Minou, whom I spoke to a little (because Minou used to wash Mother’s clothes, so she knew) and both of them confirmed that Mother actually had bedsores. When Minou took care of Mother (Mother had been ill several times), she never had bedsores. But this time, she had. And I understood that not only did she have these bedsores but even when they carried her down ... (Mother had been there for two or three days ...)
Downstairs.
Downstairs, into the meditation hall. Well, it was still bleeding ... Her dress was blood-stained. That’s how it is. I knew nothing of it all, I only saw, and after I made inquiries.
I never-never could understand how they could have been so cruel or thoughtless as to carry her down only three hours after this ... At once, like that: hop! to carry her down and place her under the fans, with those thousands of people....
I never could understand. Those people were supposed to have had a minimum of yogic education, weren’t they? — after three hours, they carried her down. That’s incredible! Nolini gave his assent, Andre gave his assent, everyone gave their assent! — They all agreed on it.
Nolini-da had protested about it. But you know, in front of that Pranab...
Nolini protested?
He did. Even Sanyal-da (Mother’s doctor) told them
that Mother had asked not to be disturbed immediately. Nolini-da
said the same thing. But both had been sent for only around 11 p.m., that is to
say, after they had disturbed Mother.
Yes. Yes ...
Which means that they changed her clothes immediately and arranged everything. It was not until 11 that Nolini-da was sent for.
And then, hop! She was carried down.
Yes. I think they took her down at 2. From 7 to 2.
It’s incredible. And so cruel.
(silence, Sujata is crying)
Well, ma Douce. Don’t grieve. Don’t.
No, but how not to grieve? This Mother who has done so much for us, so much! What has she not done for us? And to treat her like that — what does this mean? They are not human, they are subhuman.
Oh, yes! But we can see that everywhere. It is something that is not human at all — and is meant to disappear.
Only pisachas [demons of the lower vital] can do such things.
Just so. They were the specimens of what is not human. And those who were a little more human had not the courage to express what they felt. A complete lack of courage — cowardice, in fact.
(silence)
Oh,
Lord, it’s a good thing all this is far behind us now.
Oh, yes ...It is nearly seventeen years, mon Doux,24 since I saw that, isn’t it?
Yes, seventeen years. It will be seventeen years soon. But Navajata ... Did you see? Pfft! Rolled away.... But how many years after?!
I wonder... Didn’t he leave in 83? Or 82? I have forgotten. I always forget.
I don’t know any more.25 But he did leave. Really, it was ... He wanted to create the religion of Sri Aurobindo! You keep Krishna in gold on a leash and you display him everywhere. Give us a little money — give us money.
Oh, he got a lot of money with that Society,26 mind you!
Ah, he was ... he bribed everyone: the magistrates, the postmen, everything.... He was in control of everything. The planes, a fantastic intelligence service: you could not take a plane without his knowing it, you could not mail a letter without its being opened, you could not make a phone call without its being listened to — incredible 1 And murderers were bought off — everything, everything — he had everything at his disposal. He bribed the judges: you will send these ones to jail.
That man had fantastic powers. And in Delhi, at that!
And he knew that Satprem was the one who barred his way. He knew that I was the enemy.
Oh, yes! What didn’t he try to take you out of his
way! But
you see, Mother had other plans.
And to think that I wrote letters upon letters to those Aurovilians so as to make them understand what this “Society” was! What energy I applied to that!
Well, let’s forget it. I only wanted what you have seen to be noted.
That man, he could buy everything off. Judges, postmen...
The police ...
... The police, everything! He could buy everything. In Delhi, he bought off the foreigners’ registration, didn’t he, and he was the one who controlled the F.R.O. [Foreigners’ Registration Office] of Pondicherry — he had power everywhere. You could not make an application at the Madras F.R.O. without his knowing it at once — you could not do anything anywhere — it was incredible. He had as much money as he wished. He could buy everything. In the ministries, he was kept informed of everything.
But this is really the sign of the Adversary, you know.
Yes. The power of corruption.
Ah, by the way, I wanted to tell you and I forgot. The man who came to us on January 1, 1978 ...
Yes, with the expulsion letter? He, too, was a man of Nava’s?
He was. His name was Devdutt.
Devdutt. He belonged to the “Society.”
You see, we left Madras to go to Delhi, to
Almora,27 and we
were followed everywhere! We arrived at Dehra Dun, and they were already
there, they knew in which hotel we stayed and they came to bring us the
expulsion letter from the trustees! We have been shadowed, hunted down, spied on
— everywhere.
It’s fantastic.
At the hotel... I remember. In Dehra Dun, we were staying at the “President Hotel.”
Ah, it was called “President”?
Yes. They told us: “There is someone who wants to see you.” It would never have occurred to me that a man of Navajata’s was there! With a letter signed by Counouma: “You are expelled from the Ashram.” At Dehra Dun! In the hotel lounge!
Indeed!
It was incredible! Fantastic!
We were tied up: not one phone call, not one letter, not one taxi — he knew everything.
Oh, yes!
People cannot imagine what network of spies, what power he had.
And not only in Pondicherry, but almost everywhere in India!
Yes, in Calcutta, in Delhi, he knew everything, manipulated anything he wanted to in the ministries.
The power of corruption he had was really fantastic.
He
was about to cause terrible damage — he had already, with his “religion of Sri
Aurobindo ...”
Oh, yes!
You see, Krishna in gold was his little dog to be taken out for a walk.
Yes. (Laughing) Well, the Supermind has its own ideas on the subject!
Yes!
This Devdutt belonged to the S.A.S.
So, you see ... He was the one who brought us this letter. I remember, it was in the evening....
Yes, on the evening of the 1st.
It was in the evening: I was called to the lounge of the hotel.
We took a taxi back to Delhi at once, then took the plane...
We returned to Nandanam ... to find our door padlocked.
Oh, yes!
And Counouma sent for Dilip (the watchman of Nandanam), and told him: “Call the police.”
Dilip was ill,28 it was his brother, Ashwini.
Yes.
So, he called the police — who came at once, of course: even the police was
Nava’s.
Besides, that Ashwini was the one who immediately informed Counouma of our return.
And the police came for the “breach of peace”!
(Sujata laughs)
Fortunately, there were our friends (what are their names?) N. and the rest of them, who organized everything to...
Yes. The fantastic power of that man. And what he was about to do.
Ah, yes. Ouf! One cannot imagine what damage this would have caused.
Well, it was quite simply a new Church.
With all the force of Truth enclosed inside!
Yes, that’s how it is. Falsehood always seizes hold of the Truth to ... This is the very foundation of falsehood: it seizes hold of the Truth. It is such a fantastic phenomenon: the power of Falsehood stems from its catching the Truth.
Yes. And the stronger the Truth is, the more powerful the falsehood.
Powerful.
Look: there is a pope with a Church of Christ and how many millions upon millions of little Christians — So, how many millions of little followers of the religion of Sri Aurobindo!
Ah, yes!
This
I realized and knew at once: the religion of Sri Aurobindo will not be.
And I will destroy it.
There will not be popes and priests of Sri Aurobindo — Nava I, Nava II, Nava III, and the business goes on from father to son, with a few Inquisitions on the way. This I understood at once.
(silence)
All right, that’s enough.
*
I would like to add something that strikes me all of a sudden and that I had not realized before.
The second person Mother swept away like a dead leaf, that Barun Tagore ... Here again ...
He was a nasty, tiny little man, but he had such power — and the plan he had ... For he had power at Laffont’s. What he wanted to do was to catch, to seize hold of Satprem, so as to be the proprietor of Satprem, you understand?
Ah, yes!
Remember, step by step, he would say: “I’m going to reprint this book and that one and that one.”
He wanted to be the proprietor of Satprem — and then to strangle him. You see?
In fact, the part he played was a very important one. And how I struggled with Laffont! — and Laffont did not understand what I tried to tell him; he never understood he was under Barun’s influence: “But why are you hostile to Barun?!” He did not understand, but at the bottom of his heart, he liked me very much.
Yes.
And his heart drove him to do things his thought did not understand.
But Laffont actually was under Barun’s thumb.
And
Barun’s idea (not his idea, he only manifested it!) was: “I am the
proprietor of Satprem.” Just as Navajata was the proprietor of Auroville, the
proprietor of the Ashram and of Krishna in gold. Well, Barun was the proprietor
of Satprem; and on that basis, one can do whatever one likes.
In fact, had Barun succeeded in seizing hold of Satprem and strangling him, Nava’s way would have been clear at the same time.
But he was a ... Barun was generously paid by Nava.
(Laughing) Yes.
Now, I understand. He sought to be the proprietor of Satprem’s writings. Once he is the proprietor, he can strangle you, you can do nothing anymore.
Yes-Yes. You are no longer a free agent.
But I had a vision I am going to tell you now.
I remember. It was not long after Mother’s departure, probably when I was writing the Trilogy. I had a vision of Pourna29 (Pourna and Barun stood together, God knows!).
Yes, they did.
So, I was at my desk in my bedroom, writing and writing and writing. I was locked up in this room. Then, the key turned in the lock. Pourna brought me a lunch tray. Then she went out, locked the door. And I kept writing and writing. Night came: the door was unlocked, Pourna came to bring me a dinner tray; the key was turned again in the lock — and I kept writing endlessly.
She was the proprietor of Satprem. She confined Satprem — at least such was her idea, as well as Barun’s: to confine, to catch Satprem: to lock him up.
Well,
the other one, too, wanted to lock up Krishna in gold. You see how things
meet, how visions meet. And the plan those people had.
Oh, I remember very well! It was even shown in a rather humoristic way, because I was writing and writing. Then Pourna unlocked the door, brought me dinner, went out, and locked the door again...!
(Laughing)... and brought you a lunch tray again! tchi!
And I was there, writing madly!
But you see, Mother was kind enough to give us ... warning signs, if I may say so.
Yes, the warning signs were there, but we had to go through the battle!
Ah, yes!
But Barun had the upper hand at Laffont’s for years.
Yes.
I had dozens of visions of that, starting with that of the “Turban.”
(Sujata, bursting into laughter:) Yes, I remember!
It was funny and not funny — not funny at all. I was completely underneath the turban of this man.
Was it in front of Laffont’s house?
Yes, in Laffont’s courtyard.
Was it his house or his office?
His
office — I don’t know exactly, it was Laffont’s house and I stood in the
courtyard. I was there, waiting, and Barun came out of Laffont’s. As for me, I
was waiting in the courtyard (!). At that point (he had called a car) I realized
he was wearing a gigantic turban, which could well be two meters wide.
(Sujata laughs) He sat down in the front of the car, and I was pushed
away into a tiny corner against the door, beneath the turban
(Sujata bursts out laughing). I was crushed in a corner, with that big
Barun and his enormous turban. (I think he was the one who drove the car — quite
symbolic!)
It’s really humorous.
In any case, I did not go to Laffont’s, I was waiting in the courtyard: it was Barun who came out of Laffont’s!
And for years Laffont was under Barun’s thumb — I had to struggle.30
Yes. I remember: thankfully, L. was there, and he could thwart him a little.
Just a little, not much.
No, but thanks to that, the Agenda could come out.
Yes, the Agenda could come out.
It was a battle.
But
they made their false Agenda, didn’t they, and Barun sent it to Laffont
at once, saying: “We have published the first volume of the Agenda!”
Thank God, Laffont s heart was in the right place despite everything. He cabled
me to say: “Auropress has sent me the first volume of the Agenda??”
(Sujata, laughing:) Copied from the “Notes on the Way.”31
Yes, the false Agenda.
Yes. And they named it “Agenda” — really!
“Mother’s Agenda!” Fortunately, Laffont was enough of a good man to cable me: “They have sent me the first volume of the Agenda — what am I to do?”
Yes! There is not one thing that man didn’t write to Laffont!
Well, that’s a different matter. You see, such was the battle.
Yes...
(silence)
I saw only those two men, Navajata and Barun, being brushed aside by Mother’s dress. Nobody else.
Both of them were actually the obstacles to the Work.32 For a long time I didn’t really understand the noxious importance of that little man — for Navajata, I understood at once, but for Barun, I didn’t understand right away.
Yes,
because it was ... how to call it? smaller or...
It was more twisted.
And there was Pourna, too.
Yes! Those two stuck together — well...
(silence)
That’s it.
But from the outset She had swept away the two obstacles. Yet... everything is settled in advance, but we have to do it step by step.
Yes, how many years did it take ...
Well, that’s enough.
February 20, 1974
(Message from Sujata, with a flower)
O my beloved,
Here is an Aspiration33 this morning.
My heart is so sad this morning. It is a kind of warmth going up. It almost brings tears to my eyes. When will Mother show Herself to us?
My sweet Dhoum.
Douce
*
Edgar
and Lucie Faure at
Deer House34
February 26, 1974
(Letter from Satprem to his mother)
My little mother,
I know that my latest letter has upset you. But I never sought to crush you, I only sought to pull you higher, for there is only one way to overcome our suffering, it is to turn it into light. Instead of toppling into the hole, one rises above and widens. Suffering is a tenacious falsehood — within truth, everything is luminous. What produces suffering is our lack of light, our lack of a wide consciousness. So often did I say that to François — vainly. I say that to my little mother and I don’t want it to be in vain. If this world means something, if it is not only a tragic farce, it must have been created to teach us the vastness in our consciousness and the joy in the midst of everything — and all circumstances, even the most seemingly cruel of them, are exclusively made to teach us that other altitude of consciousness where everything appears different. But people prefer to die with their suffering, instead of spitting at the face of this Falsehood and saying: I am greater than you are, greater than the blows you deal me, greater than my own little story. And one rises higher, wider.
People cling to a certain way of living which is a way of dying.
There you are, face to face with that fate, like François, and you have at your disposal all what is needed to get out of it — if you wish.
You will answer that you no longer wish anything, but this is still another way of sinking to new depths.
When
you came to Pondicherry, the first two times, you had felt something else,
another possibility, another way of living and being — and then it disappeared.
When you came again after that, you were all drawn by your family into the old
pit which actually is a pit of pain, where one can do nothing for others nor
heal anything. This is the descending life. As for me, I wish I could give you
the ascending life — ascending to the very end — if you wish. Which is why I
insisted that you don’t come here again under the same old conditions, with the
old attitude. There is here something ascending — that’s what one must catch.
Then one can die, it does not matter, because one is greater than death. One has
caught the true thread that weaves all lives and unravels all knots. And one
can help others, because one can help oneself. Then everything takes on a
different meaning, everything is viewed differently. It is the same difference
as between an ant’s life and a bird’s. Only you have to break out of all that —
you have to accomplish that breaking out François did not have the courage to
perform. It is not a question of living in India but of living on the heights of
yourself — here, you are simply helped to take that step. One day, in the
canyons, you told me with a lot of force that you were “free.” Freedom is to be
free from suffering before anything else, which does not prevent love and
compassion to be, but instead of a sentimentality of the mudholes, it is a high
Force, clear and intrepid.
You will tell me again that you are old and weary — that is precisely why the time has come to change all that — you are weary of that old miserable world, oh, how weary! Well, emerge into a new world. That is just what I wish I could give you, with love. Because I love you, and perhaps I fight with you just as I fought with François — it is my way of loving. I wish people joy and wideness and consciousness. I don’t want either the suffering or the unconsciousness or the ignorance they live in and die in — they die endlessly, without having learned the lesson.
So, I tell you again, come if you wish — when you wish. I
love you in the truth and the wideness, and I wish you the beginning of a true
life beyond the millions of deaths — something that would have a Sense, a
lasting reality, a true Rock of freedom and peace. Then one understands — one
understands everything.
I truly love you, I am your son in the Truth and the highest and the vast Light. That is what I expect from you, I want you to end up as great as you have lived and everything to become limpid for you.
With love
Satprem
PS: I gave you a photograph of Sri Aurobindo. Hold it in your hands, look at it. There is something for you in it.
March 8, 1974
(Letter to Carole Weissweiller, a friend from Paris who intended to make a film about Sri Aurobindo and the Sannyasi.)
Carole,
Your thought often comes to me and you are present.
Sometimes I feel you almost as a child lost in this chaotic world and I wish I
could give you something, take your hand for a while and tell you: “You see,
it’s not so complicated, you have just to pause a little, for a few seconds, to
get your breath back, get tuned in to the Source again — and everything becomes
simple, there is no need to think or even to struggle, ‘it’ struggles for you,
does everything for you and is perfectly able to press the buttons! And you
don’t have to worry about the result, it sorts out everything in its own time,
which perhaps is not the time we imagine, yet is the right time.” This little
breathing right in the midst of things, this pause “for nothing” — nothing which
is really everything and
does everything — and this trust placed in the soul which impels everything from
behind is all that is needed, it is the key to everything. We only have to try!
But we forget and strive to remember, forget again and catch ourselves once
more, and little by little, a kind of silver thread emerges in the chaos, a sort
of quiet support carrying everything; one breathes better, sees better, lives
better. We only have to remember “that”! The doors close, or we bang against the
doors unknowingly, but in reality there are no doors! All is open at
every step we take, we only have to “remember that” for a second, and it makes a
kind of hole in that walking suffocation, a call for air allowing the right
light, the right act, the right decision, the relaxation and the vastness of
life to come in at once. We have to remember, to breathe from time to
time, between two steps, for one second on the sidewalk, while opening a door;
anywhere, at any time, we only have to pause and think of “that” — for
everything to change, all the doors to open up. What we bang into is only our
own suffocation. So, I think of you, Carole, and try to send you a few puffs of
light air. May the Light be with you.
Now for practical things: the film on Sri Aurobindo ... It will be made, but in communication with the already existing Truth of the film. You know that story about Indian peasants who marveled at seeing a sculptor chiseling a god out of stone and asked him: “What! How did you know the god was inside?” ... In fact, the peasants were wise; the god was inside and the sculptor was chiseling what he saw inside.
Yes, Carole, life chisels itself on its own, according to what one sees in it and what is already within. One only lets out what is already there.
As for the Sannyasi — you pressed all the right buttons and it is coming. It will come out in spite of all the obstacles and prevarications of Auropress. Ultimately, one little drop of pure, real truth is more powerful than a million men and obstacles. A pure tiny drop that shines in the day unknowingly, “like that,” and has infallible results despite all the time it takes.
I
wish you would learn this tiny drop, this little breathing, this light, “lost”
little instant that finds everything again and settles everything.
With much affection and gratitude for your help.
Satprem
March 14, 1974
(Extract from a letter to Carmen)
Dear Carmen,
I have taken a long time to answer the note you wrote to us in that bar of Avenue Carnot — I am snowed under with work. (...)
Everything is pouring in, as the Bengali proverb goes: “When God gives, his giving breaks the roof down.” Despite that flood, I go on with my true work as best as I can: the book on Mother. This is a great mystery.... I have not seen my owl in the canyons — it is waiting for your return to show up again — but I go there everyday; I stretch out on the ground, looking at the sky, and I drift far off where all sorrows are wiped away — did you ever manage to get out of your “photograph” a little, leaving the little person there in front of you, like a small suitcase, then you gradually move back and everything topples into the vastness. One has only to try again and again. But, you know, the most important thing is not that you should “succeed,” but that you should try and love that, think of that, remember that — and the more you remember, the more powerful, alive and active it becomes, and finally it is us without our being aware of it, and it sorts out everything very well. This is the great key: not to succeed in fact, but to remember, to call, quite simply, for the beauty of it. After all, what in the world could be better calling for, among all this sordid jumble?
I
think of you very tenderly, and of the whole family as well; and a wink for
Jean-Marie.
Satprem
March 15, 1974
The “inoculation” is effective. (Written) declaration from Nolini: “The immediate programme of a physical transformation is postponed ... The earth-consciousness was not quite ready for the final transformation of the Mother’s body, that is to say, the material substance of the body. Therefore it could not accommodate the incoming transforming force — and it broke.”
The falsehood.
March 16, 1974
(With my Douce:) They will not fall from heaven — it is from the earth that They will emerge. Savitri goes to fetch Satyavan in death. Not nice, gilded little gods falling from heaven, but bodies that have gone through death, overcome death, and come back with the Truth.
*
(Letter to André Brincourt of the Figaro)
Andre,
I have just read your article that Yolande sent me; it
is pleasant, kind, open, you have done a great, good work — I feel like thanking
you, but it is actually all of Thought that you are helping to progress. It
gladdens one’s heart to see that truly intelligent people understand at last the
active and immense part they can play in this difficult evolutionary work.
I had felt your thought very much — something that is not fluid but concrete,
sincere. A drop of sincerity is so powerful.
But Satprem is no sage at all! You will set off Himalayan tremors! Satprem loves, that is all. SAT-PREM : the-one-who-truly-loves. He loves truth, he loves the earth, he loves everyone who tries, who seeks, who is not at peace with their hominid skin and really strives to find a means of shifting to the next being. And when I talked to you, I really answered nothing to your questions, but I wished so much that Andre’s heart would open to a living, powerful truth — that which gives a creative dynamism, that which one touches in one’s own flesh; for if one does not touch it there, in the raw, one touches it nowhere. So, forgive my “wisdom,” and believe in my fraternal affection
gratefully,
Satprem
April 3, 1974
A Vision of Satprem’s
Mother’s embrace. The black snake whose head I tear off. With great emotion, almost in tears, I say to Mother: “I’ve had enough of the human state.” Afterwards, as I recall, there came that almost physical embrace.
April 17, 1974
(Message from Sujata)
Sweet beloved,
For a long time this morning I held your face in my
hands and let my gaze plunge
deeply into you. I told Mother to accompany it and heal you like a soothing
bath, a fresh hand removing all pains, repairing all damage, filling the heart
and the body with a quiet energy.
O my beloved.
Douce
May 21, 1974
(Message from Sujata: May 21, 1973 was the Sujata met Mother for the last time.)
May 21, 1974
to my sweet beloved.
Today it is a year since Sweet Mother last held my hand.
Oh! my Dhoum.
Douce
May 24, 1974
(Message from Sujata with a flower from the Samadhi)
Today, this is “Immortality.”
Like our love like two children at the feet of Mother.
Douce
May 25, 1974
(Message from Sujata)
May
our “aspiration” be pure for the secret to be
disclosed to us.
*
It will be written in Mother’s Book.
*
With so much love,
O my beloved
Douce
*
To my Douce:
“May we find Mother’s secret together.”
May 26, 1974
(Sunday Standard, 5-26-74, after an Indian nuclear test:) India is a “nuclear power.” Indira Gandhi declares: “It was being said that a poor nation could not afford this luxury [the bomb]. This same argument was advanced when India established steel mills and machine-building plants. These were necessary for development for it was only through acquiring higher technology that India could overcome poverty and economic backwardness.”
The same Falsehood since Nehru.
In early June 1974
Vision
of the false Sri Aurobindo (with a monocle) in a room full of noise and people.
And a false Mother, hiding half her face with a hem of her white saree.
June 18, 1974
(Little card from Sujata)
Sweet Dhoum,
Here are the flowers.
Came across Pourna who gave me news from Barun. I’ll give you the details tonight. But I want to tell you now that Robert Laffont has decided to publish the Sannyasi “independently of any collection” (!) because Satprem does not like to be confined in a collection, to be labeled. Happy, Masai?35
How are you? Fine this morning? Oh, my beloved ...
I kiss you
very tenderly very gently
Douce
June 22. 1974
A Vision of Sujata’s
(noted by Satprem)
“Pranam,”36
there are ten or so people. Satprem is not there. Sujata goes in search of me,
finds me in the canyons with “Tamil men,” but I walk faster than they do — one
of them tries to shoot at Sujata with a rifle. We go to Mother’s at last: she
“has produced a baby” — which is smiling delightfully (it reminds Sujata of
Krishna in gold). A few days later, we come back to Mother’s: the “baby” has
grown a lot, “as if it were one year older every day.” Mother is alone in a
little cell, sitting on the ground and watching over the child; she seems
forlorn. Sujata has the impression that I am the “guardian” of this child, or
that I have been entrusted with the responsibility of looking after him. I
grumble: “To produce a baby at ninety six!”
July 5. 1974
A Vision of Satprem’s
Mother was coming out. She was walking on a very narrow path. I was on her left. To make more room for her, I walked on the roadside, which was covered with barbed wire. Beneath the barbed wire, there was a carpet of “Sri Aurobindo’s Compassion”37 flowers. I walked on this barbed wire, with the Compassion of Sri Aurobindo underneath.
July 22, 1974
(Message from Sujata)
Here
are some rose petals.
Your tormented face is haunting me.
What to say, what to do with this bleeding heart?
But my tenderness for you is unchanging.
Your
Douce
August 20, 1974
(Message from Sujata)
My beloved, my sweet one,
Mother keeps us in her arms.
We are together at the feet of Sri Aurobindo.
Douce
August 24, 1974
Something that is neither Good nor Evil — nor Light struggling against Darkness, nor Darkness claiming its right — an Ally apart from all that: the cellular mind? the body.
September 4, 1974
(Note from Sujata)
...
Poor
Rajabhai.38 They are hounding him. A spy in the Workshop. It is a
Bengali boy. I’ll give you the details. (...)
Douce
September 27, 1974
(Message from Sujata)
My sweet beloved,
My forehead resting on the Samadhi, I told Them: May their names enter people’s hearts. Here is the answer:
“Consciousness turned to the Light”39 + four Aspirations. (I had also told Them: May we serve Them as They want it to be done.) (...)
Douce
October 2, 1974
Counouma questions the “opportuneness” of publishing the Agenda — they are afraid of the Agenda.
October 20, 1974
Mother
to Sujata: “At this point, one must sleep” (this point in the transformation).
October 26, 1974
All the willpower we use to hit evil proportionately increases the force of evil.
What is needed is something other than this power.
October 27, 1974
I have finished rereading the Agenda (for my book on Mother).
November 20, 1974
Yolande L. on my little patio: the Agenda?
December 6, 1974
(Message from Sujata)
I am in your old bedroom [in Pondicherry], sitting on your bed. I have begun 1972. [the Agenda] Look at the flowers! [from the Samadhi]
1) Surrender
2) Happy Future
3)
Victory.
Yes, the future will bring Victory. Sri Aurobindo and Mother’s work cannot fail. This is impossible.
We walk hand in hand toward Her, our Sweet Mother.
A very deep love for my beloved.
Douce
December 11, 1974
(Message from Sujata)
Yes my beloved
We shall do this Work together right to the end.
very tenderly
Douce
December 12, 1974
(Message from Sujata, on her birthday)
I have rested my head on the Samadhi for a long time.
I wished to offer everything.
May They really, really be there.
Let us be aware of Them, in Them, at every moment
with Their love
surrounding us.
Douce
January 6, 1975
Start of the Trilogy. The “divine materialism.”
January 17, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
I would like so much that Mother takes us in her arms, then we rest our heads on her bosom and we stay there, without moving ... oh!
January 31, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
“Endurance.”40 You see, we have to last.
February 5, 1975
(Letter to Yolande Lemoine)
Dear Yolande,
A few hurried lines. No, God did not “take the phone
off the hook,” for the good reason that he needs no phone and is perfectly here,
imperturbably leading the whole process to the chaos he wants for the new world
he wants. We cry for
our broken toys, but to tell the truth, we are very childish. They would
probably like to make a new world with improved machines, but it is not like
that... and fortunately so! Whether people call for it or not, the new world
will be, as inevitably as the mammals were, with or without the mammals’ cries.
The only difference is that those who are privileged enough to call will
understand better and see things more clearly instead of going like blind men
where they don’t feel like going — but everyone goes there!
Well, I shall welcome your friend J.R.D. Tata, but I really don’t have much to say, except if Mother speaks with my tongue.
I am tired, Yolande, this new book is a somewhat radical ordeal — and so it is for all of us, and for the world.
Affectionately,
Satprem
Very disappointed by the marvelous lighter! I thought it would last me forever, like a kind of electronic Brahman, and it needs to be refilled! Machines are deceptive indeed.
PS: Yolande, my best smiling greetings, sparkling like a pond under the sunlight your eyes often reminded me of.
Sujata
March 11, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
I am half asleep.
But I love you, asleep or awake, it makes no difference.
Have a nice day, sweet Dhoum, and much love.
Douce
March 13, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
A
“Victory.”
Strangely enough, before I went to the Samadhi and during my pranam, I felt something like a descent of the Ganges. I clearly felt that the drops were replaced by a cascade.
How were things this morning?
Tender Love.
Douce
April 29, 1975
Mao Tse-Toung’s book in front of Mother’s photograph. The divine materialism ... or the other one.
June 2, 1975
Tata paying a visit on my little patio with Yolande.41
June 16, 1975
(Message from Sujata, about the Trilogy on Mother that Satprem was writing.)
A
few hurried lines to accompany the flowers.
Mother is leading you, holding your hand. This morning, at the Samadhi, I almost saw that.
June 26, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
I understand they have declared a state of emergency in India from this morning and sent Morarji Desai and Co.42 into jail.
Mother is leading us a merry dance!
love, love, sweet beloved
Douce
July 4, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
... Where is Mother leading you? Is the Amazon getting clearer? Is Mother becoming visible?
But
Her hand holds us, I know that, I can see it.
July 8, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
... How’s work going? Has the next step been taken? Have you begun to find your way in the new geography? Your geography is a beautiful one.
July 26, 1975
(Letter to Yolande Lemoine. Let us note that when Tata came to see me on June 2 — before the “state of emergency” was declared on June 26 — I suggested he should meet Indira Gandhi, which he did. He told me later that Indira was “full of fear” and kept speaking of “threats on her life,” of “danger.” She thought she was going “to be killed.”)
Dear Yolande,
I am not a soothsayer, I am not a “seer.” But I have a certain overall perception of the Movement of the world, and sometimes, of the beings within that Movement. Your friend J.R.D. Tata is one of them, it seems to me that there is a Light with him, or a Force of a particular quality, which quite naturally belongs to that Movement....
Now, where does this Movement go? There, too, I have an
overall perception of what could be called the great Plan of the world, for Sri
Aurobindo and Mother taught it to me. I know where it all is going and to
a certain extent I perceive whether
events are going in the direction or not, and whether they are symptomatic or
episodic. And I know that everything — down to the least detail — moves
toward this Goal. A new world infinitely more radical than all we might imagine
and more beautiful, and true. India has a very special role to play in this
great Plan, a role symptomatic of the whole and of all the rest of the world.
“India has become the symbolic representation of all the difficulties of modern
mankind,” Mother said. “India will be the land of the resurrection to a higher
and truer life — and it is in India that the cure will be found.” Which means
that the Movement of transformation of India is the sign and the symbol of the
Movement of Transformation of the world. But it is also the symbol of all the
difficulties to resolve. India has become a huge deceitful façade with millions
and millions of functionaries like an octopus paralyzing the whole country.
Those millions are “voters.” They produce nothing and are ruining the country slowly but surely. And nobody wants to be deprived of the “voters.” This huge Falsehood must collapse. And the collapse of that Falsehood will be the warning sign that heralds the change in the rest of the world. When asked where India was going, Sri Aurobindo replied: “India is going toward European Socialism, which is dangerous for her, while we were trying to evolve the genius of the race along Indian lines.” And when asked if India would be free and independent, He answered: “That is all settled. It is a question of working out only. The question is what is India going to do with her Independence?... Bolshevism? Goonda-raj [Banditry]?... Things look ominous.”
It was in 1935.
He could see far ahead.
I.G. [Indira Gandhi] is only continuing and completing her father’s “work” [Nehru]. She was probably bound to lead India to this point of helplessness and sterility so total that the Country would be obliged to topple into Something Else — that Something Else, precisely, which Sri Aurobindo and Mother strove to implant in the consciousness of the Earth.
So,
there will be a collapse, not only in India but everywhere, for the New
Thing, the New Order of Truth to be able to settle upon the Earth. The whole
world is led to this point of breaking or toppling....
How will this collapse happen? When? I don’t know, I am not a soothsayer. When your friend came to see me on the little patio, I spontaneously said: two years.
By which means will the Divine achieve its aims? I know nothing about it, but I know that everything inevitably leads us there — it is a tremendous Power that is there, the very one that is shaking all countries, all consciousnesses and all structures. It is an irresistible Power rising from the depths of Matter and organizing or reorganizing all of Matter... on the sly (but not that much, for it is beginning to become quite visible, and will be more and more so). So, I cannot say whether it will be the collapse of such or such politics — in fact, it will be the collapse of everything that resists the Movement. And politics is the ugliest of Falsehoods.
What I fear most for India is her torpor, what is called here “tamas” — only blows can compel her to budge. May God spare her the dreadful blow of the Chinese.
.........
What will happen to I.G.? I know nothing about it. But I know that whatever is needed for the Work to be accomplished will happen, and through roundabout ways we may not have expected. We must stay alert, watch and pray.
... And wait for the Hour to come with faith, trust, and this Call in the heart for the Truth of India to be realized.
That is all I know.
My affection to both of you.
Satprem
PS: I also have the impression that the military men will have a role to play in this great Transition to the new Order. There are contacts to cultivate there.
S.
August 6. 1975
Vision
The
gold pen emerging from the ruins. I was sitting alone on the verandah of my old
house in Pondicherry. Instead of seeing the usual garden with the
“transformation” tree and the jasmine half hiding the other houses of the Ashram
at the far end, I saw devastation. Everything was in ruin, as if there had been
a formidable bombardment. Not only was there not a single wall still standing
(nor a single tree, of course), but the ruins were as if crushed, flattened.
Everything had crumbled down. An amazing scenery of rubble. And in the midst of
that destruction, I suddenly saw a golden pen appear and hang in the air, as it
were, sparkling and immobile above the ruins. That pen resembled the one my own
mother gave me a few years ago, of gold too.
August 12, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
Sweet beloved
Mother really leads us, holding our hands.
She is removing the veil from our eyes.
With love, and tenderness.
Douce
August 21, 1975
(Letter to an Aurovilian)
Psychoanalysis makes falsehood worse than it is.
Illness is
a Falsehood. Every man has the power to say no
to Falsehood — and to repeat no until the
Falsehood goes away. You are cultivating the leaden cloak — instead of spitting
at it. You must say no and
no again, like a mule. And you must will instead of repeating: I
am not able.
A man has the power to say no.
I don’t meet anybody, but I consent to make an exception. A few minutes in silence. I will try and show you what can heal you. But afterward, you must not call the Falsehood up again. On the contrary, you must magically repeat: it does not exist — until the evil spell dissolves. And it will be dissolved.
Satprem
September 11, 1975
(Message from. Sujata about the Trilogy)
Oh, my beloved. Mother is here, here, here, with you, with us. She gives what is needed. I am convinced of it. She is present and She does.
My sweet beloved, Mother loves us both.
September 19, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
I see you, I see your face, so sad ...
Oh! my beloved, sweet beloved.
Do not worry, Mother looks after your work, for after all, it is Her work.
September 25, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
How
I love you.
I pray to Mother for you, your work for Her.
And Sweet Mother is smiling at us.
We are Hers, more and more.
October 10, 1975
(Message from Sujata about the Trilogy)
How is it coming along?
Is the mystery clarifying itself? Oh! Dhoum, how Mother is here, so close, so close to us.... Her air is fanning us...
October 17, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
... If only I could do more to soften the blows aimed at you! I pray Mother. And today my heart is full of gratitude.
October 25, 1975
(Note written by Sujata)
[About November 18, 1973]
...Nolini-da was
sent for at 11 p.m. This is when the decision was taken to carry her down
(Mother’s body).
Carried downstairs around 2.30 a.m. (in the morning of November 18, 1973).
October 26, 1975
End of the Trilogy. (The Divine Materialism, The New Species, The Mutation of Death.)
*
(Noted by Satprem on a bit of paper)
I gathered my last energies and wrote this book, as one accomplishes a last act before leaving one’s body, and I found on the way ... something that changed everything.
May those who will read me discover, as I did, that something that changes the meaning of both life and death.
October 27, 1975
(Message from Sujata)
What is Dhoum doing?
Is he resting?
My Heart is full of gratitude toward Mother.
How She holds us by the hand, or rather in Her arms.
We are resting together on Mother’s bosom.
At the beginning of November 1975
As
I was stepping out of my room to go for my usual walk in the canyons, I met Sir
C.P.N. Singh in the garden ... sent by Indira Gandhi to see what was happening
at the Ashram. He is Indira’s confidant and close advisor. As any cultured
Indian, he knew that Mother must have left “someone” or something behind Her. He
had seen all the Ashram bigwigs and ... nothing. He gazed at me for a long time,
silently, just as I did, and he took my hands — we recognized each other.
November 10, 1975
(Letter to a few Aurovilians)
I have been spending my life outside all “Institutions,” whatever they may be. I even went off into the forest because I did not want any law nor any rule.
Here, I have been near Mother, and that is that.
I have always seen and felt that people need to let themselves be ruled because they are Unable to have the inner vision and knowledge by themselves — though it is the only true rule, the only one I can accept. Otherwise, the forces don a different mask and everything starts off again with different egos.
Thus, the situation of Auroville, whatever it may be, is a last resort until everyone has lost their ego enough to see things clearly and to spontaneously obey the Rhythm of the perpetually changing Truth.
“We want a race without ego,” Mother said — this is the key to the true rule of Auroville.
Sri Aurobindo says:
“Governments, societies, kings, police, judges,
institutions, churches, 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?”
(Thoughts and Aphorisms)
In the meantime, may Aurovilians follow their higher consciousness, and the result will be exactly proportional to their sincerity and lack of ego.
Satprem
November 20, 1975
(Letter to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally written in English)
Sir,
I am quite struck by the clear precision of your perception. The working of the Force is indeed full of grace.
What is there with me in this trunk, in my room, are not merely books to be published, as you have understood. It is a revolution. It is a power. It may be the powerful trigger of a great change in the world. No one can really measure the formidable thing which is there — it is Sri Aurobindo’s secret, it is Mother’s secret. It is what they have done — and every word of those thousands of pages (over 6,000 pages or 13 volumes of what Mother told me) contains the power of their action. It is not merely a “message,” an “explanation,” it is an Action.
So I have been for two years silent in front of this
somewhat dreadful legacy. I have just completed the two volumes which open the
way to their Action. And I feel the Moment is come. And I have looked around me
with the inner eye. There is none here whom I trust among the so-called
authorities of our Ashram — the real Ashram is with the nameless who clean the
dishes and grease the cars. By them the Ashram lives and is not crumbling as it
would deserve to otherwise.
So I won’t have anything to do with those “authorities”.
My perception is that these publications should bring some revolution here first before bringing revolution to the world. So an entirely new way of proceeding is needed. Those books should be published or rather built as one builds a temple. It should be an occasion for the true elements to gather around the kernel of Truth before the rest crumbles down.
Practically one should go step by step — the very first step is to understand the depth and gravity and responsibility of this Revolution. Everything flows from this right attitude. Some elements here can understand and can help, but they are not the ones who have means. We will have to start from nothing. The very first necessity is a linotype and a building here with electrical connections. Having this we can start right away.
I have had some impression that this new Press should be located in Auroville where there is some opening (to the worst but to the good also). It must be completely free from the Ashram Trust (or Trustees rather). It must be a new thing which will gather spontaneously its own elements and its own momentum.
This is in short the outline of the Action to be started.
Until now I have spoken to no one here of this great work. I feel that the less unnecessary vibrations are mixed with the work, the better it is. Revolutions are made silently.
In the depth of my heart I am grateful to your insight and your sincerity. We do need men who simply want to serve the Truth purely.
And who love Them,
Satprem
Why not build Mother’s Press in Nandanam itself?
November 21, 1975
(From Sujata to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally in English)
Revered
Uncle,43
Yesterday evening Rajabhai (Abhay Singh) brought your letter to Nandanam. It gave me a great pleasure to know that you are now fully recovered. You are aware how much we value your affection.
May I add that your letter warmed the cockles of my heart. How much thought you have given to the Mother’s work is astonishing. Specially since the Mother’s withdrawal we have become accustomed to indifference, opposition and bad-will. But your letter brought to us a concrete evidence of Mother’s Grace.
Shall I take your time, Uncle, and explain to you the situation in which we find ourselves?
Our problem is not a problem of personnel but of printing. That may surprise you, knowing that there are 3 printing presses here. Well:
Ashram Press: Since several years now they are no
longer much interested in printing the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
(Most of Sri Aurobindo’s books available in the market are printed by All India
Press.) Amiyo and Robi Ganguli are managing this Ashram Press. When we (Satprem)
wrote to them in January 1974 concerning the publication of the Mother’s talks
with Satprem (Mother called this her “Agenda”), they replied to us in July!!
This is only one instance, but throughout they have been rude, insolent even,
for no apparent reason known to us. Even up to September we went on trying but
to no avail. They do not care even to be civil. In fact they do not care for anything
except money-making. We have finally understood. And knowing the Gangulis, you
also will understand.
All India Press: There also the people are only money-minded. They may sell butter or cheese or they may sell Sri Aurobindo’s books, it is all the same to those people as long as they get money. Besides, the situation there is so dirty that we cannot approach.
So with their underlying falsehood both the Presses are unfit to serve the Truth that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s works represent.
Whatever years are left to us, may we be able to devote for this. Because after all in a few years time most of us will disappear from the face of the Earth, and what will remain? The Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. These Works will usher in a new Earth — such an evolution, undreamt of by man — and already signs are proliferating in the whole World of the Action done by Them, for those who are perceptive. Indeed it is an accelerated evolution.
So Uncle, will you join us in this great work? Under your wing we can quietly go on doing the job assigned to us. Will you accept? We shall ignore the Trustees, we shall ignore the Presses. We shall form a new team. You will be our treasurer, our adviser, our troubleshooter. Abhay Singh can look after the machines. And Satprem will supply the material for the printing of books.
I have dumped all our problem in your lap. But your heart is so full of affection and love that it is natural for us to turn to our uncle.
.........
Satprem was so touched that he sat down immediately to write to you. In case you have any difficulty reading his handwriting, I am attaching a typed copy. He has explained the inner truth while I have given the actual material picture.
May I add that not a soul apart from the four of us
know about
all this. Time enough to tell them when we are ready for action. Otherwise there
will be a lot of unnecessary hindrance.
With my respectful and loving pranam,
Your affectionate niece,
Sujata
December 4, 1975
(Letter to Jane Brincourt, André Brincourt’s wife)
The sign of the times? — It is the time of the Unexpected. The time of answers in material facts — just where we do not look for them. There are no mental questions anymore, because the time of the Mind is over: there is the question of the species — or rather of the next species. There is no metaphysics left — God or not God, Materialism or not materialism — there is something gaping at our feet, something that will go beyond all “Gods” and “materialisms,” yeses and no’s, rights and lefts, and all the dualities of the Homo Sapiens at the end of his road. There is a new state of Matter, a new perception of life in Matter, as different as the caterpillar’s perception can be different from that of the butterfly. It is the time of the New perception — the Answer is breaking through the cracks everywhere. We shall have the answer in our bodies before getting it in our heads. Can the caterpillar have the answer of the butterfly?
We must need to become the Next. Species, the Other Thing, absolutely. This need is what gives all the answers, as the need for survival gave wings to the reptile.
But if we brood over caterpillars’ problems and caterpillars’ questions, we shall only get the answers of muddled caterpillars.
We must change species. We are changing species.
It
is the time of the Unexpected.
Kindest regards to Andre whom I do not forget.
Satprem
The supra-consciousness will not come. It has come.
January 1, 1976
I upset everything I touch.
In the canyons, side by side with my Douce who has a cold, holding each other tight against the Onrush. My foundation. My Grace. Things can go on only because she is here.
January 2, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
... As I was making my pranam, Mother took us both in her arms. We were quite peaceful.
January 10, 1976
(Letter to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally in English)
Sir,
This time I must be clearer.
In my very first letter to you I spoke of my need to
have “the protection of the Government of India.” And I had good reasons to use
such words. Some two years ago, after Mother’s departure, I had the perception
and almost the vision of the danger menacing Mother’s papers — these 6,000 pages
of Her private talks with me. I felt and saw a gang of our young gymnasts
(instigated you know by whom) coming to me and seizing forcibly this trunk of
papers under the excuse of “saving Mother’s papers” and “assuring their prompt
publication, prevented by Satprem.” It is very easy to move these young people
and excite them. Now you must know that
a number of these Trustees are afraid of what Mother told me and of the
publication of those papers. What they want — and they are only waiting for an
opportunity — is to seize those papers and take control of their publication ...
duly censored by them.
This is the fact.
Now things are moving fast. You are witness of what is happening to Madanlal:44 threats, violence, private property broken into — always under the excuse to “save Mother’s work.”
Protection is needed, and quickly.
Moreover, I have received a letter from Tata where he says quite rightly: “One thing is clear: the solution to create a Press ‘of the Mother’ in Pondicherry under your Direction is not a solution practically feasible outside the Ashram and its Direction ... unless Mrs Gandhi is ready to give her support, etc.” So from every side nothing is possible without some legal status. Have you spoken to Indiraji? We can’t even receive money without this status. And now if we wait till “All India Press” has come out of its difficulties, we can wait for a long time, since the Trustees have won all along the line. What is happening to Madanlal is just a rehearsal of what is ready for me. And believe me, they will dare.45 They merely wait for an opportunity.
So if we have no means to curb and stop and break this kind of spiritual “goondaism” [banditry] what am I to do? To wait till it is too late?
I repeat, I do need the official protection from the Government of India. And quickly.
May Mother Kali help us.
Satprem
PS: An occult Truth you must know: whatever Force and
Light and Work is left by the Mother is automatically the
target of the remaining forces of Darkness — and the Enemy No.l is Satprem. The
Trustees are puppets for those forces which know very well what they want. As
soon as we planned to acquire Madanlal’s Press they fell upon him at once. Now
am I clear? As for the tapasya...! It is burning.
And love,
S.
January 12, 1976
(Letter to J.R.D. Tata)
Dear Sir and friend,
I was so touched by your taking the trouble to write this long letter.... Before giving you the required precisions, I was actually waiting for a clear answer — or rather a formal decision — from Delhi about the legal status of the Work I am trying to defend. I am struggling all alone amidst dark forces which would much like to crush this body. And how to explain that to Roger [the architect of Auroville] or even to you?... I am very fond of Roger whom I hold in high esteem and I have always done my best to support him, but he would not really understand the play of forces at work behind appearances, neither would it do good to speak about these things without absolute necessity. My struggle is difficult enough as it is.
.........
I do not do a private, personal work: I do Mother’s Work in the world. I want to work at cleaning those filthy stables. I am a man of action, not a dreamer, not even a “writer.” I work for the future. I work to establish a new species upon earth. (...)
Yes, the Ashram is exactly like India or the
present government of India, in a microcosmic way. A handful of obscure
autocrats who have grabbed everything and insinuated themselves
everywhere, who strangle everything and would strangle me (or spirit away my
books and Mother’s papers) if they could, because it is the exact opposite of
the forces they represent. If that dark knot is unraveled here, it will be
unraveled elsewhere (in Auroville, too). This is a symbolic battle. If you want
to understand what is taking place at the Ashram, you have only to place it all
in the context of New Delhi, and you will see things clearly — and ultimately in
the context of the world, because it is all the same, the same world and the
same forces under different masks. This is my struggle or rather Mother’s and
Sri Aurobindo’s struggle.
.........
Do understand, dear friend, that this is a great, a
difficult battle. I am no dreamer: at twenty, I was in a concentration camp and
I was totally taught that this horrible world was to be changed. I went off to
the virgin forest of Guyana, because I did not want this world. In Brazil, I
organized mica mines and mica factories for an American tycoon who finally
wished to give, to bequeath me his business — I understand what action means.
But I saw, I understood that the Power of money and machines was not enough to
change that horrible world — which you have yourself realized. So, the mica
factories were sent packing and I came to Sri Aurobindo, for he, too, wanted to
change this ugly world — and through the real means: by seizing the forces of
the Future. I am a worker of the Future, I have learned the movement of the
Forces of the Future. I help them to be called into action upon earth. These
books are a connector aimed at the Forces of the Future. Do you understand my
struggle? Has it all a meaning for you? I could not care less about Pondicherry
— what I care about is the Earth, the change of the Earth, and first of all of
India whom I love. That is what I work for. And I say (I feel) that Tata has the
particular quality of sincerity, truth and inner strength that makes up the
servants of the new world. His age means nothing! This Force pays no heed to any
age whatever, and She can move years as well as mountains ... if only we open ourselves
to Her. And I say that Tata, through his action in the past, his devotion to
humankind, deserves to play a part in the new rising world. And I say again that
he will play that part despite all the years and limitations, if he has
faith, if he opens himself — and understands the battle which is being waged
around a few “little books.”
With the affection and esteem of
Satprem
January 14, 1976
I stop the Bulletin46 — “a new way must emerge.” May They protect me. It is the signal for the onslaught. (Sujata had wisely prevented me from doing it sooner, so that I could go on with my book.)
January 18, 1976
(Letter to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally in English.)
“Uncle,” Sir,
I don’t know if I should call you Uncle, I feel you
rather like a companion on the battlefield. Whatever may be the outward
appearances, it is a battle — and I know it deeply and even physically. It is in
the law of things that all the elements which oppose this new creation — and you
truly do not know the formidable extent of the thing — will rise and are trying
to rise to prevent our work. When you read the thing which is being translated [The
Divine Materialism], you will see how breathtaking it is. I have often
wondered why Mother chose this kind of instrument for Her work, and I suspect
that my young “education” in a Nazi concentration camp
gave me the inner Flame to resist all these obscure forces. And truly, more and
more, I can see Her concrete Grace sending you just in time when I was nearly
despairing to be able to establish Her work. You really are my dear Companion on
Her battlefield.
Some new developments are taking shape which you should
know, and God knows what is hiding behind! They will try and try, and we will
burn and burn. That is the only way. So I have stopped the publication of the
quarterly Bulletin of the Ashram which Mother entrusted to me for so many
years. A note here enclosed will explain the motives. Needless to say that it
triggered a long awaited wave of dirt and anger and what not — I have received
innerly quite a lot of missiles! Those whose cover is removed are the most
vociferous — I do not mind if it stops there. Insults never touched me really. I
belong to something else — I am from the race of the Future. Even Nolini-da did
not share “my” decision though he said to Sujata: “At bottom, he is right, but
...” I am sorry, but I only care to follow Her indications — it was clearly told
me to stop the thing. She knows better Sometimes the Truth of the Future has to
face not only the Darkness of the past but the Truth of the past. In fact, I
feel that She wants all the masks and pretences to fall down (curiously enough I
felt even more Sri Aurobindo than Mother in this occurrence, as if He said in
His irrefutable tone: This is enough). We will see how it develops, but we are
sure to have to face all sorts of obscure “panis” and “dasyus”
rising out of their
caves.47 And when the full Work — sacrificial Work — concretizes
in Matter under the form of a book, we will see a lot of things happen. What is
being played is only a rehearsal for a new advent in the world, which naturally
starts with a big demolition. We are companions in a great battle. And I feel
like pressing you against my heart
even while I repeat: Ma, Ma, your Grace is wonderful.
With love and gratitude,
Satprem
January 20, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
May Sri Aurobindo and Mother be established at last. May They be.
January 25, 1976
I have finished the revision of Mother’s book.
Now Mother is walking upon the world.
January 30, 1976
(Letter to two Aurovilian friends, A. and L.)
Yes, you have seen exactly: the dark forces that incite
the masses to everyday fascism are there, and it is not surprising in the least.
When you read the rest of the book, you will see the formidable story and how
they sent Mother over to the other side. They would like to send Satprem, too,
to the other side — and I never once doubted that the forces behind would do
their best to disturb A.’s work. We really are in the Hour of God — an Hour of
God without appearing such, very much Chicago style. And the book you have in
your hands, which is only a little beginning, is formidable dynamite whose
significance you will soon be aware of. When speaking
of “dynamite,” I don’t mean the words or the ideas or even the facts expressed,
but the Force behind. It is Sri Aurobindo and Mother who have begun to walk upon
the world — just wait and see. We are all going to see. We delight in speaking
of the “new world,” everyone repeats the word or brandishes it or hides behind
it — but one day the new world establishes itself. And masks drop. We are
reaching this point, at long last! So now is the time to keep our helmets on and
to hold on — this book is a great battle. We are waging a great battle.
Here, we went through death for two days before the Forces about to unleash themselves were “miraculously” stopped. All that had been foreseen, foreseen long before. The day after her departure, Mother told me, “You must hide.” And when I saw the danger come nearer, a few months ago, She told me, “No-no, you must not take to the street (God knows! I would have been torn to bits): you must go and see the «Governor»” — I wondered who this ‘Governor’ was, until one fine evening I saw Indira Gandhi’s adviser, unknown to me, appear at my place. It is thanks to him that we are still alive. The Government of India knows and protects us ... as far as it can, because the masses are moved like puppets: one wraps oneself up in Mother’s flag and wants to save Mother’s work from the clutches of the “devil.” That is the way things are. But we keep holding on and advancing imperturbably.
Keep all that to yourself. The situation is already dangerous enough! I told you about it, because it is so nice to find a brotherly echo in this black mixture!
Come on, a great hope is beating in our hearts, we are reaching the Moment at last. The white pigeons represent the smiling Grace which leads things — that is, the world — toward its ineluctable Victory. Look closely around you. You will see everyone and everything as they are under their masks. And Auroville will be. In fact, we are waging the battle of Auroville and of the new world.
My door is open to you at any moment. If I have the
time to
call you, I will do it. I well know the lights which burn in the great Night,
and I know where every heart is. My brothers and sisters from Auroville are
invisibly around “me.” One day we will meet, when the Work is done. We are doing
it.
Your brother,
Satprem
I am delighted by the freshness of A.’s letters!
February 2, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
Dhoum,
Here is the flower.
My heart is full of sadness and my body wants to go to sleep. Oh! my beloved, I almost feel like crying. But I love you.
Douce
February 13, 1976
(Note from Sujata)
... Just look at Andre’s letter. Ugh! He disgusts me.
... I call Mother ceaselessly, so that She envelops you.
I keep you in my heart.
Douce
February 20, 1976
(Letter
to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally written in English.)
My Companion, very dear Companion, more and more we
realize the depth of the battle, and in fact the mute violence and heavy wall we
meet is the real indication of the greatness of the stakes and the inevitable
coming, the near opening of a completely new world. People think that they have
only to repeat the sacred truths of the past and sit comfortably in their virtue
— one day they will gape. The best of the past is of no more value than the
worst — both work for something else which none understand. But it is coming in
spite of everything or rather because of everything which is so miserable and so
pitiable. We have the Grace and the immense privilege to work for that Something
else and to know a little — sometimes the Grace is terrible, it is our own
challenge, everything is shaken and torn apart till we stand on the pure simple
Truth. Our obstacles are the purification. We are being prepared for the great
task. And even if sometimes faith seems covered up, hostile voices deriding, and
we feel everything is failing us, then we should know that we are alone with the
Alone. Day after day I am going through that obscure battle peopled with hostile
voices, surrounded as if by a thick and dark and sticky wall of seaweeds which
come back upon one as you push them away — but behind there is Their unshakable
Presence, and I know we will conquer. In this battle I have the infinite Grace
to feel you by my side. How you have come, I do not know, but surely you have
come from long past battles and endeavors we have shared always for the same
Purpose. We need not many hours and meetings: in that place within we know and
we recognize each other. Often and often I turn my heart and inner beam toward
you and always with the same prayer to Mother that She envelop you and make you
feel Her
material Presence down into your body. Such attacks as came upon you are made to
test us partly, but also to make us understand and to purify us. Never have I
done such a burning tapasya in my life. And the more it seems things are failing
and darkness surrounds, the more I feel that Inevitable pure stark Flame. My
English is too poor to convey my feelings. One day, and I wish it to be soon, I
hope to share with you some of the treasures which She silently poured in my
heart. You will be protected, your body will not bear more than necessary — in
fact there is a wonderful protection otherwise we would be torn into pieces.
Small reflections may come upon us, but that is all. They are even trying to
attack and turn away my secretary (Tulsa). From all sides, they try.
So Tata is failing us also [he advises against creating a press in Pondicherry and refuses to do it], but strangely enough when I read his letter in the calm still Light of the Mother, there was not the slightest reaction in me, not even the feeling that it was “bad news” — as if it did not matter. Surely She knows and nothing can prevent what She wants to be done. But it makes me measure once more the unwavering treasure of your presence with me. But for you we would be finished. The very rich people are tied down in spite of all their good-will and they really understand nothing more than charities and hospitals and “reliefs” which relieve nothing — and how could I explain the depth of the revolution which Mother and Sri Aurobindo are bringing? When it is done, people will have faith, but not before. The greatest wonder for me was the rapidity, almost immediacy of your understanding without any word — I was simply struck by your perception. Indeed, with all my life and heart I wish to give you whatever treasure She gave me.
.........
And then, then my dear Companion you will see by
yourself the greatness of Their task, the immense Revolution which is there
ready to concretize in the earth-atmosphere. More I cannot tell. Our simple pure
Faith and Love is our greatest
treasure and single power. We must be worthy of Them. I embrace you, I am
waiting for you, I am with you with all my heart.
Satprem
February 21, 1976
Refusal from All India Press48 (to the unexpurgated publication of the Agenda). All the doors closed.
There remains Mother’s miracle — how long can we stand up to them?
February 23, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
... Mother is there. Her Work cannot fail. They will try, but Mother and Sri Aurobindo are stronger than they are.
Fully trusting.
Douce
February 25, 1976
Mother’s Mantra to Auroville.
February 28, 1976
(Letter
to the Aurovilians)
If only the Aurovilians could understand that the only solution is not to stand for this one or against that other one, for this solution or against that other one — but to be purely, simply and starkly for the sake of Truth, the Truth whatever it may be, the Truth that we cannot know and do not even understand, whose Plan and means we do not know, but which itself knows and which we can pray for. Praying and praying is the only solution, oh! for the reign of the Divine to come, for the reign of Harmony to come, for the Earth to be true, free and beautiful — praying for the Earth. If the Aurovilians, forgetting all “solutions” and all individual aspirations and all hopes of personal realization and all desires of personal “experience,” could only and simply get together, so as to pray for the Earth.... That is all.
It is the Hour when one has to pray for the Earth.
May all these scattered flames join and melt into that one prayer for the Earth, as at the beginning of time people huddled together around a fire against wild beasts.
Then the heart of Auroville will take shape, and this pure nucleus will draw the force that can overcome obstacles. Then the Truth will be forced to show itself and It will find the solution nobody had thought of. Truth alone has the power.
For fifteen years, day and night, till her last breath and even now, Mother has kept repeating one prayer with all the cells of her body:
om namo bhagavate
May this become the ceaseless prayer of the Aurovilians, may they drive it into themselves with every breath, every gesture, at every minute and in whatever they do, and that single prayer will topple all the walls and Auroville will be.
I
am with you in that prayer. May it be the mantra of Auroville and of the Earth
of tomorrow.
Satprem
March 18, 1976
(Letter from Satprem to his mother)
My little mother,
You must try and come to see me next winter. After all, the plane is not much more tiring than the train to Quimper and Reg is not more difficult than Leverrier Street — your son is perhaps the most difficult of all, it’s true, but he will try to overcome his silence, and even if you cannot walk in the canyons, you can gaze at the birds of Nandanam from my patio. The bougainvilleas have become gigantic. Think it over. I shall be pleased.
As for me, I am in a funny sort of battle, and it is
better that you did not come this year. After Mother’s departure, a handful of
“yogic crooks” took over the management of the “business” and I struggle against
all this, as the good heretic I am on account of my origins — and what’s more a
Breton, that is, inevitably stubborn. Fortunately, Abhay is a faithful and
reliable supporter in this fight, and also my sweet Sujata, of course. My book
is not printed as yet, it is around this that the battle is being fought,
because I want to print this book here before sending it to Europe and to wage
the revolution here, first, before waging it in the world, which makes
sense.49 This is in a few words the story. A trying, difficult
story. But inner peace is there, a great expanse like a bay inside, where one is
outside of and above all
the human quagmire. There, I can meet you again and walk on the shore with you,
as if it were right here-there, one walks forever.
With tenderness
Satprem
*
(To Andre Brincourt)
Dear Andre,
I am touched by your thinking of us. We feel in dire need of comprehension — or perhaps of participation. And your intelligence goes straight to the point. It is not possible to say everything.
An Ashram without a guru?... That is a Church! It is the same eternal story since (and before) Christ, let alone Mahomet and the Prophets — or Karl Marx! Though the latter found his Mao Tse-Tung, whose perpetual revolution is simply fantastic, but that is quite a different matter. Sri Aurobindo and Mother well knew the trap and repeatedly said: an end to churches, an end to religions. They came to make concentrated evolution, to find the process of the new species — the way it can be made. It will not drop down from heaven, will it? The “ashram” was their laboratory with a number of human specimens — one sample of each human type, as far as possible. The next step of evolution is to be taken with men as they are, and it is through their difficulties, their stupidity and their very negation that one creates what will overcome the negation. The caterpillar is a sort of negation of the butterfly, and yet it is with that no that the next product will be made. So their symbolical, terrestrial laboratory was a collection of little “no’s” in every possible way and at every level, with a few sparks of tomorrow. But in fact, the spark is everywhere, in all samples and under every coating: good or bad, “superior” or “inferior” ... and what does “superior” or “good” mean? It still refers to a better caterpillar, not to a butterfly.
They
worked in the midst of all that, incorporating this human sum into their own
bodies, and through those thousand and one difficulties, they found the Passage
in their own substance. Sri Aurobindo and Mother have no “teaching”: they came
to do.
But the process for creating the next species can hardly be expressed: go and try to explain to a collection of irrefutable, triumphant and what is more, virtuous caterpillars, what goes beyond and perhaps treads on all their caterpillars’ virtues and considerably disturbs their little habits. And the “holier” the habits are, the stickier!
Sri Aurobindo left without saying anything — except what could be mentally “taught.” Mother said a little more, but even the little She said was hardly understood — perhaps because She was herself right in the midst of the process and one really cannot say anything before reaching the end of it. The end is what matters. Until one has come to the end — a butterfly, say — one cannot understand whether such or such operation is part of or not part of the process: you lose your legs and your vision changes and your skin toughens ... but what is it all about? Is it disintegration, or the beginning of the next species?
For nineteen years I was close to Mother and — I do not know by what special grace — She granted me the privilege of silently witnessing thousands upon thousands of little “operations” that are making or will perhaps make the next being. Step by step, I witnessed the incredible process. Now, I have inherited the awesome legacy of recounting, or trying to recount, the evolutionary process. This is the great Story. The real Story.
Now, there is the little story, the petty story. The
“samples” are looking very nervously at whatever is likely to upset their
peacefulness, which is not always “holy.” There are little despots and big
despots — they have already shut up everything in their business, Sri Aurobindo
and Mother included. It is their “business” indeed. The books are not a teaching
but a source of income... In short, this is their Ashram,
and they have already labeled and classified the Truth — the same old story. And
in all that, behind or underneath, little sparks of sincerity who work, grease
the cars, clean the dishes, cast the types of the press: the true Ashram, which
has no say in the matter and does not quite understand all of what happens. And
Satprem in all that: a kind of dangerous heretic. There is no burning at the
stake anymore, but there are myriads of sordid little stakes. There we are. I am
fighting, that is all. First of all, I fight to protect the legacy that they
would like to expurgate, shorten or censor and put into not too disturbing a
frame. I cannot tell you everything, but it is more ferocious than you may
suspect and if Mother had not placed in my way Sir C.P.N. Singh, Indira Gandhi’s advisor, who has understood the situation, I would be already on the other side.
The caterpillar does not feel at all like becoming a butterfly — the public
safety of the caterpillars would be at risk. It is obvious. And when my book
comes out in Europe, I do expect to be torn to pieces — but I don’t mind: the
Work will be established. To be part of the next species in the midst of the old
one requires a lot of courage. First of all, one has to fight the old species
within oneself. All is bound together: the fate of the sample, the fate of the
ashram and that of the earth. There is but one fate.
And there are the ones who understand. The brothers. Those who look at the future, who need the future.
Not only do I know your fondness, but I know your heart.
With all my affection,
Satprem
March 28, 1976
C.P.N. Singh’s arrival.
On the night of April 1-2, 1976
Vision
A glimpse of Mother in Sujatas laboratory,50 completely naked, with dark brown skin, her back quite twisted. A twisted and black Mother. I understand that it is what “they” will do with Mother if the Agenda is given to the Ashram. Mother cried out: “Go and get me a safety belt,” as if in an emergency. After that, on April 2, a brief altercation with C.P.N. Singh, to whom I categorically say that I don’t want to give the Agenda to Nolini, unless there is a “safety” measure (that is, Abhay Singh must have the exclusive management of proofs and printing, so that nobody could alter the text). Then, I briefly tell C.P.N. about my vision of the big mango tree and the thousands of little crows rushing to eat the fruits. He understands at once.
April 8, 1976
(Note from Sujata)
This morning, Counouma will meet Sir C.P.N. Singh to explain why he wants neither Ranju nor Abhay Singh. This time, the trustees have openly said: why is Sir C.P.N Singh interfering in things that are no concern of his? In other words, an “outsider”!
April 9. 1976
Vision
Sujata
and I were walking on the edge of a precipice into which a force strove to hurl
us down. We had to resist.
April 11, 1976
Written to Indira for the protection of The Agenda. The “diaspora.” Mother’s papers, originals of The Agenda, magnetic tapes.
*
(Letter to Indira Gandhi, originally in English)
मा
Madam,
I have been near Mother for nineteen years. I was Her confidant and Her witness. I saw Her struggle, Her sufferings, Her slow imprisonment by a surrounding which negated Her Work. She talked to me, told me the path of the Future, the process, what Sri Aurobindo had done, why He left. All these papers, more than six thousand pages of Her confidences to me, should have been an object of love and joy for those who are here — they have become instead an object of rapaciousness and distrust. They are in danger, my life also is in danger. But it is not my life which matters, it is these papers for the whole World.
I see more and more clearly, and Sir C.P.N. Singh will confirm it to you, a situation which is rapidly deteriorating. I feel that these men are ready for anything. I am a son of Mother, I know that She was — and that She is with you — that She supported you and supports you actively, She told it to me, She often spoke of you to me in these papers.
I
come to pray to you to make an act of authority so that these papers can be
freely published without interference from all those greedy and unscrupulous
men. Sir C.P.N. Singh has tried a lot to obtain that I be given a free hand, and
I am full of gratefulness for his devotion and the clearness of his perception,
but we have failed. He will tell you himself the treachery and the dishonesty
which are prevalent here, and many other things which I cannot tell in a letter.
Those people are in the process of destroying Mother’s Work. It is a symbol of a
dark struggle menacing to devour the world. India is the field of this battle
and of the birth of a New World. And Mother’s Work is closely and actively bound
up with this new birth. It is the very Power of this change. There is but you
personally who can take the necessary action.
Madam, from the depth of my heart, and for the world and for Mother’s love, I come to pray to you to help me save this Work. I feel as though Mother tells me: write to her.
With my deep respect and my gratefulness,
Satprem
April 15-16, 1976
Vision of Indira, who takes me in her arms!
April 26, 1976
(To a friend in Paris)
Rachel,
I remember our meeting very well. Your affectionate
message is right. Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s Work is not affected one iota by
an Ashram or even by the millions of resistances of the world — we could even
say that all resistances
are the sign of their Work. Some monkeys, too, resisted Man. And then ...
In fact, the Ashram has not suddenly become “sordid”: this is the very matter Sri Aurobindo and Mother fought with, which they grasped in order to transform in their own substance, and through the very obstacles, to find the passage to the next species. It is through the very resistance that the passage is to be found. So, there is nothing new since the creation of the Ashram, only the sordid elements have come forward or got the upper hand. But the small pure flames are always there, self-effacing, the true Ashram which prevents everything from crumbling ... for now. My worry is for all that Work which is blocked in its mental expression for the world (but it is not hindered in the fact, you have only to turn on the radio to see that everything is carefully, methodically, relentlessly churned). I wish the world would understand, at least mentally, what They have done — it would help accelerate the process. But my book has been stopped for six months, Mother’s Agenda is stopped, everything is stopped. Well, it will finally give way, let’s hope so. But the body is suffering from it all. It is nice to hear brotherly voices. Please excuse this hurried and late scribbling, but I am snowed under with work. I hurry up while it is still possible..
But when you see the Work come out, then you will understand the formidable thing....
With my brotherly affection,
Satprem
Sujata sends you her smile.
April 29, 1976
L. in Madras with the first volume of Mother’s book, looking for a printer. The blockade will be broken at last.
May 2, 1976
In
the canyons. It is right here. We must get ready. It is near.
May 3, 1976
Agreement with Macmillan, Madras, for the printing of the Trilogy.
May 11, 1976
(Note from Sujata)
... Barun came to see Pradyot [one of the trustees] to have the policemen sent to Auroville.
May 17, 1976
Macmillan is starting the book.
Two Aurovilians expelled from Auroville (the ones who had listened to Mother’s Mantra, of course.) I am sending L. to Delhi.
*
(Message from Sujata)
My heart is heavy. When I left you, you were so pale,
so tired and weak, I may say. Ah! my beloved. But I felt relieved and happy when
I saw the fish
soups come. They will make you regain your strength. Hurrah for our Carmen and
her heart!
May 18, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
... My heart turns to you so tenderly. There is also a little anxiety in my mind, I don’t know why. We have so much work to do, my beloved. We must hold out, as Mother says. She at least keeps enveloping us in her love.
May 21, 1976
(Letter to a young Aurovilian woman, about Nava’s Fallacy-Society. Originally written in English)
29th May is a very good day.
I have read your project for a “Governing Board” of
Auroville. It may be premature and there is not the something spontaneous which
springs from the New World. It is a kind of improvement of the same old Machine.
First of all to want to include there some representative of the Sri Aurobindo
Fallacy-Society is to introduce at once the Falsehood. As long as the
Aurovilians have not understood and felt the complete rottenness of this
Society, there is no hope, it means that they share to some degree this
Falsehood. This corrupt seed must be completely eradicated from the mind and
body of Auroville. Then you mention my name as a representative
of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. But I do not belong to an Ashram nor to any
Institution past or future. I belong to Mother, I belong to the Fire which is
not to be imprisoned in any human construction. And lastly by whom is your
project to be signed? A few days ago a short declaration was circulated in
Auroville to the effect that the Aurovilians had no trust in the Sri Aurobindo
Society for carrying out Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s ideals. Only 86 signatures
were collected, not even half of the Aurovilians, while their own brothers were
blackmailed, pursued by the police and menaced with expulsion under the
instigation of the impostors from the Sri Aurobindo Society. As long as the
Aurovilians will see some arm or leg of their own body being torn and cut
without feeling concerned, then they will call on themselves a lot of misery and
more misery till they understand fully that they are one and that one cannot cut
a piece of the body without hurting the whole body. This is exactly the thing.
One may ask not when Auroville will be free, but when the Aurovilians will cease
to deserve their masters?
I am with you deeply in the living body of Auroville.
Satprem
You can show this letter to anyone. I have nothing to hide and I have no fear of anything. Who can burn the Fire, tell me?
May 26, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
What can I tell you? I am left with your tormented face.
My heart is heavy with sadness.
Our love is all we have left. Or else, what?
With
love always and a try at smiling.
Douce
May 29, 1976
Eight Aurovilians placed under arrest.
May 30, 1976
(Extract from a letter to the Aurovilians, originally written in English)
I have the dolorous privilege of seeing a little better than you, because I am your brother a little more ahead, and I have said to you, repeated, with my brotherly heart, that there was a poison in Auroville. But if you persist in believing or in thinking that one can come to terms with potassium cyanide, then there is no other solution but for you to become poisoned slowly, implacably. And finally your vision and your perception will be so obscured that you will no longer even perceive that it is Poison.
June 5, 1976
(Note from Sujata)
Yesterday evening, Alain Bernard was coming back from
Pondy to Auroville on his motorbike with Christine at the rear. Near a small
hill, in a bend,
he saw a big stone falling down. It came and touched Christine’s knee. She got
just a scratch, no real injury. But he thinks it was thrown at them (this big
stone did not fall by itself). He had seen Barun just before.
*
(Extract from a notebook)
In Tindivanam prison (the Aurovilians). P. near me. I grasp the bars: we are there so that this may no longer exist.
June 15, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
... I have been living in a nonexistence for the last four days. Your love is the only thing which keeps me in this body, don’t you know it?
And then, I am so worried when I see your body’s state.
June 18, 1976
(Letter to Sir C.P.N. Singh, who had written this vision to Satprem, on June 14:)
I have talked to Navajata for the last three days.
Every day he appeared different. Today, he appeared as an arrogant, aggressive
and intolerant Moghol foaming and frothing about trivial incidents of supposed
insults to him and injury to his overriding powers at Auroville. I passed
several hours in anger and confusion and in search for a direction or duty under
the circumstances — in fact the path I should follow for a governmental action
in an area of spiritual atmosphere (absolutely disturbed). Lunched and slept.
Near waking a vision came : Navajata standing with a big whip in his hand, as a
ring leader of a circus where specimens of human forms were ordered to perform
tricks of Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s yoga before the world as one of the
biggest show for Nava to exploit the same for amassing wealth, generating
personal black force to overpower and dazzle the entire world to prove that he
was the one and only one successful successor of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
who would deliver the mankind from all ills and bring about a total
transformation (a thing he never has understood himself). “So what? So who
questions?” The animals (the forms) have however revolted and are refusing to go
back to their cages even after the show was over. Puzzled, exhausted, sweating
Nava shitting all round ! By this time, I was fully awake — laughed and laughed,
but at the same time felt absolutely relaxed and I knew what I was going to do
to call the truth. Since then everything has changed and I have no hesitations
as to what is to be done. That I suppose answers your questions about Auroville.
(Originally in English)
*
Your vision of the “circus” is so very correct and
vivid. This is exactly the thing which those scoundrels were preparing to do.
This is also exactly what I felt from the beginning though not as vividly as in
your vision. Now we are going to put a stop to this world-circus. It is a great
Grace that Mother made you see the thing for yourself. Another kind of sordid
“religious” circus is going on in the Ashram, but this one will automatically
disintegrate when the real Auroville will emerge fully protected from the
religious, political and financial octopus which was ready to swallow Mother’s practical field for its obscure purpose. Now the thing is clear
and I trust that the practical steps will be taken at governmental level.
Mother’s Mantra is planted there and already acts powerfully as I can see and
will dissolve in its fire whatever stupidities and absurdities may remain within
Auroville itself. The Mantra will take care of Auroville’s future without any
need for outer compulsion and regulation — this is the beauty of the Mantra. One
day recently an Aurovilian wrote to me asking why I would not come and live in
Auroville to help them directly — I laughed. The Mantra itself will do its job
very well and Mother’s job, why should I meddle there! The one thing was to
protect the young sprout from immediate danger — this is now done or about to be
done. So I am nearly at rest on this side. Though too much time should not
elapse — you have seen this remarkable anonymous letter suggesting to burn down
some huts (in Auroville), etc ... I could literally hear the voice behind
this letter, and some obscure force is obviously active there, awaiting an
opportunity.
.........
Mother puts me on real tough test. It seems that we are surrounded with obstacles at every step and on every side. This is a sure sign of the Divine Work but still ... I do not have a divine body yet! rather a grumbling and protesting body. Sometimes I wish I had finished all these publications and could disappear in the Himalayas for good, till the next happier body. Perhaps this is the way — I mean the sordid way — to work out the next body in the middle of the little Macmillans, Navajatas, Counoumas & Co.
June 23, 1976
(Note from Sujata)
... Met Abhay [Sujata’s brother]. He told me the phones
have been tapped.
When Uncle [Sir C.P.N. Singh] calls here, other people listen.
July 6, 1976
Two employees of the Collector Revenue office, who come to requisition Nandanam.
– We are noting down the particulars.
– What particulars?
– The trees.
–The trees, why?!
– We will bring them down.
– And you will bring down my house also?
–Yes.
In order to erect the buildings of the Law College.
The big grey wave all over the world.
I am here like a fugitive, with Mother’s papers hidden in three different places, and myself ...
July 16, 1976
(Letter to Auroville: an Aurovilian woman had fallen from a scaffold, at the Matrimandir)
To my brothers and sisters of the Matrimandir. To Auroville.
This accident should not have happened. According to the spiritual law, it is the sign of a Falsehood. And those who think that it is an “accident” bury their heads in the sand so as not to see.
I like Auroville enough to tell the truth to Auroville
— for, after all, Auroville interests me only insofar as it is a place where
the Truth can become manifest. So, excuse me if the truth is not pleasant.
There is a double Falsehood, and I have known for a long time that something is going wrong at the Matrimandir, but to tell it, I had to wait for the right moment — people, alas, do not understand until they start receiving blows.
First Falsehood: those who think that the Matrimandir must be built “at all costs” and that the Goal is to build one Matrimandir or two hundred Matrimandirs are grossly mistaken. It is not a question of building the Matrimandir: it is a question of building the people of the next world by using their symbolic effort. Mother does not care about tons of cement — She cares about an ounce of sincerity, a pure little gesture, consciously made. If each of the workers’ gestures were really filled with consciousness, the Matrimandir would shine all by itself like a divine Act and those men would already no longer be men, but divine beings. It is this divine world that we want to build, it is these divine men that we want to create, or else the Matrimandir can crumble along with the dust of all the useless temples that fill the banks of the Nile. It is not that that we want, but a new species upon earth, a supramental species.
So, you think that you are going to build this new
species for 1978? — second Falsehood, which is perhaps the most disgusting of
all. All those admirable fakers are about to bury Mother a second time, as if
all their lies had not already been enough to bury Her a first time. A second,
solemn burial for the Centenary of Mother — now that She is dead all right, they
think, one can celebrate Her. But when she was really there physically among
them, all their little Lies were raging and in revolt. And you want to repeat
this disgusting masquerade for Mother’s Centenary? You think that She is dead?
You think that you can go on cultivating the countless little Lies under the
protective tons of cement of the Matrimandir? But this is not what we want! But
Mother is not dead, and Mother does not want this masquerade — She wants pure,
true, sincere people. Will there be three of them
only in all Auroville for the 21st of February 1978? If there were only three of
them, the whole Earth would be saved.
So I invite you to build a few men — as many men as there are in Auroville, if possible — pure and luminous, exact in each gesture, each reaction, each word and each movement. And if you have succeeded in doing that, Auroville will shine upon earth like two hundred Matrimandirs, because it was for this that Mother wanted Auroville, not for one more temple. Then perhaps Mother herself will come and shine among us, for we will be able to stand Her light. She is waiting for us to be capable. It is not the second burial of Mother that we want to celebrate in 1978, but the first advent of a new species which will be capable of seeing her right in our midst.
Satprem
July 27, 1976
(Note written by Sujata)
When the Home Minister came to Auroville, he saw a lot of uncompleted projects. The Aurovilians explained to him that the Society had frozen all the money. Then Om Mehta said that Auroville needed an independent organization...51
August 9-10, 1976
Vision
The
key is below. I pick up the key among subterranean ants.
August 11-12. 1976
Vision
Hurricane in the mainstreet, rush of forces — lorries, buses, runaway cars — all toward the accident (a dark blue and light blue bus: the Ashram?). Alone and very small, dressed all in white, I walk up the mainstreet, facing the hurricane and looking in the opposite direction — trying not to be run over by this rush of runaway vehicles (which are dashing by on my left).
August 24, 1976
The present situation resembles that of 1938, when Sri Aurobindo broke his leg.
August 27. 1976
I was almost murdered in the canyons (the killer with golden-yellow eyes).
September 6, 1976
(Extract from a little card written by Sujata)
Oh!
my Dhoum. May Mother make herself visible on the Earth of Truth.
September 7-8, 1976
Vision
A huge vulture with golden eyes like those of the assassin in the canyons. It lands in front of me and looks at me (I am sitting on a rock; the vulture is lower down, yet its neck, beak and eyes are level with me). Nava is there in a corner. (So I am shown who is behind the assassins.)
September 9, 1976
Exit Mao.
September 10, 1976
(Letter to Andre Brincourt)
Dear Andre,
I don’t know by what inspiration I feel prompted to
write to you. The situation is dangerous, I don’t know what may happen in the
next days and someone must know, in case I would no longer be here. Someone on
earth must understand what the stakes are. I was nearly murdered a few days ago,
and it is not over. What is at stake is not myself, but the earth. These words
may seem high-sounding, but sometimes the great Burden depends on a few pure
hearts — that is all I have, Andre, in this dark battle I have been waging since
Mother’s departure against forces that are beyond me. Now things are becoming
very tight. I tried to tell you something a number
of months ago — ever since then, things have accelerated and become more acute.
It is not a question of starting some press “campaign,” at least not now, but if
things happened to become too difficult, I would find relief in somebody knowing
and being able to protest against the huge swindle which is trying to prevail —
by all possible means.
As you know, Mother left two things: Auroville, which
is her laboratory of the future, the place where, God willing, some new species
is striving to be built among and thanks to its difficulties and internal
contradictions; then, what She called her “Agenda,” the manufacturing process of
the new species, if I may say so, some 6,000 pages of Her conversations with me
for seventeen years, in which She explained to me, step by step, experiences,
difficulties, obstacles, and ultimately the formidable Negation that surrounded
her and slowly closed over her, pushing her into the tomb — like Sri Aurobindo.
But it is not a failure, it is a tremendous Mystery which is being unraveled or
worked out in the midst of a ferocious conflict of dark forces — the very ones
that pushed her into the tomb and would like to make their dark goal triumph up
to the end. For the secrets are there, in these 6,000 pages, and the attempt of
realization is there, too, in this fragile laboratory — will they see the light
of day or will they be, not destroyed, but — which would be worse — adulterated,
truncated, expurgated from the elements of truth they contain and brought out in
some Nietzschean and untruthful form? In Auroville, the “Sri Aurobindo Society,”
which claims to be the “proprietor” of Auroville, tried to expel all the sincere
elements one by one, by having their visas taken away from them; they tried to
blackmail the others by threatening them with depriving them of their passports,
or by freezing money and stopping supplies to the canteens. They set the
villagers, or a number of them, against the Aurovilians and tried to cause riots
as a result of which the Aurovilians would undoubtedly have been condemned by
the Government of India. They bribed the police, tried to have half a dozen of
Aurovilians sent to jail. They
even bribed the Cuddalore hospital, where they had sent a so-called wounded
person, a Tamil villager, who was to be kept there for seventeen days, for the
“case” to be serious. They tried to have some Aurovilians killed by placing big
stone blocks above the sunken lanes crossing Auroville to make them tumble down
on the motorcyclists going past — three of them escaped the “accident”.... I
don’t know all they tried to do; it is such a tissue of incredible blackness
that we could think we are in some Asiatic Middle Ages. Ruthless forces want to
be the masters of Auroville — why so ruthless? For the sake of these few huts in
the middle of red lands cracked by the sun?
The Grace sent a man to help us, just when I was despairing. This man is Sir C.P.N. Singh, a former Indian Ambassador to Japan and Nepal, an old friend and confidant of Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi’s adviser. He happened to visit the garden: I met him, I took his hands, without saying a word. He understood. He wrote to me afterward: what can I do to help you? That is how the battle for our rescue began. He is a man devoted to Sri Aurobindo and Mother, so he understood. Thus the same dark forces rushed at him. The people of the Sri Aurobindo Society made the various foreign embassies in Delhi (including the French Embassy) write to Indira Gandhi in order to criticize Sir C.P.N. Singh’s “interference” in Auroville’s private affairs; they made the Vice-President of India intervene (a very kind and good man, but who does not understand anything); they interceded with the Governor of Pondicherry, the Governor of the State Bank.... Then we began to discover a huge organized network; they have people everywhere: among the government secretaries, the police — Phones have been tapped, we cannot get a plane ticket without their being immediately informed of it, they watch our letters....It is incredible, I cannot get over it, I discovered it all step by step, day after day — all that for the sake of a few huts?
What exactly is this Sri Aurobindo Society? Who
is there? — money, a lot of money, millions and millions of “black money,”
all that wants to evade paying taxes to the Indian government. They have people
everywhere, corruption knows no bounds: the big business, without scruples. How
did they get there?... Mother had them under control, their only role consisted
in helping to collect money to provide for the Ashram and Auroville — and Mother
made a selection, She knew what to accept and what to refuse and She was
sensible enough to let in only what was strictly necessary, opening all Her
books to the Government of India, without any possibility of cheating. As a
matter of fact, She always had financial problems and had to perform daily
miracles. But now... So, those people became the “proprietors” of Auroville. And
as the Ashram keeps on having money problems, they became the silent
“benefactors” of whom no one speaks or knows, because it all takes place in dark
and sordid depths that we don’t understand very well. But once again, what is
the purpose of it all? Is it for the sake of a half ruined Ashram and a few
lands cracked by the sun?
We are facing a vast, well-organized scheme, which has thousands of years of History behind it — it is the eternal tragedy of the new “revelation,” the new “step of evolution,” the new Turning Point for the Earth which every time lets itself be engulfed in new religions and specious philosophies. But this time it was and it is a serious matter, it was and it is really a new step in evolution, a formidable Turning Point that I hope you will soon understand through my books.
Then the target narrowed itself precisely down to these
books, to this Agenda, and to me personally — to anything that could
endanger their Falsehood. I am the dangerous witness. In January of this year, I
faced serious danger (it seems ridiculous to speak about it, but after having
experienced the Gestapo and the concentration camps, I can look quietly and
philosophically at all that). So, they tried to make me give this Agenda
“to the Ashram for publication”: a subtle blackmail, with the real threat of
little squads of Ashram gymnasts coming to “rescue Mother’s work” from the
devil’s hands. For two days death was lying in wait for me. I saw it
come, I saw it go off. What stopped the attack was Sir C.P.N. Singh’s presence
in New Delhi. Had they come to seize these papers, I would have burned myself to
death at the Ashram gate as a last resort — I was ready. I do not fear death —
but this Work had to be handed down to the world, and I had to stay alive. The
second time, in April, we tried and made the first move: Sir C.P.N Singh came to
the Ashram and we asked the authorities to have the Agenda published by
the Ashram — but on special terms of material safeguard of these documents, that
is, guaranteeing that these writings would be published as they are when I give
them, without being cut or censored, under my own authority — they refused. Then
the game got heavy. Personal attacks on Sir C.P.N Singh multiplied — sordid,
occult and slanderous (he is over seventy-five and his heart is fragile after
having escaped several times), attacks on Auroville were launched in close
succession. It became obvious that I had to publish my books at all costs — the
three volumes I wrote last year — before I met with an accident. It was a race
to find a printer in India. In May, at last, we found someone in Madras. For
four months, it has been a new kind of race against time and we had to
disentangle quasi-insurmountable difficulties one after the other: all the
accents had to be hand-set (they only have English characters) — millions of
accents for three volumes; we had to compose in 12 points on the machine before
reducing to 11 points photographically, to make plates, print — and find the
impossible paper which we were lucky enough to get only two weeks ago, thanks to
Mr Tata.... All that at exorbitant prices. In short, the first volume will
perhaps come out tomorrow. Eight days ago I narrowly escaped being murdered in
the canyons where I go for a little walk everyday: a miracle. These three men
were there, I was on the edge of a precipice. One of them grasped my right arm
and took my watch; the second man seized me by the neck, while the third one —
he had wide golden eyes in a bestial, butcherlike face, perhaps a Muslim — he
was the killer. He raised his hand to push me, I looked straight at him;
he lowered his arm, while the others let go of me, then I moved away quietly,
step by step. At that second, everything had stopped. There was not a single
vibration in me. I seemed to be outside of it all, watching as if I were already
on the other side — I was no longer on their side indeed, they could not touch
me. The police was called to watch my isolated garden at night, but... But the
Shadow is there, you don’t know from where it can spring out or at which
unexpected turning. The second volume may be ready within three weeks, and the
third one will follow quickly. People from the Ashram already went to the Madras
printer’s in order to make “discreet” inquiries. And C.P.N. Singh, my only
protection, was attacked by a hiatus hernia that must be operated these days.
His heart is weak. I will take a plane to Delhi tomorrow or the day after in
order to assist him. Everything is pending. I gave instructions so that the
first volume might be sent to you at the same time as to Robert Laffont, and I
said that nothing must come out here (in Pondicherry) until the three volumes
are ready, because it would unleash the onslaught. I shall have the whole Ashram
against me. May I add that under the dominant crust of falsehood there lies the
true Ashram, the pure little lights — but they can do nothing. May Mother
protect us. May She protect these books.
There we are. It is a dangerous bridge to cross. Do think of us. These books are a revolution. The revolution of the new world. It is beyond all the Ashrams, all the Aurovilles, all the little “Is” — it is a new step for the Earth. And whether I am part of it or not does not matter — but may the Work be, pure. Pure. And may the Earth welcome the grace.
Affectionately
Satprem
September 11, 1976
L.
brings the first printed volume of the Trilogy.
September 20, 1976
(Note from Sujata)
... I am dying to sleep — for fifty years!!
love
Douce
September 22, 1976
My (ashramite) secretaries resign.
September 29, 1976
The first volume [Mere ou le Materialisme Divin] brought to Laffont by Carmen.
September 30, 1976
We hide 486 copies in the night.
*
Vision
The Invaders far off in the distance: a pillar of black smoke with an odor.
October 7, 1976
Burned
all my old papers from my release from the camps onwards: Egypt, Afghanistan,
Guyana, Brazil, Africa, India ... fourteen notebooks.
Bought two suitcases — for what other world? What is there to take away? At the end, there is only the fire.
October 8, 1976
(To Andre and Jane Brincourt)
Andre, Jane,
I am very touched by your note, your affection and
comprehension. We so much need to know that someone is listening — that the
Earth responds. No “admiration,” no, what strove to express itself through this
pen is so poignant; it is not “me,” it is really a heart, a representative of
the Earth who was close to Her, listening and trying to decipher this stammering
of the next World. I wrote those three volumes like a sleepwalker. For ten
months it was almost a torture day and night, I did not know what I was writing,
as if my head were in a coal sack, and my hands were writing and writing while
my whole body was like an immobile fire — I read only afterward, but you never
quite know what it means for the others, yet it was the whole Earth beating in
this discovery of its tomorrow, without even really knowing how to name its
objects. It is not over, you have not entered the forest yet, the great Forest
of Mother, the extraordinary Newness that looks like a cataclysm for our whole
habit of understanding, seeing and feeling — such was my dreadful anguish in
front of this nameless nothingness that I had to name and bring into existence
by means of the verb. Oh, I cannot wait to know whether this pen has fully
accomplished its task, it is so tremendously new, you will see. While
writing the third volume, I was like a half-dead man. Have I succeeded? I don’t know. It is the Earth, it is the Earth, Andre and Jane, that must hear its own
wonder and it must, oh, it must accept the other way of being — to understand,
only to understand a little.
Well, you will see. Eight days from now the second volume will come out — I will have it sent only to you and Robert Laffpnt. Then the third one before or around the end of October. Maybe they should come out at the same time? I don’t know. I don’t need “success,” I don’t need “I,” I need the Earth to understand. I hope that Laffont will understand, that he will love — one has to love absolutely to spread this book upon the Earth, one has to pour one’s whole heart into it. I have so many enemies here, I don’t know if communication with Laffont will not be obscured by sly voices; it is a battle and we go on day after day; but I am truly worn down. My heart feels refreshed by your affection, I have been fighting all alone for three years (no, there was Sir C.P.N. Singh who saved my life). We begin to see the end of it all. I would like to see you again, to meet Jane.
With affection, deeply yours
Satprem
October 20, 1976
Second volume of the Trilogy [Mere ou I’Espece Nouvelle] delivered to Laffont by Carmen.
October 24, 1976
For two weeks, visions of torture and death.
*
(Letter to Carole Weissweiller)
Dear Carole,
I am touched by your affection. In the depths of my being, I feel a kind of tenderness for you. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is. It seems to me that you are very close. As for me, I feel further and further away from everything and everyone — but there is this area of tenderness vibrating behind, which still creates a kind of bridge toward the rest of the world, if not... Right in the middle of the concentrations camps, I also felt this tenderness. This is the only thing that remains at the end of all paths. It is where I meet Carole. She has that. No, I don’t need “admiration” or even “friends”: I need those who are in contact with that. There, things are simple, they don’t need explanation, they flow like eternity. And we recognize one another, don’t we? Everything else ... The contact with you is that pure little smile, that’s all. Even if we don’t happen to meet again in this life, we will meet again there. And once again, there will be this inexplicable smile, as if everything were said, as it was one day in my quiet little garden. There, one breathes very well. It seems to be forever. It is as transparent as air. It keeps vibrating and vibrating. It is at the end of everything. And that’s it.
But you are expecting more “practical” things from me, though what we call “practical” is all that is most impractical and complicated. (...)
A film on Mother? Yes, perhaps. There is a tremendous
film to do, especially if one understands Mother’s “end” — what I tried to write
about. Mother’s “beginnings” are easy, they are cinematographic, adventurous and
perfectly picturesque, but the great tragedy or rather the great Mystery of the
“end”... or of the beginning of something else. It is vaster than Orpheus and
Eurydice — it might well be the Eurydice of the New world. The victory over
Death. A great vision is needed to create that film. You will read soon and you
will understand. Then things will unveil themselves little by little and you
will exactly find the means of the realization
— that is sure. I don’t know why, when it comes to a film, the United States
seem to be the best “milieu” — it seems to me that the starting point is there.
It will radiate from there, like the epicenter of a seism. I sense Carole very
well at this epicenter. And Robert Laffont at the other end, for Europe. Before
long, you will have the books in your hands, but I would rather not speak about
it, because my life is ... let’s say, uncertain. Of course, when you start a
revolution, you must not expect to be understood by everyone, you must even
expect to disturb the existing laws and forces thoroughly, or else it would not
be a revolution! A few understand — not many. It’s a little like in June 1940:
there were the ones who felt that new little vibration, that Hope, but most
people did not understand anything, they only understood their privileges and
convenience, the “sensible” and patriotic surface of Marshal Petain — all those
stars were almost glorious, mind you. And that solitary voice calling to the
Adventure: that De Gaulle was an adventurer, some even said a traitor. Well, it
is a little the same: one wraps oneself in Mother’s flag patriotically, but
underneath there is the selfish old species which defends its rights and
privileges. Such is the battle of Auroville, between a number of “legatees” who
want to reign and claim their rights (Ashram or the Society) and a rather
heteroclite bunch with a little something in the heart, but vibrating, open, and
really longing for the New World. The New World is not a new Church. It is even
rather unorthodox and ragged. One day, Andre Brincourt of the Figaro
asked me: “What is an Ashram without a guru?” (that is, without Mother). The
answer was simple and immediate: “It’s a Church.” Now, what does the ragged one
who left for the forest of Guyana with the Gold Digger, or the shaved and
numbered one off to Buchenwald in his infamous attire, or the man, shaved again,
with his orange rags, who took to the road as a Sannyasin, side with? — he is on
the side of Something Else. It is that simple. He wants another world, a true
earth, not the triumph of some small Ashram or small “Society.” Mother
and Sri Aurobindo have said it often enough: an end to Churches! Of course, it
is disturbing for many people and it is not easy to stand among the heretics.
But what is the use of Satprem if he does not side with the difficulty — it is
not the first time I have been burnt at the stake.
But it is more serious than that. Because these are not two “concepts” confronting one another, but two forces — as it was with the dark forces which were ready to dominate Europe and the world, had they been allowed to do so (through that second-rate house painter) and the forces of the Future — always the yes and the no: on the one hand what adheres to night and Power, on the other hand what adheres to that which is inexplicable, motiveless, and is somehow the Hope of the world. Those who want to make a definitive hole in this shell of Falsehood. Mother and Sri Aurobindo fought against this No of the world all their life, they were surrounded by this No, it was what they were working on, through their “disciples” — it is not on little saints that one does the work, but on anything that resists the change with all its strength. Apparently, that No pushed both of them into the tomb. This is Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s Mystery — the one I tried to tell. Did they succeed, did they fail? This is exactly the revolution that is underway. There are those who understand and those who don’t, that’s all. Or rather there are those who feel with their heart, and the others. We stand on this or that side, depending on some eternal heartbeat, as if we were born with it, as that day when we sided either with old marshals or with the Resistance fighters. As for us, we resist, that is all.
.........
There remains Satprem, who had to have his books
secretly printed in Madras, right in the midst of a battle of which we cannot
give you all the details. But these books will soon see the light of day and
Mother’s work will be established. Will Satprem escape the mob of the
“right-minded ones”? — they don’t understand anything about it at all, they wrap
themselves in Mother’s flag, as others wrapped themselves in Marshal
Petain’s stars. My life does not belong to me. I had to hold on until the books
came out, that’s all. That is the long and the short of it. I find myself now
like I was in Guyana, in Buchenwald or in the Sannyasi ... precarious, with this
sole Fire in my heart and this great Tenderness behind looking at men’s great
and small stories from a point where death no longer has any meaning.
That’s it. May your tenderness stay with me, that is what makes the heart warm, and may we advance step by step, in the night, toward this Tomorrow of the World, when we will laugh at all those old ghosts. And the true Earth will be.
With tenderness
Satprem
October 27, 1976
One day, they will come and kill me. Everything is so painful that there is nothing left to be done except to rest my head on Your knees.
October 30, 1976
L. brings the third volume [Mere ou la Mutation de la Mort].
The Aurovilians bring me their food.
I am nothing anymore but a painful body.
November 1, 1976
(To Auroville’s friends in Paris)
A small sentence from a London letter which has been conveyed
to me makes me feel the necessity of putting the question of Auroville — and
ultimately of the Ashram and of the entire Work — in its real general
perspective and finally its world perspective for it is all the same world and
the same question of the world. There is no “Pondicherry” and “Paris”: there is
one and the same formidable, worldwide snake-pit where a few intelligences and
especially a few pure hearts are striving to disentangle the truth from
falsehood and to draw a line of conduct.
But in reality falsehood cannot be disentangled from truth because Truth is actually entangled in Falsehood everywhere: we are born with a load of atavistic and evolutionary and chromosomic Falsehood from which the pure hearts are desperately and painfully striving to extirpate themselves — without ever succeeding completely because it is not at the Mental level that one can extirpate oneself from the Falsehood, nor at the Mental level that one can disentangle truth from falsehood — it is at the level of the body and of Matter, and this is the whole evolutionary, worldwide story of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The Supramental lies in the depths of Matter, as Truth-Consciousness is to be found in the atom and at the heart of the cell. It is the very story and the very question in which we are bathed, kneaded and hammered in all possible ways, in all countries and in each group, each Church, and in the least recesses of consciousness. This great Exact Consciousness, or “Straight” Consciousness, as the Rishis used to say, is what has been awakened, set to work by Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and it is now piercing through all the thick and sordid layers of our animal evolution to burst forth into the broad daylight of the world. It is only there that the truth will spring out, pure, in each cell restored to its divine movement, and it is only there that the divine, pure vision in a cleansed body, will make us touch the truth of things and the exact movement, infallibly.
Until then, we are in the same boat, sordid,
increasingly sordid. It is enough to turn on the radio for us to understand the
extent of the cleansing, from Capetown to Peking, without
forgetting Pondicherry along the way. One can also look into one’s own
consciousness.
So what hope do we have to understand a little the
situation in Pondicherry and to know where to set our feet? It is here that we
are entangled a lot, not by bad wills and a swarm of liars, but by good wills
and good thoughts — which are as bad as everything else because everyone kindly
shares the same Mud Bath. It is the great Mental Mud whose reign is drawing to a
close. And it is here that the little sentence from the London letter goes
straight to the heart of the problem, we might say to the side of the problem
which is the most solidly muddy, for nothing is more solid than Truth when it is
caught in a mudhole — this is what is happening everywhere in one thousand six
hundred and fifty languages. Well, this person met the “President” of the Sri
Aurobindo Society in London and she says very kindly: “I have been helping Nava
(the said President) a bit with finding information ... putting him in touch
with people, etc., and trying to feel unity with the
best in him.” One cannot think better, even Pope Paul VI would say as
much to the Protestants or the Copts. One has broad views, you know. The trouble
is that the whole View is muddy, as we have said. Where is the “best” in a
rotten fruit? And the reasoning keeps unfolding (you can catch it in letters
from New York or Nairobi, it is the perfect halo over the general mud) the
reasoning unfolds imperturbably because there is nothing more imperturbable than
an entrapped Truth (fortunately the Supramental is creating a serious
perturbation in all that), it further says: in each man the Divine can be found,
so let us embrace our brothers; besides, in each being there are both errors and
a spark of truth, so let us embrace again our sinning brothers; in each camp
there is some truth and some falsehood, thus there must be a bit of falsehood in
the Aurovilians and a bit of truth in its glorious President, a bit of
falsehood-truth in the Ashram and a bit of truth-falsehood in the Administrators
of the Ashram — let us all embrace one another and may those petty “internecine”
quarrels stop at last.
Those are the world’s intestines indeed. And as a result, no one knows where
they are any longer, no one knows where the truth is any longer, no one knows
where the falsehood lies any longer. Everything is true and everything is false.
It is the Truth which lies. It is the great intestinal Embrace of the general
mud.
But all the same ...
And it is “objective,” of course, one distinguishes right and wrong, one gives each one their “due.” But this “due” is worth nothing. Our total ineptitude is being dinned into us in one thousand six hundred and fifty languages.
Now is the time to try and really understand what Sri Aurobindo and Mother have done, their real work in this total “Mudhole,” as Mother would say. They did not soar into the heavens of Consciousness, no; they worked for the World as a whole. So they gathered around them, in this Laboratory of the Transformation, a number of terrestrial samples taken from the different kinds of mud or of negation that had to be transmuted for the operation to be complete, that is, global. They swallowed up these little ingredients of the world Difficulty in their own bodies: their negations and resistances, their incomprehension or so called comprehension and sometimes, rarely, a little spark of pure love which made, as Mother said, a “drop of eternity” in that opaque and mortal mixture — mortal indeed, They died of it fifty times a day and each time They squeezed out a drop of pure Life from this encircling, harassing and voracious Death. They transmuted, they kept digging up, they swallowed all the dregs and the mud to wrest a pure little response in the cells of their own bodies — and finally in the cells of the world s body, for there is but one body. You know, when you swallow typhoid, you have to “work typhoid out” — They “worked out” all the diseases of the world and all the dirty things of the world, one after the other. First and foremost, the “disciples” were the samples of the collective Negation.
The result of Their unthinkable work? — we see it now
and we shall see it more and more. As Sri Aurobindo put it, “The
Supramental will explain itself,” and it is vigorously and irresistibly
explaining itself, through all the layers of filth which up to now provided a
pretty veneer over our decent civilizations. But the veneer is cracking.
Saintlinesses are cracking. It is one and the same rot desperately trying to
clothe itself in black or white and to put on the halo of all possible
saintlinesses: religious, patriotic, Marxist, or whatever “ism” we choose to
wrap it in — one even wraps oneself in Mother’s flag and one knows Sri Aurobindo
to one’s fingertips. But it is cracking, everything is cracking. It is the time
when everything cracks — except what is pure. And what is pure is not located in
the head or in the virtues of the old world, but at the level of a little cell.
To know where to go and how to walk in this general snake-pit, we have to find this “pure” something.
The Ashram?... “I did not come upon earth to found an Ashram,” Mother wrote, “that would have been a poor aim indeed.” Yes, God forbid! But, of course, they are the “heirs” of the Work, just as the other is the “proprietor” of Auroville. It is “mine,” I defend the “interests of Mother and Sri Aurobindo.” It is swarming, charming to see, as in the rest of the intestines of the world. And it waves Mother’s flag about marvelously. If you dare to say anything, you are a traitor and a heretic, and you are sent to jail, like the Aurovilians, or they take away your passport. Or else they wage the sordid war against you. It is full of claws, slimy. These are the residues of Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s Laboratory, the small triumphant samples — and a few pure, silent drops, thanks to which all that is not complete mud. One could even say that these pure drops give more force to the reigning Falsehood. “What is an Ashram without a guru?” a certain French writer asked us — “It is a Church.” Such is the simple answer.
And such is the choice the Ashram is faced with: to
break the walls of the Church and to be reborn in the living truth, in other
words, to do Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s experience, to live it, to
bring it down into Matter and into the cells of our
bodies, or to rot: the great speeches on Sri Aurobindo’s “philosophy” and
Mother’s “teaching,” while underneath one goes on and on with the old atavistic
and genetic and orthodox rot. It is all stuffed with haloes. We shall celebrate
Mother’s centenary with great pomp, we shall bury her a second time after having
buried her a first time beneath our general Falsehood.
But who wants the living truth?
Auroville? It is riddled with contradictions, it is full of non-haloes which flounder right and left, make mistakes and bump into things, but seek and climb up and bite the dust again — without putting on airs, without even a single text of Sri Aurobindo’s to brandish. It is perfectly incoherent and even in-cohesive. But all that tends toward something. It is a world which tends toward. It has no good reason, no virtue, but it is in tension. And it is this tension that interests us.
Always in History there were those who clung to the evolutionary summits, as one clung to the Italian Renaissance or the priests of Thebes or Mr Karl Marx. It becomes very comfortable in the end, one can even be a bureaucrat or rather a “paintocrat” of Raphael and carry on with Raphael or Karl Marx for three hundred years — or with little Ashrams forever. Then there are those who seize the small uneasy vibration, that “something” within which keeps breaking through walls, all the walls, until it reaches the pure little truth, total and without any wall, in the depths of the atom or of a cell. These ones live Sri Aurobindo and Mother. These ones laugh at the “proprietors” of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. These ones are in motion: they are tending toward.
And the Truth, this Truth that we were all seeking so as to distinguish right and wrong is neither of the right nor of the left nor in the Ashram nor even in some future city: it is in the sole fact of tending toward. It is this Movement which is True.
So what we have to embrace are not dubious “brothers” or
a Church or proprietors of all kinds or good or evil, but this sole Movement,
and we have to learn how to distinguish between the rot clinging to its
privileges, its powers and its virtues and all the excellent virtues of the old,
presiding species — and this uneasy, awkward, stumbling little vibration that
nonetheless desperately wants Something Else.
No, it is not a quarrel between two “camps,” but an evolutionary choice between the past of the earth and its future. And ultimately it is the choice of the whole Earth, as one day we had to choose between Hitler (another “brother”) and the Resistance, or between the pithecanthropus and the Homo sapiens. And now it is another species, it is another little vibration to catch and live.
This particular little vibration is unmistakable. It is what distinguishes the ghosts from the living. It is Truth on the move which has not caught all its glories and its fanfares; it is even a rather ragged truth, but it is moving on.
So, are we going to move on?
Are we going to create this New Species?
That is the question.
It is a question to be lived out: to live is the very answer.
As for the others, let them celebrate Mother’s centenary with great pomp — for our part, we want a living Mother, a living Sri Aurobindo, we do not believe in their tomb nor in their Church, but in their new World. And we are building this new world, we are desperately in need of it.
Satprem
November 15, 1976
(Message from Sujata)
A new life based on Something Else. May it be a new
life from now on. Look,
here are two petals of divine love given by Them.
May this love pervade everything with its powerful sweetness.
November 18, 1976
My mother’s arrival (her last visit to India). Brincourt writes to me about the Trilogy: a quarter of the book to be cut.
November 20, 1976
(To Andre and Jane Brincourt)
Andre, Jane,
Three years ago to the day, at the same hour, they were
lowering her into the hole. All that consciousness was alive, there, before my
eyes, when I saw the lid being lowered over her nape. For three years I have
been doing battle all alone against all those ghosts outside who believe in the
ineluctability of death, who only believe in what they can see, touch or
“understand” — as your brother puts it so well: “It is shocking that the birth
of a new species ... may upset the laws of biology.” All this battle is
dreadfully shocking. They cling to their “laws,” to their mathematical prison —
everyone clings to it in one way or another. And I know in my own consciousness
which way I cling to it — everyone has a resistance of their own, whether it is
rational or irrational. Who wants the victory over Death? Who? At the first
microscopic upset that comes and touches one single, tiny little beam in our
structure, it is fright and protestation. Once again, I can assess the
significance of Mother’s remark: “Materialism
is the gospel of Death.” And I also can see this desperate resistance in
everyone for the best reasons in the world, which basically are only the reason
of Death clinging, oh, clinging so much in the depths. This is a battle, Andre,
Jane, a great and beautiful battle such as there never was. Oh, don’t let us
miss it, don’t let us miss the battle of this century. No, I am not a writer, I
have never been a writer: I am a warrior. The books come only after, as
the result of an act — most often the result of a death I went through. That is
how it was with L’Orpailleur: the devastation of a torture chamber and of
the camps, the devastation of the world you go to weep and cry for all alone by
hewing your way with machete blows through the forest; and the Sannyasi,
that other devastation of the body until the soul cries and screams and burns
through the very devastation. I banged at Death’s door in every possible way —
until it became so vacuous that one day I grasped Mother, what she wanted at
last, what she was seeking. Then I listened and listened, immersed in this Fire
of Something Else that I saw breaking through the pores of my body and of my
soul. I understood why I had been so devastated. It became the great Battle of
all my battles — and finally of all the little battles in the world because
there is but one battle. I need, I so much need the Earth to understand. It is
as if they were all coming to cry out through my skin.
and I know. You understand, I know.
There is a man who knows on the earth. It is
awful and terrible. A man knows how one can undo the process of death, the
process of illness, the process ... That whole abominable, inexorable and
mathematical cage in which we keep bumping around like blind men. Truly, the
deliverance of the Earth. And it is written black on white; we don’t have the
appropriate eyes, but it is there, all there, Andre, Jane, in the
pages you have read. And it is not a book: it is a power of action to
undo the evil Spell. No matter if you understand nothing about it, or you
understand wrongly or you think that you have understood: it acts in spite of it
all. It is a Force in motion. And the Mind cannot understand,
it is impossible: these are only thousands of lines more or less understood,
like thousands of trees looking like one another and repeating themselves; our
eyes are not fine enough, our eyes don’t understand anything — like the savage
transplanted into a library full of books that are the same. Something else has
to open up — then ... Then we begin to see and feel the formidable intricacy of
the phenomenon and how it works and how every tree is full of meaning. One can
comb the forest indeed but there is
nothing left — because all the active power
consisted only in crossing, walking through it. Not to “understand,” but to
reach the triggering point. I could condense these three volumes into
half a page and give the “mental recipe” — but it is ineffective. You cannot
swallow the new Species as you do an aspirin. There is a path to walk. You can
mentally cut out a few useless “slopes of snow,” and three or four superfluous
Perus — in ten years people will understand, those whose eyes will be open, and
this book will have a completely different meaning. I myself don’t know how many
“useless” swarmings I rejected — but I know that I touched the key. I have
triggered the phenomenon. So I would like so much, so much that the Earth, a few
men feel, if not understand. Mother’s forest
cannot be transformed into a pretty Bois de
Boulogne,52 this is impossible — you might as well ask the ape to
walk the mental route by pruning down our centuries of culture. The path must be
walked. Once again, it is not a recipe or a theory: it is an Action. We can only
ask the Mind to lend itself to the Phenomenon, and that is why these three books
have been written — the battle is being waged: will it lend itself to the action
or not? — but if it begins to consider pluses and minuses, it only goes on with
its old mechanism, vainly striving to catch the New Species between the bars of
its cage. Oh, Andre, Jane, you must understand the greatness of the battle, you
must understand that these are not “books,” or are impossible books perhaps, but
that there is something there that does make sense, even if this sense
still eludes us. We are only the very, immensely privileged few who walk just a
little ahead, feel the Thing in advance and go to meet it. All right, Mother and
Sri Aurobindo did not start flying in the air, and apparently they did not
escape the laws of gravity the scientific sages cling so tightly to — they even
descended into a hole like the common run of mortals. But if we do accept, only
accept, that they are not fools, mythomaniacs, bluffers or charlatans ... They
carried out experiments, they told us how one can really and physically,
physiologically break the laws of death, illness and gravity, and all other laws
as well — so what? So, is it not the most formidable revolution? One must be
completely blind not to understand that there has been nothing more formidable
for the last ten thousand years! We cry out in admiration when some Nobel
prizewinner discovers the anticancer pill, but we are unable to understand the
tremendous uprooting Mother and Sri Aurobindo performed in their own bodies. And
they tell us how we can do — not dream or theorize:
do. I know, one could indefinitely put Einstein’s theorems right under
the nose of an ape, and it would still be incomprehensible or mere useless
undergrowth to him, but we no longer are exactly apes, we have precursory organs
that could help us understand the formidable rationality of this apparent
irrationality. Are you going to let yourselves miss this battle and pass it
by?...
I come back to your brother’s sentence, which
summarizes the debate so well: “It is shocking that the birth of a new species
taking place in the continuity of the biological evolution may upset biological
laws, genetics and physical laws, and the law of gravity as well.” Shocking
indeed! Thank God, there was some first bird one day that shocked the gravity of
the reptiles. There was even some living particle that shocked the “biological”
laws of metal in the Nickel crust age. We turn it into biology afterward,
into laws afterward, and apply them to whatever came before. But those laws
never contained the next species, which eludes us totally, as totally as man was
able to elude the mineral species. We became those little “thinking metals” Sri
Aurobindo spoke of, but if we think that evolution will follow our little
biological laws, we are the complete fools of evolution. Yes, to become free
from death and gravity and laws is perfectly shocking — how they cling to it
all! Will we really prefer to die in our scientific and rational wisdom, or will
we choose the secret of the next species and the miracle of the next species?
Andre, Jane, I am as if in prayer. Will they understand? Will a few understand? I am all alone in front of this somewhat crushing task. I know, you understand. I know, I am nearly the only one to know, it is frightening. And I don’t even have the appropriate language, because there is no language: things are to be done. Sometimes I seem to be all alone, struggling against the Great Death. I am surrounded by hatred and resistances in every possible way. It is no everywhere. And everything grates, everyone clings to their particular grating — as soon as you touch this Death, it starts grating on all sides. You clearly see on which snake you have stepped. I will have all the doctors and all the scientists against me, I will even have all the men of letters against me, because it is not literary enough, not enough this or too much of that — it is so radically different, Andre, Jane, so incredibly new and Different, Different ... What to do? I wrote these three volumes as one traversing death, I don’t know how I wrote all that — these are not books, these are not books! It is indeed an adventure, a perilous, difficult adventure. One cannot touch that without touching the Peril — and the Miracle as well. One sees how everything is miraculous and can be miraculous, just with a simple reversal of attitude. There is a mental lid to be lifted. Those three men in the canyons could not kill me.
I am in prayer for the Earth.
I am out of words.
They said nothing — nothing right to the end.
I
have attempted to tell. It has been my ongoing battle for the last 33 years; it
was fifteen days after my twentieth birthday on that day of November 15, 1943.
Satprem
November 23, 1976
Death of Malraux. The end of the mental man.
November 24, 1976
My mother: I am with you.
On my verandah: L., N., my Douce, my mother. The end of an era.
November 25, 1976
I am besieged by Death.
With L. and H., brought The Divine Materialism from the Bungalow to Auroville in the night. The three volumes have been left at “Mother’s Library” in Auroville.
“Like a thief in the night...” (Savitri)
November 27, 1976
I feel as if broken. Lord, help me cross the Raz,53 for my skiff is small and the sea is wide.
December 1, 1976
In
one of his last letters to his wife, in 1973, my brother writes: “... It seems
to me that the Pondicherrian and Satpremian theosophy is quite muddled and
untruthful....”
I had expected so much from this brother.... I have always expected a brother. It still hurts a little.
*
(Letter to Carole)
12.1.1976
Dear Carole,
Your letter is very sweet to my heart, why do I feel
all this sweetness with you? It seems that everything flows from a natural and
perhaps very old source. It is nice to be there and to be looking together at
that clear murmur. One would like to make such a clear and sweet water flow all
over the world, so that everyone could be refreshed. But I feel quite weary,
Carole, and worn down. I burnt up my body writing these books, then there was
that whole sordid battle ... I don’t know what will happen, everything is so
dark around me. I hurried to print these books in India, because I felt my life
was very precarious. I sent them to Laffont and did not distribute them
anywhere, because I knew that they would all rush on me here — I had to stay
alive until the Work was established. I had to hide and scatter Mother’s papers.
Sometimes I feel so deeply desperate, and I wonder: will the Earth miss the
point once again? I am struggling for the Earth through tiny little things, it
is as if a ferocious web were enveloping every gesture, every step. There is not
a single being who has not been touched by this sticky web, not a support that
has not been affected; at every step and with each case I have to struggle on
and on to unravel the sticky threads of Falsehood. Sometimes, one feels as if
seized by the entire sorrow of the world, by its pain obstinately
clinging to its shadow: who wants light, who wants freedom? Who wants the Truth,
pure as a small river spring? At times, I no longer know anything, I no longer
see anything in this immense Night, I am only a prayer, a fire ceaselessly
burning. Will the Earth understand? Will the Earth accept? Or will everything go
back to Night and dust, as in Thebes and in Eleusis, as always and everywhere —
For the moment, it all hangs on Laffont — will he understand, will he adhere to
it? It is so new. Oh, they do welcome the super-marvels of the Old Thing, but
who will understand and open his eyes and his arms to that which is not even a
marvel because it cannot possibly be compared with anything, because it does not
yet exist, because it is a new era and a different power? I had to struggle with
Andre Brincourt, too, whom I had secretly sent the book to — I was counting on
him and on Robert Laffont, they are my two sole supports there. (...) They cling
to their laws, they all want to legally and scientifically die from it —
everyone clings to the law of Death in one way or the other. I am struggling
against Death on all sides — they have all kinds of reasons, but it is always a
reason of Death. Here and everywhere and in a thousand languages, with haloes
and virtues — they are stuffed with reason and literary, biological, religious
or spiritual saintlinesses.... Who wants the Truth, pure, gushing like a little
spring, and new, so new that it changes everything? And if you happen to disturb
their law of Death, then they become furious, in the Ashram as in Paris, like
anywhere else. That’s it. We are disturbing them a lot, All of them.
I feel very much like sending you my book. I did not do
it for anybody, except those two persons. My mother is here for a few days, she
will go back to Paris on December 9. She is eighty and she is a light of the
sea, a silent and upright Breton — I will ask her to bring you my books. Why
Carole? I don’t know. I like Carole, I feel close to her; besides, nobody knows
what could happen and I would like her to watch over this book — to enter it and
carry its light. A few ones
are needed to understand and pray for the Earth. Don’t tell it to anyone, it is
only for you.
With my deep tenderness
Satprem
December 2, 1976
All the covers of the third volume which we had so much trouble and struggle printing are blackened, stained or scratched — two copies out of six are more or less clean. A symbol. My heart feels like lead.
December 4, 1976
While coming back from the canyons, suddenly: it is that, the Divine. It is not I who aspires, but He who loves in me. And the slate is wiped clean one is born again.
December 6, 1976
Power struggle in Auroville already. Will it take the Great Night for the Earth to understand?
*
(Message from Sujata)
See what Mother is giving you: “Life Energy”
[chrysanthemum]. I felt such a sadness while looking at your face, my beloved.
It is still in front of me. We must trust Them. They
direct. They lead us through unpredictable circumstances, but the Goal is
certain.
December 7, 1976
A last walk with my little mother in the canyons. While gazing at the setting sun, I tell my mother: “May the kingdom of Truth and Harmony be established upon Earth.” She answers: “It has always been here, but we don’t notice it at once.”
*
(Letter to Rachel, a friend from Paris)
Rachel,
I like the tone of your letter. Please forgive me for answering so late, I am overworked.
I don’t know how to handle this immense problem — in
fact, the problem of the world, represented by the Ashram at a microscopic
level. But let’s start quite simply with the words of your letter: “What can we
tell to people who live a lie, who don’t see, and what is more, are sincere in
this insincerity!” This blindness is frightening indeed: they mistake black for
white and white for black, as says the Upanishad — everything is implacably
upside down. The world is more and more in the Night. They pushed Mother into
the tomb, didn’t they, after having pushed Sri Aurobindo. And I remain
struggling against the same elements that pushed them into the tomb and
would have liked to do the same with me. The Ashram is of no interest to me, I
have never belonged to any Church — I was near Mother, that’s all. She had
called me. And I stay to try and tell, to make the world understand what They
really did — what nobody knows. So this message (and its messenger) is
infinitely dangerous and feared by the very forces that are waging battle for
the last time in the world in order to save their dark
supremacy. This is the time when everything must tilt to one side or to the
other. Here too, at a microcosmic level, everyone chooses their side — without
our knowing, our understanding it: we are here or there, that’s all. So it is
quite normal for everything to ferociously and furiously league together against
the public menace that I represent by force of circumstance — they tried to
wrest Mother’s papers from me, you know, in order to save them from Satprem the
traitor and the apostate. And all that might try and escape the dark hold was
also attacked and threatened: they tried to take away the passports and visas of
the rebellious Aurovilians, to trigger riots among Indian villagers against the
Aurovilians, cut off their means of subsistence, send them to jail, blackmail
them in every possible way; they made official reports saying that Satprem
incited the Aurovilians against the Indian nation and that the bums to be
expulsed were drug addicts and sex maniacs — all that with the blessing of the
“managers” of the Ashram and of Auroville as well. The big business, you know,
millions of rupees collected in the name of an “international work” — was all
this battle for the sake of a few huts? Was the Ashram going to let this golden
prey get away? Rome experienced that before Pondicherry and the proprietors of
Mother are hardly different from the proprietors of Christ — it has been the
same force always and everywhere for two thousand years and more, with all kinds
of masks, the very force Mother and Sri Aurobindo have uprooted and whose last
throes we are now witnessing. It was right, it was natural for the Ashram to be
the symbol and the place — the representative concentration — of this ultimate
battle. Christ had his Judas, but the Judases of Mother could be found right in
her bedroom and to the very end — striving to triumph, to impose their
black-is-white and trying to pull the wool over the world’s eyes. So, Satprem in
all that is the Enemy, of course, the one who made the pretty business fail — he
has committed all the sins of the world, that goes without saying. They throw at
him what they no longer can throw at
Mother. After all, when you have been faced with a killer, you clearly
understand what those eyes mean and what kind of force is there — your body
understands very well without philosophy. After all, at the age of twenty I was
in a concentration camp, because I refused the Hitlerian regime, I was a
Gold-digger in the virgin forest, because I refused the middle-class western
regime, I was a ragged and begging Sannyasi, because I refused the world regime
— and so I still do. Satprem has not all that many ways of behaving, he has been
the same since he slammed the door in his father’s face and fled out into the
open sea in his skiff. You cannot shut up the open sea. When people are no
longer shut up, they are out of their depth. With an Ashram, it is easy. And
whatever comes and upsets this easiness is an awful Lie. The whole world is
quite upset! Sri Aurobindo and Mother came to upset everyone — and they think
they can shut this up in a shrine within the four walls of an Ashram? But they
are mistaken. Satprem came upon earth to wage the battle of Mother and Sri
Aurobindo, and so he does. And it is quite natural that 99 per cent of the
people should be against him — this is the best sign of the divine work. There
are those who understand and those who don’t understand, that’s all. And this
understanding does not occur in the head, it inexplicably vibrates in the heart.
It is “like that,” and it is irrefutable. You don’t need to be a superman to
understand that, let alone a super-sage.
Now, if you absolutely want to put this on a local
scale, you really fall to the level of sordid gnomes. And the whole story can be
summed up in a few words: Andre Morisset has always been jealous, because Mother
used to talk with Satprem and chose Satprem instead of himself, her “son.”
Pourna, Mother’s “grand-daughter,” regarded herself as the heiress by divine
right of Mother’s message and of the spiritual authority over Auroville — but as
Auroville did not let itself be impressed by her, she turned against Auroville,
and as Satprem was not under her thumb, she turned against Satprem. What one
cannot swallow up, one tries to destroy, it
is that simple and sordid. As for Barun Tagore, from Auro-press, he tried to
swallow Satprem’s books and as Satprem did not give him Mother’s Agenda,
he turned against Satprem, he even tried to ruin Satprem in the eyes of his
publishers in Paris and New York. In short, it is a “family affair,” as it were
— Satprem does not belong to the family. As for Pranab, he is the lord of the
manor and has always been jealous of something that was beyond him in Satprem.
People cannot stand what surpasses them.
But one can laugh, and I laugh at these gnomic stories; they can think what they want, slander to their hearts’ content, I go my way and I will go right to the end, until Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s work is established in the world. Then I will not stay a minute longer amongst those sordid tribes — I belong to the open sea. I will be neither the new pope of a new religion nor the guru of any city whatever, even if it were Auroville — I will disappear without a trace.
But the Work will be established.
As a conclusion, really, don’t speak of “sincerity” in people’s mistakes, otherwise words no longer have any meaning. Sincere??! I will give you Mother’s marvelous definition: “That’s what I call sincerity: if one can catch oneself every minute belonging to the old Stupidity.” Tell me, who really wants, totally, in every gesture, at every breath, to belong to the New World and to die to himself? They all cling to their power, their noble appearance, their respectable exterior, and to their truth tied up once and for all, as tightly as possible.
As for me, I don’t hold the truth, I walk, that’s all — truth consists in walking. I don’t have any Ashram, any Auroville, my hands are bare and I cry out Mother’s name in the night of the world. I don’t even know if I will have a publisher to publish the great revolution of the world, but I will cry out right to the end and Mother’s Revolution will be despite all opposition.
Your brother
Satprem
December 8, 1976
A
last walk with my mother along the beach. Seated on a catamaran, a stray strand
of hair in the wind: “Let’s not get emotional,” she says. She is taking the
plane tomorrow. We said good-bye to each other.
December 9, 1976
(Letter to my mother)
My little mother,
Your armchair is before my eyes while I write on the
north verandah. It will stay there until next December, so that you can sit
there in your mind’s eye. I will be looking at it quite often. One felt well
near you. I am a little sad. As a matter of fact, I think that I never had
anything more deeply in common with any being than what I share with you. We are
strangely together, as if sprung from the rocks and the eternal ocean — we look
together at the same thing, we have always looked at the same thing. We are as
if made of the same substance. I shall miss your little figure in the armchair
very much, how simple it is and how long in the coming, then it goes off, just
like a breath, and yet we are still together. Some time ago, I read again the
“Story of Bagheera”54 by François, and I had the curious
impression that nothing had happened since
then, and yet I have been living so many camps and forests and roads and
countries — and it is just like nothing, but that still exists, that
Rohu,55 that
Bagheera, and that gaze into the distance, as if everything were there, and
everything else were like an invention, a more or less painful game. But that
does not move. It is all what we are. And you are there with me in this same
thing gazing faraway at the canyons or the sea. We find each other again, we
have never really parted. Other times again, in other future countries, we shall
gaze together into the distance this way, holding hands, and it will be as
always — we are very old together, we have always been together, and it will be
so again and again. That is how it is.
I remain quite deprived without you, I am on a difficult road and alone, or so it seems to me, despite all the people who surround me and love me. I have always been alone, just as you are, as if we were coming from another country. One day on the banks of the Nile we may have said the same words and it came from very far, very far away. Then, sometimes, all that melts into a great Sweetness and our eternal Country seems to be here, among us, only we had not noticed it.
I clasp you to my breast, you are my very ancient, very present little mother forever. I don’t know if I am Bernard or Satprem, but I am your son.
Satprem
December 10, 1976
I seem to be covered in injuries — all that hatred around me.
It is for You — for You that I go on.
On the evening of December 11, 1976
Answer
from Laffont (about the Trilogy).
The battle is won, just for my Douce’s birthday.56
December 18, 1976
(Letter to an Aurovilian)
For three years now I have been perpetually indicted, in Auroville as in the Ashram, by each of you in turn who thinks this and that — I am continuously surrounded by hatred, doubts and friendships which are often as dubious as hostilities and can be reversed on the first occasion. I am not helped indeed, I am besieged from all sides, worn down by good thoughts as by bad ones. And I hold out as well as possible to do my true work. Each of you thinks this or that, but after all, who thinks that I know better when and how and in which conditions Mother’s texts are to be published? Who thinks and understands that more than anyone else I want these texts to be purely published, unabridged, and that I am struggling for that? Who understands with his heart that I wear my breath out doing the required thing? You all have wonderful reasons, each of you in turn, in Auroville as in the Ashram as everywhere — as for me, I have no reason. I try to manage as I can and to remain alive among this rush of lies and desires and excellent reasons. I try and hold out to reach the end of my work. And I promise, dear Messrs This and That who profess so many admirable things, that as soon as my work is over, I won’t stay another minute among your devouring and heartless tribes.
Satprem
December 19, 1976
(Letter to Gloria, an Aurovilian)
Gloria,
You are a kind sister, I hear the echo of your letter. Do aspire and trust, one day, we shall see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Maybe all the obstacles I met to fully publish Mother’s Work were necessary for our hearts to be given time to be purified, and as soon as the purification, the Need are intense enough, all obstacles will vanish. Until then, I keep pushing against walls.
Until then, let us keep the Need burning. One day, we will have made it.
Satprem
December 21, 1976
(Letter to an American Aurovilian, originally written in English)
I like your letter very much, it is a change from the spate of mental muddle and arrogant cries I receive from all sides. There is a Need in you, you want to really know what is happening and it is your heart which cries at last. I shall try, though English is somewhat difficult for expressing with clearness my feelings.
We may start from any end, it leads all to the same
point. It is very striking that none of you seem to have grasped the basic fact
that after all Mother and Sri Aurobindo wanted to establish a supra-mental
world, which means first of all that the mind must either disappear or be
replaced by something else. Now all of you are joyously wallowing in the Mind,
each with his war-cry, his “Truth,” his idea — specially this
“at the service of Truth” has become a disgusting farce. Not only so, but all of
you are very eager to seize all of Mother’s words and align them nicely if
possible in ten little paras, clean and dry, for hanging at his own special
door, like Moses with his Ten Commandments. But truly we are fed up with this
kind of Sinai, and so were Mother and Sri Aurobindo. So if you hope to seize
Mother’s Truth in writing and deliver it to the world and to Auroville, you will
land exactly in the kind of mess you all are in Auroville and in the world.
Because the Truth is not a mental thing and Mother is hammering this on the head
of all nations and all groups and individuals till they realize their own
ineptitude and floundering panacea.
This is especially hammered on Auroville’s reluctant
head. Mother is purposely reducing the whole mental world into such a
suffocating imbroglio of Truth-lie and lie-Truth, or true lies and lying truths,
that people will really need and want to breathe another air. Then the
Supramental will have its chance, not before. Until then you can align the whole
of Mother’s Agenda and put in writing all of Her wonders, people will
simply see nothing — the secrets are transparent. Another kind of eyes are
needed, other organs of understanding. And Auroville must understand in the
first place that her raison d’etre is to work out other organs, another level of
understanding, and finally another being beyond the mental being. We are not
here to build a Matri-mandir (and I will repeat that until I get a hoarse
throat) nor to grow cabbages, but to build a new being, and incidentally some
cabbages to help his transitory way of meditating — and both are most useful as
a means toward developing this other thing, supramental thing, which will
dispense very well with all our radishes and more or less spacious buildings.
Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but this is a fact, an evolutionary fact, and we
are here to make a new evolution, is it not? So, by the same stroke, we put in
this real perspective all of our provisional attempts, be it a Committee, a
kitchen for all, an external relations office, a Matrimandir or what not. And
if we miss the central thing, we miss everything — and we truly are in the
process of a resounding crash if we do not seize on this central fact.
Now, see how it works at the mental level. I can give
you here a very good example of the mental prowess (mind is the king acrobat).
As you know some people in
“Aspiration”57 have tried to work out something for organizing
this collective body dealing with external relations — good or bad, I am not
here to judge their merits nor the soundness of the thing — but they have
tried and called all others to join in the attempt. The mental response may
be taken from a letter of one of you whom I do not wish to name, and it is very
illustrative of the mental “understanding,” it might have been written by a
dozen other Aurovilians here and there: “So,” says sarcastically the letter,
“after an Auroville ‘gestion Navajata,’ an Auroville ‘gestion
Shyamsundar,’ we will have an Auroville ‘gestion frangaise’...” Then,
really, if such is the reaction in peoples minds, there is nothing left but to
have an Auroville “gestion nothingness” or call back Navajata, for,
indeed, this is exactly the kind of force which is destroying or wants to
destroy Auroville. It plays on the mental level, destroys every attempt,
corrupts every endeavour, sows its seed of doubt and distrust and jealousy,
pushes up everyone against everyone. If Frederick had wanted to try some
organization, it would have been the “German gestion,” nicely labeled and
condemned in advance. And everything is rottened and corrupted in advance with
this kind of reasoning — nobody can try anything, there is nothing to be done
except to entrench ourselves into Swedish radishes, Italian Matrimandirs, and
Swiss cows. And we are supposed to be here to build another being! Moreover,
mark that this kind of reasoning puts on the same footing and by the same breath
“gestion Navajata” and “gestion frangaise” —
of course those wonderful acrobats have a wide mind and liberal views: those who
put the Aurovilians in jail and blackmailed the Aurovilians are just human
beings like those who are put in jail and resist the blackmailing — the complete
muddle. Result: nobody knows anymore where he stands and “everything is the
same” and all are equally the children of the Mother and long life to Hitler! or
to any brother in the world. Now you have understood “everything” and you are
stuck like a fly in the mental “honey.” And Auroville is nowhere. And the funny
thing in this mental game is that Satprem receives the same treatment from those
Aurovilian voices as he receives from the Ashram voices — the same kind of
arguments and doubts and this and that... as if it were the same voice. And
it is the same voice, the same force, which is trying to corrupt all our
attempts in advance. Now Satprem does not care for himself, but he cares for
this child of the Mother which is Auroville. He has no ambition there except to
see this naughty child standing on his own feet and developing the real organs
of perceptions and the new level of understanding as a first step toward the
“other being.”
I have come to one conclusion. Men — I mean the male
species — are hopelessly shut up in their ineffectual and triumphant Reason —
they can reason out anything and everything. After 2000 years of male speeches,
we will be exactly where we are today and maybe Auroville will have a dozen
Matrimandirs, French, German, etc., ... but not a single heart. We will have
missed the purpose for which we gathered here. I have always seen that women
have a deeper perception and more direct understanding, something which is at
the level of the body because they bear children — this corporeal level is the
one on which Mother and Sri Aurobindo work. We could say a physical
understanding which can pierce through the mental mist and seize directly on the
reality of beings and facts and forces. Men have built around themselves a
mental fortress and what is outside the particular fortress is an “Enemy,” a
“rival,” a German or French or
Indian Someone-else, a foreigner of this or that Community, a suspect. It is a
huge fog which distorts everything, every idea, every attempt and throws a
shadow on every candid vibration. At this stage, I do not believe that any man
in Auroville can do something useful for Auroville — but I believe that women
can. If only they could throw themselves with all their hearts and break
those pygmean male barriers more solid than the Himalayas, and join together and
try together to make this real heart of Auroville beat and pray and repeat the
Mantra together, then there is a hope for Auroville, then a new level of
understanding will develop; then all these mental ghosts and scarecrows will
dissolve, this unreality of Auroville — and the Truth will shine in its bare
reality, physical reality, out of the mental mist. Something will be born by
their united hearts. Something true and simple and joyous will beat among you —
and suddenly, unexpectedly, you will find that the new species is born among
you. Mother’s Truth will be like the air one breathes, escaped from all books
and paras. Everything will be seen in its simple clarity and the old mental
world will crumble in a laughter of unreality. And Auroville will be. Now go on,
join together, find out the new living path.
With love,
Satprem
On the night of December 23-24, 1976
Saw Pranab all dressed in red.
December 26-31, 1976
Yercaud58
(we are seeking a refuge).
December 30, 1976
Shivarayan temple.
My infinite realm.
January 6, 1977
Barun T. (Auropress), Satprem’s owner.
I have reached the bottom of disgust.
January 11, 1977
(To Micheline Etevenon)
Well done for the two boxes [of the Trilogy]! And thank you so much for your inquiries at the printers’. We are not yet ready to choose the typeface, but we do want a French keyboard, which can easily be used for English, while the opposite would be difficult.
I am asking you to open one of the boxes, but this is not the signal for distribution, it is only to serve two special eases. (...) The situation has been complicated a lot by some dishonest acts of Barun T.’s I don’t feel up to speaking of, but the fact is “my” contracts for Mother’s book have been in his hands for fifteen days and I have not seen them, though the trustees and all our enemies have had a close look at them! What do you think about it? A mistake of Laffont, or what else? I am waiting for news from Laffont. It really seems that the Enemy clings to each step right to the end, if one already considers what a miracle and an impossible challenge it was to have those three volumes printed in Madras ... Well... Were it not for Mother, I would be off to the Himalayas and quickly. In short, Auropress is the proprietor of Satprem, as Auroville is the property of Navajata, the Ashram the property of the trustees, and Mother and Sri Aurobindo the property of Counouma and the Ashram Press. This is the time of the “proprietors” — not for long. Now you understand what we are struggling for.
.........
Otherwise,
I don’t see anybody — except during the night, plenty of them and of all sorts!
January 12, 1977
A violent inner battle around Laffont (Auropress, etc.) — all the predators are raging. My prayer to Mother: put Your light therein, put Your light therein....Oh!
January 21, 1977
A ceaseless, wearisome onslaught of everything, from all sides.
January 25, 1977
(Letter to Micheline)
... It is very comforting to concretely see Mother’s Action through these books. It is sure to be a tremendous world churning of consciousness. That is just what She wished. People will immerse themselves in Her unknowingly and they will not be the same after — perhaps even the world will not be the same after!
In the meantime, we have to prepare and secure the Battle together. I received a quite interesting letter from Carole, which meets Pierre’s preoccupations: those we have to touch are not the “literary” critics, but the Scientific world: it is the physicists, physicians, biologists, etc., we have to get discussing Mother’s book. Carole will talk with you. She will also speak to Laffont and together we will plan the battle or the work.
So
at last I received the draft contract from Laffont, but not yet signed by him —
let’s hope nothing will get in the way at the last minute. What I had to go
through is incredible. But I can clearly see, behind, Mother’s Hand directing
all and each detail of that, meticulously, almost microscopically, so as to
unmask everything that is to be unmasked, and put each thing and each being in
its exact place. To be right in the midst of the muddy process is not funny, but
it is an infinite Grace to be able to be the warriors of her great Battle for
the world.
... There remains our problem of a typesetter. Perhaps all that will be soon resolved. The real root of the problem — the Agenda — is under the anvil and we will hammer and hammer until the true solution emerges. Delhi [Sir C.P.N. Singh] is actively taking care of that. We will get out of that muddy tunnel in the end. In any case, one thing is sure, this money does not belong to “Satprem” nor does any money at all. Satprem is the property of Mother, that’s all! Too tired to write you at any more length. We go on together, and this is a beautiful battle.
With you, wholeheartedly
Satprem
January 31, 1977
(To Micheline)
... Let’s hope we soon will be done with those muddy things. Perhaps Carmen told you that Andre Morisset had accepted to be Barun’s emissary to Laffont’s. As a result, I received a rather anxious and disorientated letter from H. Rémont (the one who is in charge of the contracts), saying: “Barun is likely to contest our contract in the future....” It is charming, Andre must have indulged in some pretty little blackmail. Ouf! It is almost suffocating and stinking to be in inner contact with those people — not “almost”: I find it very hard physically.
Well,
this morning, I felt an irresistible force coming, somewhat like a bulldozer,
without any particular triumph, but quite implacable and sovereign — no obstacle
indeed. Then I suddenly decided to bring out the first volume tomorrow in
Auroville.
.........
That’s it, I leave you in haste. I have the impression that Mother is moving very imperiously — and if things are on the move here, they are on the move everywhere, are they not?
With you very fraternally and affectionately
Satprem
Sujata adds: Let us not forget Satprem’s mom! — one copy of the first volume.
Yours affectionately
Sujata
February 5, 1977
Spitting blood.
February 6, 1977
(Letter to N.F. Palkhivala, an eminent lawyer from Bombay, originally in English)
Much esteemed Sir,
I take the liberty to call for your help and advice, knowing your spirit of justice and devotion to idealistic causes, and having heard also about you from Madame Yolande Lemoine. This is not a personal case; my own life is devoted to the progress of human consciousness and to Beauty, through my writings.
As you may know, I have been for 17 years the single
and personal confidant of the Mother in Pondicherry. She was surrounded
not by “disciples” as one might think, but by various samples of human
consciousness through which She tried, after Sri Aurobindo, to work out a new
Species of consciousness in Her own body, and consequently in the Earth-body. It
was experimental evolution, one might say. As it happens, when one wants to
create a new Species, one comes up against all that resists and negates in the
old species — through this very resistance, the passage to the next species is
found, just as the reptile had to find the passage to the bird in its dried up
swamps of mud. The obstacle is the key.
In the present case, the obstacle was very much there, as Sri Aurobindo first found out, then the Mother — both had to leave their body for the same reason. Indeed, those around Them were not “disciples” but the Earth-specimens of the most obscure resistance which was to be overcome. Some little pure lights were there also, but those have no voice.
After Sri Aurobindo’s withdrawal, the Mother followed in His foot-steps, trying to find out what He had discovered and never explained since the “operation” was not taking place in the Mind or in nice books but in the body — a new Species is worked out in the body. So, She found Sri Aurobindo’s secret — She found also the very obstacles He had met. And She found the experimental passage to this problematic new Species.
This is indeed of world-interest.
In the midst of this somewhat dreadful struggle and
knowing probably that one day She would be all alone, facing Death, deserted by
all, besieged by ferocious ill-wills, She chose to take me as Her confidant. Her
terrible fight was not to be lost for the future of mankind — someone should
understand, follow the thread, spread the Possibility which She had wrenched
from the night of the old species. The result is some 6000 pages of Her personal
conversations with me where She explained step by step the process, the
struggle, and finally the siege of Death and Darkness around Her.
My heart is paining even while I write those words. For 17 years I have followed
this agony.
After Her withdrawal in 1973, you can imagine my position in the midst of these very forces which wanted to destroy Her. Now they were the “heirs” and “owners” of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Now the big spiritual business could start on a grand scale — this has been the eternal story ever since Christ and even Karl Marx. Some new Rome or spiritual Kremlin wants to establish its Church — and behind, the immense ambiguous Money always ready to seize the Spirit for its temporal end. In the present case: a very well organized mafia mostly composed of business men. You can imagine also how those “disciples” and owners of the new Church look upon this single man called Satprem who was the repository of such confidences which they thought might endanger their halo of high-priests and their obscure design. You are probably aware of their scheming and tortuous means to gain supremacy over Auroville as the rightful “owners.” The same applies to Mother’s papers — these 6000 pages which She called the Agenda. On 27th of August last year, they tried to assassinate me with 3 hired men in the canyons of Auroville during my daily walk. Of course nothing can be proved: it would have been an “accident.” Some more “accident” may come. Something has to be done to save this Agenda from the greed and unscrupulous censure of these men.
Twice I have tried to publish these papers through the
Ashram. First in the beginning of 1974, and when I moved the Ashram Press,
I was told in writing by one of the Trustees of his “reluctance” to publish
those papers now and specially his objection to have them published on foreign
markets by foreign publishers. They conveyed to me through Monsieur Andre
Morisset (the Mother’s “son”) that they doubted about the “advisability” of this
publication. Privately they implied that such publication would have to be
submitted to their judgment and that nothing should harm the Ashram interest,
etc. From that time it was clear to me that
they wanted to truncate and censure those papers to suit their special purpose.
A second time, in 1976, I tried to publish the Mother’s papers through All India Press which belongs (though dis-putably) to the Ashram. With the help of Sir C.P.N. Singh, whom you might know, I tried to obtain that the publication would take place under my sole supervision. They agreed to the publication but torpedoed the arrangement made by Sir C.P.N. Singh to ensure that I had the practical and material supervision of the materials given to the Press. Now it was evident that the Mother’s papers were really endangered and that only a publication outside the Ashram would ensure their integrity and non-censorship.
I do not mention here the various menaces and blackmail and vile calumnies to which I have been submitted. They even tried to set up my French and American publishers against me. My health has greatly suffered by this ferocious struggle which reminds me of what Mother had to go through; I do not know what will happen to me, but whatever life is left to me must be used to save those precious papers in their purity for the future of mankind — and quickly if possible.
Several times Mother has told me that her talks with me were only possible because of me; She even said in one place: “It is exclusively for you.” I have not the foolishness to think myself as the “proprietor” of this Treasure. I was simply a representative of the human race near Her — through me, She spoke to the Earth. I consider that these papers belong to the Earth, in the same way as Auroville does not belong to a private individual but to Humanity as a whole, as was said in the “Charter” of Auroville.
The “Earth” is a very vague entity, though so concrete in our hearts. Hence comes my question to you:
Is it not possible that as a repository of this Work
and human representative of the Earth near the Mother, I could request the
Government of India, as a representative of the various human nations of the
Earth, to take over those papers
and assure their integral and independent publication for the benefit of
humanity? I have some ground to believe that the Government of India would be
willing to help me, on condition I could find for it the legal arguments or
legal artifice by which it can take over this charge. What article or precedent
can they invoke? Or if it has to be an act of authority, what could be the
administrative strategy or device by which the Prime Minister can act? I thought
also to have recourse to UNESCO as a world-body, but it might be even more
entangled and difficult — time is
pressing.59 The siege around me also is pressing.
I know the nobility of your spirit. I have no other purpose in my life than to help develop the consciousness of my human brothers and sisters. And I know that Mother’s papers contain a process and secret of which our finishing mental race is in great need — the very secret and process of its passage to another level of consciousness and perhaps even a new body on Earth.
Will you help me?
With all my heart
Satprem
February 10, 1977
(To Micheline)
Dear Micheline,
Your letter is very good. Afraid of what? We have but
sordid things to leave behind. We are even beginning to feel that the “normal”
air is suffocating — ah, let’s breathe! Go ahead, Micheline, we don’t have to do
everything by ourselves. And we have the Mantra to hammer and hammer everything
that resists and murmurs and doubts and fears. We
must go on relentlessly. The path is accomplished, isn’t it, it is open —
God knows They put in a lot of effort for that! So let’s walk a little toward
Them, and when we look the opposite way, it is They who walk toward us. The more
we try, the more things accelerate — the main thing is to try, anything at all.
Oh, this ardent need to get out of the normal suffocation.
(...) As for me, I have not yet received the contract signed by Laffont. This has been pending for nearly two months now. Here, Barun says to everyone: “Satprem has given me everything, the book on Mother is mine.” So, they must work hard on Laffont in order to demolish our contract. Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord, may this Mud disappear! Lord, Lord, Lord
Satprem
February 15, 1977
(Letter to Micheline)
Here, if the situation is really “unraveled” at Laffont s and the publication is ensured without any hindrance from those people, I will see to it that the book is distributed in the Ashram itself, according to the sincerities or impulses of the moment. But for obvious reasons, I will not stir before the publication in France is ensured. How everything could be so simple!
The elections in
India60 are a crucial test for the whole world. Few people are
able to understand that. If Indira Gandhi happens to be beaten, Satprem would
then only have the option of leaving India with Mother’s papers as soon as
possible because the forces behind the “opposition” are the very forces that are
behind the trustees and Navajata, and it would be also the end of Auroville,
that is, the Work would
be stopped or completely twisted under a triumphant Imposture. Perhaps it would
also mean war. Do you see what is at stake? You can understand why we are
struggling.
So, let’s pray.
Quite obviously, Satprem’s books and Mother’s Agenda are the ideal prey for the Enemy. That is why it has been clinging to every step and every detail for three years. It is around this that the New World revolves — though the Work will be done one way or another. Let’s hope that it will be rather this way than the other.
fraternally to you all
Satprem
One understands better now why Mother supported Indira.
February 21, 1977
Letter from B. (Auropress) — he is getting ready to take me to court. The pack after Mother’s book.
February 23, 1977
Vision
A leap across an abyss.
February 26, 1977
(To Micheline)
.........
I knew those people (Barun and Co) were dishonest, but
that bad ... Do you know that I have had violent haemoptysis for
three days — thank God, Mother taught me not to be afraid. But those people are
throwing such infamies at me, I am swallowing a lot of things. I really
understand now what She meant: “I am hanging from a slender thread in an
absolutely rotten atmosphere.” That is exactly how it is. (...) I prefer to stop
there because all that wears me out — they wore me out. But I shall not give up.
I really need the help and affection of you all.
Satprem
February 28, 1977
(To Micheline)
.........
I have just heard that the Ashram Trust “claims” my books as the property of the Trust. All the vultures are there.
Beyond a certain point, one seems to be a cloak of suffering and one keeps repeating Ma-Ma-Ma.... Nothing more. When She wants it all to be over, it will be over.
March 1, 1977
(Extracts from a letter to Carole)
... Given the dishonesty or rather the swindling Barun
has been engaged in, I am taking steps to annul all his rights on the
Sannyasi. I wrote to Laffont about it. We shall see, it is a real pain, a
big waste of time and energy, a lot of suffocating mud. I am here to fight, am I
not, otherwise I would be off to the Himalayas and no one would hear of me
anymore. The battle against Auropress is part of a vaster battle for freeing
Auroville from another swindle — it is the same battle that is taking place all
over India with the elections. It is one and the same battle everywhere — in
fact, it is Mother’s Battle for the New World. This is just what I have been going through for three
years. Now, thank God, I am no longer all alone against those crooks. Mrs Gandhi
supports me here, or else I would have been dead a long time ago. (...)
Ouf! Forgive me for this letter. It is like a medieval ordeal, when the knights had to go through all kinds of perils to win the Rose. As we are in the twentieth century, the ordeals are very sordid and rough, but at the end, there is the Rose of the New World — a World where everything will be simple at last, because it will simply be what it is. We are walking together toward that, you are my very dear companion.
Yours
Satprem
March 7, 1977
(To Micheline)
I have all kinds of perceptions but without any material “proof.” For instance, some time ago I felt “the book in Andre’s hands” so much so that I thought Mother wanted to make me give the book to André! Then I hear that Pourna has pinched the book from Nolini and has sent it to Andre. That is how it is, one is full of perceptions but without knowing what it is, like a blind seer! So I have strongly felt all kinds of scheming around Andre for a long time. (...)
Many other things are swarming around, but I don’t know which ones. Last night, I was in a rain of stones.
March 9, 1977
(To Pierre Etevenon)
Between
two rains of stones, I will try to answer your questions of February 14, though
they are not very clearly put — or rather you grope your way toward a question
you don’t know yourself. So I grope my way myself through your groping!
First of all, mind you don’t try to lure the supramental world into the mental trap: within our cage, we are desperately translating a world that has nothing to do with all the instruments of perception of our cage. It is something else, which changes everything. What would a shrew say, when lost in a Boeing 707?? Yet the shrew would be right to ask questions, not for the impossible answer, but because asking questions helps it walk toward the next world of the shrew. We must walk out of the cage, the answer is to get out of the cage. In the meantime ... well, we can nibble mentally.
So we are right in that supramental Boeing. There is a veil to draw open, which turns it all into a Boeing — after all, for the shrew the Boeing is completely invisible, even if it scurries along between the seats or in the luggage rack. Of course, this veil is obviously all its specific construction — but it is not really its shrew’s body, its shrew’s matter that veils the reality from it: it is matter that has learnt to be a shrew to the exclusion of anything else. The veil is a certain memory or habit of being a shrew ... so, there are all the “laws” of the said charming mammal, laws as eternal and solemn as Jehovah himself or Mr Newton.
True Matter is something else. It is without a veil and
special spectacles. When we reach there, at that pure level — cleansed from the
habit of being a certain man — there are no longer illnesses, accidents, or
death. No “laws” anymore. It is a fantastic freedom. It is the “next” world —
which has never been “next,” since it has always been like that. But we are
reaching there, that is, the veil is wearing down — not in our head: in our
body. So when this body’s consciousness is very heavy and slurred, all is
very-very-far-away, forming planes and planes, “subtle” physical here, “subtle”
physical there — then one fine day everything becomes “subtle” or is no longer
subtle at all: it is all here, quite simply. The supramental “invasion” is our
layer of Homo sapiens becoming porous. Then everything gets in, or rather
everything becomes as it is. Look! This is the Boeing. We are right in it. We
had always been right in it. So light!
Let us give an example: a haemoptysis is something that
is serious and concrete, it fills a handkerchief with blood and a whole medical
file. Well. You look at it and you don’t care: it is a phenomenon like so many
others, a stuffed up nose or the smell of sainfoin. Then it no longer bleeds at
all, it goes like the smell of sainfoin — what a fuss! There was never any
illness, not a second of illness: the whole thing is an invention of the
licensed doctors. But if you look at it medically, then you have had it, it is
the Illness. An assassin is something serious, especially when there are three
of them coming at you in the canyons. Well, you look at that, and they are
two-legged men like the others, and the soil has a pretty pinkish tinge at 6 in
the evening; then the three men go off and you go back home. Here or there, it
is Matter which behaves differently. But if you begin looking at that as if they
were murderers, then you are murdered. It is that simple. There is a place in
the body where none of that exists, so if it does not exist, it does not exist,
of course! For here or there Matter echoes itself very well, of course. In other
words, a formidable real Unreality... depending on whether you look (or rather
your body looks) the right way or the wrong way. When you are on the side of the
wrong look, in the layer, then you can have a “premonition” that an “accident”
is going to happen and that day you don’t go for a walk in the canyons. But if
you are in the right way of looking, without the layer, then there is no
premonition of anything at all, because there is nothing: the true vibration annuls
the false vibration, automatically. This is quite natural.
So, I don’t know very well where your question is wading in all that. The “transfer of power” is a transfer to the Natural — somewhat frightening for the other one in his cage.
Within this Natural, you are not dead of course,
because only that which does not exist can die, that which believes itself to be
dead or dying or endowed with death. It is the same Unreality as the assassin in
the canyons or a haemoptysis. It happens or does not happen, depending on
whether something in you believes in it or not. Well. But many of those Homo
sapiens believe in death and cultivate death, that is, unreality. Those
cultured digestive tracts (oh, they can even have read libraries) go back to the
Nothing they always were: unreal, they go back to unreality. It does not exist.
All depends on the proportion of Reality that has been cultivated — and how what
is Real could ever cease to be ... real. We must cultivate Reality down to our
body — then, naturally, Death no longer exists. What made “death” was the layer
of unreality. When the layer is worn out, then what is really living lives
forever, without “this side” or “that side”: what made the “sides” was the wrong
way of looking, the outlook of unreality. There, everything is
one, because only what is real is. The
Real does not need sides, it is what it is everywhere, it is always what it is.
Only, we are unaware of it: it is the pure body, once cleansed, that is aware of
it. We may have “visions,” all kinds of “realizations” or perceptions through
our layers: we travel through all that has been stuck on to our pure Matter.
Only Matter is aware of the total reality: the dead have never been dead, they
have stripped off their part of unreality. All depends on this “part” of
unreality. When the body has totally stripped off its part of or its attachment
to Unreality, death will no longer be, naturally, because death is what does not
exist. It is the beginning of the transformation. And those real little
particles come back again and again into a body till they are grown enough to be
totally real in Matter. Now the process is
accelerating, it is becoming global, which means the possibility to get out of
Unreality collectively. The starting point of the physical transformation is the
perception of this Unreality. When you perceive (when your body perceives) that
the assassin does not exist, the haemoptysis does not exist and all the fuss
does not exist, then things begin behaving differently. The whole problem lies
in that “differently.” Mother was not given the time to show us how it can exist
differently — but She may have surprises in store for us.
And we learn the unreality of rains of stones. When it is perfectly unreal, then not a single stone will fall on our heads and we will have some good laughs about the great Game. Then there will be only the Supreme doing everything. It is the supreme look, because it is the look of the Supreme. That is why we were born. What a fuss we make!
Satprem
On the night of March 17-18, 1977
Vision
I vomit excrements. All that they are throwing at me.
March 19, 1977
Letter from B. (Auropress). The falsehood becomes the truth.
March 21, 1977
(Letter
to Micheline and friends. Indira Gandhi has just lost the national elections.)
My good friends,
So, we are reaching the turning point.
It is only logical for us to go through this, even if it is a somewhat dark logic — temporarily dark. The situation can be read in those few key lines of Sri Aurobindo’s, which came to me at once:
When darkness deepens strangling the earth’s breast
And man’s corporeal mind is the only lamp....
We had to reach this point.
Mother had to withdraw from our eyes for the whole poison to spread out.
Indira Gandhi’s grip had to withdraw for the whole filth to spread out.61
And it will spread out.
At the end or at the bottom, there is Mother’s Miracle. All human beings, all of them, have to reach there — they have to see and touch the dreadful Wall. Then it will be possible for it to collapse, when they have had enough of their own ignominy — when a few of them keep on repeating the Mantra in their body, as the only lamp lit amidst the Darkness.
We are in the rather dark transition leading there. But
it is a transition. For three years, at every new step of the Battle, Mother has
given me the vision of what the next step would be. On February 23, I was (“I,”
that is, the symbol I represent in this battle), I was on the edge of a black
abyss about five meters large, which seemed impossible to leap across,
unless I flung my hands out and tried to grasp the other side. Then, I don’t know how, I leaped across the abyss, bolt upright, and I found myself standing
on my two feet on the other side.
Thus it seems impossible, but it will be done. We are landing on the other side. But there is this “step” to take — in the darkness.
It is sure and certain that Mother is perfectly, meticulously leading this somewhat terrible Game. Sometimes, it is the “terrible Strategy of the Eternal” Mother herself went through, or rather is going through. But every step is sure, deliberate, whatever appearances may be, and we walk to the ineluctable Victory.
I may be sent to jail. I will be accused of having stolen Mother’s papers. They are all waiting. One can hear all the gnomes laughing in the abysses. They will laugh for a time. “Our” Aurovilians may be expelled and a sinister caricature of Auroville may be set up, triumphant and commercial. Many ugly things will spread — they have to spread. Maybe it will be the “Diaspora” once again — I don’t know, we will fight every inch of the way, quietly. We will pray together, quietly. We will light the Fire in the cells of our body under the pressure of that Darkness.
Besides, we know nothing about Mother’s Miracles.
I am sending you, by air mail, the fourth volume I have not spoken of [Carnet de Laboratoire] and which I want to keep secret for a little while. It is Mother’s pure and unadulterated bomb. I want two copies at least of this fourth volume to be safe somewhere. Here we are sure to be searched, pursued. I hope I will be able to put everything in a safe place. Then, I will be waiting.
Mother loves us.
She is so powerfully here, so tenderly here. She counts on us to make her Mantra beat in the Night. That is all, there is nothing else to do.
And those three volumes we have to launch — so that some, at least, may hear Her voice.
Your
brother
always
and for all time
Satprem
March 23, 1977
(To friends in Paris)
My friends,
I was so deeply moved, the other night, when, coming back from my walk in the canyons where I went with all that weight on my shoulders, I found those few words on the steps of my stairs: “How to help?” It was so obviously the Grace that came to soothe. And everyone responding so marvelously, so exactly. There were all those serious, distressing decisions — oh, how distressing! Janine Pinson was marvelous, everyone was marvelous. But it is not over. There are a lot of things to spread through various channels, and every time it is very serious, let us not be mistaken; then, a Grace comes there too, in the slightest detail. I cannot tell you all.
It is possible that the old façade will remain awhile,
until they demolish our whole set-up bit by bit. The first sign will be the
dismissal of the present
Governor,62 then the demolition of the Auroville Committee
created by Delhi. One by one, they will place their own men. Even the President
of India is with them. Then we will see Navajata start his dance with Barun —
sometimes, one is strangulated in seeing how this Work, so formidable, so
global, is (or seems to be) hindered by gnomes of such size. It seems
incredible. Then the trustees will be after Satprem, helped by a law and a
police that can be bought like peanuts, by the bag. Three or four days ago, I
received the second letter from Barun, answering
a letter of mine, in which I forced him to face up to his false declarations and
told him he no longer had any rights on my book. I started violently vomiting
two days before receiving his letter and I had a very difficult day in my body,
all that combined with the inner perception of Indira’s approaching collapse.
All that at the same time (it was not mere chance, of course). Never have I read
something so disgusting, such an odious, cold, minute falsehood; everything is
twisted, false declarations become true — it is incredible. With which dubious
lawyer did he prepare this answer (via Paris)? And Andre Morisset silently
approving this ignominy ... It was all very hard to swallow these last days.
There is a whole world behind all that, you know. I tried to answer, but
after two hours the pen slipped from my fingers, I was choking on that. Besides,
after all this toiling in the mud, one is seized by the immense futility of
struggling against that: what is the use of answering again and again —
everything is twisted. And every time, you are covered in mud (worse than
covered, you swallow everything, then you vomit). Forgive me. So I think that I
will not answer — and they will seize hold of my silence, too. And what are they
hiding behind all that? I know nothing about their machinations. So, I am
struggling in the dark. I keep seeing A.M. around me. And above all, it all is
stifling me as if I had a weight on my chest. We shall see. All the same, I send
you those documents, which will probably baffle you, because it is such a
juggling of “juridical” lies. But my friends must be kept informed. Behind that,
The Agenda and the book on Mother are being targeted, obviously. I
repeatedly feel they are going to do everything and force me in the end
to face the choice of prison or of compromise — prison is more breathable, it
remains the safest place in this world of brigands. And I am used to it.
I doubt very much now whether I will be able to go to Paris. I don’t know. You all welcome me in such a good, warm way. May Mother guide my steps. There is a “passage” to cross — perhaps it will not take that long.
You
asked me how many copies of the book had been sold in Auroville. I don’t have
the exact figures, but every person who reads French got the first two volumes.
It has done a lot of work, Auroville has greatly matured, it is perceptible —
they must be strong for what is to come. Whatever the path, even if they are
expelled, they are hewing the path of Auroville and they will come back.
Wherever the Mantra vibrates, the path is irrevocable and no power in the world
can undo that, even if they might seem to triumph for a while. The Ashram has
bought four copies of the first volume since the 21st of February! (I don’t know
the last figures, I have been told that a few new ones came these last days). It
is clear. The whole Educational Center of the Ashram has voted against Indira,
as have quite a few others. (...)
There we are, packing boxes to conceal volumes III and IV (and the second, too). It is not easy. Where to hide that? Many problems to solve.
I leave you. We are walking together toward the ineluctable Victory, whatever the path may be.
To all of you, my deep affection
Satprem
I don’t have the time to write to everyone, but you know well... I can’t wait for Carmen to be back.
March 24, 1977
(To my companions in Auroville)
We are here, in Auroville, to learn the law of the new
World, which is neither a mental law nor an economic or a political one, nor any
of all the bankrupt panaceas. And all events — whatever they may be, apparently
happy or apparently disastrous — are meant to teach us this Law and the
mechanism of the true Power that will finally transform the world
and our body. It is what you came here for: to learn the secret of the New
World, to understand the true Law and to find the true Lever.
It is obvious that as long as we place our hope in the old mechanisms, as long as we depend on the old powers and seek protection in the old world, we cannot accede to the New World, we cannot find the Lever. Everything must drop from our hands, really, the old hopes and the old ideals, as must the old filth and the old means.
Today, it may be the hour when everything drops from our hands, all the old supports, for us to find the one Support — that which really can and will make the New World and will make Auroville. So long as there is any hope other than that one Hope, we miss the point, we bang at the old doors in order to try to open the only keyless Door.
For that Door has no key. It has no outer means, and no trick can open it.
Up to yesterday, we had too many “tricks,” we counted on too many means, we looked for old keys.
Everything is being taken from our hands. Perhaps it is really the Hour of Grace for Auroville. The hour when we can open the Door, because we no longer know anything.
It is possible, it is probable that all the old
counterfeiters will reappear triumphantly. They will make their great spiritual
circus and a tremendous touristic Matrimandir, behind which they will shelter
their profitable business. They will celebrate a tremendous Centenary of a
Mother deified at last thanks to them. Mother’s words will flow in torrents, the
high priests of the Truth will have laws, governments, dignities and immaculate
dhotis on their side, to replace a bunch of ill-shaven rascals who wanted to
create another sort of world. Cement-mixers and bank-notes are against us. It is
the old story of Christ and his disciples, of Karl Marx and his disciples — the
living Truth hacked up and legalized by its legal owners, in Rome as in
Pondicherry. The “dissidents” are excommunicated. Perhaps their passports will
be confiscated from them. All the reasons of the world
will be against them — they are stuffed with good reasons. The police are with
them.
We may well be the thieves of the New World, the reasonless people of another Reason. We have nothing in our hands, nothing in our pockets. Our powerlessness is our only Power.
For when there is nothing left, something else must necessarily arise. When there are no means left, no doors anymore, the only Way out has to open up.
So, my companions, do understand this:
We are placed exactly in the circumstances needed to open the only Door, create Auroville and seize the Lever of the New World. Do understand that all our obstacles, our apparent defeats, our apparent impotence are the Means and the Lever. For it is only in that Nothing that Something can spring up. Do realize, do understand that everything is the path of Auroville, and that even if you are expelled from Auroville, you are still hewing the path of Auroville, and that if in your heart, wherever you are, banished or not, you grasp the only Positive fact in all this huge non-sense, the only Mantra throbbing in this triumphant Darkness, you will open the door to the true Matrimandir within, and you will come, you will come back to build your Work without, because no one can triumph against this living Truth, it is the only Reality amidst phantoms.
All is the path of Auroville.
We have reached the hour of the Path.
One cannot cheat in making it: one has to be the path. The Mantra must be throbbing on and on in your hearts. You must call Mother and Mother again. You must be naked and true. You must find That which is the very Power of the New World.
Then, all the phantoms will collapse.
This is the very Meaning of Auroville.
Satprem
March 29, 1977
The
last “diaspora.”
March 30, 1977
(To friends in Paris)
... I feel very moved. You are all very touching. I think of this Marielle Aubegny who offers her savings ... Mother actually fills us with the joy of giving to her and putting a Meaning in what we do. Those law mongers are so pitiful. As for my “safety,” Mother is my best safety — Kali and Krishna were with Sri Aurobindo in prison. They accompany our steps, here or there. (...)
This “hard, stiff, heavy body”: it is exactly that. It is the very sign that It has started to work at last within the resistance of Matter and the inertia of Matter — be happy! It is the Mantra that will do all the work, automatically. How marvelous!
... We go there, through all roundabout ways.
Your brother
Satprem
March 31, 1977
Vision of the mission: They left me behind to demolish the religion of Sri Aurobindo. And establish the Work on an international and scientific basis.
*
(Letter to Gloria, an Aurovilian)
Gloria,
I am very moved by your letter. I put it at the feet of Mother.
We
are walking and struggling together, and praying together for the New World. The
Mantra will unite our bodies and cells despite all we think and despite all the
apparent divisions. This is what will dissolve ghosts, in us and around us.
Only then will Mother flow through us, vibrate through us, and what could affect That?
With much love
for both of you
Satprem
April 6, 1977
Release of Mother’s book in France.63
Where to flee?
April 12, 1977
(To Micheline)
... You must, I hope, have received my Treasure, suddenly gone, propelled by I don’t know what — everything seems to push in that direction. The rest of it is scattered around and safe. Now they can come. But those acts in themselves may have created the circumstances needed for them not to be tempted to come any longer.... I don’t know. Sujata and I are tired but indomitable. Keep silent concerning my Treasure.
Besides, I received the book [a book on Mother by the
Ashram] — it is an aberration. My heart sank when I saw Mother all in black, it
was almost a sorrow. But there are so many other sorrows. A great power is
needed for Mother to be able to shine despite all that Blackness everywhere. Nonetheless
she gets out from under this cover of Death. Let us proceed step by step. One
day, it will be done.
April 15, 1977
I am overwhelmed by mud and nasty things. As if I were covered in wounds.
April 22, 1977
(Personal letter)
We seem to be at the end of a world — of our world,
too. I do guess what you feel. It keeps dying endlessly and the other is not yet
born for our eyes. No doubt, this is the leap into the dark I had seen. It is
like an end of everything or a dissolution of everything. Even our hopes and our
plans seem to be problematic and still to belong, in another way, to the dying
old world. To go and struggle, at UNESCO, at the
CNRS,64 at
Chancel’s...65 I don’t know. Even Mother’s book seems to have
sunk into silence there. There are columns for Spaggiari (?) and the heroes of
the last hold-up. The Mind has been inflated so much that nothing means anything
anymore — everything is suspect, everything is equally credible and incredible.
So, “to speak” again? Is not the time of speaking over? It is the end of the
mental Babel. I don’t know, I know less and less. I only see everything
dissolving. Here, I am sated with hatred. It seems that I am wounded everywhere.
It is strange how I am hated on all sides, even in Auroville, except for the
handful of brothers. I
seem to disturb too many people. So I am immersed in a suffocating something,
there around me, like a curtain of sticky algae, and one does not see any
solution. It seems that there is no solution anywhere — except that we go here
or there without knowing why, except that we hope for goodness knows what
incredible, marvelous Solution. I think of Sri Aurobindo in his big, green
armchair.
And Pakistan is flaring up. I observe the northern borders. Indira Gandhi is persecuted; she, too, is covered in hatred and calumnies. She is waiting — what solution for India? For the world? There is no solution, except the Solution. And I wonder if those “crushing circumstances” Mother was speaking of are not at the door. We are reaching the point where something must happen. I feel as if I were in the death of everything — mine included. And the gods keep silent. Even the publication of The Agenda seems to be a kind of late luxury. As if the only thing which could was the living explosion of that which is contained in those thousands of pages. So, to leave Nandanam amounts to an act of faith, of fraternity — it amounts to sharpening the absurdity. In any case, it is like a death. We are taking the leap into the Dark together. This absolute non-sense is perhaps the only sign that we are drawing closer.
There we are. We are praying together.
Satprem
April 26, 1977
(Letter to an Aurovilian)
B., my friend,
Your letter makes me feel very sad — not only for you
but for Auroville. It sounds like a death knell. I do not worry here about your
good or bad reasons — I am not interested a lot in reasons. Everyone is right,
everyone is wrong too, in a way, because the big “wrong” consists in not being divine.
The reasonable weathercock can spin as much as it wishes at the mercy of the
winds. But there is an infinitely precious thing which is the true, secret force
of Auroville, the very one we had so much trouble building and which a number of
you paid for with imprisonment: a first coherence of the soul, a first unified
soil, a tiny little nucleus of pure aspiration. And it was so strong in its
simplicity that it had the power to resist everything, even to turn catastrophes
into liberations. There were traitors, there were indecisive persons, all the
usual jumble of Falsehood, but there was this united, pure nucleus, which had
the Power to check the Falsehood, to save all the rest thanks to its purity. Of
course, the invisible Enemy, he who manipulates all the human little puppets,
rushed on that — he knew very well that this little purity was his death. First
of all, you have been blacklisted, you were the “French group,” the fanatics,
the militants — they tried to isolate you, you were the cause of all the evils
of the world and of Auroville, you were an obstacle to the “unity” of the
Aurovilians, I do not know what sins you had not committed. And behind, of
course, silently or not: it is Satprem’s fault. I know this voice well. This
force is the very one that pushes the Ashram against Satprem, or rather against
what Satprem represents. We are a public menace for that force, it goes without
saying. They tried to kill me, but that is nothing compared to all the silent
little assassinations I have been suffering every day and every night, since May
1973.
In that melee, I only knew one Force, that of my
power-lessness, I only needed Mother, needed Her so much — whether they won or
lost, killed me or not, were right or wrong, whether I was all alone or not,
Auroville or not Auroville, the Ashram or no Ashram, I only needed to hear Her
beat in my heart, so that it would be Her and only Her in all that chaos and
that painful night. Mother’s physical departure, Her withdrawal from our eyes,
was a kind of asphyxia for me, I had lost all my air, all my fullness, all my
love, so how could I give a damn about Auroville, the Ashram,
the friends or the enemies, the wrongs and the rights — I was, I am only this
burning hole that needs but one thing: Her, “That,” no matter, that something
which is absolute forever and every day. It is in that burning Nothingness,
which was the only Fullness of something in the end, that I was compelled to
act, to take action, to write, to intervene in Auroville, to take a stand — but
I could not have cared less about all the stands and all the cities and all the
stories: I was, I am in the only breathable Standpoint, whence I act, do and
write. Wrongs and rights are scattered to the four winds, but there is this lone
Breath within, this lone supreme Right within. This is what I tried to
communicate to my brothers of Auroville as well as I could, wherever I met with
a glimmer of aspiration, a spark of the real Need — because I knew, I felt and
lived that it was the sole Power within the great night, the only Reason in all
that strangling non-sense. I bent over you as in the midst of the great
drowning. They said I wanted to be the guru of this or that, they twisted all my
acts, all my words — I only saw that great drowning, that great Pity. Was
everything about to be carried away in the Night?
Here and there, a few responded. A small nucleus
reacted and understood the great Challenge. We were alone among tremendous
forces which for millennia have frustrated all prophets, all Avatars, all
crucifixions — was it all to start over once again? One more Church, triumphant
reasons again, and the rot of money again...? And the more that nucleus took
shape, the more it was attacked within Auroville itself. And now, what neither
Nava nor the hostilities toward Auroville have been able to do from without is
being done by the Enemy within: you are being broken, disbanded, made rotten and
thrown to the four winds of the excellent reasons of this or that, of this one
or that other — but in reality the only reason is to break this first coherence
at all costs, this tiny little nucleus of united aspiration, this only little
purity of a few hearts together which is the sole Power of Auroville, the sole
Hope for Auroville, the sole salvation in
the midst of this great drowning. So, B. is right in this way and A. is right in
that way, others and all the others are stuffed with equal reasons — but you
have had it, you dropped the only treasure, the imperceptible thing which made
it all able to resist everything. You lost your Miracle. Are you really going to
lose it? Will Auroville have to descend into the Night once again and deserve
the hard lesson?
So, you may be right to try and build bridges with the Green Belt [of Auroville] and prevent them from toppling to the other side — this is all very fine. But if you cannot even get on with your close brothers, if you cannot even plug the gap under your own footsteps, if the abyss is widening between yourself and those who shared the same aspiration, what bridge will you build there, what pure seed, what indestructible cement? If you do not plug the hole here, you will plug it nowhere. The “other side” has already begun cracking your own house apart. You will tell me that it was “the others” who “excommunicated” you. This is possible. But I witness, distressed, your sole Power and your sole Miracle going downhill. I witness the great Night rising upon the earth, and I wonder who has understood?
Satprem
I am not talking especially to you, but to all my brothers up there. It is so much the hour of being brothers....
April 27, 1977
(Letter to Gloria, an Aurovilian)
I like your letter very much, it is so clear, so
sincere — how I wish everyone in Auroville had this same dispassionate honesty!
I think the position of the Matrimandir, as you define it (“not to care about
the S.A.S., because it still amounts to building bridges to let them in — but to
repel them
inwardly by the means of the Force, without any physical action always mixed
with impurity”) is right in theory, but practical and everyday life obliges you
to act, it does not take place in the abstract world of principles. I do not
speak about acts of provocation, of course, it would be too childish and stupid,
but about situations stemming from the circumstances. For instance (in concrete
terms), the people of Aspiration have their clothes washed on Auroville beach,
as there is a well there — one single well. The S.A.S.’s friends want to prevent
them from having their clothes washed by frightening the washerwoman, bribing
the chief of her village, and finally by stirring up the water of the well and
rendering it muddy, so that nobody could use it. One can give up and wash one’s clothes elsewhere, though it is not very courageous, and if you give in on one
point, you are likely to see the Enemy spreading its stratagems everywhere and
gaining all the Ground point after point. Today a well, tomorrow something else.
It looks like a snake swallowing his victim’s tail first — when it has begun, it
goes on until the end. So it would be both legitimate and wise, according to
circumstances, to fight every inch of the way without violence or provocation,
until one can do nothing more — when you can do nothing more, well, you give up
or you leave. The obvious goal of this force of Falsehood is to eliminate from
Auroville everything that holds a little bit of simple, sincere truth, because
that little light means its death. All that belongs to the mongoose race is
dangerous and lethal to snakes. There are many (or rather not many but a number
of) very kind little mongooses in Auroville, here and there — they are not
specialized or reserved for a particular piece of land or a particular
community. But in Aspiration, they are, let’s say, more energetic, because the
French little mongooses are more combative (more arrogant, too). So, of course,
the force of Falsehood has been directed toward them in a more special way —
above all, it tried to cut them off from the rest of the Aurovilians or the
little mongooses, saying: you see, that race is very bad, it is the
one that hinders the fraternal unity of mongooses and snakes; without it,
everything would work in harmony and unified peace in Auroville. This untruthful
force turned out to be rather effective: the people of Aspiration, the “French
mongooses,” are unbearable and quite malodorous in Auroville, they have
committed almost all the sins (and of course, it is Satprem who is behind it
all; he is the absolute sinner).
So, these are the two “positions.” I think the Enemy’s voice will make itself increasingly sweet and charming and say: see how kind we are, we don’t want to hurt anyone, let’s embrace one another. And those who will not like this embrace will be more and more isolated, cut off from within by the Aurovilians themselves — and they will have to leave in the end, because they will be all alone. Then, it will be the snakes’ big day: little mongooses will all get caught in the Falsehood and will even no longer understand where the truth lies and where the falsehood lies — but they will be left in peace, they will have their “prosperity” [daily ration at the Ashram], something to eat every day, a safe passport and great works to impress the world. There will be a big jamboree in Auroville. But there will be no little mongooses left, only fat little snakes — unless there is a “new species” of snakegooses or mongoosnakes which will be the nice mixture of truth and falsehood we have known for millennia. In fact, each of us is already a nice mixture of the two forces, which is why it is so easy for the Enemy to appeal to the little brother-snake which lies in each of us. Where is the pure mongoose?
In fact, I do believe that the only true Position in
Auroville is a third position, which does not focus on the Enemy, because, as
you say, it is still offering a bridge to the enemy, giving him a reality; but
to focus on the unity of the little mongooses and the purity of the little
mongooses. Their life depends far more on that unity and purity than on their
aggressiveness and ability to fight. Thus the first necessity would be to
reunite the French mongooses, the German Mongooses, the Matrimandir mongooses
into one body of Mongoose.
As for purity ... saying the Mantra is what creates purity. But this third
position, which is essentially an inner one, should not lead you to forget the
practical necessities of everyday life and the daily struggle for not letting
yourselves be swallowed up point after point. Whatever error of action such and
such persons have made (most of the time, it is only an error of words) you
should not cut off any group of mongooses, for that amounts to our death. That
is what the Enemy is playing on. It is simple and easy to understand. In fact,
one tries to put up ideologies and philosophies against one another, but the
brutal, real fact is that one tries to make the little mongooses kill each other
off.
Now, to get back to the problem you are raising, let us
quote Mother in The New Species: “
In fact, it is mental error which makes
us want to choose one thing and reject another: all things must be together —
what we call ‘good,’ what we call ‘evil,’ what we call right and what we call
wrong, what we find pleasant and what we find unpleasant, all that must be
together.... Rejection of the one and acceptance of the other is childishness.
It’s ignorance.” Mother never philosophizes, there is not a being in the
world more “practical” than Mother is: for Her, everything is a means of action,
of progress. Doubtless, cancer and death are very useful to awake in man the
necessity of finding a way to cure cancer or the cause of cancer, and to cure
death or the cause of death. Which does not mean we must embrace cancer and
death, it only means that we must find in cancer and death what can overcome and
go beyond the Evil: to change it into a third thing which will no longer be
either our false good and false remedies or this appearance of evil and its
eternal domination. Undoubtedly, the S.A.S. did help the Aurovilians to find
their true center, the necessity to find the true Position which will save us
from disaster. Without them, we would have remained in a spiritual and well-bred
mediocrity. Thanks to them, we are compelled, obliged to find the true
solution, the one which will have Power. So, this
is not inviting you to embrace Nava, but to wrest from the Enemy himself the
force which will help us grow. Mother never accepted Death, but in the very
midst of the thousand little deaths her charming disciples were inflicting on
her, She looked for the practical secret of Immortality — thanks to this very
death. So, our charming and so-called “spiritual” little mongooses do not need
to throw themselves into the serpents jaws, but to develop in themselves the
Strength to change themselves into a supermongoose or another species which will
go beyond both spiritual mediocrity and the wickedness of the serpent —
precisely a third position in which nothing will be able to touch them any
longer. A new life. A new Species which will no longer be snakegooses or
mongoosnakes, but Something Else, which we do not know yet.
What also remains true is that Snakes, too, if they have a spark of sincerity, can equally take advantage of the opposition of their Enemy, the mongooses, to change their bag of venom, not into a bag of “benevolence,” which would be only the reverse of their venom, but into something Else: perhaps a third position, a bag of ambrosia or nectar. But it is not us who will change them, no one can convert serpents : if they are sincere enough, they themselves will be obliged to change in order to survive. In other words, the purer the mongoose will be, on the way to transformation, the more its pure, simple presence will oblige the serpent to transform itself or die. That way, we can say that the mongoose is an instrument of the transformation of the serpent, as the serpent is an instrument of the transformation of the mongoose. But both must go beyond themselves or die.
There we are: we have to change or to die. We have to find the true Position or die. We have to be one and pure or die.
With much love
Satprem
April 30, 1977
First
article on Mother’s book (Nouvelles Litteraires). Title: “Ashram & Co.”
My God....
May 3, 1977
(Personal Letter)
I have just received a very kind letter from Huguette Rémont, of Laffont’s (copy enclosed). It seems that the Grace wants to help us get out of this sad story (with Barun), which had me touch the bottom. It was useful, but I will breathe more easily without it. And this irony: I have just received the first “article” (five lines) on Mother, in Les Nouvelles Litteraires, called ... “Ashram and Co.” (sic). Like a smack. And simultaneously the advertisement from Laffont in the Figaro Littéraire: “The substance of Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s teaching at Pondicherry ashram.” I don’t know when we will succeed in unsticking Mother from that Mailbox, but we must seriously knead all of that. This journey (to France) is quite necessary. Mother must be “globalized.” Meanwhile, the snake-pit is stirring, in Auroville as in Pondicherry. R. had a very symbolic vision these last few days: a big fallen tree, from where scorpions and snakes were teeming down. This is exactly the tree of Auroville, which is being shaken in order to make all the small “dasyus” come out. A cleanup, in fact. Lord, when will we have finished cleaning those muddy holes? It seems to be endless and innumerable. If you only knew what kind of letters I receive! — I seem to hear Mother’s voice as if She were leading me along Her path at a gallop.
The journey [to France] ... It is very kind of you to
take an interest in the staggering blow awaiting us — I know it very well; every
time I went back to France, I fell ill. But La Ferte
[Micheline’s country house] is not of any help — we have to plunge into it,
that’s all, and to assimilate. I have a sort of faith in Mother giving me a
shield this time, it is not possible otherwise. Anyway, I am overtaken by
events, which is the best possible state. I am completely inexistent, more and
more inexistent and blind. She will have to do, if She wants it to be
done at all. I see nothing, but I feel a “new curve” (for everyone)....
We are going to walk, that is sure, we are going to do Mother’s Work, to prepare the New World, and to struggle for the only thing that is worthwhile in this Nonsense of the world.
Satprem
May 5, 1977
My Douce says: “As if every day after May 20 will be a danger.” We decide to leave for Paris on May 19, from Bombay.
May 8, 1977
(To Micheline)
... Yes, it is very warm and impersonal at the same
time, and in this very impersonality there lies a clear, quiet love, all the
more vast as there is no knot of ego to strangle it.... It is beginning. It has
begun. We are going straight to that. We are entering that. I have a very strong
impression that major things are in the air and that all depends on our ability
to enter this Light or to bear it. Some will not be able. Over-life is right
here, among a kind of growing disaster. But it is only the disaster of the Mind.
The Tower of Babel is becoming so crazy that one day, suddenly, things will be
irreversible — everything will drop from our hands into a something
that will be on the frontier of madness and of marvelous laughter. Just a little
frontier, but we will be on this side or on the other. We are preparing for
That, or rather we are being prepared....
Pierre’s Mantra? It is really for him to find or feel the answer. I think Mother comes in in any case, under any pretext and by all possible means, provided there is a little hole in the carapace — a crack. “By any means you choose,” Sri Aurobindo said. In Paris I will make you listen to Mother repeating her mantra, two weeks before our last meeting.... For me, it is that simple. We have repeated it together so often. It is full of Her (for me). It can be translated in a very simple way: I bow to You, Supreme Lord.
That’s it.
I bow to You.
Supreme Lord.
Supreme Lord.
That is all.
With love
Satprem
May 16, 1977
I go furtively into Sri Aurobindo’s room and rest my forehead on the arm of his chair.
May 19, 1977
Arrival in Paris.
June 3. 1977
Mercier
the lawyer: the way of The Agenda is open.
I see a skyscraper burning.
June 22, 1977
(To N. from Auroville)
I don’t forget you, I have received your kind letters and the sale amounts. Here we are hewing our way, banging at doors — many unexpected receptivities amidst a chaos that looks like the end of the world. A world nearing its end, that’s it. And the “new thing” we are triggering, or rather which is triggered through the books. Nothing to say: we have to do. May the prayers of you all accelerate the Moment. What you are and do over there matters a lot to the whole world. We must not get bogged down in small stories: we are living a great Story. We have to be true, that’s all.
With you, with all my brothers and sisters
very fraternally
Satprem
The incense from Aspiration burns each day in my bedroom, along with a bit of their hearts to disperse the darkness of the world — tell them.
July 4, 1977
I am going to wage battle for You: Chancel66 (France-Culture)67 at 5 p.m. Another kind of onslaught: interviews, people....
July 14, 1977
Founding
of the
Institut de Recherches Evolutives.68 My letter to Messrs
Trustees in order to announce the publication of The Agenda.
July 22, 1977
Registration of the statutes of the Institut.
End of July 1977
Back to India.
August 5, 1977
Meeting with Indira (also met Rajiv and his lip-sticked wife, and Sanjay).69
August 6, 1977
(Personal Letter)
... Yes, it is important to materialize without wasting
time. Perhaps there is a mistake in the right perception of time, but it becomes
more and more obvious that the world turning draws nearer. We must be ready at
the right Hour. One day, we will understand the punctuality of our gestures. The
situation in India is steadily deteriorating. Inertia, Tamas,
added to the reigning obscurity, seem to call for radical interventions in order
to compel things and people to be what they must be, or to perish. Yesterday, I
had a long meeting with Indira, in private, for one hour. She was listening. I
gave her the Mantra. I have the impression that our tapes must quickly follow
the Agenda [= Safety in France] — the problem is to know if we can have
them duplicated here (that is, if we have the time), or shall we have to send
them on without duplicates and to do the work there? Once again, we will need
the help of our devoted friends, Yolande and Jeh [J.R.D. Tata]. Perhaps in
September? I have just phoned to Jeh. He cannot come to Delhi right now. There,
too, some pretext will perhaps occur so that I can go and see him in Bombay. I
feel it necessary for us to meet. Strange how all the sincerities, there and
here, are at the Hour of meeting. I am always looking toward China. For the same
reasons, “spiritualism” is collapsing here, as “materialism” is collapsing
there. How the third Position will arise, that is the question — but it will
arise anyway.
With C.P.N. Singh, we talked about our coming back to
Pondy and immediately agreed to face up to things, in spite of the news Abhay
Singh told us on the phone, warning us that in Pondy they were setting everyone
against Satprem (or setting him up). I feel they are powerless. The Thing has
slipped from their fingers. Now I can quietly look at their little thrashings
about. I heard from Ranju that Nolini did not want to sign the famous trustees’
letter,70 but Andre intervened, besieging Nolini for an hour and
a half!! Everything is clear. He is the most stinking of them all. He is
settling his family scores with the outsider that I am, who was bold enough to
monopolize his mother. They are microscopic. Pourna was so worked up about it
that she got jaundice. Their dwarf stories will pass, while we are unshakeably
doing the Work, and unperturbed. Sometimes, it is good to feel oneself so free.
We don’t remember enough that we come
from a great realm of vastness. We are flying to Madras on Monday evening, the
8th.
PS: Champaklal71 is in Delhi, back from the first foothills of the Himalayas with pneumonia. Kumud and Pranab managed to make him give the keys back: he will no longer have access to Mother’s room. So be it. Little by little, the elements of Truth are mercilessly discarded so that the place can be destroyed.
August 9, 1977
Back to Nandanam. In the canyons, I had the impression of drinking the silence through all the pores of my skin.
August 10, 1977
(Fragment of a personal letter)
... I still have the impression — almost an obvious fact — that it is from India that the big world Turning will start. We feel that serious events are in preparation here.
During the night, while flying to Geneva, I suddenly found the key to the little sentence in Morisset’s letter: “Several times, Mother showed me the cupboard of the Agenda in her room” = Satprem stole the papers contained in this cupboard, at Mother’s.
As soon as I had let C.P.N. read Morisset’s letter, he understood at once: you will be accused of theft. (!!)
It is amusing, we have a lot of fun with Mother.
Satprem
August 12, 1977
Start
of the printing of volume I in English [The Divine Materialism].
August 13, 1977
(To friends in Paris)
My good friends,
I am in such a whirl since being back in India that I don’t have time to write. The stay in Delhi brought many clarifications about the situation of the country. All that perfectly echoes the situation of the Ashram and of Auroville, we are facing the same contesting forces and the same acceleration. Everything works together. One day, things will “click,” and the world will get it....
... Andre and Pourna have been saying everywhere that the “book on Mother was Satprem s own invention and had nothing to do with the facts.” ... All that is ridiculous. I am waiting for the release of our first volume: it is the key of the battle for the Agenda. Clearly, the Ashram is the core of the resistance to the Work....
August 23, 1977
Forty Aurovilians under arrest.
Cabled to E. Faure, Jaigu,72 Tata....
August 24, 1977
(From Sujata to Micheline)
Dear
Micheline,
Just a note in a hurry. Sent you this morning a telegram announcing the brutal and arbitrary arrest of thirty-eight Aurovilians, including thirteen- or fourteen-year-old people. The prisoners are of all nationalities — French (the majority of them), Indian, Swiss, Australian, German, Tunisian, etc.
N. is preparing a report which she will send as soon as ready.
We have also informed Edgar Faure, Yves Jaigu and Therese de Saint-Phalle, in order to make UNESCO intervene and to put pressure on the Embassy of India in Paris.
For your part, see what you can do with all our friends. M. D. is among last night’s prisoners.
Delhi has been informed.
The impression of us all: this is the last act of the S.A.S. The story that began with the hut and the arrest of the eight [in 1976] must end in this new arrest of the thirty-eight.
With love
Sujata
*
(Letter from Satprem to Thérèse de Saint-Phalle, a French novelist.)
Therese,
In haste, I send you a copy of the telegram I sent you
this morning (in case it was intercepted by the police.) So, the “owners” of
Auroville have just sent thirty-eight recalcitrant Aurovilians to jail, who did
not want their experience to be transformed into a spiritual business. The
“rights of man” begin simply with the possibility of living one’s own conception
without being put in prison by a new Church in league with
the police. The existence of Auroville has been officially recognized for years
by UNESCO, it has been ratified by the French Government and other governments.
Will this spiritual swindle by a handful of unscrupulous businessmen be allowed
to develop with impunity? Those men are the same who want to take me to court to
prevent me from publishing Mother’s Agenda unabridged. They claim to be
the “owners” of Auroville, the “owners” of the Ashram, the “owners” of Mother,
the “owners” of Sri Aurobindo — as in Rome or Mecca. (...) Auroville is the
place of a difficult evolutionary experience that needs to be protected against
the rapacity of the old species. Do you want to help us? We are all alone
against people who have huge financial means at their disposal and can
manipulate the police at their own sweet will. (...)
I am sure you will know how to knock at the right door.
With all my heart, thank you
Satprem
We only ask for an investigation to be opened. I have alerted Chancel and also Edgar Faure. Will they hear?
Can you inform Robert Laffont? He is a good-hearted man, whom I love very much.
August 25, 1977
(Note written by Satprem)
The Asura is committing desperate acts because he knows that he is lost.
These are his last bursts of energy.
*
(Letter to Edgar Faure)
Mr
President,
I took the liberty of cabling you the news of the brutal arrest of thirty-eight Aurovilians, including twenty-six Frenchmen, by a bribed police. The project of Auroville, officially recognized by the French Government and UNESCO, came into the hands of unscrupulous swindlers since Mother’s departure. The evolutionary experience the Mother had conceived of, and of which Auroville was to be a sort of laboratory, has become the “property” of dubious businessmen who are trying to turn this international experience into a lucrative new Church and who do not hesitate to put in prison, to cut off means of subsistence and to blackmail in all possible ways the handful of sincere men who left their countries for that. (...) All the “black money” of India is behind this “spiritual” fraud. (...)
When I met you last July with Mrs Lucie Faure, I told you that we are not at the end of a civilization but at the end of an evolutionary cycle and that the real question of our time is to find the instrument of consciousness which will work out the transition to a new species. Will France, once again, come to participate in this new revolution of consciousness and to protect freedom?
Thanking you with all my heart, Mr President, I want to tell you how highly I think of you. My deep regards to Mrs Lucie Faure.
Satprem
August 30, 1977
Release of the first volume: The Divine Materialism.73
*
(Personal
letter about the preparation of the first volume of The Agenda, in which I was
including the letters I wrote to Mother during the first years.)
... I wanted to cut and it did not want to let itself be cut. Sujata tried to help me cut and still it was unwilling. In short, a rebellious correspondence. So I put in everything (or almost everything)! Thus the bits of the puzzle will be more or less complete. Almost 180 pages of correspondence. “Miraculously,” Mother had carefully kept all my correspondence until 1961 in her room — She probably knew what She was doing. For after 1961, the rest of my correspondence remained downstairs with Pavitra, that is, now with Morisset, thus fit for the fire or the wastebasket — or Ganpatram’s papier-mache (it would not be so bad, after all, to end up in pretty Tamil colors beneath little vanilla gods). It would be better than to be torn up like Pavitra’s notebooks.74 So, you will see the gratings and evasions and cries of Satprem the beginner. Finally, it is not Satprem but a certain human specimen in which some will recognize themselves, and Satprem’s battle, ultimately, was part of Mother’s battle, the battle for the new world. I realize now to what extent one had to go through the ordeal by fire so as to ... well, to be there with Her. Nobody can realize.
I also rewrote an Introduction. A peculiar piece, too.
I am increasingly reduced to mental imbecility and no longer know what I am
writing — what is astonishing is that, even so, it comes to something in the
end. Sujata is there to reassure me. The other night, I “dreamed” that I no
longer knew even how to shave: I held a contraption in my hand and no longer
knew how to do it. The old habit seems to collapse. But it makes for a curious
state, which looks much like
the “idiocy” Mother would speak of. May it be an effective idiocy!
.........
I am reeling from my work, it is frightful; I never stop, it is worse than in Paris and it has been so for months. I am in the midst of it like a stunned automaton. When you no longer understand anything, then things can be done automatically. But it takes a long time to let yourself be stunned.
.........
All the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are falling into
place: the first volume in English is coming out today in Madras and will soon
fly to the United States. The first volume of The Agenda will fly off
tomorrow with Janine. The cases of tapes will fly off any day now, as soon as
Yolande arrives (our friend from Bombay will pick up the parcels himself in
Delhi). Significantly, there is complete “concordance,” as if the Hour were
drawing nearer. This materialization of The Agenda is crucial. We don’t know what deep seism we are triggering — soon the small waves, or the big wave,
should be surging on the surface. It is the time between the deep core, the
epicentre, and the surface that we do not know. You see, strangely enough, I
went to France as if there was not a single day to waste and the hour was about
to come, then I came back to India as if there was not a single day to waste —
in fact, for two years or more, I have been living as if every hour counted, as
if things were imminent. We began this first volume of Mother in Madras, feeling
it was so urgent. And all the time, this feeling of imminence. But nothing is
happening apparently. So, I wondered why this hurry, this feeling — am I
mistaken? Are all our calculations and hopes wrong? Then I had a sort of visual
answer to my question: suddenly, I saw Montparnasse Station, and the train that
gets there at 10:49. But to arrive at 10:49 at Montparnasse, it has to be on
time in Auray, Laval, Le Mans,
Versailles-Chantiers.75 There will be a day when it will be 10:49
of the New World, there will be a minute when it will take place in time.
So, we have to be right on time all the way, there is not one single second to
be lost anywhere, and we will arrive at the Station of the New World at the
right moment. That is why I always keep feeling this imminence, this anxiety of
the exact minute, as if there were no minute to waste, anywhere. That’s how it
is. So I don’t know when we will arrive at Montparnasse Station, but we are
going there. One day, it will be 10:49 of the New World. When we’ll be at
the station, we will understand everything....
.........
Apart from that, I have observed a very strange phenomenon. Since being back, my body is exhausted, as if battered, especially my back which is aching, with a kind of feeling that I carry the weight of eighty years in my bones. And I realized that I did not feel this in Paris, even in the midst of all that expenditure of energy, when I was seeing people for seven hours in a row. I suddenly understood then this weariness I felt before leaving India and which disappeared at once in Bombay — and is coming back now. I understand Mother more and more, when She said: “I am not quite sure that all those pains it (the body) feels all over, all the time, aren’t coming from ... aren’t the effect of all those bad wills.” One has the impression of an “organized” thought directed at me. “Organized,” what does it mean? In any case, one feels dead beat. That aside, everything is apparently quiet. I go for a walk in the canyons (whenever I can) with a bodyguard. Auroville is growing and blossoming, it is beginning to touch the miracle of the new law — the small light law. One sees Mother’s hand everywhere, in every detail.
And the secret consists in saying: that is Yours, Yours, For
You....And when one is perfectly crushed, then it springs forth very well.
... Our friends Pierre and Micheline have worked hard
and I would like them to read The Agenda, but not the photocopies, which
are incomplete or have been corrected since then ... I want them to be the first
to have our Treasure. They
trusted without even knowing what it was about — even the gods will remember.
August 31, 1977
(To Micheline)
... Corruption here is incredible, up and down the ladder. I have the impression that India is about to be severely put to test in order to be purified. Perhaps that is why the tapes, after the papers, are flying off to France. Your dream about the submerged box struck me by its repetitiveness.... You know that the Veda (that is, Knowledge) has been engulfed at every pralaya [dissolution of the universe] and that every time the gods had to pull the Veda out of the depths of the oceans to begin a new world afresh. Perhaps this time we shall avoid the pralaya, and the Knowledge of the new path will not be engulfed once again. It is a formidable battle: I am happy you are with us, like brothers, understanding the tremendous thing that is at stake....Mother is very materially here to help us. It only takes a bit of right attitude and a call in the heart for everything to change and to miraculously open. Go on, work and wage the battle against the “hundred-headed hydra” — Victory is certain.
September 3, 1977
(Letter from Satprem to his mother)
My little mother,
Here is a feather from our blue bird, which I picked up
on the canyon path. Strange how life is found in those little moments “of
nothing.” We have added up a lot of things, subtracted
a lot of things, and those little nothings make up the total sum.
You should come and see me this winter. Nandanam is overflowing with trees and bamboo and bougainvilleas as luxuriant as a virgin forest after the rain. It is marvelously beautiful to see the sky again with the stars that we had forgotten in Paris. Yet this journey back to Europe was very rich: I found many hearts there, many questioning people, a life inside as if the world had awakened from a too correct middle-class nightmare. It is full of hope. I liked my old Jacqueline a lot and each and everyone. Jacqueline is the one who called me a last time from a phone box right in the middle of her mountains. She is solid and reliable at her post. And Marie-Claire and Babeth, so full of density. You see, the more eccentric you are, the nearer you are to everyone’s centre! All you have to do is to get out of yourselves, this is the true eccentricity!
... Morisset insinuates everywhere that he is going to take me to court. It is charming. But I could not care less and I carry on. I understand so well now why Mother had chosen a rebel like me. All those “proprietors” are already dead and dusty, their new lucrative Rome will crumble, faced with a very impertinent new world. I have always been very fond of impertinence! So I go straight ahead and to hell with proprietors. There are also the owners of Auroville who have just put thirty-eight Aurovilians in jail — we are exerting ourselves, it is very amusing to battle against these old fogeys. Of course, I remember Rohu and cops-and-robbers. I have always been a “robber,” mind you! Rohu or the Auroville canyons go well together. One always goes on being what one is. It seems that Auroville now forms “Satprem’s army”! You see. We have great fun from time to time, though they are ferocious. Old Morisset is the most furious of them all with his daughter Pourna — in short, I have disturbed the “family,” as is my wont.
So, come and see me, we will have a bit of a laugh
together, while looking at the blue birds and the passing clouds. The wind
looks like a river flowing through the bamboo. Life is weightless behind
everything. Sujata is my rest and my quiet foundation.
We kiss you
very tenderly
Satprem
September 4, 1977
Received a telegram from E. Faure.
September 5, 1977
(To friends in Paris)
... The time for euphemisms is over. I think of G.G. [a disciple of Gandhi’s], with whom I had to speak very forcefully, and I am not sure that he really understood. Mother used to speak of the “black and sticky fingers of Falsehood” slipping into everything — and now I can see them materially everywhere — an octopus. The cherished and chosen victims are the spiritualist brains which are not yet out of their immaculate meditations and white-clothed nonviolences. Those Aurovilians are full of falseness and spiritual mistakes. It is easy to attack them. As G.G. says: “We want an evolution, not a revolution.” All the arguments are in their mouths: the holier it is, the stickier.... They forget that Sri Aurobindo was a revolutionary and denounced the “moderates” who wanted to obtain independence from the British by means of petitions and speeches. They forget Krishna on the battlefield....
So I see those black and sticky fingers everywhere and
I doubt very much whether any action will not be annulled or paralyzed on the
way by those invisible fingers. One has to
try, that’s all. One has to bring the battle into the broad daylight so that no
one ignores it — those who can or whc want to understand will understand. The
choice has to be made, more and more imperative and uncompromising.
.........
India is moving faster and faster toward a dangerous and incurable situation, unless it gets a big blow (where will it come from?). They are just about to put Indira Gandhi in prison. The situation is getting muddier and muddier
Hence the importance of the Agenda as an invisible leaven ... What force will be unleashed around it to impede?...
... We must battle on all sides, with all our arms, for Mother to be irremediably on the move. It is this moving that will ultimately bring down all obstacles, much more than all the Edgars Faures and vacillating UNESCOs. You are the active knights of this battle.
September 7, 1977
(To André Brincourt, after his wife Jane’s passing on.)
Andre,
There seems to be a fairy-like and marvelous secret at
the core of the human being — not his “spiritual” core: in his body. Perhaps
because it is the last hiding place of the “soul,” this very secret something
that we don’t really know, whether we are spiritualist or materialist. It is
like a very special gold which has the power to change all: just a little shot
of “that,” a little second of that, and our sacred laws collapse — no more far
away or over there, yesterday or tomorrow, heaviness or death. A different
physical gravitation, really. A formidable hole in our mathematical and armored
fishbowl. This Secret is the memory of our fairy tales, an old memory that one
finds everywhere, tenacious and irrepressible. We have clothed it with religions
and philosophies;
Science tried to capture this impertinent bird and do better than it, through
electronics or Boeings 707s. Others, too, tried to surpass it through
meditations and evangelizations and “salvations” (my God), in a beyond which is
right here, precisely in a magical little cell. Everyone tried to trap the bird
in their own way: it was this way in Thebes, that way in Eleusis, through magic
and occultism and celestial excursions — others, in Athens, tried to shut it in
some Apollonian marvel or a few Raphaelite lines ... Everyone tried in their own
way. And one keeps dying and dying, because one has not still caught hold of
the right way. Death is meant to oblige us to catch the true way, to break
the old formula that is trapping us: there are occult and mathematical and
religious formulas; there are our aesthetic or democratic little formulas, our
special little places for taming the bird. And it all breaks and breaks again,
because we have not found the Secret, because one must find the Secret.
When, for one second, we open our eyes to the true Secret, then we so materially touch the futility, the enormous illusion of the fishbowl of mathematical and medical death we are shut in, that we are filled with wonder. We wonder how we managed to live for so many years in such a thing, repeating our little story. We can see, we can touch another physical world where none of that exists. It is a formidable ghost of gravitation and of equations, of the far away and high up and the day after tomorrow. Then we emerge into the truth, the True Earth, with our eyes wide open. If the “soul,” for one second, emerges into that, everything topples. The “other one,” the child on the outside, who plays with mathematics or biology or the Figaro,76 understands nothing: he is stupid. And he says: “Oh! how strange, what a nice poem, a pretty little wink,” then ... it is over. After all, that is “life.” And it takes centuries, many centuries for that big human personage to consent to his living fairy tale.
Jane,
one day, opened her true eyes, but on the outside she was hardly aware of it,
except that it produced an unusual little vibration. But inwardly, she
knew. Inwardly, we all know, we all remember, it is our golden memory. It is our
true “self,” the one who is dressed as a Red-Indian, a Prime Minister, a
Japanese, a clergyman or a gangster, in a thousand ways. And if this self
realizes that the other one, there on the outside, is stuck in an old story he
cannot get out of in which he no longer makes progress, he breaks the thread and
“leaves,” death is a hoax. He goes and dresses himself again in white, as a
Russian, a poet or a vagrant, in order to keep walking and walking — because he
moves toward his living Secret at last, on a true, fulfilled earth where all
gravitations crumble into dust in front of a different Gravitation, a light and
magical one. Then, on the outside, we shout and cry, moan and understand
nothing, but inside there is someone who understands very well and leaves the
old clothes like a worn-out story. Inside, there is a different, magical gaze,
which sees far and far away and before and after, which sees the long story
where, one day, at last, we will be able to be that in a body fitted with two
legs. And at times, this gaze loses patience at the outer little stupidity which
goes on with its fuss as usual, when there is such a marvel to live, to embody.
And if the outer one understands nothing or does not want to change, he breaks
the mould to go further, to find the body where the soul will make itself at
home, where the soul will be its own body at last. And it will be a fairy tale
forever and every day on the earth.
Jane was winked at by that Truth, and as she is a determined soul, fearless and uncompromising, she said “What the heck!” and that’s it.
As for us, who remain in our very gravitational and
gravitating skin, in our pain asking the true question at last, we can continue
on the new path without necessarily breaking the old mould; we can consciously
build up a connection with our Secret, our magical power, our enchantment
forever and every day — we can leave the old habit of being, like
a dying man endowed with mathematics and the Figaro, and lightly try the
real Adventure — hasten the hour, open the doors of the body. Why not?
This is the Divine Materialism.
It is the hour of freed bodies ... if only we accept to believe in our fairy tale. If only the Earth, instead of neutrons and dynamite, accepts to choose the door of the light Smile.
Jane understood that better. And perhaps she is asking her companion to take the plunge and find the place where the walls of the mortal fishbowl melt away as if by magic. Then they will have a good laugh together.
It is the hour when one can. It is the hour when the Earth can. And heaven will be found on earth. And death will never have been.
I embrace you,
Satprem
September 10, 1977
Start of the japa-walk.
Like a small electrode of Mother in the bath of mud.
September 11, 1977
(Personal Letter)
Champaklal wept this morning when Sujata gave him
The Divine Materialism ... He remembered the time when Mother talked to me —
sometimes, he remained crouching in a corner, looking at us: he had never seen
that. Now, he is off again, alone. He is all alone and despoiled. The Ashram is
the last refuge of the Asura. Nava is only a rakshasa and protects us, in
fact, from the direct intervention of the Asura.77
Should the Ashram begin to infiltrate Auroville by “opening its arms,” it would
be a disaster and a danger far worse than this rakshasa. I think Mother
is wisely guiding the duration of Navajata — everything is marvelously
calculated, to the second, and down to the last thread, only we are not aware of
it, or else we’d be so stunned ... And those idiots from Auroville who are
already speaking of “entering into dialogue” with the Ashram, with the Ashramite
“brothers” and “sisters” ... People are immensely futile. And if I made it my
business to tell them that they must not open their arms to the Ashram, I would
be classified among the fanatics once and for all — then, when they have been
stabbed in the back, it will be too late. It is the way of men. I can see it
more and more: spiritual falsehood is the worse enemy and the subtlest hiding
place of the Enemy. This spirituality must really die along with this
materiality. The former is not better than the latter. It is one and the same
falsehood. See Gandhi. Well... I wonder when I will come face to face with
that. Probably as soon as everything is ready. Sometimes I tell myself that
I carry a strange burden on my shoulders. I understand myself better and better
in the past! Every step of my old journey was preparing me in every detail.
It is not funny. Yet at times, I feel like laughing at everything. Yes, “the day
I will really laugh, things will change,” Mother would say. How I understand
everything better and better. It is vertiginous. But in the meanwhile, we are
blind and walk step by step.
The path is accomplished, you understand: they have accomplished it.
Ah, I assure you, it will happen in spite of all our
reasons or unreasons. There is something else to catch. It is this bird that we
have to capture! (When I was a child, they were always telling me, as I was
fascinated by birds, “You see, it’s simple, if you put a grain of salt on the
tail of this blackbird, you
will catch it.” I don’t know if I was carrying about a saltcellar, but...)
(...) Yes, I wondered whether our IRE78 (it suddenly reminds me of Dies irae Dies ilia, which is sung, I think, for the Apocalypse or the Judgment Day, that is, the resurrection of the dead, isn’t it?) would not have, by chance, an infinitely vaster and unexpected part to play in the future. Here, our friend Kireet79 has managed to register his Mother’s Institute of Research in the end.
In due time, we should have an Institute in every big country (in America, Germany, etc., as in India) which would be in charge of the distribution of the Agenda. The Goal, the great Goal (unless the little bird comes and changes everything on the way) is to release Mother from their spiritual and ashramic business and to place it all on a “scientific” plane of research. No business, except the minimum required for the work to be run. People must not join as if it were a church, nor even a “group.” Basically, a true man will be needed in every country, a kind of knight of Mother (as I found Boni in Italy, for instance). Let’s beware of all the old cliques, the “disciples” of Sri Aurobindo and Mother — these are the worse. (...)
Your “So, it is possible!” touched me so much. I have
never been told anything truer. Satprem-Bernard is exactly that, in fact: so, if
this uncouth fellow has been able to open himself to the Thing ... then
it is possible! I remember, on that day of November 18 or 19, 1973, as I was
there staring Mother straight in the eye and asking with such intensity: “Why
did you go, why? You dropped everything ...” I seemed to hear a rather
thundering voice, like Mother’s when She was very angry, or pretending to be
angry (but “thundering” without thunder, with just the pressure of
Consciousness, like
a mixture of Kali and Krishna), answering my challenge or my pain or my reproach
for having dropped it all: “Well, do it!”
It was a little frightening. But She actually may want her unbearable children to do the work a little, to try a little, so that it would spring up from them and She would not have everything to do by Herself. She hewed the path. But She wants us to walk on the path. Well, do it!
We don’t know what we have to “do,” but the main thing is to walk on the invisible path to render it visible.
So, we are walking together.
Satprem
September 14, 1977
The police ask for “Satprem’s book” (The Divine Materialism) at Honesty Bookhouse [a bookshop connected with the Ashram], and “take notes.”
September 20, 1977
Received a telegram: B. (Auropress) writes to Laffont that he has finished printing the first volume of the Agenda!... the false Agenda.
*
(Personal letter)
This morning, I received the first copy of the
Agenda, which arrived late because the messenger had toured India, and it
gave me a kind of deep satisfaction, as if an important step had been taken.
Then, an hour later, your telegram announcing that the “vulture” (Barun, I
suppose) had printed a first volume of the Agenda, of which he had
informed Laffont...
It is strange, you must admit. As recently as yesterday evening, I told Sujata:
It is a race, we are racing against something, but what? We don’t know.
And I told her: it is only a lull before the tempest. How well she guessed in
Paris: we must print, materialize the Agenda immediately, without
delaying until this winter. We are taking steps in the dark, we don’t know why
we are in a hurry, but our night is a clairvoyant one, after all. And who knows
what is still lying in wait ... It is only the beginning. We then see the
formidable battle which is being waged on every side to impede Mother’s Work at
all costs. And we are only a few little men here and there, facing tremendous
forces.
.........
Be that as it may, all that is part of the now well-known “technique” of the Enemy: to sow confusion — there will be the “true” Agenda and the “false” Agenda, as there is Auroville and the Society. They will sow their little imposture in America and in all countries, and each time I will meet with this false “Agenda” — and people will be sure to say: this is a rivalry, there is something true on both sides, something false on both sides, so why don’t they embrace one another? Bah! One can clearly see those black and sticky fingers of Falsehood slipping into everything, soiling and confusing everything.
There is nothing to do, only to wait. In the depths of
my heart (though a little less in my physical consciousness) I have faith in
Mother letting them make only the mistakes they need to destroy themselves. But
we can clearly see that only destruction, or rather a total disintegration will
be able to uproot it all. Legal means, here or there, are only the means of
Falsehood and I doubt much whether we can really win the battle through that
means alone. (...) One actually becomes aware of the immensity of the battle
when one sees the fierceness with which the Enemy rushed on Auroville and on me.
Were Mother’s protection not there, I would have been torn to pieces a long time
ago — together with Auroville and the Agenda. But they are mistaken. Mother’s Work cannot perish. The new Truth will not be engulfed once again by Falsehood
and Churches or businessmen. We are here for that — a handful of brothers and
sisters with generous and living hearts. A little handful to save the world. It
seems strange, but that’s how it is. Nothing fancy, fortunately.
We are led to take all the right steps — our burning pain and anguish lie in not knowing as we take them that they are right. So we go “just like that” but this “just like that,” what is it?!
... And this morning, we were told that the trustees had put an announcement on the Ashram notice-board, saying: “The only authentic books on Mother and Sri Aurobindo are those published by Ashram Press.”
.........
Everything is right. Let us arm ourselves with prayer and powerful love. I embrace you and also all my brothers and sisters.
Satprem
September 21, 1977
Vision of the false Mother and of the false Sri Aurobindo: “Are you ready to die?” — If it can serve Your work.
September 24, 1977
Threatening letter from the trustees to Macmillan and all the Indian booksellers.
I know that there is a golden door behind which a flow of delicious and burning tears awaits, and all is over.
September 25. 1977
A mysterious vision
A
tunnel: on one side, huge black elephants, as black as coal, lined up like a
wall; on the other side, formidable hounds and horrible lions — I rush to this
side and run across while one of these hounds catches my arm; I get out of it
into a huge, muddy expanse of water, like a flood. And suddenly: the Control
Tower where all past and future events are inscribed. Then, I know.
September 27, 1977
(Letter to the West)
Is there anything new in the West?
A civilization after so many others, which seems to be completing its cycle with a devouring marvel, as did Thebes before with a marvel of occult knowledge in the midst of its ochre cliffs, as did Greece and Rome with other, more gracious but not less mortal marvels, as did India earlier with stagnant spiritual marvels. But no one caught the Marvel, because it is the only thing one cannot die of. And all these vain cycles were perhaps meant to make us catch, all things considered and at the end of all our worn-out considerations, the only thing we do not die of. But what does not die in this cosmic business — even little birds.
Every species dies, or annihilates itself in a stagnant round — this is the only “law” everyone can agree on. We are not even sure that stagnant species are not fossils in waiting.
Or else a marvelous spiral projecting us from one
planet to another and from one galaxy to another — because even galaxies die —
always toward another marvel, and further marvels
which are each time devoured. But the marvel of what in the end, since we always
end up in a pitiful little corpse — barring a cosmic glance that would reward us
one day for our pains and make us see this little corpse in waiting, this little
fossil, this powder of triumphant atoms, as the eternal Play of some theatrical
consciousness affording the luxury of a million and a billion corpses just for
the sake of it. Then, suddenly, we cannot help approving our atheistic
materialism which perfectly spat in the face of eastern wisdom — which, by the
way, is crumbling perfectly down, as well as our materialist cycle ... and
perhaps for the same reasons.
No marvel, then, in any past or future galaxy? Only a little man struggling and toiling from one planet to another, with a few illusory joys and resounding triumphs or even a few prolonged molecules for us to have the pleasure of watching our small, hardly brilliant story for two or four hundred years more.
No, there will be no marvel so long as there is a body — molecules — that dies. Because what makes a little body die is what makes a whole cycle die, or a whole galaxy — it is one and the same “law.” It is not a question of becoming immortal : it is a question of finding what it is that makes one die of it. If we held this secret or this law, we would change all the universes or our way of being within these universes and perhaps it would be the Marvel at last — if only we were willing to think that all this damned evolutionary business had some aim of joy and plenitude in a way, instead of being like a perpetually failed opportunity.
This is how there could be something new in the West, precisely because we are materialists and seek the triumph of Matter and not of a little spirit up above in the clouds. We are fond of laws, mechanisms and levers: to knead this Matter and extract its secrets from it. To find the law of death, what creates death. Not to “heal” it, but the mechanism : the wherefore of death.
As for healing, we have healed nothing: we invent
artifices, in
other words monsters that we stick onto the “something” that makes for death. It
works for a while. Then we have to invent more and more monstrous monsters — for
a monster can only last as long as it becomes more and more monstrous: such is
its law, as that of the megatheres of the tertiary, until it destroys itself, as
did those other monsters, that is, those other artifices, with their yogic or
occult cures in India and in Thebes. Up to now we have handled artifices, from
one cycle to the other, with a spiritual or less spiritual face. Apes, too, and
cockatoos, when they nibble at a liana or a pistachio, use an artifice: a beak,
teeth. Our special artifice, after the crab’s pincer, in this human cycle, is
our brain. It is our special pincer to handle Matter. It is our artifice, our
chosen monster. And the Marvel still eludes us.
Are we going to die without finding the Secret, our evolutionary secret? A Thebes of scrap iron. And if there is no secret, no evolutionary goal, then we are right to die, as soon as possible or as smoothly as possible. But what if there were a Secret?
What could the other instrument be like, which
would handle Matter directly: without pincers or a beak or an electronic
microscope? We have completed many cycles, but have only improved on the law of
the crab — our electronic crabs are not more advanced than simple crabs: they
only serve other, temporary aims, just as mortal as the previous ones. A matter
without artifice would be a Matter able to transform itself, without teeth,
arms, crushers, or even a little brain. The brain that honors us might well be
the last vestige or residue of the flagellates’ first form of propulsion: a way
of managing things “better.” All these successive instruments — better and
better, or worse and worse, as we prefer — might be meant, in an evolutionary
perspective, to lead us to the point where there is no instrument at all: direct
Matter (if we may say so) transforming itself through its own power instead of
seizing “external” materials to mix to itself or add up, subtract or divide
itself, or feed itself and die in the end. The instrument might well be the
screen of something
else: the pincer grows bigger and bigger, as did the saurian or the Boeing 707,
and finally crutches replace man. His particular artifice becomes his particular
death. Death, perhaps because he leans on something other than himself, eats
something other than himself, kills something other than himself, “thinks” of
something other than himself — everything is “something other” handled by
external means. Everything is an artifice to replace the one “something” that
would have power or a direct existence. This is the point where death
lies. This is where evolution could suddenly divide in two — are we dreaming?
Then let us dream indeed — as with the walls of Jericho or of China, or before
and after the great geological foldings, between the sum total of the old
instrumental cycles (the old evolution), from the flagellate to the crab to man,
and a new evolution without instruments, without any artifice — without death.
Because what made death was perhaps the fact that we did not find the direct
power of Matter, the reality of Matter: what it is, and therefore,
what it can do.
Could it be that we are at the evolutionary point where Matter, increasingly awakened and developed through its own instruments, as a child awakened and developed through his own two legs plus a sum of dictionaries that teach him what is “outside” of him, discovers at last its own driving force and instantly knows, instantly feeds itself, instantly moves and instantly transforms itself? Where is death for that which transforms itself at every moment? Death is what fossilizes itself in a pincer, a radicle or a brain — it is an evolutionary strategy to move from one species to the other and ceaselessly transform this primal Matter, this first “something” that is our ultimate secret.
The only counterpart of the “law” of death and its only
equal is the Law of the transformation of Matter. And all our crabs’ pincers or
electronic superpincers are an aberration or a roundabout evolutionary way, a
small evolutionary convolution meant to lead us to the central, material secret,
where we will move from an evolution of death to an evolution of
joy — let us dream it; in any case, there is no harm in that.
But we who are not dreamers, but the manipulators par excellence, we could perhaps attempt that marvel, if only we knew the process. To create a new evolution, mind you, after Darwin: a post-Darwinian cycle which would call everything into question again and might give a meaning to all those cycles of instrumental misery.
A process — if we do not specially believe in the spiritual somersaults of the ascetics of cosmic consciousness who are bankrupt in the East, anymore than the somersaults of the laboratory ascetics who are bankrupt in the West — is something that must be seized directly in our own bodies (since the site of evolution lies there). The enterprise thus is within any idiot’s reach, since our cerebral pincer is no more the place of the evolutionary transformations than was the cockatoo’s beak before — though every little claw has contributed to the transition. So, the enterprise still requires us to look at our bodies, live our bodies in a somewhat direct way, without our sticking onto it what we think of it, what we know about it, what all our laws and jurists, from the flagellate to the crab to man, have successively decreed, listed and put in an equation. So, this is a first manner to undo the habit of being a man in order to be the “something” that successively clothed itself with urticating hairs, a carapace or a white skin — precisely this “something.” A something that lives at every moment, beats at every moment, on the boulevard in a suit as much as in this pretty little bowl with its anemones. It is not something to be placed in a test tube, but to be tested in ourselves — for once in the whole damned story, to experience what we actually are.
A big question.
More difficult than the test tubes of the chemist.
Yet it is here, at hand or beneath our skin.
The whole evolutionary secret.
And what if we discovered, then, that all our “laws”
are the laws of our heads, just as they were the laws of our pincers
and of our round little eyes in a pretty variegated fishbowl — not more certain,
not more scientific: a human habit of weighing up the world and of pressing on
our mental walls.
This extraordinary experience, so simple, close at hand, might well be our last challenge — we Westerners fitted with a bankrupt electronics but still lovers of Matter. The last experimental field is ourselves, but not in equally bankrupt supracosmic expanses: in a pure little cell. An exact one, as it really is.
And what if we were to discover, behind our mental walls, just as behind our old membranes of this or that kind, a world with another law, an evolution with another law, a life with another law — a death that was only a false way of seeing and of pressing on inexistent, temporarily useful walls ... till the day we reach the unwalled point, in the body. Death was only the false wall that imprisoned us within a way of being in the world, while evolution obviously seeks to include all kinds of ways of being, that is, all kinds of self-transformation.
It is in one’s body that one breaks through the wall.
It is the place of the last secret.
The beginning of a new evolution.
It is Mother’s secret: the Mutation of Death that ultimately is the discovery of Matter as it really is, without walls or membranes, or a little brain or pretty pincers: the place in the body where Matter, after having undone the habit of being either a man or a bat, discovers its living power of constant self-transformation.
Will we remain the prisoners of a little brain and of a few electronic gadgets and die of our chosen monster, or find the secret of the ages at last?
The East and the West are dying. It is not a question
of adding up these excellent quantities and producing some cocktail with the
Veda + Einstein, nor is an archaeopteryx a sudden addition of two reptiles, but
something else, another quantity or a mutation of the same, eternal quantity,
which we
do not yet know and which is not the addition of our virtues but a sudden
mutation in an old habit of being: a breaking point in the wall.
Such is the challenge, in the East as in the West.
The challenge of the Earth.
Are we going to search in the true sense, or let ourselves be deceived once again by cosmic or scientific or Marxist paradises, while the Marvel carries on ever farther off? And what about being truly materialist — perhaps we are not so enough?
What about going in search of our matter right here, our immediate matter walking up and down the boulevard?
What about an experimental evolution in vivo?
It might well be our last adventure.
To draw the next bird from ourselves, which perhaps will not need wings to know its world everywhere because it will have no walls left and will no longer have the habit of being particularly mortal and the prisoner of a plumage.
The breaking point of the next species, such is the problem, in the East as in the West. The secret of a little cell, a pure one, which moves from one skin to another through a million miseries.
Or else the bomb once again, to smash from outside what we did not have the courage to smash from within.
Is there much difference between a Marxist tadpole and a rightist tadpole? Are we going to jump out of the fishbowl and see the marvel of the big world? To indeed change the program, the genetic one.
Nothing new in the West.
Nothing new in the East.
Nor on the right or on the left.
But in a single, pure little cell, a formidable Newness.
Such is the goal of our Institute of Research.
Satprem
September 30, 1977
(Personal letter)
The
hideous task is going on. I think of Sri Aurobindo writing and writing ... I am
competing with him! It is all the more painful as whenever I begin touching this
Falsehood in order to refute, contradict or thwart it, my head seems to plunge
into a mud bath and I no longer understand anything, words don’t come out and I
have to start again ten times, a real torture.
So last night, we received the false Agenda, published by All India Press under the management of Ashram Trust. This is in fact “Notes on the Way,”80 to which they have coldbloodedly given a different title. I am sending you this false Agenda separately, along with the corresponding text of the Bulletin that they have impudently reproduced after having changed the title.
... One must really love Mother not to just pack up and go.
... You feel “frustrated” by the poverty of the “external manifestation,” but I feel terribly poor! One is always poor. One only manages by giving to her, offering one’s poverty for Her to make use of. What is necessary is not to be “brilliant,” but to be pure. When we are so, it is extraordinarily effective, even if the others are not aware of it. Perhaps even it is effective only insofar as the others are not aware of it. We will be “brilliant” later, in a true world — in the meanwhile, we work.
October 3, 1977
Indira
placed under arrest.
*
(Personal Letter)
... A hideous task. I have a pimple in my eye and look like a swollen gargoyle. Sujata is fighting off her cold ... But the day they know about the Institute, the floodgates will be open ... The atmosphere here is pure poison. We will hold on as long as necessary.... We have the impression that we live under a weight. India, too, is sinking quickly into chaos and Falsehood. What matters is our Agenda....
I also sent Laffont my “Letter to the West” — there is something in it. That night, I was galloping on a white onager in a wide open steppe, which seemed to represent the starting, or rather the starting force of the Institute. Then Mother rested her forehead on mine, and the “letter” appeared the next day.
October 6, 1977
Stifled by all this Falsehood. I understand why Mother moaned. It is painful. I also feel Sri Aurobindo’s Compassion very much.
October 7, 1977
(To Edgar Faure)
Mr President,
I was sad to hear that Mrs Lucie Faure passed on. For a minute, before we parted last July, she gazed at me so intensely, asking this one question: can we do it?
Death
was looking out. It is really the only question and the one Power all other
powers would stem from — and because we have not found that, we wander in
our hearts and our thoughts, in our countries and Churches ... in all those ways
of being that are not the true being and the true power.
What is the lever?
She seems to gaze over my shoulder and ask you the question, as if that were what is really worth our staying on for.
There is one lever.
It would not be a new “school,” but something so radically overwhelming. I feel that you can understand, and if, through you, France understood, it would be such an extraordinary page of its History, which would change the world more deeply than all our old revolutions.
One enlightened mind that understands.
And leads the world onto this new track. Then all our unreal conflicts would vanish in front of the one lever that changes everything.
Can we do it?
She is asking you.
In memory of this little patio at the end of the world, where the three of us were together faced with this “change of program,” I tell you of my conviction that you will be helped and inspired provided you seize the true power. It would be like the meaning she looked for up to the end.
With my deepest friendship,
Satprem
October 10, 1977
There is no other choice but to soak oneself in this pain.
October 11, 1977
(Personal letter)
Here
is the leaflet Barun is distributing everywhere — that is, he is sending this to
all my readers!...
There is no anger in me, only such a deep sorrow. It hurts me. It is like a pain that accompanies me all the time. One feels this whole Falsehood on earth and it becomes so painful, and it is so long, the days are unending. All that one can do is to soak oneself in it. How I understand Mother! And you keep telling yourself that things will get better, but they are always worse. I don’t know how long this nightmare will go on. (...)
More and more I feel that it is absolutely necessary to touch scientific circles — physicists are the ones who will best understand Mother and draw unexpected consequences from Mother’s discovery. Several times, while writing these three volumes, I felt that had I been a physicist I could have said very upsetting things — but a physicist, while reading me, would know how to say what I was unable to express in their language. We must contact physicists.
October 12, 1977
Soon the only refuge in this world of Falsehood will be to be put in prison. Let Thy will be done.
October 13, 1977
(Personal letter)
... The situation here is as dangerous as possible.
They are
all lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce — just as at the beginning of ’76,
when Pranab’s teams nearly came. This time, it is more generalized and resolute
(or desperate?). Their will, I feel, is directly guided: Counouma + Barun +
Nava. What do they have in store for us, I don’t know, but it is there. Nava
went to the Pondicherry bookshop and took my three books (the two French volumes
+ the first English volume). Counouma went there a week before (he paid). So I
had ultimately to remove all the deposited books: obviously, they don’t want
Mother. All the Indian booksellers and distributors are likely to have received
orders from the trustees. There is nothing to do in India, everything is rotten
— yes, the Veda has been driven out of India. The Prime Minister glorifies in
drinking his urine and in Mahatma Gandhi. That is what reigns. And the police
are everywhere, special courts and rigged trials. India is rapidly heading
toward a serious state of things....
I don’t believe in any solution, except Mother’s miracle. We are approaching the blackness, the utmost blackness. I put
everything I could in a safe place. I must stay until the end to support the
Aurovilians, or else everything would fall apart, and because my very presence
obliges the enemy to show his true colors. I have the impression that I am tied
up here for some dark sacrifice — but I know Mother’s smile and that She will
untie my bonds at the last minute. But it is a long time coming. In any case, I
feel that Nava this time has decided to get me out of the way, because I am the
only one who impedes his Auroville business, Counouma because I am the only one
who impedes the big ashramic business with a made-to-order Agenda, Barun because
I prevent him from being the proprietor of my books — they are all in league
together. So ... There is a false Mother reigning over the Ashram (there is a
false Sri Aurobindo too), I saw both of them one night, a few weeks ago:
“Mother” pressed my forehead to the ground several times by pushing or rather
hitting me on my nape, then she told me: “Are you ready to die?” I answered:
Yes, if it can serve your work. Then she vanished,
as if fading into the background. And the false Sri Aurobindo with his eyes like
black plates. Ten years ago, Mother had already told me about this false Sri
Aurobindo and Sujata saw this false Mother several years ago — Mother knew. It
is frightening. It reigns supreme. The atmosphere is rotten and full of threats
flitting around like bats. A few nights ago, “they” cut off my head and I agreed
to it: that moment when I consciously took the plunge and went to place my head
on the block was very long. You see, it is both ridiculous and frightening (but
I am not frightened!). We are deep in all kinds of things like this and it
becomes suffocating at times. As I cannot work any more, I walk around my
veranda, repeating the mantra — all that melts away, and it is so massive.
I believe only in Mother’s miracle. It will come.
October 15, 1977
(Personal letter)
I felt a band of pain across my chest, as if strangled.
In fact, I am strangled on every side. X’s letter, Y’s “bristled” reactions put
the final touch to my asphyxiating — one has to struggle as much against the
“friends” as against the enemies. And who is a friend? At the first upset, they
all grumble. What are these tons of energy expended for? “No polemics,” mind you
— indeed, Aurovilians no longer have the means to buy even sweet potatoes and
bananas, because they too are strangled. Yes, a number of them are about to be
expelled. Yes, I can no longer have the English translation printed at
Macmillan’s because those people sent threatening letters. Yes, I cannot
distribute Mother’s book in India because all the booksellers have been warned
against Satprem. Yes, the original and true Agenda comes out of the
Ashram Trust and Satprem is printing a false Agenda. Yes, I have been denounced
to the Government of India for anti-national activities. Yes, I am struggling
against an onslaught of slander in France as in the United States as everywhere.
Yes, I am still toiling and struggling and breathing, I don’t know why. And I go
everywhere with a bodyguard, again I don’t know why, for it would be more
pleasant to end up being thrown into the canyons — besides, no one did or would
believe that those people could murder me. Even a corpse would not be proof. And
if I died tomorrow of sorrow, it would be only an accident owing to
overexertion....
October 16, 1977
(Letter to ... nobody. This letter, never shown, was written on a day of suffocation)
Once again before leaving this pen for a world and a mode that are less obtuse, I want to try and make understand what the true stakes are and the very meaning of Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s departure, insofar as I could witness Her struggle, and through Her, His struggle — though it is obvious for me that neither the 107,000 letters He unendingly and patiently wrote, nor the 107,000 talks She tirelessly poured out, ever opened a single disciple’s mind. And these 107,000 lines will add nothing, unless there is another trigger, truly, opening up in people’s hearts. So I am not speaking to the “disciples” but to men, simply, who want really to understand what is happening.
The basic incomprehension stems from the fact that
nobody (including the one who is writing these lines) is fully aware of the
enormity of the task Sri Aurobindo and Mother have accomplished, and thus nobody
is aware of the value and of the historic, universal role of what They left
behind them — what ape could be aware of Einstein’s role and value and what
would a tribe of Neolithic men have done, if, by miracle,
they could have held the secret of the vibration that transforms Matter? This is
a little how things are. This is very much how things are. A certain tribe of
anthropoids was faced with a prodigious power, what were they going to do with
it? It was in 1973. A certain rebel among these tribes was alone in
understanding the prodigious secret a little better — it was crushing and what
was he going to do? As for the rest of men, well, they understood nothing at
all: it was a Sage after many others — perhaps even after Christ (the ultimate
summit of the anthropoids), or after Mahatma Gandhi — and an “exceptional woman”
who had left behind them some new Gospel or some philosophy for those who had
the time. Go try and make the general Anthropoids understand that Einstein or
Mrs Curie could have had some effect on Matter! So nobody truly understands what
is at stake. But this tribe, in the midst of which Sri Aurobindo and Mother had
worked in order to change the destiny of the species and the vibratory
modalities of Matter, understood quite well that a power lay there that could be
used for the tribe’s own particular purpose, just as our Neolithic men could
have used the bomb for their own purpose. The problem is that nobody
knows that it is a bomb. For many people, it is only a mental viewpoint after so
many others, and for these ones, a particular means of ensuring their supremacy
and of furthering the interests of the tribe.
So, if one does not understand the enormity of what is at Stake, one understands nothing of the reality of the battle that has been waged since 1973 (and before) and one sees in it, from the outside, a tribal quarrel among so many other quarrels — one does not understand, cannot understand that what is being waged through insignificant little facts is the battle of the world — because nobody knows what these facts mean, any more than other Neolithic tribes could have understood what the strange quarrel of a few cranks over a mathematical formula meant — yes, the “mathematical formula” mentioned by Sri Aurobindo in 1935.
It is the mathematical formula of the next species.
And
a man, alone, who understood a little better what all that meant.
Imagine for a moment that this tribe, in the midst of which Sri Aurobindo and Mother worked, used the tremendous secret not to make a super bomb, as they did not even know that it was a bomb (thank God!) but to concoct a spiritual panacea in the best Gandhian tradition, as it is the summit of what anthropoids understand and are able to understand. That is, the Secret smothered, the true transforming Power yoked to a profitable, honorable ideology for every purse, to which thousands and millions of men and millions of millions would bring their contributions as they did after Christ. As a matter of fact, all that makes for a lot of money and a lot of power that we cannot predict, any more than the first catechumens could have predicted Rome or the first Gandhians the Indian hierarchy. And meanwhile, the evolutionary Secret is buried, perverted, confiscated for the benefit of yet one more ideology, triumphant and lucrative.
All that is not yet obvious, for the scenario is only beginning to unfold and we are witnessing the first ages or the first days of an insignificant, little Pondicherrian affair. We could as well speak of frogs’ quarrels around a pond. Because no one can yet see what the Stakes are: an honorable, very moral and quite spiritual Church to come for a certain number of millions of improved (?) anthropoids. And, of course, respectability for the direct descendants of God and the spiritual summit of the anthropoids. Or else, truly a new species among the old breathless anthropoids.
Such are the stakes which no one really understands, because the moment we will have understood, it will be accomplished, whether it is the new species that bursts out in spite of us or the old Churches that have engulfed the Secret once again.
We may hope that the new species will burst out in
spite of ourselves and of everything — it is truly the only hope, because if we
had to wait for a general comprehension before
becoming the next species, we could wait as long as a marsupial amongst the
whales. But in the meantime, we can see the other scenario getting prepared and
unfolding amongst “insignificant” and sordid and very Pondicherrian facts, that
is, if we do not understand that they have a world meaning.
This Secret, this “mathematical formula” found again by Mother, tried to formulate itself in two different ways: through an attempt of a living, collective experience — the Ashram, Auroville — and through a direct formulation of this experience: the Agenda. After Sri Aurobindo and Mother left, the new “proprietors” tried to seize hold of the whole affair — respectability, lineage and all the legalities were on their side. They could have chosen, of course, to continue the experience, incarnate the Secret, make it become real in their own flesh and their own life — they opted for business and bringing it into line with general, public tastes, easy to understand and ready for donations. Auroville would have become a big centre of spiritual tourism with a superb Matrimandir and The Agenda a vast resource in every language, with a few alterations and subtractions in order to get rid of anything that could damage the prestige of the new proprietors. That is, the evolutionary affair once again buried for the benefit of spiritual business. This is a very old story.
But the trouble is that Auroville refused to join in
the big tourist business, as did Satprem in the great, new Gospel. All kinds of
mud and pressure were used to stifle them and him. But the best of all weapons,
the old weapon of Falsehood, is the confusion of minds. Come on, who is right,
who is wrong? — there must be something right and something wrong on both sides.
When mud is flung at you, it sticks. You can rub and rub as long as you wish, it
sticks stubbornly, leaves a mark, a little “but” somewhere poisoning everything,
spoiling everything. “After all, those persons are respectable; after all,
Mother had chosen them; after all...” One becomes all confused. We can well
imagine the high priest of the anthropoids claiming that only somersaults on the
sacred tree, only genuflections around the Samadhi are deemed authentic and
original, and that those hippies around a banyan in Auroville are dangerous
outlaws, drug addicts and debauched. If necessary, one calls the police and the
courts. The Aurovilians are strangled. Satprem, too, is strangled in another way
— come off it, who could believe that these respectable people could have
attempted to murder him? One must be mad — they all are mad out there. And if
you try to tell the facts a little frankly and exactly, all the correct-thinking
persons, properly devoted to Mother and Sri Aurobindo, think that you are
bad-mannered: these are sordid “polemics.” Well-mannered people have spiritual
chitchats after dinner. The great triumph of Falsehood is to tell the truth
politely.
Quite obviously, a new species is very rude for the old one — if it were not so, it would desperately remain the old species. Quite obviously, it is very disturbing for the old one. And it is obvious, too, that the old species is master in its own house and that all the laws are on its side, otherwise it would already belong to the next species and the next law. Obviously again the ape’s spiritual or muscular halo is the very obstacle to that which will surpass the ape. But as it happens, the big weapon of the old species is not even its halo — which we would look for in vain, though endowed with good eyesight, among the owners of the old tribe — it is “the truth.” “Truth” is the last den of Falsehood. They brandish it so well, on the right as on the left, that the onlooker no longer knows where he is anymore. Everything becomes a lie. One no longer knows anything, no longer understands anything. Everything looks like one and the same basket of decomposing rot. And then that’s it, all is twisted. We had better set everything on fire, and start all over again. But we have started a thousand times all over again and each time the Secret has been engulfed.
So, who will hear the right vibration?
Who will see the sense in insignificant facts?
Who will see the enormity of what’s at stake and hear
the cries
of a few beings in this mud flow?
Will Auroville be strangled? Will the Agenda be counterfeited once again and the Secret devoured by a flourishing spirituality?
But never will the owners of the old world give birth to a new World.
So, Lord, let us set fire to the Truth and be content with living it. Then we will no longer be confused and through these insignificant muddy polemics we will see the scenario of a fragile new species striving to get out of the old one’s claws and of its stinking old swamp.
If we lose the battle here, it is the world that loses it. And this battle is no more a “polemic” than was the French Resistance facing the Hitlerian threat or the cries of the first hominoids ferociously attacked by wild beasts — for these truly are wild beasts. If you do not believe me, take good care you never have proof of it, as it is devouring.
Who is right, who is wrong? — to be right or to be wrong is equally devouring. The only salvation lies in a right little vibration.
We must recognize the right vibration.
We must get out of the mental organ.
We must already listen to the other vibration so as to know where it is, and where it is not.
Otherwise, it is the large, accelerated mud tide.
But I can tell you, the next species will be, in spite of everything and of everyone.
If only you helped it?
A single little step that you take in order to live the truth immediately opens the door of the true vibration — the step is what creates the vibration. We have to take this step. Then all “truths” and all “falsehoods” crumble down like bogeymen: what shines is that alone, simple and light. And everything is clear, without explanation.
Are we going to make the step?
October 19, 1977
Seen
by my Douce: in a coal black night, two lips (Mother’s) trace themselves with a
smile.
October 20, 1977
(From Sujata to a friend)
I don’t know what to start with. Let my pen speak out. We have lived dreadful things for the whole of last week.
- Auroville situation critical
a) Financial strangling — not even enough money left to buy sweet potatoes and bananas the next day, so much so that all the workers, whom they could not pay anymore, had to be dismissed (see the note from Satprem to N.).
b) Police: everywhere; every visit to Tindivanam = a wasted day + 300 rupees to rent a bus.
c) Threat of expulsion (!) etc., etc. In short, blackness everywhere.
- “Uncle” is in a dangerous situation.
- Ourselves!!
So, you understand, claws are all out. We don’t even know if we will still be free tomorrow.
We cannot even post our letters here, as you know! (...)
*
(Note from Satprem to N.)
How much money is there in the till for all the French and English books?
You will give everything to
“Pour Tous,”81 so
that the Aurovilians can eat. Save 100 rupees for unforeseen expenses.
With you all, with love,
Satprem
October 21, 1977
Seen by my Douce: Durga’s lion puts its paw on the world, ready to pounce.
October 23, 1977
Choked with mud and filth.
October 24, 1977
(Personal letter)
I can see more and more clearly that this Mind is a
completely rotten world; for everything they have their muddy little label and
in the end “truth” is only the reverse side of falsehood, as is love and
everything else — it is a perverted world, and if it is for once on the right
side, it is so provisional: at the least scratch, it swings back to the other
side. It is a world that cancels itself out, where everything cancels itself
out. We are in the last days of that. And if one tries a little to cry out the
pure thing, it is immediately reeled in, caught in a single muddy net, and one
wonders whether the “supporters” are not just the reverse of the others — “I
want to be your disciple,” writes one of them, a very good man. I think more and
more of Sri Aurobindo in his big green armchair amidst his “disciples,” gazing
at... the Wall. It is hopeless — hopeless, unless something Else springs forth and
breaks through this Wall. There is a mounting heap of letters, I no longer have
the courage to answer. I walk and walk around my veranda repeating the Mantra as
the only worthwhile thing. I started that because I no longer had anything else
to do, since my papers are scattered around, I don’t know where. I am right in
the midst of an onrush of forces and it is as if the pure vibration in the midst
of that were only a poignant pain amongst the rush, as if it were to be
this pain. The pure “I am” is an unmixed Pain, which is perhaps a prayer because
it hurts, which is perhaps love because it burns — though you cannot even say,
“I am,” because there is neither a feeling of being anything whatever nor, above
all, anyone whoever: it is Pain that creates the “I am.” Otherwise, we would
perhaps let go of everything. So it goes round in circles with that burning
sensation, among something that seems like a bath of anger and ferocity. There
is no Mind left, there are only forces. Yesterday, the whole morning, it was
unleashed and so painful, then, at noon, I read this rubbish in the Indian
Express [an article of calumnies]. All the time, there are countless
onslaughts like that, and you don’t know where it comes from or why it comes. I
seem to be a wounded animal which feels like hiding away all alone to digest its
pain. And I can see no end to it all, no solution, I don’t think that the Enemy
is going to “unmask himself” and that everyone will finally see things clearly.
It seems like a wave of pollution spreading everywhere, contaminating everything
— I don’t know what they have done at Harper’s [the American publisher] and in
Canada and everywhere else. We are immersed in all that. When will Mother
intervene?
One positive thing: there is a very great difference, I
see — an incommensurable one — between doing the japa while walking in the
canyons or anywhere else: in a car, while climbing the stairs, washing one’s mouth ... and the pure japa while walking without any particular purpose, in a
purely mechanical way: one goes round and round — it becomes very different. It
really becomes the japa of the physical
consciousness and of the body. I thought of you in the squares of Paris, where,
as you told me, the japa went much better when there were a few trees — you
should go and do the japa in the hallways of Saint-Lazare station! They are
quite wide though, so you could choose the corridor of the subway. The moment it
becomes the mechanism of the body, purely, without any support or background,
then it sinks in, sinks in. First, you don’t know how to make it sink in, but as
this dazed walk goes, you want, or rather your body wants to catch its meaning
in the end, its true vibration, and it tries to repeat the syllables a little
exactly, purely, to breathe a little truly, exactly — my, birds and trees have
their breathing, their vibration! For them, there is neither “over there,” nor
“in an hour,” nor “at the next turning”: it is immediately here, completely.
In eight days, I did more true japa than in ten years. Now, I understand Sri
Aurobindo’s and Mother’s walking. It gets going well when time vanishes, when
there is no more, “Ah, I’ll go round once more or ten times more” — when it
could last for ages: there is no more “time.” I think that the consciousness of
time is what must change first — for the Mind, everything has a time-frame. When
time crumbles, it starts becoming pure. It is a pity I did not know that in the
cells (!) of the Gestapo. So, no need for a “square”!
.........
As for me, I am waiting, waiting. In fact, I am very worn out. To struggle against the Gestapo is one thing, but all that rubbish ... Strangely (or not), Indira is in the grip of the same rubbish and the same voices. Ah! See you.
Satprem
October 25, 1977
(Letter to an Aurovilian)
It’s taken me a long time to reply, forgive me. The
whole book
and the whole experience tell us that Mother is not dead — I am here to tell it
to the world. She is not physically dead. Your vision, too, proclaims it:
She is only veiled from the physical vision of the old species. This tearing of
the veil will be the first step or the first stage of the New World — then we
will emerge from false matter and false death (or rather the false matter that
is or makes the false death, and is the veil of death) and we will
see Her. She chose this process or this terrible strategy because nobody could
stand Her here any longer — She had to hide. Her tomb is Her hiding place. One
needs time to transform oneself: She was not given the time. And this
transformation is possible only if the survivors of the old species are already
awakened or “modified,” purified enough to be able to bear the Vibration and the
vision of the next species. A minimum of collective transformation is needed —
already as it was, it was unbearable for people around Mother. They did not want
her anymore. If one looks out at the world, one can clearly see the same
stirring of the whole old species squirming and struggling under the powerful,
irresistible Pressure of a transformation taking place in an ever more and more
irreducible way. It is the whole old species that resists and says “no” — one
can also look at the part that refuses in one’s own heart. Death is rooted in
each of us. Everyone has to win the victory of the new species — and it is these
individual little victories, these increasing awakenings here and there, this
growing comprehension, this growing adhesion that prepare and accelerate
the Moment. Yes, you actually say: “My form will remain and need tending to
while I am gone, until I return.” This “tending” to Mother is the essential
process: this Body of Mother’s is not only shut up in a tomb, it is not a body
shut up in a bag of skin and bones — these vibrating, living, universal
cells that keep repeating the Mantra on and on are also or can also be in
our own body and in everyone’s body, or in the body of all those who accept
and cultivate the new Vibration. There are the ones who accept. The ones who
call, who tune in to Mother’s Vibration
and make it become within their own body — who tend to Her indeed, are occupied
in caring for Her or let themselves be occupied by Her. And as soon as these
small vibrations, these thousands and millions of small vibrations throughout
the world have grown enough, taken shape enough, and are awakened
everywhere, it will be as if our own vibration, our call, our cry of need or of
love went to meet the same Vibration there, in Mother’s body, in that tomb, and
to wake her. Sleeping Beauty, indeed. A fairy tale for everyone — the new world.
One has to knock at the door of this tomb, to break through this wall of coffin
and tomb — yes, break through this false Matter within our own Matter. Then she
will be there. Our awakening is her waking up. “Then I shall return.” Oh! If
only we surrounded her with enough love and care, how quickly She would return,
or perhaps, how quickly we would get out of our own tomb to realize that She is
already there, smiling, in the midst of us, waiting for us to be able to bear
Her and bear the glory and the beauty of the new world. “A mere breath will be
enough in the end.” We must knock at the door of this false death, hammer
against this coffin again and again, until Her cells hear us — or realize that
She is here. It is in our own bodies that we must become aware of the Thing. The
cells are the bridge. Whenever a vibration is pure in our consciousness, in our
heart and our body, it goes and directly touches Mother’s body, there, in that
tomb, and prepares Her waking up, or our awakening. Mother does not want to be
flashing and miraculous like an “apparition” amongst us: one has to perform the
miracle in one’s own Matter, it has to be everyone’s miracle — communication
must be established. Is the caterpillar aware of the butterfly? When it begins
to become aware of it, that is, to get in communication with the other thing, it
is already on the way to transforming itself — the world’s cells, our cells must
go to meet Mother. Then, the “miracle” will be, simple and natural. And it will
be done. That is what “tending to” Mother’s body means, to pound and pound
against that coffin of falsehood, that old caterpillar’s skin that does not want to die and burst out into the new light, right here on
earth. Oh, if only the vibration could be pure enough to get over this barrier
and materially feel, touch Mother’s Body and embrace it forever. Sometimes, I
gaze at that coffin and gaze at it, that nape still touched by a sunbeam, and I
say that I don’t know love enough to pull her out of there, or else, She would
surely answer me and would come to smash this coffin and this tomb on the heads
of all her white-clad worshippers — Lord, let’s pull her out of there! Yes,
let’s pull her. Then they will be terrified and the phantoms in full flight will
scatter disbanding with their incense sticks and their title deeds, faced with
the smile of the new world. And we will rejoice. This is the true
Kurukshetra82 of the world: we must be on the side of those who
pull her out of there, not of those who want to shut her up forever under a
centenary and two centenaries, and their thousands of centenaries of deception
and of Falsehood. That is what to tend to Mother means: to make her become
within us, to oblige her to emerge from the hiding place where our Falsehood has
shut her up. To make a pure little vibration vibrate and vibrate in our body,
until the two meet.
So, let us build a bridge. Let us cast a golden thread through the walls of the Night. Let us be, oh! let us be those who haul and pull the New World, let us shatter the tomb as the Rishis split the Rock open with their cry, let us wake her forever, let us wake up from this Night that is strangling us. And may the True Earth be.
With much love
Satprem
October 28, 1977
(Personal letter)
...
This time, I can feel the “league” tightening, the mob closing in. We must be
ready for anything. But the positive side of it all is that I had such intense
moments of disgust and weariness that I really felt like “leaving” — I even went
to the canyons without my bodyguard, with a prayer or a hope that I would be
murdered to end it once and for all. But now, that is all over: I
want to carry on through to the end. I want to continue until Victory is
won. I won’t give up on the way, whatever the onslaughts or ignominies may be.
Now my Breton head is made up and I will go through and emerge victorious, for
Mother. That’s it. I am through with disgust.
.........
So, I understand now why you had this vision (that you
have the audacity to describe as “symbolic”). But it is the Secret itself! You
don’t understand that it is the very Initiation to the material Secret and that
you hold the key now. Yes, I regularly go and bring Mother her “meal” there in
her cave, while those idiots are burning incense sticks above it. She is
here, living. You have seen now. I
“tend to” her body, in other words, I am this prayer, oh! so intensely burning,
that She will not leave this physical husk to decay, that the Thing will be able
to go on and the bridge be preserved — it is the bridge. It is the future that
is there. Salvation that is
there. Prince Charming exists — there have to be a lot of them. And this
Fire is what opens the door of “death,” this Fire in Matter — in the body. That
is the bridge. It is that which is in communication with Mother — if
there is no one to communicate, what can She do!? Can She even continue if
nobody answers and sustains this body through their prayers? I have never seen,
I am blind, I know nothing, I grope my way and say things just like that, but I
have the impression that it is Mother and I pray on and on, and feel, know
that She is
there, living — but I have never seen. Sujata saw something once.
But it is you who bring me the clarity and the evidence of what was only a
feeling “just like that.” It is as if I had been cut off from all memory of the
other side for years, and I was always complaining to Mother that my memory had
been cut off. She told me: it is deliberate.
And I understand now that if I had not been so blind, I would never have prayed
with such intensity: if I had always “known” and “seen,” I would never have this
Fire of pain and want and idiocy within a nothing, a ceaseless black nothing
from which I have to draw actions and decisions, like a blind man. Well...
I don’t know what they are going to do with me....
And the Mantra, like a fire in the body. When I walk up and down my veranda I have — I have always had — the impression that I am pounding Mother’s coffin. And Sujata is pounding, too....
Do you know that in 1960-61-62, before Mother withdrew into her room, when we were just at the beginning of the Agenda, I “dreamt” regularly for years, at least three or four times a week, that I was running away, fleeing with Mother’s papers and chased by ferocious enemies. Can you imagine that, in 1960?! It makes me think that it is not the first time that this Agenda is in danger. With those little Cou-noumas, we are living the repetition of something that must have happened many times before — each time, the Secret has been engulfed, stifled by one Church or the other.... But this time, they will not win. We will struggle till death, will we not? There is no going back, death or victory. And it must be Victory, this time.
(...) I told myself that if I were not stuck here, I
should perhaps reread this whole Agenda with the particular vision of a
Mr Mercier (what a strange thing!) to chronologically marshal all the
“arguments” (how dreadful!). Unfortunately, all the details of interest to the
“law” or individual “persons” are precisely what I cut, because it was not worth
much and I saw it all as a Great Thing. And though I cut less and less as
we proceeded, all the same, how many “local” things didn’t I have cut from the
tapes by poor Sujata, who bitterly blames me for this now! Oh, I only wanted to
see the Eternal, the Great Thing, not the small stories. But it is these little
stories that have put us in danger today.
.........
Well, I’ll stop here. We must form a small group of friends, as compact as possible.
And I don’t believe in anything, in any solution, not even in Mr Mercier or in Laffont — I believe in Mother alone. She is the only one who can disentangle all this, the only one who can thwart the Enemy. We must cling to Her with all our strength and pray and pray ...
October 29, 1977
(Letter to a friend)
Received your telegram... Yes, “Sleeping Beauty awakening”! You see, she too, feels that. How strange, this simultaneity of perceptions that begins to awaken in consciousnesses. I will be fifty-four tomorrow, do you realize? It was a November 15, 1943, that I faced the Gestapo, a fortnight after my twentieth birthday — what is better? Thirty-four years later? It’s time Sleeping Beauty awoke.
Satprem
October 31, 1977
(Personal letter)
... Yes, we will hold out. I understand better now (I
mean, in another way) what Mother meant: “All depends on one’s ability
to go through experiences.” Simply to go through. Not to be victorious or this
or that: no, to go through, simply. The fact of going through is in itself
victorious. The result... does not concern us. Yesterday, it was very hard all
day — why? The why is only known three weeks later. I had the impression that
they were wrapping me in sticky threads, like a spider spinning its thread
around its victim. It is becoming very material. Probably, they are preparing
the court case here, or I don’t know what....
... This Agenda must come out as soon as possible — it is the lever of all the rest, or the collapse of all the rest.
November 2, 1977
(Personal letter. Following a letter from the trustees to Macmillan, the Indian publisher, in order to prevent the printing of Mother’s Agenda.)
.... So, it seems that their main line of argument will be that I was an Ashram “employee” (disciple), etc. Yesterday, Sujata got a terrible headache while looking at that, and I am not well either. I realize that it will be physically difficult (I mean, more difficult than it is now). My feeling is that they are waiting for a last answer from Laffont before rushing on me here — if only he understood that he plays into their hands and helps shatter me by turning a friendly ear to that man.... Will he hold on? He did not at all understand the Barun-Ashram-Trust connection.... No reasoning can pierce that, it is a kind of “Maya” [illusion] — yes, the sages of yore clearly called it the Maya of Falsehood.
Please, reassure Mr Mercier [our Parisian lawyer] about
these letters to Mother that the trustees have stolen from me (you cannot
imagine how it breaks my heart to think-feel that these letters to Mother which
came straight from my heart are in their disgusting hands). They are just
bluffing. I
never told Mother of any “copyright”! I did not write her about such matters. It
is true that as long as She was here, I used to give her the copyright of all my
books and I said (or wrote) time and time again that everything belonged to her
and that I owed her everything, but it was for Her, not for the Ashram,
and concerning my books, I have never executed any written transfer to the
Ashram.
I don’t want to continue any further, because my head is beginning to feel like jelly again. My sleep, too (and Sujata’s as well), has become awful: we spend our nights as if turned over on a grill.
November 6, 1977
As if there were years of sorrow in my heart.
*
(Personal letter)
... Among the letters of the “Pavitra file” I found mention of a gift of 15,000 francs that I had made in 1951 as a contribution to the foundation of the “Sri Aurobindo International University Centre” (S.A.l.U.C.). As an “employee,” I gave quite a lot of money to my “employers”! All that is awful.
As for my pension ... Of course, there was no question
of asking Mother for “receipts” when I placed my offering on her lap. It is more
than likely that there has never been any trace of those gifts (except perhaps
in Amrita’s notebooks) and they can deny what they all know perfectly well (I
remember a fragment of conversation with Counouma who, with his usual tone of a
perfidious sacristan, told me one day, “Oh, you are right in giving this money
to Mother, otherwise, you would have to pay taxes” — implying, watch out,
there’ll be trouble if you stop giving)....I think indeed that these
people are actively preparing themselves: the atmosphere is full of Counouma;
particularly for the last few days, I have been soaking in a bath of “undiluted”
Counouma. I have never before done such a tapasya. But I well understand
that all this is taking place in the pure physical Mind, that is where I receive
their sticky, slimy and vicious waves one after the other. So I am made to work
in this area, I have to go through this area or rather this layer of mud to
reach the cellular Mind. Strangely enough, it is mostly when I do the
“japa-walk” that these waves become extraordinarily perceptible, inflated, as it
were, as if at that very moment I touched the “pure” thing, the place.
But I can tell you, working on Counouma is nauseating. As soon as I move on to
the Mind, even the ordinary Mind, these people have no longer an atom of power
over me: my head is above and I blow on it all and it is over. But it is in that
physical Mind that it holds on tightly and shakes everything with all its innate
“virulence.” That is where these people’s power lies and actually that is where
the Power of Falsehood lies; it is in the physical Mind. So, everything helps
the work.
Satprem
November 8, 1977
(Note from Sujata)
I love you. I am not yet fully in my skin.
I wish I could sleep and sleep and sleep.
With my love
Douce
November 10, 1977
(Personal letter)
Yesterday,
Carmen brought us your letters. It is very touching. Carole’s heart, so warm,
and our Etevenon friends, indestructible. There is
one heart there. And others who don’t come forward, but whom we sense.
There is all this Grace surrounding us, but in fact, it is your prayer for
Mother, it is this prayer that is very important. As for the individuals ... I
mean this I called Satprem ... it is very painful to be an individual. I
can clearly see the ferocity of the attacks — yesterday and the day before, but
mainly yesterday, on the 9th, it was awful, I could not even speak to Sujata —
but I can clearly see also that what is attacked are all our flaws. Counouma and
Co. are mere pretexts. What we are facing is the Adversary, pure and simple. I
am full of weaknesses. I could almost say that all my strength lies in my
weaknesses! They are so painfully perceived and lived that it creates a sort of
Fire of Suffering, which makes what I am. A kind of ceaseless Suffering which
must continuously transform itself into love, or else it would consume itself. I
have been living this, in fact, for more than forty years. I cannot explain it
to you. My being, what weaves me, is Suffering, with a sole, ceaseless answer,
as it were, since the most far-off days of my childhood: to end it all. The
No-I-don’t-want, I don’t want anything at all — no one is more of a nihilist
than I am! The Dynamite, the zero, one slams the door and takes off from this
whole damned business. And every time, the only thing that makes me hold on,
stay on and want again is this inexplicable love which is the sole answer to
that No. Sometimes, this Love moves away, and the No alone remains. It is hell.
Yesterday, it was a hellish onslaught. One feels like crying out no-no-no. I’ll
clear off, I am not here to struggle against this rubbish, I’ll go back to the
virgin forest! Oh, I have never been from here, that’s it. Then Love saves me
again and ties me down. With Mother,
for a few years, it was that saving love. Then I find myself again, through big,
almost terrifying bursts, faced with that No. You know, there is death
underneath. Until
L’Orpailleur,83 I had organized my life as a sort of suicide.
The Sannyasi shows it too. And sometimes even Batcha fades away: there is
still that no, unchanged. It is so strong at
times that I feel like a stone, petrified: you know, such an intense and strong
vibration that it seems to be coagulated. The reverse of Love, as it were. A
pure, irreducible No. I opened an atlas and looked for the most direct road
again: Colombo-Dakar-Antilles-Cayenne. It is almost a straight line. Why tell
you that? Thirty-five years ago, it was all the same in the forest. And nothing
matters anymore, nor anybody. This is hell. And at the same time, all that
nihilism seems to be my only force of love, my only presence of love. Love alone
ties me down, as if Love had its foundation in this non-love, was forced to be
through the very negation. It is the intolerable contradiction that makes the
fire. At every moment I am tempted to jump overboard and every time I am caught
up by this something that Mother called Satprem. There you are, it sounds like a
confession! But that is where the Adversary corners me. You understand, it is
like an excess of pain saying no-I-do-not-want-anymore. I began to say that very
early. There is a point of Suffering where one wonders whether it is yes or no.
It seems to be all the same. Then the individual must fade away, or else it is
intolerable. At that point, nihilism and liberation look like brothers, and it
is all wrong. We must lose the ego of the body, as Mother did: “I don’t know if
I exist.” But that ... Yes, liberation takes place in the body, everything else
is an imposture. I don’t know why I am telling you about my particular hells,
while I have many “important” things to tell you. After all, I also like
brothers. “Brothers” were very important to me. It was my only resort when faced
with the No. I lost my fellow gold-digger, that was a real sorrow. We were
two friends in the No, which ultimately ended in a Yes (it is mathematical,
isn’t it?). So, you see, all my weakness is my whole strength. Strangely enough.
Well, I must now return to what’s “important” and tell you of serious things....I don’t know which ones. The only serious thing is to emerge from it all. And at the same time, there is probably something that does not want to get out of it. This frightening human condition. And one becomes so terribly sensitive....I swallow them raw, and it becomes so suffocating that I reach a point where I say No — or else go down on one’s knees and love. That is how it is. A nasty business. And if I begin to add up Andre Morisset + Cou-nouma + Barun, in order to answer their accusations and insinuations point by point, it becomes quite impossible. You understand, I cannot defend myself anymore. I am no longer able to answer, it strangles me — I’d rather put my head on the block. And the atmosphere is swarming with all that, it is like a perpetual tribunal: let’s see, are you not the Asura? Seriously. And like an idiot, I wrote to all these people, so as to provide them with all the weapons against me. I trusted, I trusted everything and everyone, like a complete cretin. If I add up all my letters to Barun, it is frightening. Pourna, too, must have a few of them in her drawers. I did not believe in evil here. I came here because I believed that there was a place on earth where evil did not exist. And I find myself faced with their stories of Ashram employee — mind you, if my friend Bodet (his name was Bodet, which he preferred to write Baudet84) could see that, he would tell me: well, you’re a bloody fool. And he would not be wrong. Then I plunge into Love again and everything melts away, and it is yes, and again yes. And so on.
I don’t really know what to do. First of all, like
Mother, I don’t like flights. Every reason tells me that I would be more useful
in France (though I prefer Cayenne) and that I have nothing to do here.
“Reasons” are not enough to convince me
to move — one can always find opposite reasons. I am no longer anything but a
kind of painful beast going on and on without understanding anything. As a
matter of fact, I understand less and less. I asked Sujata to look for the true
answer. Sometimes too, I tell myself that Mother’s body is here, it may be a
“reason.” A. says that Mother is waiting for our departure to begin her dance of
Kali — this, too, is a “reason.” I no longer understand anything of reasons. And
what is more, I am blind. There is also my inveterate loathing for the West, I
have always been afraid of getting stuck there and of not being able to get out
— it is not “reasonable,” it is visceral. No doubt, we must change our viscera,
too. If only She would tell me clearly, “Do this.” But there, too, “I am not
told anything.” I am never told anything, I do everything like a blind man.
I write on and on to you, because I feel like speaking to a brother, that’s all.
Well, the basis of the trial [which the Ashram
is preparing] is what we have to take into consideration. They will always get
us with their dirty little tricks, it is not on their ground and terms
that we must struggle, we would go crazy. Well, the crux of it all is that they
killed Mother. That is what the lawyer must
understand. You remember: “Desires that it should die (Mother’s body) can be
found everywhere, everywhere!” So, how could we leave the Agenda to those
people who wanted to kill her?... I was precisely the one to whom She confided
this horrible situation: “They all are lying to me!” There are dozens and dozens
of cries like this one. “They don’t understand anything, no one understands.” So
how could one ever leave this Agenda to these people, those senior
sadhaks [old disciples] who understood nothing and, what is more, wished Her
dead? But they would immediately “purge” the Agenda, it is obvious even
for an idiot, in the higher interest of the Ashram. And finally: “This Agenda is
my gift to those who love me.” It is clear enough, isn’t it? Were Peter and Paul
the disciples of Christ, or of the Vatican? Was Vivekananda the disciple of Sri
Ramakrishna or
of the Ramakrishna Mission? Was Marx a disciple of the Kremlin? Blast
them! They killed Mother, and now they want to whitewash it. Well, we are on
trial in order to denounce them publicly. This is the only trial, there is no
other one. Then they will all run off with their tail between their legs. I
don’t even try to prove that I am the “author” — what am I the author of, good
heavens, except of my stupidity — we are proving that the Ashram killed Mother
slowly and relentlessly. Everything else stems from that.
Satprem
November 11, 1977
(Letter to friends in Paris)
... Not everyone is meant to go to India! If only you could manage to find, “invent” a collective action, around which consciousnesses would meet or unite or form. Of course, action takes place within, but something material, practical, is needed to connect consciousnesses. It has to be found — or perhaps it should be found spontaneously as soon as the attitude and the required elements are there. It will spring forth.
... “Evolution is not revolution,” indeed, but mutation is quite a cataclysm! The “supramental catastrophe,” as Mother said. One has to be terribly shattered to break out a little from this awful human habit. So, we might as well be willingly shattered! In fact, everyone should in their own world be like a warrior of Mother, and broaden the range of those who have been won-over and conquered by Mother — not proselytism, no, but a kind of living contagion. To catch the spark and spread it. We are opening the doors of the new world. (...)
Satprem
November 14, 1977
(Personal letter)
...
About these rushes and waves of onslaught, there is a strange fact. I told you:
on 8th and 9th, it was really hell, as if I were pushed to the other side (and
it always takes a personal form, as if everything came from within — of course,
everybody is within! People are protected by their separating ignorance, but
when it is no longer separate!...), then, suddenly, on November 11, exactly, the
atmosphere became lighter, as it were. You know, like after a long, endless
tempest; all of a sudden, there is no tempest any more. I don’t know what is
happening or what happened, but the fact is apparently lasting (it is already
the 14th). Sujata has the same feeling. We are no longer shaken-up by claws (you
can’t know how painful it is, I discovered the reason why Mother moaned). That’s it. Are they on their last legs? Does it mean that things will now happen in the
pure physical plane? In any case, nothing indicates that either Sujata or I
should move; we never had the feeling that we had to leave. Tomorrow, November
15, a terrible birthday. Sujata had the impression that Kali had placed her foot
on those people’s heads.
.........
I told you the basis of the argument. How could we go
and give the Agenda to all those people who understand nothing of it!?
What’s more, I was the one who reassured Mother every time (like an idiot) and
who told her: “Yes, of course, a few understand.” And I am the one who prompted
her to publish, to “share,” I prompted her to publish these extracts called
“Notes on the Way,” it was not Her wish at all. We should find the relevant
passages of our conversations at the time (unless they have been omitted). Were
it up to Mother, She would have told nothing to these people. As for me, I was a
complete, innocent simpleton from start to finish. Even after Mother’s departure, I still hoped and tried
to publish with them! And I was convinced (they had convinced me) that the
Ashram was the “proprietor” (hence my letter to Tara) and I said to myself that
I had to try and come to an agreement with the proprietors. When our lawyer told
me, a few months ago only, that I was the “author,” I was flabbergasted. But I
see Mother’s game, it is all deliberate. She wanted me to try with these
Ashram people: I tried with each of them: twice with the Ashram Press; once with
All India Press; and also with Auropress. I tried with all of them! Had they
accepted, it would have been our loss — the fools! I handed it to them on a
plate, and they did not want it.
That’s all.
Satprem
November 21-22, 1977
Tonight, saw Andre with a whole set of accusations. I am worn out.
November 23, 1977
(Personal letter)
The general situation is so incomprehensible and seems to laugh at all our hopes or premonitions. It seems to keep rotting indefinitely. A “universal decomposition,” Sri Aurobindo said at the beginning of the century! Is it not going to be reversed all at once? This is what I had expected to occur soon, but you see ... Tata, too, laughed at me very kindly when I spoke of a “radical change” — “it will last for centuries,” he replied. It is unconceivable. But the rot goes on. I am less and less a prophet! Where is Sujata’s “sunk liner”? It was January 4, 1956, in the afternoon ...
Here, the waves come one after the other. It calms
down, and
then starts up with an increased fury. Exactly the tempest that Sujata saw
twenty-one years ago. Yet, outwardly there is hardly anything. Two nights ago, I
saw Andre with a whole list of accusations against me on a typed paper, in
closely-spaced letters. There was also his daughter J. around. What does he have
in store for us? What is strange is that the next day and for two days after,
even this morning, I had the physical sensation of being exhausted, as if I were
eighty in my bones — yes, as if I had swallowed Morisset. It is tiring. To
fast-forward eighty years all of a sudden, in the body, is curious. A clinging
weariness, more than weariness. But now I understand the working of the tempest
better, if I may say so. One is shattered — violently shattered, absolutely as
in a small skiff during a hurricane — because there is something within that
erects a wall. There are lots of little walls, and the waves come to smash onto
the wall, then one is shaken. If there were no walls, anywhere, it would pass
by, there would be no tempest. The least reaction is a wall: disgust is a wall,
feelings (the slightest feeling) are a wall, all that objectifies things in
relation to oneself is a wall. As soon as one says or feels, “It is disgusting,”
it makes an instantaneous wall and the waves rush in. If one said, “Everything
is like rosewater,” it would probably be like rosewater! So indignation against
calumnies is a wall, Barun’s dirtiness is a wall ... One must be like the
breeze. Transparency, yes. The universalization of the breeze. So, we could say
that there is never any tempest but due to our walls, and that in the
real world as it is, without walls, everything is rose-water! The tempest is
the same flow of never-ending nectar, without walls. In the same way, walls
are what creates death, otherwise it is the same flow of never-ending
life. There is a vast gaze — I don’t know how they call it in Sanskrit:
Anantaksha? (Ananta = the infinite, Aksha = the gaze). But it is not the pure
“infinite” of Brahman (or not only), it is a gaze that is innumerable, in
everything. Not only does it embrace everything, but it is exactly that
which it rests upon, so it understands intimately, as if it were its own self
— its own self everywhere. No walls left. And joy, the Ananda of comprehension.
One might also say Anandaksha: the gaze of joy? A solar gaze. Souryaksha. And
Matter organizes herself according to this gaze, she obeys it. We could go on
for a long time, but that is what we must be. Before, it was understanding on
the heights; now it is the comprehension that kneads and transforms. I am
starting to understand the thing physically, what Mother would stammer
out at the beginning. But you see, there is still the fact that I meet Morisset
and feel eighty in my bones — why? And what’s more, I can feel the wave, I am
shattered by the wave before the fact has physically occurred and I know
what it is all about — so then, what?... Obviously, it must be something very
deep, in the subconscient of the cells. Well, go and cleanse all that! Where to
begin?! I keep repeating the Mantra like a mule, this is all I do, and I
understand less and less what is happening. (...)
We think at times of leaving Pondicherry and going to a remote place in India, remote enough for us to be protected from the malevolent atmosphere here (all the same, it is a kind of daily poison which also produces a great weariness in the body and many sleepless nights, for Sujata as for me). But Sujata pointed out very pertinently that if we isolate ourselves far from here, they will quickly find us again thanks to the police, where we will have to register, and that it will then be easy for them to send a killer in order to get rid of us, while here we are physically protected (!), they fear too much for their own safety and would not run the risk of a second attempted murder which would be traced to them. It is simple and obvious. So ... What a world! So I tell myself that Mother wants me to hang in there ... so that I can find the “key.”
Satprem
November 23-24. 1977
Last
night, I saw the false Mother. The Ashramite mob. The distortion of my words.
Everything is false with an appearance of truth. I say, “I will go on all alone
up to the end.”
December 4, 1977
(Personal letter)
... I am really washed out, exhausted, bone-weary — a nasty night. But it does not matter. Sujata does not look well, she no longer goes to the office and tries to rest. I wonder whether it is so useful to be these people s whipping boys....
December 9, 1977
The proofs of the first volume of the Agenda are finished.
A cycle is completed.
December 11, 1977
(Personal letter)
... In the night of November 23, I met the false Mother
again. I stepped out of this around midnight, shouting out in my sleep: “I’m
clearing off from here, I’m clearing off!” And I was so shocked, bubbling with
indignation and anger that I nearly went and woke Sujata. I was indignant, I
wished I could run away at once. I don’t want to tell you, or rather to evoke
this abominable encounter (she called me Bernard, she
very nearly said “alias Satprem”) but since that day, something has tilted in my
consciousness. And one morning, as I was walking around my veranda, repeating
the mantra, it was all clear, almost decisive. “I’m going off to the Himalayas.
We must leave.” It is not in keeping with my own tastes, which would lead me
rather toward the South, Kerala or even Ceylon. But when I told Sujata of the
Himalayas, she said yes immediately. For the past fortnight, our impression has
remained the same — so there is something pushing in that direction. For me, the
important, decisive fact is that I cannot work here. I need to have my papers,
receive my mail, prepare the second volume of the Agenda — and in any
case to do a creative work instead of swallowing the daily poison of all those
rats. What use am I here? Is it really useful to be the whipping boy of all that
vermin? The nasty blow dealt to Sujata confirms my intention. What use is it?
There are the Aurovilians, of course, but they are old enough now ... and I am
not the guru of Auroville. To go to France? I feel nothing pushing me
there, quite the opposite. I think that I won’t go back there except for a
specific action, if there is a trial for instance, otherwise I would scatter
my energies and be swallowed alive by all the friends without it really helping
the development of the work or the creativity. We are actually at the end of a
cycle. (...)
I don’t know why, but the name of Almora imposed itself
on us (it is very close to the western border of Nepal) or else Ranikhet, which
is near Almora. It lies in the middle of a forest of pines and cedars, with an
immense view of the Nanda Devi mountains, etc. It is some 2,000 or 2,500 meters
high, that is, not too high (mimosas grow there too). There are also tigers,
which is better than rats.... But if I am ever to come back here, it will be
only after the radical cleansing away of this rotten atmosphere. I don’t want to
breathe that any longer. That’s what I cried out to the false Mother: “I’m
clearing out of here!” Yes, indeed! It is enough. It is a plunge into the dark
for both of us, but after all, for four years now it has never ceased being a
journey in the dark. At the end, there
will be “Mother’s Island” ... and perhaps a few radical changes on the way....
... As for India, things are certain to break down. It is the end of a cycle everywhere.
Materially, as far as possible, I don’t want to tell anybody where I am going, or else we are likely to have all kinds of difficulties with the organized mafia....Sujata is slowly recovering. As for me ... this is a strange mechanism whose working I understand less and less. It seems that I have nothing left, except a body. I am not even able to sleep any more. We shall see....
Satprem
December 12, 1977
With my Douce in the canyons. We will soon be leaving. ...
December 13, 1977
Carmen’s departure, with the last proofs of the Agenda.
December 15, 1977
(Personal Letter)
You must have received our avalanche through Carmen. (I
hope she feels better, I was a little worried about her — this Carmen is a
treasure, a pure jewel.) Our departure is quite clear in the inner perception.
Curiously enough, I don’t feel any regret for this wonderful place, into which
we poured so much consciousness — but I am not particularly happy to leave
either. It is rather self-evident: we must leave. It is very quiet
and obstinate. Yet, the worse seems to be over, or about to be so. I got the
explanation of the last wave (but in fact, it is almost a ceaseless wave,
specially since our return from France): I have understood that they met a
fortnight ago, in a stormy discussion, in order to decide whether they should
take us to court or not. It would seem that Nolini declared he would resign as a
trustee if the others persisted in taking us to court. (...) In the end, it
seems that “they” decided to drop the trial, though A.M. had claimed everywhere,
“It will be the trial of the century” (!) and announced an “Action” in
Paris....It all apparently came to nothing. But all these “it would seem” come
from X, so ... This boy, I feel, is running with the hare and hunting with the
hounds, or rather he has such little courage and is so spineless that he can
betray if he even just thinks that he is in danger (“danger” means to lose the
security of “prosperity” and of his place in the Ashram). I don’t trust him at
all. He is not a wicked man, but people who are devoid of courage are a prey for
the Adversary. It is a very curious thing that can be remarked: one doesn’t at
all need to have serious flaws to topple into the Darkness: a tiny, microscopic
flaw is enough....There is no “big” and “small”: the microscopic stupidity is
mortal, as much as Pranab’s violence and Nava’s ambition. Interesting.
Ultimately, what made them decide not to take us to court, it would seem, is
that Counouma thinks (or has been led to think) that 1978 [Mother’s centenary]
is the big business year for the Ashram and that a trial is likely to discourage
foreign generosity. That’s how things are. We are soaring high. Won’t they go
back to their idea after the “Centenary business”? Unless Mother well and truly
rectifies their ideas ... once and for all!
So, the worst seems to be past, but the impulse to
leave is still very strong. I have caught a blasted thing in the eye again (the
left one this time, which is swollen like a pigeon egg!). Obviously, there are
many undesirable things moving about in the atmosphere. Sujata and I have the
impression that Mother has a plan behind this departure, and that it corresponds
to something vaster than the present pretext....
Then Sujata, spurred on by I don’t know what impulse, suddenly told N.: “Many Aurovilians must pray Mother actively ...” For the moment, we are still struggling with Kottakuppam post office, which systematically steals all the letters for “Mother’s Bookshop.” A complete gap for at least a month. We made a complaint to the Madras Postmaster. But corruption is everywhere....This truly is the problem of the whole of India.
After having hesitated, I decided to move on without informing the local police, though it is really against the rules. They had informed the trustees the very day I went to their office before my departure for France. It is true that the police of the Himalayan village will inform the police of Pondy.... We are right in the midst of a police regime. But I absolutely believe that Mother acts materially in the most microscopic detail and that She will thwart all the plans of the Mafia. And after all, a man can die but once, at the appointed time. I don’t worry about that. It will be right in any case and whatever way. Nothing ever happens but the Lord’s will — this is the most absolute reality. When you know that, you are at peace once and for all.
Satprem
December 19, 1977
Abhay Singh [Sujata’s brother] resigns from the Ashram Workshop. First step of the onslaught against Nandanam.
December 20, 1977
(Personal letter)
A few hurried lines to tell you that we are right to
leave, as
it has just been confirmed at last: the trustees finally put Abhay Singh in a
position where he could do nothing but resign from the Workshop — it is the
first step they take, after planning it for a long time, in order to take over
Nandanam. All Mother’s elements are discarded little by little — so that those
rats remain alone among themselves for Shiva to dance his
tandava85 — the tandava of the Centenary, a “festival”
— but in reverse! In fact, it is a very positive piece of news. These people set
out to trace a very inexorable curve that must necessarily end in destruction.
We will probably leave on Thursday 22nd for Delhi, and from there...?? We are
scattering the last papers of Nandanam in anticipation of the ultimate
takeover.... Sujata, still weary, is hastily attending to the last preparations,
so exhausting, but everything will be all right just in time. It is marvelous to
see how Mother leads us to do the exact thing.
Satprem
December 21, 1977
The trustees have sent for Dilip [the watchman of the garden].
The onslaught on Nandanam.
*
(Personal letter)
So soon ... The trustees have twice sent for Dilip. Nandanam will be devastated, Deer House searched from top to bottom. Tomorrow, we are weighing anchor. The end of a cycle.
Everything is well.
A last time at the Samadhi: it was full of joy and victory.
Sujata
exhausted by trunks and suitcases. We are happy to leave — how strange....Our
hearts are light, everything is light and wrapped in love.
With you, see you soon
Satprem
So Dilip went to the trustees, summoned a third time by a phone call: like furious dogs barking, “We have taken over from Abhay Singh. Now Nandanam is under our control and you are to receive orders from us ...” Dilip had big sweet eyes that did not understand all that. “Why were they shouting?” Yes, as Sujata says, it is monstrous.
And they already know that we are leaving!... We are surrounded by traitors and spies. Let’s hope that all goes well until tomorrow.
December 27, 1977
Almora. Snow View. The Himalayas devastated. We are looking for another place.
January 2, 1978
Dehra Dun. The mountain scoured as if by rats. No trees left.
Letter of expulsion from the four trustees. This letter has been brought up to us here by a member of the S.A.S.... (Thus we have been shadowed.)
January 4, 1978
2 a.m. Return to Deer House.
Locks on all the doors and windows. Some Aurovilians come to unscrew the locks. The trustees send me the police: “breach of peace.”
January 6, 1978
(Personal letter)
... I am so dazed and there are so many things to say
that it is like lifting a mountain. My head seems to be increasingly reduced to
nothing, it is like a painful mattress of fog and another circuit must be found.
In fact, I no longer function in the old way at all and I don’t really know how
one manages to carry on in a body. It gives me the feeling that I am completely
worn down, to the marrow, and at the same time that it does not matter and that
it could go on for centuries: it does not depend at all on what one might feel
or think. Sujata is recovering from a bronchitis that she caught up there. Oh,
you know, in that bedroom in Dehra Dun, as she was coughing and coughing and we
did not know where to go, we could neither go any higher, nor go back down to
Delhi nor even stay where we were, it was so incredible, so poignant
with a non-sense, and I was worn-out and worn-out, I was only a prayer on the
verge of revolt, “What is all that for, Mother, what do you want, where do you
want us to go, tell me — tell me.” And there was no answer as if everything were
laughing at us. She did not answer and nothing answered. We felt so cold in our
hearts. And this ceaseless cough. So, when this fellow dressed in black hailed
me, “Good morning, Satprem, happy new year!” with a letter in his hand, I knew
at once that it was the trustees who had written me and that it was Mother’s Answer at last — a sense, a direction at last. We put everything back in our
bags — ah, these incredible bags that we had to pack and unpack a hundred times
to grab a sock or a towel, and then Mother’s photo, and the wallet we had put
away God knows where. We rushed to Delhi dementedly, I thought we would have to
confront C.P.N. Singh again, but he agreed that we go back down to Pondicherry.
Luggage again, tickets unconfirmed until twenty minutes before the plane took
off: in sixteen hours, we had made it the whole way from Dehra Dun to Madras. I
caught Roger [an American Aurovilian], who was miraculously in Delhi: I knew
that locks had been put on all my doors, I needed someone to warn the
Aurovilians during the night and bring me pincers, screwdrivers and levers to
force the doors. And would I manage to open the gates of Nandanam? We arrived at
2 a.m., they were all so stunned that they opened the gate, and there we were,
on the veranda of Deer House, in front of all those locks, those screws
in all the doors and all the windows — it was monstrous and incredible, these
locks and screws were pure barbarity stuck there (you understand, these locks on
the place in which we had poured so much consciousness, so much beauty....), we
were suddenly in another world, as when I stepped into the courtyard of
Buchenwald, it was the same mark, the incredible, hideous Falsehood. Roger
rushed to Auroville and found the tools. Half an hour later, at 2.30 a.m., the
police came, called by the trustees who had been immediately warned by a phone
call from Ashwini ... betrayal, yes, but from
poor people who are afraid to lose their job, their daily bread, the roof over
their head. Fear reigning everywhere in the Ashram. They are all scared. They
like us, but they are scared. So they phoned. They even filed a police
complaint, under orders from the trustees, saying that we had forced the
entrance of Nandanam and were committing a “breach of peace.” All of this is so
sad, so petty. The policemen put on their usual act, threatening us: if you
break into the house, you’ll push yourself into a tight corner. We sat down on
the pink tiles in front of the door, Sujata was like a calm fury, an intrepid
Shakti: we will not move, you’ll have to throw us out physically. Then, in the
night, on the little path lining Deer House, suddenly, the throbbing
sound of the motorbikes: the Aurovilians were coming. There were a few
incredible minutes. I began to speak very loud so that the policemen would not
hear those motorbikes. I don’t know what happened, but Mother rendered them deaf
and unconscious, there seemed to be a material will, which I felt materially, to
make them leave immediately — they straightened up, “Well, we’ll go and bring
our superiors.” I escorted them to their motorbike. Sujata ran to the little
door among the bamboo in order to warn the Aurovilians. At long last, the
policemen’s motorbike put-putted away in the night and I in turn ran to the
small door. They cut the chain that closed the door. Now we had to open at least
one of the Deer House windows so as to be able to take possession of the
place. Another miracle: the trustees had not seen that the kitchen window was in
fact a false door that could open like a door. The Aurovilians J. and S.
(admirable for their self-control and efficiency) forced the lock without
breaking anything, unscrewed — there remained the interior bolts, one of which,
by miracle, had not been slid home; we managed to half-open the French window,
to remove the second bolt, and we found ourselves inside, while the Aurovilians’
motorbikes were throbbing away full speed in the night. And there we were,
dazed, shut up in Sujata’s room, waiting for the policemen’s return. It was 3
a.m. Sujata began to
clean furiously and quietly: she cleaned the ground, scrubbed the mirror,
scrubbed the kitchen, as if all that had to be un-soiled. She scrubbed for more
than two hours — I was watching her, rather stunned. She did that as a form of
magic. It was very quiet and somewhat inexorable. I burnt incense in every
corner. Then she folded and folded, all the clothes, the bedcovers, everything
had to be set in order, and it was order that was returning little by little or
emerging from stupor and night. It was Mother, quietly. “Well, there you are,
what a fuss! Nothing impedes.” For the first time in those last twenty days of a
crazy race, we were in the Sense. Then it became obvious: we had left so that
all these acts could be committed. And it was like the first fire that was going
to set the whole Ashram alight, exactly like the takeover of the hut of
Aspiration set Auroville on fire and triggered Nava’s ruin. What is beginning is
the ruin of the counterfeiters. In fact it is ruin throughout India. I saw
Indira when I was in Delhi, she sent for me. She had been expelled from the
Congress at the very same moment that I was expelled from the Ashram. Everything
is strangely synchronous. The expulsion letter from the trustees is dated
January 1st, 1978: they began the year by the very act that will trigger their
ruin.86
I cannot recount all the details. Yesterday morning, a
strange phenomenon happened: I was writing to Laffont, my first long-delayed
letter, and suddenly, in the midst of a sentence, I felt a fainting spell come
upon me — I became damp, frozen, I no longer knew where I was, as if all life
felt like escaping in vomit. I called Sujata, she sat near me, at the small
table, her hand was stroking my forehead and my heart; and it was all so
senseless, this world and this life, but our love was there, so quiet, as if
eternal — this side or the other, it no longer mattered. And at the same time,
Mother, so material, and somewhat irreducible: all that happens is exactly what
is needed for the work. Little by little, I came back
into my body, added a line to the last paragraph to Laffont and went to bed. The
impression was that of an occult evil spell unraveling. What are they up to? I
don’t know.
... I have just been interrupted by a visit from three
policemen (from Cuddalore, I don’t know why); one hour and fifteen or thirty
minutes of “conversation,” but they were very kind, unlike the four other
policemen of yesterday afternoon (from Pondicherry, Lawspet, and what not). You
should have seen Sujata, yesterday, during the official questioning — I thought
I knew the Shakti, but this time, it was all incarnated and irrefutable: she was
the one who sent them packing with all their “useless questions,” and don’t bring it up again. They were like little boys in front of her. As for me, I
answered politely, step by step or inch by inch, but she did not want any of it,
it was that simple. In a few words, the trustees basically stated that I should
have asked for permission to move from here, because they are responsible for
the maintenance of the Ashram places and buildings (and after all, I am, or I
was, an “Ashram employee”) and that since I did not inform them, they had to put
locks (on top of the ones I had already put) “as a protective measure”
(protective against Satprem, I suppose). To recount you the details of this
disgusting and pseudo-legal act would be exhausting. As far as I know, the
police are dragging their feet and have not (or not yet) agreed to expel us from
the place manu militari. If the police don’t obey Counouma’s wish and the
injunction that A. filed against us (“breach of peace” — can you imagine? I am
breaking the peace of Nandanam!), the trustees will have to pass from a
criminal procedure (!) to a civil one, that is a trial and the Courts. This is
probably what they are going to try. In that case, the “disputed property” is
placed under seal until the court delivers its verdict — this is just what they
are hoping, to kick us out in one way or another. Let’s wait and see. I am
persuaded that quite a few people in Pondicherry (I don’t say in the Ashram, who
are like spiritual calves) have begun to think
that this spiritual Institution is spiritual in a most bizarre way, even these
policemen. They are letting their masks drop implacably. And our friends from
Auroville, who take turns watching around Deer House and bring us all
they can, are so marvelously full of heart, love and fraternity.
I stop here. We are also expecting Abhay Singh’s expulsion, as well as Kireet’s. Abhay is marvelously full of the joy of the battle and tranquil courage, naturally. We feel such a fraternity around us and everything is weightless for those who have chosen Mother — weightless, everything is exactly as it must be, according to Her plan which unfolds meticulously and ineluctably, we have only to let ourselves be carried. Now, I know: at every second, in any case, everything is exactly as it must be. Then worries fade away, one feels light. One has only to go on through, and not to fail physically on the way. At the end of it all is the ineluctable Victory. We will see what this “Centenary” unfolds.
I was forgetting to tell you about Almora: entire mountains devastated, not a single pine tree left — hills and hills of pines razed to the ground. Instead of them: “fields,” that is, worn away soil that crumbles down. To find a few invio-lated hills, perhaps, we should have climbed higher than Almora. At Dehra Dun, our second expedition, we found the same picture, even more devastated: not only has the forest disappeared, replaced by scrub, but they are mining the mountain to extract pebbles from it; one faces an ulcerated, gnawed landscape. Man, in the history of evolution, will leave a devastating memory. He is the devastator. Sujata’s cough prevented me from seeking higher, further. Then Mother saved us from desolation by sending us the letter from the trustees! You see, Grace is even in the trustees’ hands. Oh, everything is quite amazing. As Sujata said at Delhi airport: it is more amazing than James Bond.
So, the Himalayas did not want us. It was raining, too,
we were frozen to the marrow. I don’t have the courage to tell you everything.
But back here (though I left without a single regret)
I still have the sensation that I am really, right in the midst of this poisoned
bath of work, the electrode of Mother, yes; but as soon as the work is done, I
will be happy to leave this place where we have suffered too much, struggled too
much, as if the body needed to lose this remembrance and to find elsewhere,
perhaps in the mountains of South India this time, another place that we will
build with joy and love and for joy: a new creation. It seems to be a long way
off. For the moment, what is taking place is the sordid battle, step by step and
hour by hour. I am awaiting the Hour. And I am confident that the worse it is,
the better it gets!
Another time, I will answer your questions as regards the advertising for the Agenda point by point — I left your letters in Delhi (along with some boxes, everything is scattered, we are truly wandering Jews; I have an open bag at the foot of my bed, prepared to leave at once). Everything is well.
Satprem
I did not tell you that just as I was leaving Deer House, on December 22nd, as I was going to shut the door of my bedroom, I thought that I saw those people coming into my room to search about. So I took a sheet of paper, my pen, and I wrote in big letters: Mother will overcome. And I stuck this onto my little white desk. They must have turned pale.
January 6 (?), 1978
(Fragment of a letter to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally in English)
... I am cut in half and cannot very well breathe with
but one lung or walk with but one leg! What is your opinion? Here, it seems that
I have nothing much to do except inhale their poison day in day out. There is
some use of my presence for the Aurovilians, but they are grown-up now and
understand the reality. I don’t know the real thing to be done,
unless Mother shows very clearly that I should go.
I am waiting and waiting for Her intervention in India and in the world. I believe only in Her solution, otherwise it seems an endless decay.
It’s good to have you here, to feel your love, your courage. You are like a sword, with a heart so sweet. I have received your beautiful basket. I shall use it to pluck flowers for my puja.
Your idea of the Nobel Prize is wonderful! That would close all their mouths. Laffont would be delighted! But how to move Stockholm!? They understand Mother Teresa better ! I am a kind of outlaw.
I embrace you with deep and sweet love. I am waiting and waiting for Her Hour.
Satprem
January 8, 1978
(Personal letter)
.........
I am being completely uprooted, but the roots have never been very strong, perhaps they come from above. It makes for a strange life. It is mainly the heart that is having difficulty following, it seems to be no longer quite tuned up....
.........
My heart is no longer in Nandanam, something has been
broken (it is a little broken within, too). Simply, I hold on up to the end, and
the minute the work is done, I will cast these moorings off forever. I don’t know, it all seems to be subtly destroyed. And I am still ready for new cycles —
before, I used to run across continents, an old, never lost habit. But the
new
cycle? Obviously, one has to go through a kind of death. This is adventure,
anyway. I have (or rather we have) been assailed by a fourth wave of policemen,
yesterday evening. They spring up from every possible corner: Cuddalore, Jipmer,
Pondicherry, and what not. But what is very
funny is that they are illumined policemen, for whom I even autograph the
Divine Materialism. The Grace in every nook and cranny. They take their
shoes off so as not to “spoil the sanctity of the place”! But the trustees
searched it less gracefully and with their shoes on. These long speeches are a
little tiring, but I have the feeling of a marvelous grace neglecting nothing,
not even the least policeman, the least domestic — do you know that Lakshmi, my
servant, seeing that I was hesitating in front of the locks on every door, told
me straight out: “I’ll break the locks, then I’ll go to the police and tell them
that I broke them.” A simple, immediate, unpretentious courage. Yes, it
is the big separation of the pure gold from the dross, everywhere, at every
level and in the tiniest small consciousness, here and there — everyone
is waging the battle, without knowing it. One is here, or there. So, the
Ashramites need parsley in their nostrils!
I forgot where I was at with the points of your letter. Perhaps we will not need publicity! And what if Mother pulled her own publicity stunt! Though she does not like playing to the gallery. But stunt, there will be. (...)
Satprem
January 10, 1978
(Personal letter)
Last night, as we were waiting for the Auroville van in
order to move things — one more move! — from the Bungalow office (which has
until now escaped the trustees’ notice), M.-A., one of the beefy blokes who can
lift an eighty kilo case of books, made an unexpected revelation (not so
unexpected, but here things are caught in the raw). M.-A. is twenty, he came to
Auroville only a few months ago, after having stayed seven years in the Ashram
where he arrived at the age of thirteen. M.-A. is an ex-pupil of Pranab’s and
all the rest. So, last year, or to be exact, a few months ago, he and his
American friend, whose name I have forgotten, went
to see the trustees (perhaps called by them for a lesson of brain refreshing)
and after all kinds of edifying speeches, they asked questions. M.-A. asked,
“What is all this fuss with Satprem and the Agenda about?” And Counouma
answered, “Oh, you know, Mother contradicted herself a lot, so it must not be
said, otherwise it would upset the sadhaks’ (disciples) minds.”
You see....Exactly the same old story of the guardians of the “Truth,” in Greek, in Latin, in Egyptian and in all languages. And the opinions they have about Mother.... The “senior sadhaks.”
So, one more move, a complete Diaspora in each and every corner. It was so heartbreaking to be in this office during the night, Sujata and I busy “sorting out” books and things: it was Mother who gave me that; She did not put her signature to this, but it was when ... And all those objects that seemed so pitiful, almost distressed of being seized in disorder and stuck in a case. I was so disgusted that I thought that fires had their merits sometimes. And what then? Where to lug all that to? We have no place any longer. At Deer House, Sujata told me: I have the impression that I am in a station waiting room — at Deer House! Nor am I in fact any longer here, the thread has been cut. But it looks as if all the threads have been cut.
We had a fifth wave of policemen, but they were the
same as last time; moved by the Grace, they wanted to “listen” again and had
brought the inspector from Tindivanam. So, we have had specimens of
Pondicherrian police from the three points of the compass (the fourth one is the
sea, no maritime police as yet). Our kind lawyer, V., informed us that Counouma
himself went and brought a lawsuit for “trespass” to the General Inspector of
Police of Pondicherry. He said, as I have been told, that I had been expelled
from the Ashram for “anti-Ashram activities.” But the General Inspector answered
(just as in my outline answer to the trustees, in the hands of my lawyer): this
vague accusation is not enough, you must tell me facts. So, the police have become
distrustful, as everyone else in Pondicherry, and no longer blindly accept the
statements of the managing trustee [= Counouma]. Counouma must be racking his
brains and making compilations to hunt down my heretic statements — perhaps he
is even reading the three volumes! Nobody can escape it, not even the police! We
are still expecting a sixth wave, which will be perhaps that of the General
Inspector. ... Were it not so tiring, it would be funny. By the way, Counouma
kicks himself: he said at the Ashram that instead of putting locks, he should
have sent the gymnasts in order to occupy the house. Fortunately, I was quicker
than he was — eighteen hours from the Himalayas to Deer House. They were
dumbfounded at the swiftness of the move. Me too. We don’t know what they have
in mind for us, but it seems that Mother renders them as stupid as she rendered
the policemen deaf, while the motorbike from Auroville was throbbing fifty
meters away. They have reached that state of towering rage that permits every
hope (!)
Apart from that, it was N. who took in hand the
organization of the shifts and communication with the outside world. They all
are so marvelous with their delicacy, atten-tiveness, love — and discretion.
Auroville is truly very kind to us. But all the same, we are in our waiting room
to nowhere. I am in a strange state, as if permanently dazed. I thought that it
was the effect of the journey and of the decompression after the Himalayas but
it seems to stick, so that I feel permanently like one who has not slept for a
fortnight and looks at everything through a strange daze. If the head did not
exist physically, it would be fine, because it would all work just as well, even
better, without this kind of painful doormat. But the head adheres to the
shoulders. And it gives a sensation of drunken weariness. I tell myself that it
is so because we are used to mentalizing all our bodily sensations; so the head
(the main grinder) is tired, of course, but it may be only what the head thinks.
It would be interesting to know how the body feels, without the head. But it
does not want to give up. Perhaps the machine is being
disconnected. I remember Mother very well: “A state of imbecility,” “You are
beaten and battered.” While in this state, I write to Laffont, to Tata, to ...
.........
Luckily, there is no longer any burning at the stake, or else your brother would be roasted. By the way, I was born in Paris, rue Giordano Bruno, who was burnt at the stake in Rome as heretic. I left from the right station, the direct and imperturbable one.
Sujata is still coughing a lot. She dreams that we are hunted down: the mob is waiting for us outside. Nothing surprising.
January 13, 1978
(Personal letter)
Oh, life here has become a kind of torture, I cannot tell you. It is horrible. How much longer will it last? The air is full of claws and poison, as if enraged. My throat tightens, as if I was feeling pain. One cannot live like this, can one?
The sixth wave came from an unexpected side: the Foreigners’ Registration Office. Since I was back in Pondicherry, I had to notify the authorities. A vile questioning, We are criminals. How much money do you earn every month, why this and why that....It is a huge cobweb. In fact, they want to expel me from life, not only from India or the Ashram. And you are so disgusted that you feel like saying, “To hell with it!” I don’t know, I did not know that it was so cruel.
Everyone spins their cobweb in one way or another — and I am asphyxiating in all that. And the nights.... The infernal cycle has started again.
I have no more writing paper, left my last pad in Delhi-Mother gave me that headed notepaper, which I never used, I don’t like letterheads, especially mine. After all, I have not much to write any more, I have to hold myself firmly not to slip out of it all.
David
is struggling with Barun who robbed Boni of all his books and his money. As a
result, His Lordship came back into the field of consciousness, and he is the
most horrible of all. I am sorry, I am writing to you like a drowning man.
Tomorrow, it will be better perhaps.
S.
PS: A marvelous letter from Tata. It is nice to meet non-gandhians!
January 16, 1978
(Letter to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally in English)
Dearest Companion,
Herewith the copy of the letter we have sent this morning to the four trustees with our lawyer’s agreement.
We feel absolutely calm and light, carried by the Mother — without worry, whatever happens. It is Her plan and Her concern.
Our Aurovilian friends take turns and watch lovingly over us. It is a completely cold battle. There is even joy in them.
Our letter to the four trustees will be widely circulated in the West. The journalist who was sent to you by me has understood the situation here perfectly and seen the ugly padlocks and screws on our doors and windows. If necessary, if some trouble develops, he will be ready to assist us in the French Press.
We are ready. Truly nothing happens but by Her will. So there is nothing to worry about, and death is better than a false life.
with deep love
and profound oneness,
Satprem
January 17, 1978
(Personal letter)
So,
yesterday we did two important things: we renewed our subscription to Tintin
and we sent our letter to the four trustees. The lawyer advised me to add a
paragraph that is not so useful, but after all....While Sujata added three
emphatic words at the end of her charming little paragraph... There is no
comment to make: everyone must understand and react as they feel. I have been
told that the Aurovilians were delighted. They are redoubling their efforts to
take shifts. There is an interesting conjunction: the last tapes are leaving
Bombay, the first volume of the Agenda is coming out in four days (or
rather the printing will be completed) and Indira is threatened with being
placed under arrest again. And my little song to the trustees. Let us wait and
see, or rather let us hope that we will see. Though the Divine seems very
nonchalant these days. I cannot believe that they are going to “celebrate the
Centenary” as if nothing had happened. Iniquity becomes very heavy everywhere.
But we are not even in front of dazzling Atlanteans in their last days of
excess; these are only small rats gnawing at everything, even truth and
mountains.
.........
As for me, I am counting the days. I have only one human desire left, to leave as soon as the task is completed and to begin a new cycle of beauty and creativity in a more gracious world....
Sujata feels better, but not yet so well. It has lasted
for a long time. As for me, I have an obstinately swollen eye and my heart is
tired, but it is a strange mixture of wear and tear and indefinite dynamism. My
heart heaves for the slightest nothing, and at the same time, I could walk fifty
kilometers and speak for three hours without even noticing it — as soon as I
stop, I feel tired and it becomes bad. We should not feel
or notice anymore. There would then be nothing at all anymore. I understand
Mother more and more.
Satprem
January 19, 1978
(Personal Letter)
(...) A curious experience occurred yesterday, January
18. First, a strange morning, where my body felt at ease — indeed it had not
happened for years, as if after being constantly exposed to threats, attacks,
waves, all kinds of things that weigh and scratch and add years to you,
yesterday morning all that suddenly vanished. It was strange. I was at ease in
my body, as if I were twenty. I don’t know why, since all appearances are
unfavorable: Counouma has just received my letter and these gentlemen must be
... I don’t know what. Well. After lunch, I lay down as usual and I slept — it
has not happened for years. I slept a deep sleep for an hour, in the subtle
physical. There were all sorts of things which I don’t remember clearly, except
that I was on the ground floor of a dark building and I gave Counouma and a
number of ghosts around him a good thrashing. Then I climbed to the first floor
in order to continue the battle. It was very dark. It looked perhaps like an old
apartment of Mother’s. Perhaps the Ashram, I don’t know. Nor do I know what
happened or if I changed my mind, but I tried to get out of this hostile place.
I went to a tiny adjacent room, which was very dark. There was a door over
there, through which I hoped to step out unnoticed. This door was wedged shut by
an old, small round table that I pushed aside. Then I turned the knob and at
that moment, I felt another hand turning this same knob from the outside. I
stepped back, flattened against the wall, while the door was opening. I was
hidden by the panel. Someone came in, the door closed, revealing my presence: it
was Mother. For a second, I felt my hand caressing
hers in the darkness, it was very soft. Then we took two steps together. She had
grown very tall but I could not see her face, except for an outline, everything
was bathed in a half-darkness. Then, She said something which remained
crystal-clear and exact, down to the least intonation: “In all circumstances,
there is a negative. The only solution is my coming out.”
It was said in a neutral, quiet, almost impersonal manner, like someone who considers a problem from all sides or angles and reaches an inevitable conclusion. It was said in neither a loud nor low tone nor with any color whatsoever: something that was very devoid of “person.” Almost exactly in the same tone as She told me two or three years ago when I met her, as we were struggling to have the Agenda published and Barun was making his dirty fuss: “So it would rather be the legal approach,” She said in a very neutral way, like someone who considers the problem from all angles and comes to a conclusion. I was far from knowing that this “legal approach” was to be represented by the lawyer in Paris and the liberation of the Agenda.
And now: “In all circumstances there is a negative. The only solution is my coming out.”
So, really, She is going to come out?
The first sentence is very enigmatic. One understands without understanding. But “she is going to come out,” it certainly looks like it. One cannot believe it. But damn it, She informs me that She is about to come out. It is clear. You know, this kind of indubitable meeting. And that tone She had, so particular, as if there were no one there, and yet it is a whole world. The absolute tranquility of absolute power. It makes no difference: to stay on that side, or to move to this one. The overwhelming miracle is only from our frog-tale point of view. “Well, we will move to this side, since such is the situation.”
What is this “negative” in all circumstances? Does it
mean that nothing answers? But I cannot believe it. It would rather be that all
circumstances reach a sort of impossibility where
there is no way out, except a catastrophe or a crushing collapse. — in
countries, continents, groups, parties, everything?? I don’t know. These are
probably my impertinent commentaries.
That’s it.
Apart from that, nothing new. No more waves of policemen. The police seem to have definitively thrown out Cou-nouma’s complaint. The Auroville case taught them a lesson. Those people are now suspect — none too soon! What are they up to now?... Let us wait and see. As for me, I am in a sort of nothingness. I had to make a great effort to write this letter, otherwise I would stay there gazing at... I don’t know what. There is no longer anything that feels like stirring, or perhaps it stirs only at the very moment it is needed. All the same, I will be very happy the day I will be able to weigh anchor from here for good. It would not be so bad to be able to work ...
The only solution is my coming out...
Goodness me!...
Satprem
January 22, 1978
(Personal Letter)
It seems to me that I am writing to the free world, over there, as would a prisoner in a camp. Yet, I know that that world is not free either, in another way, and that everything is like an immense Prison with no way out, except... that. We are truly at the end of a world. The convulsions are only more intense here. It is horrible and I know what horror means, but I never saw such a density of wicked, planned, “conscious” filth, if I may say so. There is no doubt that Sri Aurobindo and Mother were surrounded by all the poison of the world.
Yesterday evening, I heard something that upset me. Oh! I
knew it, but I did not really know. An electrician from the Ashram, who also
works in Auroville and wants to settle in Auroville, recounted that the day
after Pongal,87
“they” (I don’t know who these “they” were, probably the sordid bunch) had met
to listen to a cassette that had been recorded by a “sadhak close to Mother.”
First he did not want to say who this “sadhak” was, but he said in the end:
Satprem. And he recounted: there was a leak among Satprem’s last recordings with
Mother, precisely in a conversation where Mother’s “death” was talked about and
the possibility of a yogic trance and it was this cassette that they were
listening to.... The Ashram, he said, is divided between those who want Mother’s exhumation and those who don’t want it.
Oh, how abominable they are!
But there was never any “leak” or possibility of
leak of my tapes, nobody but Sujata and me ever touched those tapes, and I never
copied any cassette. So?....Yes, I wrote in volume III, “Even our conversations
were spied on” — they were not only spied on but fraudulently recorded by Kumud,
who came to switch on the tape recorder under the pretext of bringing a glass of
water to Mother or of putting a napkin away, then the pirate recording was given
to Pranab by Kumud....It is so abominable, I still hear Mother telling me: “I
can’t speak anymore.” But it had quite a different meaning! All those silences
and silences of the last year, I thought it was her interiorization, but it was
perhaps, too, those abominable people, with their ears everywhere and their
hidden microphone. Sujata did tell me one day: “Kumud records our
conversations,” but I did not want to believe it. All that seemed impossible to
me — impossible. Then another time, Sumitra came to be at Mother’s, while Andre
and Kumud were translating, or rather noting down a conversation that Mother had
just had with another person and that She wanted to keep. And as Andre + Sumitra
+ Kumud were
struggling to find the exact words, Mother turned to Kumud and told her in Her
neutral, quiet little tone: “You see, you record when you shouldn’t, and you
don’t record when you should.” That is all. She knew. She knew everything. And
She swallowed that, day and night and night and day, ceaselessly. Ah, one day,
She took my hands in hers, Her eyes were filled with tears, and She asked me:
“Do pray for me.”
It breaks my heart.
I hate this place, I want to leave, I want to go off and never come back here, ever.
So, these monstrous madmen want to exhume her after having screwed her down in her box. They think that Mother needs their little screwdrivers to get out of there! It is monstrous, the Earth has never known such a cold horror. I have not slept the whole night — anyway, I don’t sleep anymore since I’m back here, except the afternoon She told me: the only solution ... Oh! that the Earth be purged of this horror.
And now, they say (as this electrician recounts): why did Satprem tell us nothing?
... Sometimes, I feel like screaming. All these people are millions of miles off the mark, even those who know or believe that they know. “Do pray for me....”
Let us pray, let us pray for this horror to disappear from the Earth, let us pray for Her to come out and usher in the reign of Beauty and Truth and Vastness, oh! let us pray, it is too painful.
Satprem
January 27, 1978
(Personal Letter)
Your telegram “Aster, splendid robe” [release of the
first Agenda in its red dress] moved me so much amidst all this filth;
all of a sudden, Sujata and I stupidly felt on the verge of
tears. It was like the only real thing, so distant and almost forgotten, so deep
are our noses buried in sordid things. How long will this siege last?
A last fact seems to overstep the limit, but apparently, there is no limit to the deepness of this filth. I looked at that, gritting my teeth. So, The Near Future (of filth) [= the “bulletin” published by Barun-Auropress] devotes a whole issue to Pranab’s glory.... Well....But I began to see the devil’s tail, or rather the Asuras, when I was told that amidst Pranab’s praise, there was a quotation of Mother’s in big letters (oh, how they make use of Mother) saying that a Mantra had no power unless it was given by the Guru.... So, they want to demolish the power of Mother’s Mantra [that I gave to Auroville], by slipping into people’s consciousness: this Mantra has no power, it has not been given by Mother. How odious! I know full well that only those who want to be caught will be caught, but this intention behind is abominably perfidious. They truly want to destroy Mother’s work.
I don’t know if it is overstepping the limit, as there is always a further limit. Sujata feels that they must perform “a last act” before being crushed. But what act? And when? It takes long.
Apart from that, I continue the battle against my expulsion from India. You will see my correspondence with the Immigration Officer. All this energy negatively expended, only to thwart those people’s machinations. When will I be able to do my true work? I think of Sri Aurobindo.
That is all.
I am waiting, you are waiting, he is waiting, we are waiting ...
Satprem
January 31, 1978
(Personal letter)
I have simultaneously received two letters that make me
wonder: one from Switzerland, and one from R. R.’s letter is
in reply to a draft article (very fine) by “Little M.” on the Agenda and
Satprem’s expulsion, for
La Revue d’Auroville88 “One and the same battle,” it is
exactly that. R. answers: “Is it not likely to jeopardize Aurovilles future? Is
it really the right moment?”... Now I jeopardize Auroville’s future. And this
man has understood, seen, evolved a lot over a year, I have worked on him a lot.
Fear. That is, the fear of truth. And the other one, the Swiss: “I have been
told that you had difficulties with the trustees of the Ashram. ‘Someone’
suggested that I should write to Counouma in order to protest, I am
perplexed....”I don’t know what they will need to get out of their perplexity,
unless a bomb drops to burst in their faces, or Mother. And he further explains:
“I am perplexed because it seems to me that the only important thing is Mother’s protection, and you have it.” It is incredible. Human nature is decidedly an
abyss of cowardice. It is incurable. We might call it: “The Falsehood of the
right-thinking ones.” It was the same thing with Petain — they all were
petainists, except for a handful. “Careful of reprisals, you jeopardize the
future of France.” I quite understand now why Sri Aurobindo and Mother kept on
saying, “It is not for the sake of humanity that we are doing this yoga, it is
for the sake of the Divine alone.” No, it is not for the sake of humanity or of
fraternity, because it is the same sordid layer everywhere, except for a few
rare stars, and we would swiftly give up the battle if it was for these
perplexed wet rags, but it is for the sake of Her, or of Him, only and
exclusively. Yet, this kind of illusion is the hardest to crack on the way:
brotherhood. It must exist somewhere, but it is rather a quality of the future,
except for a few rare samples. So, tell our Etevenon friends not to squander
their ink on these perplexed men. I remember, three years ago, in 1975, I think,
when I saw this Agenda silently surrounded by tentacles: Andre, Counouma,
Robi ... I planned to take to the streets, call the young people of the Ashram
and tell them: let’s go ahead and publish
Mother’s work, let’s join forces. Then Mother intervened. She sent me one of my
first visions: it was in a place like above the government square in
Pondicherry, and She told me “No, no, no, you must not take to the
streets (of course, I would have been torn apart!), you must go and see the
Governor and the Treasurer.” I scratched my head and wondered whether She wanted
me to go and see K.S. or I don’t know who, maybe the Governor of Pondicherry?
And not long after, Tata and C.P.N. Singh came one after the other.... The
“Treasurer” and the “Governor” — in fact, it was the Government of India. But
had I taken to the streets, I would have been torn to bits by those heroes of
the “near future.” Mother knew it!
Well, in fact, the situation has not really changed. It is the same humanity with a few shining little points. And “the only solution is my coming out.”
I don’t tell you this to discourage you, but to keep our eyes resilient and wide open concerning the fraternal human condition. We are so stupid, inveterate idealists who need to give up our sentimentality. I see more and more clearly: there is only the Divine. That is all. Everything else is mud in preparation (including ourselves, if we take a close look at it).
To conclude, I guess that the Etevenons’ money is meant to help me in case I have to flee hurriedly and to buy a plane ticket? (To where, this is a quite different question — Paramaribo?) They are among the few fraternal stars.
.........
The telegram never arrived. You see. I’ll try to send
someone today. Communications with Madras are difficult, and we no longer have
the Workshop cars (Abhay Singh). Our mail keeps being stolen and we are still
being spied upon, plus all that we don’t know (if we knew everything, we might
be crushed), but the
Lisieux89 fair is starting around the
Samadhi, with scapulars and leaflets. How I am longing to leave, it makes me
feel nauseous, and so does Sujata (she feels much better now, it is I who am
fragile, and indomitable at the same time).
Satprem
February 1, 1978
Sujata sees Mother, with her feet resting on her sandals. Then Sujata sees Mother slipping her sandals on. Dark red sandals. Kali is going to walk. She is about to come out. There will be trouble for the merchants of the Temple.90
At the beginning of February 1978
(To my reader friends)
We are scattered, apart from one another, each one on their little continent, with little worries, big worries, and life as it is every day. Yet, it is no longer as every day, a marvelous story is trying to slip through the threads of our weft — if we consent to it. What can we do to help this story, to hasten its Moment? — it should go faster, indeed. The Earth is painful, our little continents are so grey and dated. Here and there, we are a few like little points of ardent thirst, and what can we do to help this new species be born among us?
The greatest help is certainly to call this “something
else,” this tomorrow of the Earth, in our hearts, our acts and thoughts, at our
every step, every gesture, silently, obstinately, as one bangs at a door and
calls for oxygen and space and a smile in this suffocating greyness. To call is
to invisibly grow
the wings of the next species and dig a hole in the carapace of our habits. If
there were no necessity, the species would never have stepped out of their slimy
hole. We are in the slimy hole of the Mind. To call — we do not know what — is
already to grope our way in the future and touch a sunny beach we have no eyes
for as yet. Perhaps many eyes are needed for it to be: to create a new species,
we must join forces. There is a golden contagion, as one day many birds fly off
to the sunny country. If there were many of us, it might hasten the hour of
Mother’s country.
This call within, you can share it, awaken it around
you. To work on the great supramental Contagion. We need to be together,
but not as the adepts of a new Church, gathered around a few convenient ideas.
The “idea” here is not convenient at all. It is rather as if an infinity of
research in all directions had to be ignited around a central Sense, a central
Impulse, a Force that eccentrically propels each small point of light by driving
it through different layers of consciousness, different areas of human action.
While going through a layer, each one kindles the corresponding points, which in
turn will go and clear other areas. And it is a whole section of the terrestrial
work that is accomplished. Many types of vibration must reach the point of
mutation: a painter and a surgeon do not have the same way of “operating” and
yet the goal of their concentration can open out onto another universe, which is
one and the same. We have to emerge into another universe and a sort of
multitude of exit points or points of perforation of the old bubble that
imprisons us. Such is the phenomenon that is innumerably taking place. We have
to understand the Sense of the phenomenon, which does not consist in conducting
super-surgery or making super-pictures, but in emerging into another power of
being and another perception. To understand is to hasten the phenomenon, it is
to participate in the Great Contagion of the new World. Mother’s Experience is
the very force of propulsion. Then we will find ourselves, not boxed in in a
small Church but exploded and unutterably reunited in another
material dimension, just like butterflies on a “new” meadow.
In practice, you can help the Task by spreading the Work, the Sense, the Dynamics of it all. Others must touch. Others must feel and breathe a small puff of this light air that tries to slip through the meshes of the old net. One has to taste the Thing, to surrender to That.... You who love Mother, who have felt this Smile, this great Possible beat, give yourself a little. Get out of your shell. Go and bring this imperceptible trembling of the New World. Mother’s books, The Agenda, are not really “books” or even an “explanation,” a new philosophy: they are a Power of action, a Force in motion. It is a Lever. If you put them in a friend’s hands or in the window of a bookseller in your neighborhood or in your town, in the corner of a newspaper or a magazine, or on a piece of an improvised poster, they will act beyond all comprehension, at the most unexpected levels, like a radioactive ore. It might well be the New World Ore. So, get a grip on yourselves and take to action. A grain of heart has unexpected results. By giving all to others, you will receive all yourself. And finally we will all find ourselves together, fulfilled, in this garden of the future that is the very Sense of these millions of years of an inadequate mental species.
If each of you can reach ten persons, you will have done an inestimable work.
And what about seeing Mother’s “little miracles” multiply around us with so light a smile ... multiply until the world melts into a smile and the other Law takes us by surprise, like the little axolotl, once it has been pulled out of the mud.
May our smile embrace ever more smiles.
May the Earth be lighter.
Together
Satprem
February 4-5, 1978
(Personal Letter)
The
papers announce the imminent expulsion of Tata from Air India. It was
bound to happen. Desai is Tata’s personal enemy. They all are the enemies of
what is even slightly true. Everywhere, the direct instruments of Mother are
attacked and persecuted. A strange synchrony: Indira expulsed from the Congress,
Tata from Air India, and myself as you know. Just a fortnight ago, our
last set of tapes left Bombay. Mother, always just in time. Mr Teng [Deng
Xiaoping] has just toured Burma and Malaysia. He is in Nepal at the moment. He
is the hero of the building of the big Chinese roads all around India and
through the Himalayas, “in anticipation of the day when Tibet will be open to
international tourism” (sic). I don’t know what “tourism” looms at India’s doorstep. This huge Falsehood that India has become invites and calls for a
formidable lesson. The Ashram is more and more a small symbol of this. But what
is Mother’s purpose?... A crush, or some inconceivable surprise... crushing in
another way. On February 1st, Sujata had a vision that strangely joins my own
vision, or rather what I heard: a colorful vision of my “audition” of January
18th. It was also during the rest time after lunch. She saw Mother’s feet, very
white, resting on her sandals. Then just afterwards, she saw that Mother
had slipped her sandals on. Dark red sandals, as is the heart of the red
hibiscus (Kali’s flower). Sandals or shoes are the symbol of the physical body.
Mother used to say that Cinderella’s shoes symbolized her getting out of and
coming back into her body. So, Mother slipped her sandals on — red sandals. Is
Kali going to come out? This strikingly ties up with what She told me and grants
a kind of... comfortable confirmation. Usually, this “consciousness” is very
parsimonious and not anxious at all to show you things, except the moment they
are done or when there is an immediate
(or gracious) necessity for you to be warned. “The only solution is my coming
out.” Perhaps we will see.
It would be high time.... But knowing Mother, it is bound to be at the last minute!
(...) So I wrote a “Letter to my reader friends” ... It is rather long, but what to do? You will tell me if I have gone off the rails — rails, you know, are completely gone, I have the impression that I am moving on nothing, or rather in nothing, except for this Force, compact and denser than a geological layer. This is quite formidable. There is no longer any “descent,” but a kind of immediate and coagulated Fact. It seems to be hard like concrete and sweet like honey with a smile inside. Well... I dream of being a divine automaton, but you can never know if you have derailed or not, because there are no longer any rails. It is the derailed state. (...)
*
February 5
I now have a second lawyer in Madras, after M. and the Pondicherry lawyer. I am covered with lawyers, what a world! Before, one was surrounded by knights, now one needs artists of the penal code. In short, one struggles against a global cobweb. But, you see, if one happened to cut the throats of four trustees, hundreds of little trustees would grow again, the Ashram is riddled with potential little trustees. That is the problem. “It is the whole system that should be destroyed!” Mother said....
... You feel your “incapacity to draw nearer as a real
infirmity,” there is also a touch of shadow in any aspiration, I know that well,
or knew it well: in this thirst for perfection, for truly being as that
wills, truly doing as that wills, there is a kind of pain arising from
inadequacy. How many times, even about “my” books and “my” writings, did I not
complain of or suffer from their inadequacy — their infirmity indeed, as you
say. One feels quite infirm, “gone off the tracks,” as I said, reproaching
oneself, as it were. Or, like Sujata: why don’t I see Mother? There lies a sort
of last thread
of the ego, and at the same time this kind of pain arising from infirmity is
necessary for stoking the need, traversing the layer. In these cases, faced with
my own desolation, I open my hands in the end and say: “Good or bad, this is
Yours. And this is for You. And that’s all. Even my infirmity is Yours.” We all
are dreadfully infirm, that is true. To offer one’s infirmity is by far more
difficult than to offer one’s “successes” — and finally nothing succeeds
until we achieve the complete Success, that is, the total transformation,
starting with our two feet. Mother, too, used to complain of her “incapacity.”
We must let everything flow in transparency. Finally, even our limitations are
wanted by the Divine for a certain game. I think that everything is meant to
make us reach a certain sort of vibration: the worst, which is not that much
worse, and the best, which is not so great, in order to get there. And
when this vibration is there, it is not a dazzling marvel, it is quite natural,
as it were, there is no question left. It is the right state. We begin to become
the divine automaton. As soon as you refer back to yourself, you’ve had it.
(...)
Satprem
PS: Strangely enough, since we went to the Himalayas, the newspapers don’t stop speaking about forest devastation! As if they were becoming aware of it. Coincidence? But those devastated pine mountains were such a sorrow. I am waiting for the first possible truce to go and explore the Nilgiris and the “Cardamom Hills,” in search of our new Nandanam. Sujata and I so much thirst for getting out of this negative cycle and breathing a pure air — it is almost physical (I don’t know why I say “almost”). Sujata thought that around February 15th, something would unravel and that we would be able to weigh anchor. A new illusion? But truly, to start the real Work.
February 16, 1978
(Personal Letter)
We
await our departure. We are waiting for I know not what or what’miracle that
will save this desperate situation, despairing in any case. Life here is a
torture. I don’t know why, I have moments of complete horror, as if I were up to
my neck in mud and filth, and I feel like crying out; then I am told about this
or that, get in touch with a whole world of nasty things, of wicked cruelties,
and it is only a small part of what I know. An unknown woman writes me, “I hear
a lot of rumors about you, can you enlighten me?” She is staying at the Ashram
for the darshan. I should explain to everyone, “You know, it’s not true....” It
is disgusting. Besides, André is here with his daughter Janine, too: they are
probably spreading their “explanations” throughout the Ashram. It strangles me.
It seems to be physical. Even the garden is beginning to deteriorate; subtle and
also concrete signs showing that the enemy has taken possession of the place:
plants understand very well. In fact, what suffers most is my body. It is a more
exact plant. So, to leave? But on that side, too, the situation is obscure. The
man from the foreigners’ police is furious with me. He told R. that he had taken
my certificate away from me and that if I went to Auroville or into Tamil Nadu,
he would have me placed under arrest! What did I do? I don’t know. Obviously, he
is in collusion with the Ashram. My visa expires in two months (at the end of
April). Then, in people’s consciousness, there is this “You know, he has been
expelled from the Ashram,” so these good people tell themselves: but what did he
do? In fact, we are persecuted. And according to the laws of the police, if I
leave Pondicherry, I have to notify the authorities everywhere and tell them the
address where I intend to go, then have myself registered at the new place,
which means that my case file will follow everywhere with its annotations, which
means also that Counouma will be informed a few hours (or minutes) after I have
notified the authorities of my departure. So, I will be followed, spied on
everywhere, anywhere. I am harboring a kind of paradisiacal illusion about my
going to find “the place,” but it is rotten beforehand, their shadow follows me
everywhere. And they are Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s disciples....I don’t know,
I have the impression of being strangled from every side. And to stay has become
agonizing, even my back tells me so. Everywhere, there is this cobweb. So I tell
myself desperately : To leave India? To go ... to Ceylon, I know not where? But
this is precisely what they want, to expel me from India. Is it Mother’s will
that I stay here, in this bath of poison? She tells me nothing. I only see the
months going by while the true work is not being done and the second volume of
the Agenda is left pending. So I am here, bound hand and foot, without
knowing anything. It cannot go on like this, one would rather cross over to the
other side. To return to France? But my heart bleeds when I think of leaving
India, it hurts me like a tearing apart, I would die of it. We have lost our
anchor since Mother left, we no longer know where we are or where we are going
to.
We are awaiting the return of Abhay Singh, who is in
Delhi. The “project” consists in leaving at once so as to set off on an
exploration of Kerala, of the cardamom hills, and find a house, a piece of land
with perhaps a plantation around....We are going to explore the area between the
Periyar lake and the Palani mountains. These are generally elephant
“sanctuaries” and cardamom plantations. Then, we will go on a little more north,
toward the Nilgiris, if we find nothing in the South. If by miracle we happen to
find an old planter’s house in a suitable place, we will go back to Pondicherry,
move out clandestinely and abandon the house — but the same old problem will
remain with the police, which will pursue us. Such is the situation, if it can
be called a “situation” at all. It all also means that we are going to have our
last money swallowed up in traveling expenses
alone. To end up where, I don’t know. Yet, we will have to end up somewhere. I
keep hearing Mother: “The only solution is my coming out.”... When? Meanwhile,
the Centenary jamboree spreads and swells. One can see buses of tourists rolling
into Nandanam. Where is Truth, where is the true world? Where is Mother in all
this, what is the solution? Does She really want me to stay here, to rot? To
fight, yes, but this rot? Not only rot: it is cruel.
Well, pray for us.
I thirst so much for a new life.
Satprem
PS: So we leave on Saturday, February 19, 1978, to explore Kerala. May Mother help us.
I have just learned that Sujata arrived at the Ashram on February 18th or 19th ... 1935. You see Batcha!
February 18, 1978
First Agenda ready to come out.
February 20, 1978
Tekkadi, a violent fever, the poison is coming out.
We are looking for a place in Kerala.
February 25, 1978
Green Acre [our future Land’s End]. Harwood [the future Happywood]. First visit to the Blue Mountains.
February 27, 1978
(Letter to Sir C.P.N. Singh, originally in English.)
Coonoor
Dearest and much loved Companion,
At last I am glad to be able to write to you. For the
past nine days we have been wandering some 2,000 km with Sujata, down to Tekkadi
in the forest of elephants, then through the tea plantations to Peermade and
Kottayam [in Kerala]. We have tried to get some forest-bungalow, I loved so much
the atmosphere among the wild animals, as if my body was literally drinking the
place, so much athirst it was. As a result, I got high fever and a strange pain
all over my legs. I have understood that it was all the poison coming out as a
result of this deep peace, as if chased out by the peace. Within two days, I was
all right. I could measure the quantity of poison I have absorbed since my
return from France. In fact, Pondicherry is a bath of poison. But I could not
get this bungalow in the forests of Tekkadi since it was all a property of the
government and I would not be permitted to stay except for a month or so. The
tea plantations were very beautiful in the mountains of Kerala and we have seen
some possible bungalow, but the region is too bare since tea wants hardly any
shade. So we left the South and went north toward Munnar through the cardamom
estates. This is indeed lovely with the primal forest covering the cardamom
bushes. The road from Tekkadi to Munnar is simply ideal and if I could have
gotten some bungalow in a cardamom plantation, which needs a heavy shade, I
would have been delighted. (...) So again we went northward, left the Palani
mountains and came down to Coimbatore, then up again to the Nilgiris and
Coonoor. It was our last hope. (Roger accompanied us during all this tour and
his help was invaluable, so gifted he is for contacting people.) We found all
this region of the Nilgiris from Coonoor to Oota-camund totally devastated,
forests denuded, it was a painful sight.
All seemed hopeless and we thought of proceeding westward toward Coorg or the
southern forests of Mysore. Fortunately the planters in Munnar gave us some
recommendation for a sort of planter’s club in Wellington, here. The secretary
of the club directed us toward K., and behold! There at the far end of the
mountain, overlooking the plains, surrounded by tea plantations and a miraculous
pocket of primal forest untouched by the devastation, we have found two
bungalows, very near to each other; one is a strange old construction,
wind-swept, directly overlooking the plains, a wonderful view, at the end of all
possible paths. Its name is Green Acre, but Sujata called it Land’s End. It is a plot of one acre, surrounded by some eucalyptus trees and one
tea plantation. The house is a fairly big thing, with wide windows, looking like
the cabin of a ship. There is a lot of wind there. But also the house needs
quite a lot of repairs. (...) The adjacent bungalow is a beautiful thing also,
though of a very different character. It is a two-storey building in the middle
of a pasture and completely surrounded by a pocket of primal forest, as if
nestling in the forest. This place is not at all wind-swept and has no wide
view, but it is full of silence with the song of birds. Its name is Harwood.
It is Sujata’s love. (...) It is not exactly my style and it is more practical
than Green Acre, but the location is also very lovely. I am more of the
type which likes wide openings and space and wind. But this place also is most
suitable and very lovable. (...) One thing I am quite sure after all this
wandering in the Himalayas and in Kerala and in Nilgiris is that if the place to
be found is not here, then it is nowhere in India. We will never find something
comparable to this place. The question is whether we should continue living in
Nandanam without any possibility to do our real work, prepare the second volume
of the Agenda, or whether we should leave India and go to France for
pursuing our work, or whether we could do our work in this place, gather there
all our papers, have our tapes, continue the translation of the second and third
volumes of “Mother,” and finally reassemble there
all our papers from France, from Delhi, from Madras, where they are scattered?
As far as I can feel, the situation in the Ashram, or rather in Pondicherry, is
such that the poison is likely to remain there still for quite some time.
Perhaps in the long-run we could acquire Nandanam and be free from the Ashram,
but the nasty atmosphere would be still there. Contacts with the Ashram people
or atmosphere are inevitable. Also I am more or less submerged by Aurovilian
people, which is not my real job, even though I may try to help them. My life
and days are devoured there by a hundred things which are of no value for the
Future or for creativity. I have something else to create. I can best help the
world by being outside the vibrations and see what new strength and inspiration
can emerge out of the silence. I may be wrong, I don’t know. But then, if my
work cannot be done in India, I’d better go to France. My heart is crying when I
think of leaving India. Or is it Mother’s will that I remain in this rotting
condition in Deer House? Conditions may change, but meanwhile I see weeks
and months passing away without any real work being done. This is my anguish. I
would be so glad if you can advise with your wisdom.
.........
If we had enough money in fact both bungalows would be worthwhile. Or is it a dream? Awaiting your cool and calm vision, I embrace you with all my love. Both Sujata and myself are quite fit and in fact refreshed, in spite of the mad wandering through 2,000 km.
With deep love,
Satprem
February 28, 1978
Back to Pondicherry.
March 2-3, 1978
(Personal Letter)
On
the evening of the 28th, back from our tour in the South, a journey of almost
2,500 km, first we came across a letter from Sethna [the editor of Mother
India, an ashram review] ... then, fortunately, the first copy of the
Agenda, brought by Jean-Marie in the night. It was very moving. It is so
beautiful. Exactly the color of Divine Love. It represents a great victory. What
a journey!... Yes, apparently blocked by this huge lorry. Curiously enough, your
physical experience at the printer’s door, as you were blocked by this huge
lorry, corresponds exactly to what I subtly saw in 1976, I think, when I began
to try printing my three volumes and the Agenda: I dashed forward on a
tall bicycle, then I found my way blocked by a huge building. I had to get off
my bike, to walk round the building — it was the Ashram. This time around it is
starting again ... physically. But “another vehicle moved” and you could pass.
Let’s see what this other vehicle will be which will open the way. In fact, it
is a world of threats and blackmail. They have threatened everyone: Macmillan,
Laffont, the Institute, Auroville ... Yet one passes through all the same. But
truly, I am fed up with this ignominy. I felt as if stooped, when I suddenly
re-entered Deer House. All at once, the heaviness was there, and this
atmosphere. There is something in Sujata and me that does not want all that
anymore. Enough of Pondicherry. Enough of Deer House. Enough even of
Auroville (as far as I am concerned). I must absolutely plunge into another
cycle. Oh, this letter from Sethna!... For four years now, like Mother, I have
been relentlessly hearing adverse voices — cruel, pitiless and so clever — which
at every step, for every decision, whisper in my ears: are you really sure that
it is not your ego that wants this and that? Are you really sure that you are
not betraying Mother? Are you really sure that you are not
obeying the Asura? Are you really sure that Mother wants this Agenda to
be published outside of the Ashram? Are you really sure ... A relentless,
exhausting, repetitive criticism, for everything — so much that you would think
you were the devil! I am not joking: you could think you were the devil. And it
imitates Mother’s voice, Sri Aurobindo’s voice. You feel constantly guilty.
That’s it, something makes you feel guilty, ferociously. So, if you listen, as
Mother says, you’ve had it, you’ve had it absolutely, everything drops from your
hands and you go to the Ashram door with a rope around your neck, like the
burghers of Calais. It is infernal. Well, Sethna’s letter incarnates wonderfully
this voice, he captures that with a kind of genius: such a clever, organized
wickedness. “Why didn’t you speak, why didn’t you force the barrier in ’73, and
why ...” All that, always, as if the Falsehood had swallowed the Truth and spoke
with the strength of the Truth it has swallowed. I mean the true Falsehood: not
Hitler, but the very Truth wrapped in Falsehood. It wears me down. And I have
been meeting the same thing everywhere for four years, since Mother’s departure.
Not only are you slandered from without, but you slander yourself, as it were.
You see. Probably, it is to make you learn the state in which everything
dissolves into the Vastness. When what passes is only a breeze, all is airy. But
you understand, ten times I met Sri Aurobindo or Mother in a “dream,” and it was
as if I were guilty in front of Them, in my dream, and then it is such an
intensity of sorrow, with tears burning in my heart, and I silently tell “Sri
Aurobindo” or “Mother,” with all this intensity of sorrow: “You know my heart,
You know well what is in it!” and it all fades away. But it is painful. So, you
understand, I’ve had enough of it, I would like to breathe pure air, to get out
of this painful phantasmagoria. Yes, one is hammered, flattened — it is all
right. But now, I would like to move on to something else. Enough of these
concentration camps No. 2. I’ve had enough suffering in this life, and all those
memories of sorrow strangle me at times, I would like to throw everything out, and
cleanse my very cells. Oh, you know, I had an interesting experience....So, we
left on February 19th, in search of a new Nandanam. First, we went down to the
South, to Kerala, into the semi-mountainous jungle that overlooks the tea
plantations and the green plains of Kerala. It was at Tekkadi, in the elephants’
and wild beasts’ “sanctuary.” I spent several days there, of which a full day
with Sujata in the jungle, on the verge of one of the countless branches of the
big lake of Tekkadi (Periyar Lake). We were looking at elephants, it was so
soft, so soft, a landscape that seemed to be bathed in mauve and pink light —
not a single human vibration: nothing but birds and beasts and the smell of the
jungle, the noises of the jungle. I stayed there for hours, lying in all that,
as if my body were drinking the peace, drinking the silence — it was
literally drinking, as after a great thirst. My body was like a sponge, oh!
everything was melting away: sorrows, memories, man’s memory, man is so painful,
he seems to be nothing but an accumulation of pain, a formidable memory of pain.
And all that was flowing and flowing away into the tall grass. I went back to
the hotel: for two days I had a raging fever, my head was as if about to burst,
my legs were hurting ceaselessly, as if my nerves were being pulled out, my
belly was burning. For a moment, I asked myself whether this wasn’t the end of
the journey, it was so categorical. Had Mother not taught me, I would have
called a doctor. Then it disappeared by itself. And I understood: it was the
whole poison absorbed for years that was going out, as if driven out by
this bath of peace I had taken. This is what I so much need: to drive all this
poison out of my body, of my cells, of my memory — to leave this old painful
skin. First of all, the “new species” must leave its bath of pain. The cells are
filled with a memory of pain, as if one was stuffed with sorrow. All
illuminations, all marvels, all spiritual immensities basically rest on
this great Sorrow and try to forget it for a moment. What an illusion! It is
there. We are filled, Matter is filled with pain — hence the great sleep of
death to end it all. No, one does not get out by going up
above, one has to cleanse it all, vomit it all out, as did my body in the tall
grass of Tekkadi. I understand, more and more and better and better, why Mother
was “losing her memory” — one has to radically lose one’s memory. I am prepared
to go as far as total imbecility, total senility, yes, and lose all and every
means in order to find that one Means, that air, that different
air, devoid of man’s memory. One would do better to die while attempting
that than to continue in this old stupid skin.
.........
We left Kerala to go down the Palani mountains, then
the burning plains of Coimbatore, and we went up to the Nilgiris: Coonoor. A
devastation. No trees left, nothing, only a whole leprosy of human huts among a
few “economic” plantations. It was terrible, I had seen that thirty years ago: a
human tidal wave. Our courage began to fail us and we were about to set off
again westward to the State of Coorg or the forests of Mysore, when we heard of
two bungalows for sale, twenty kilometers from Coonoor. There, we found the same
teeming bazaar, with a proliferation of “modern” buildings under construction,
with several storeys to look out onto the next roof which looked out onto the
next roof. It was hopeless. We went out of the village to meander through tea
plantations and missionaries’ bungalows, then we turned onto a little path: it
was the forest, first eucalyptus trees, then the true forest, miraculous. By the
roadside, we could just make out the roof of a bungalow amidst the trees, but we
continued up to the end of the path. And suddenly, it was really the end: an
open gate, a carpet of flowers, a long alley — then a white column with a bit of
roof outlined against an immensity of light: no trees, no path left, only an
immensity of sky falling away down to the Tamil plains, two thousand meters down
below. Then an extravagant “bungalow” with huge glass verandas, full of light.
And the wind blowing, a lot of wind. It looked like the cabin of a ship. Sujata
said: “This is Land’s End.” Inside ... I don’t know how it can be made
liveable. Wide rooms every which
way, a torn-up floor devoured by termites. A huge main room, essentially
consisting of a veranda, about twenty meters long. Chimneys all the same. And
the wind, a ceaseless wind. We came into this room, the owner took a letter that
he had just received out of his pocket, in order to establish his title deeds —
on the envelope: Mother, smiling. It was the first stamp of the Centenary, on
February 25th. Mother ... stamped, but perfectly there, smiling at us. We were
dumbfounded. The place is called Green Acre: one “acre” only, bequeathed
by an old English lady, who recently died, to her driver. Immediately below the
bungalow, in this expanse of light falling away, there is a tea plantation, then
this miraculous pocket of primal forest. Not a single neighbor, not a single
roof in sight. We turned back and came across the bungalow we had seen on our
way. A long alley bordered with real trees, mimosas as well as eucalyptus trees,
and there, in the midst of an immense meadow surrounded by the forest, on the
hillside, a two-storey building, all alone, looking a little solemn and bored.
It should be clothed in ivy, then it would merge into the meadow and the forests
around — it nestles among the forest. A marvelous, cascading forest, full of
birds and butterflies. We have been told that during the night, one can even see
wild beasts coming down to the lawn of “Harwood,” for such is the name of
the house. (...)
Suddenly the scenario became rather clear. We cannot
keep on living in Nandanam anymore, we cannot live in Auroville without becoming
the guru joyously devoured by everyone amidst all those vibrations of curiosity.
There are no Himalayas left. So if it is not in the Nilgiris, it is nowhere in
India — the very idea of leaving India makes my heart cry out. To go to Europe
would mean to be devoured in another way. I don’t see myself returning there,
unless I have a special work to do for a limited period....Otherwise, one is
unfocused and commercialized. I have the very strong impression that we must
build something else — first in ourselves, then another center of action for
the world (or on the world). The true work. A clear and wide concentration in
which something
can settle without being disturbed by the vibrations of the world. Land’s End,
or the beginning of a new earth. (...) One collects oneself in the true work,
one builds oneself and looks for the other path, the pathless path. A new
atmosphere to build, there. Really a center of the new world. No disciples or
ashram or spiritual chit-chat: only workers. A place of work for the new world.
No ethereal meditations: a lot of matter to handle. First these two houses to
“build”: a place to stuff with consciousness. Then we will see what will descend
therein. I don’t know if I am dreaming wide awake, but it is such a relief after
Messrs Sethna and Cou-nouma and the whole holy Bunch of Mother’s sons and
grand-sons ready to rise up. In fact: Mother alive. If we could render her truly
alive. A place where She will be able to be.
We will make the barrier melt away. In any case, we can try to live in beauty.
*
March 3 rd
The moment I received this letter from Sethna, I knew
that there was a question in my friends’ consciousnesses — they are sincere,
devoted, they believe me, love me, but there is a question. It is subconscious,
not even formulated, but it is exactly the field of the adverse forces: the
physical Mind, the suggestion, medical or whatever it may be, which sticks and
sticks. You can say what you want, you can believe, love and know in your clear
and awakened consciousness, but it is below and it sticks. As they rightly say:
“Calumniate, calumniate, there will always remain something of it.” (Was it
Marivaux who said this?) My own subconscient is full of their accusations and
perfidious voices. I left Pondicherry with a nasty dermatosis and four sources
of infection in my back. It healed on the way. I came back and erupted in red
pimples looking like nettle rash. That is exactly how it is. My body has had
enough of absorbing this constant poison, so tedious and general. It is a
unanimity of hatred, which only a few rare and precious stars can escape from. I
am in that bath.
I have been constantly accused for four years. And why didn’t he speak out? And
why didn’t he prevent it? Why didn’t he gather the senior sadhaks to tell
them: you know, it’s an appearance of death but Mother is in a trance of
transformation, She will come out of it, glowing — don’t hurry to bury her. Why,
why.... Were I not a man, at least, trained by the Gestapo and the Sannyasa, I
could have wept with sadness for this world of sadness. So, one can see how Love
alone can make it possible for this to carry on. Otherwise it is dreadful and
monstrous. Mother makes me live all these awful conditions in small doses.
“Everywhere, everywhere, there are wills that it should die....” she would say.
So if you don’t open your hands, absolutely, totally, you’ve had it. If you
don’t love, absolutely, totally, you’ve had it. And I am here, wavering between
revolt and love, yes and no, crying out at times, then it is so sad, so sad that
one feels like crying for the whole earth, taking her in one’s arms and
comforting her sorrow — it is the whole earth that one must help out, out
of this hell. There is no solution, no other solution. We have to love
absolutely and die absolutely to this old earth of sorrow in order to be able to
move on to the other side and pull the life-line a little. As long as we suffer,
rebel or catch a dermatosis, we are still in the old bath. We must be
pure, totally, down to our cells, then it can act. It is so burning....
There is also this case pending. “And why did Sri Aurobindo break his leg,
someone asked me yesterday, if he had been in the divine consciousness, it could
never have happened.” This Earth is a burden. It is because of this perverted,
speechifying Mind, which “understands” everything, sees everything, questions
and distorts everything. Not one Cesar or one Rembrandt is worth a little
squirrel. Of course, I well understand the transition, the necessity, but it is
a sordid transition at the very best, and which has no meaning unless we get out
of it. It is a terrible transition. And it sticks down to our very cells.
So I woke up this morning with the mute question of my
friends. Of course, they all knew of this eventuality of a transformation
in a cataleptic trance, Mother had told everybody about it, including dear
Andre. The typed “instructions” of 1967 were circulated: Nolini saw them, as
well as others whom I do not know, and Pranab knew, of course. This possibility
of a transformation in a trance had been foretold to Mother sixty years before,
she had spoken to everybody about it. But then you’re seen as “making a fuss,”
aren’t you? Again, in 1972 or 1973, Mother told Kumud about it, in the presence
of Sujata and I. Kumud who carried Mother down with Pranab. And when I told
Mother, in that famous conversation of
197391 (Sleeping Beauty): “I can explain to them,” Mother
answered: “Will he believe you?”... “Pranab will think I am dead.” And as
soon as Mother tried to speak to Pranab, in April 1973, he exploded — to
understand what was there, one only has to listen to this voice bursting with
pride and hatred. So, to “speak out,” to “tell” them, when I arrived there, in
that hall, ten hours after the event, when thousands of people had already been
informed: “You know, Messrs senior sadhaks, She is not dead, please bring
her back upstairs to her room.” But they all wanted her to be dead! And I
was there, in front of that body, heartbroken and dumbfounded — oh! I was not
expecting that, I was perhaps the only one not expecting that — I had been there
for ten minutes when Nolini had me called to his room, next door, to translate
his message about Mother’s end into French. And this “message” started with
these words: “This body (Mother’s) was not meant to
...” I have forgotten the rest, but it was not meant to undergo the
transformation. So I stood there, mute, frozen, in Nolini’s small dark room, and
I said at last in a tone where anger and outrage mingled with sorrow, along with
a whole burning world: I cannot translate
this. “The transformation stopped,” didn’t it, Nolini said to that Canadian
interviewer; and eight days ago, on February 21st, to celebrate Mother’s centenary, a long article in the Indian Express signed by Manoj Das, one
of the Ashram’s shining lights, concluded: “She
gave up on 17th November 1973.”
Tell — whom?
Was there anyone there, a single person, a single soul, who would have listened? Had I only opened my mouth, they would have said: oh, see that Satprem who wants to give himself the air of one who knows everything, he is trying to attract attention, or make a fuss or claim to be Mother’s spokesperson — he wants to disturb our pretty little funeral. They had had enough of Mother, all of them. The hatred I am now surrounded with visibly, officially, if I may say so, would have arisen four years earlier, they would have killed me before I could write these three volumes and save the Agenda.
To force my way when they closed Mother’s door on me, in May 1973?... No, no, the only solution was that Mother should go down into that tomb to undergo the transformation, hidden from these brutes. That is all. When Mother, still in 1972, told me once more: “You will tell them”, I answered: “They will say I am mad, they won’t even let me come into your room.” I was prophetic. To go and arouse Pranab’s anger by forcing my way into Her room? — but see what fell on this poor helpless body when, on April 7, 1973, Mother tried to tell.Pranab something. I was filled with horror, I told Pranab: “No, no, no” ... and Mother so white, with her eyes closed, receiving all that, in the raw. Ah, my heart sinks. They are accusing me — they will accuse me in all possible ways, I am the great culprit and the cause of all the evil. I carry all their blackness on my back. I am the one they chose to relieve their own misery. As for me, I struggled on and on, I struggled in these books and I am struggling in all possible ways. Even in my sleep, my heart is full of it. Then I close my eyes for a second, and Mother envelops me. It is all white, so tender and solid. I feel like staying there and not moving anymore. Everything else is sorrow.
It is endless and there is no solution to it.
Everything is as if rotten in advance, in the Mind. But the question sticks on.
One has to be like a living prayer to go through all that.
I am not “right” and I don’t know if I am wrong. I have no reason on my side and I don’t know if I have any excuse for what I did, wished or tried — it happened just like that. I have prayed a lot. And if I am wrong, I still pray. When I was doing the worst idiocies in my life, as I was approaching the bottom of the hole and had no longer anything to put forward as an excuse, I told the Lord, as in a cry from the depths of my soul: “Even in hell, I will love You.” Even if everything falls upon me, even if I am wrong, if I am the lowest of the low, I will keep saying I love You, I love You, I love You.
And so it is so warm that you love truly and forever. And you are at the end of all misery. It burns. Everything is burnt.
Enough for today....
I embrace you and all my marvelous friends
who render this life more bearable.
Satprem
March 6, 1978
Release of the Agenda I.
Where will we rest our heads?
March 9, 1978
Delhi (C.P.N.) accepts the project of the new place.
*
(Letter to our friends in Paris)
The letters dated March 4th, from you, Micheline,
Carmen, Miel, Pierre, Rachel, the young student from Nantes and this girl from
Cernier, all that flows like honey with all the sweetness
of Mother, it warms the depths of our hearts — at last, there is a country
on Earth where Mother is welcomed, celebrated. Even the printer of Aubin caught
Mother’s vibration along the way. How all that brings comfort and soothes our
hearts, we had almost forgotten that all these efforts, all this struggle could
have a “result.” I observe it all with a kind of amazement, somewhat in wonder:
really, it is possible? Something responds? We have lived in the negativity, the
resistance, the obstacle to be overcome for so long that it almost sounds like a
story from another world. So I realize to what extent, here, one is engulfed in
the world of Falsehood, as if, at every moment, one had to push up a lid in
order to take a little breath of oxygen. I had ended up becoming a sort of
machine to crush the obstacle or rather to bump against the obstacle, without
thinking that one day it could give way somewhere. I look at you, over there,
wide-eyed: truly, they do understand? I was no longer able to believe that this
Victory of Mother could be — I was only busy with breaking the stones of the
path. (...) On February 21st, I was with Sujata in the jungle, drinking the
peace through all the pores of my skin. It was the most gracious day I had in my
life for quite a few years. A minute of Pause. Meanwhile, you were making
packets and packets — I feel ashamed of complaining and grumbling. But truly, it
is difficult here. You allow me to breathe. Yesterday, I was as if in a mist of
pain (this dermatosis has reappeared). They think that I am full of “hatred” for
this and that, this one or that one, but it is pain! It hurts in my body, it is
my heart that bleeds from their misery, as if it were my misery. I am full of
their misery. (...)
Abhay Singh has just now arrived: phone call from Delhi — the new place accepted.... My eyes flutter. So much Grace falling upon us all of a sudden — on March 9th. I cannot believe that we are to get out of it all, stop breaking the stones and tending dermatoses. I feel deeply moved and dumbfounded. Perhaps in a fortnight it all will be over, over.
Sujata brings me a flower of “grace” that she has just found
in the garden — every morning I go to pick some flowers and I did not see it!
Yes, in the depths of our hearts we know, we absolutely know the victory,
the grace in all things, the exact process, but in the material consciousness,
we are so blind, step by step, like a donkey on the path. I was so much in
the obstacle that I saw nothing anymore. Oh, it is not over, but we are going to
breathe more freely now.
Perhaps in a fortnight.
.........
Now someone has just this second brought me the mail: a first letter from India. India that responds, finally. It was complete silence in India, and then one man responds. So this is also a Grace. If a man from India responds, and responds today, on March 9th, there is a smile there, too, and it is also coming here, in this India which is so recalcitrant. Listen (I want to handwrite it myself, as if to call the Grace upon India):
(Originally in English)
My dear brother,
I just received a letter from my friends in Auroville (I am the secretary of Sri Aurobindo Society, here) that the Trustees of the Ashram have decided to expel you from the Ashram. This letter has given me great sorrow. I cannot imagine that a person who can write “The Adventure of Consciousness,” “ The Divine Materialism,” “The Sannyasi” can ever act, feel or think in opposition to the ideals set by Sri Aurobindo and the gracious Mother. I request you to forgive these ignorant Trustees and if you are really forced out of the Ashram, I request you kindly to accept my hospitality here. You may please come here and stay with me till I am alive. Everything I have with the Grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, I will share with you. If you do not have money to travel to this place, please write to me I will send it to you. Please do forgive the trustees who are obviously ignorant and have not understood what the Masters stood for.
Yours affectionately,
S. C. Gupta
And
this first Indian man, S. C. Gupta, from Roorkee [in Northern India] is “Reader
in Mathematics, University of Roorkee”! Mathematics is in the vanguard
everywhere. I am so happy for India, and the way he puts things is so Indian.
Grace gives me everything I could wish today, I was so sad for India, to be
under threat of expulsion from India touched me in my heart as if nobody here
wanted of the true Mother (and of Sri Aurobindo as well, except as a
philosopher, next to Karl Marx and after Gandhi). So, we are going to make the
Agenda in India, for India. (...)
As for Satprem, I don’t know where he is. Sometimes, a whiff of the Breton Bernard comes to me as sea spume, but Satprem has vanished into Mother’s dress: he clings to it like a more and more stupid baby. Sujata has to explain things to me....
Concerning the tapes [of the Agenda], yes, please, do keep Sujata’s songs and her announcements of the day, this small voice will be charming for a long time to come. (...)
Well, continue your evening “meditations,” it is very essential to cleanse oneself from all the surrounding vibrations. This silence in which “nothing happens” is in fact full of a something that puts everything in order and clarifies the circumstances. It is a very active and positive silence — many things are done in this silence.
Satprem
March 12, 1978
(Letter to Micheline and friends)
Micheline,
Received your telegram: “Happywood, bravo,
immediate money transfer if necessary.” It is marvelous to meet such a total
devotion — Mother watches that. Micheline certainly has a role of her own, a
very particular one, which I have just foreseen. Mother was very interested in
finance (I mean the pure working of the “financial force”). Micheline is very likely
to represent something of the “conversion” of this force, so badly and above all
so selfishly used. It is a very capital element (along with politics and sex).
One of the three elements to be mastered for supramental life to be or for the
advent of the supramental reign — to be exact: for the world to be ready. The
key to this victory, which is so difficult, is purity. If one person with
real financial means at his or her disposal can place this money “at disposal”
without any ego, not even a shadow of an ego, this is a very great victory.
It must be given purely, as it were. This purity is a marvel in itself. Money is
precisely what carries the most shadow with it. It is one of the plagues that
have painfully marked that poor Jewish race. If one being is right and
acts rightly in this specific area of consciousness, it is really a great
victory over the Adversary, and for many other people: every right act has its
chain reaction.
Thanks to Micheline, the Agenda could come out materially. That is saying something. (...) But it is truly a divine sign that some pure money should have been placed at the disposal of Mother’s Agenda, that is, truly, at the disposal of the New World — of what is going to build, what is building the new world. This is a secret between Mother and Micheline. I remember that she (Micheline) had seen this treasure or this Veda engulfed once again and that she had helped to rescue, to concretely draw the secret of the next species out of the water. Up to now, the secret was “engulfed” every time, that is, distorted, falsified, denatured — “swallowed by the deeps.” Micheline has a specific part to play in it all. Everything comes just at the right time. One has to play right up to the end, hasn’t one? In fact, it is always a marvelous grace to be allowed to place oneself “at the service of.” It gives life an exquisite taste and meaning — otherwise: fleeting dust. Everyone has to find their unique and marvelous place in Mother’s Game: the great game of the new world. It carries its own blessing in itself.
.........
I am convinced that Mother leads everything very
exactly and
that nothing happens without her allowing it. “A force stronger than the
material forces,” she said. In fact, we must trust a lot. Yesterday, as we were
learning of those people’s latest filthy tricks (I spare you that), Sujata told
me in her very quiet little voice: “Pondicherry will go under water. A long
period under water to purify the whole place,” and she suddenly remembered a
vision she had had several times, quite a few years ago: she had seen water
spreading throughout Pondicherry, a wide expanse of water, with above all a more
precise vision of the street just in front of Nolini’s place, under Mother’s balcony. And in this water, countless beasts were struggling, huge cockroaches,
as big as tortoises. It echoes a vision of Mother’s in ’57 or ’58, when she saw
Pondicherry being engulfed, then years later, herself stepping out of a deep
cave where She had remained throughout all this flood and trying to speak French
to people who understood nothing of this strange
language....92 Obviously, time’s dimensions are quite beyond our
comprehension. But here is a nice little program of Pondicherrian and purifying
drowning which is not all that bad, I think. Our departure from here may have
more than one meaning. Only we must not be pressed for time.
Mother’s true family is very beautiful. This long
battle has allowed us to discover that too. But you know, this mass of organized
hatred around me, if I may say so, is painful. I did not know that “subjective”
vibrations could have this concrete power. Every morning, I wake up with that
(most of the time around 1 a.m.: I see Barun constantly) and it is not a
subjective pain, it is as if I were covered in wounds within. The walls between
what is “within” and “without” have become very thin. Morisset is very ferocious
there, I don’t know why, with the other one. Sometimes one would so much feel
like getting completely out of it — that is, leaving this body. The body is
party to this whole pain, or else it would not feel it. For the physical,
corporeal consciousness, the
“thought” of illness is like illness “itself.” It is a thought that creates
death. All those false vibrations are full of death, like death itself.
Thoughts, there, are acts. This is what hell is. Perhaps I will feel better in
our new place....If I could take up my work again and plunge into the Agenda,
it would soothe my heart.
Satprem
March 13, 1978
Pranab comes to inspect Nandanam.
March 15, 1978
(Letter to Anne and friends)
... Anne’s letter did me infinite good. Sujata and I
laughed so much when we read: “The Ashram will collapse very well without you!”
As for the new place, yes-yes-yes, that is certain. Mother does not want us to
suffer! There is always this Christian side well hidden in the depths: one must
suffer, have one’s cross to bear, one must not get out of it.... Mother was
assailed by adverse voices and it is only now that I understand what it means —
it is so skillful, so clever, it plays on all the “duties,” all the morals of
the Earth. It makes everything feel guilty, at every moment you are a potential
traitor, and the ego is the favorite subject. These voices stuff you with ego,
you find yourself innumerably selfish — in fact, they are only projecting their
own shadow onto you. But it is infernal. I can see now how Mother suffered with
all those voices, and She was all alone, while I have Sujata to catch me just in
time and tell me: come on, don’t be silly! The first time I cut myself off from
the Ashram, there was such a formidable and painful assault to convince me that I
was acting like an ambitious, selfish man. Well, it will soon be over, it is
over ... I think. Until the next opportunity! Yes, a place that would not be
pervaded with these voices and where one could be, simply, joyously, like a
child of the new world. I suddenly (after reading Anne’s letter) “caught” the
adversary in this little whispering, so judicious: “In going to your pretty
little forest up there, are you not going to get out of the conditions of
the work?” — Yes, something that absolutely wants us to suffer, as if the poison
were something to be proud of! But all the same, it is very clever, mind you.
The atmosphere here is stuffed with these voices. I remember Mother telling me:
“It is crueler than the cruelest things you can imagine: «Well, Sri Aurobindo
himself did not do it, so who do you think you are?...»” Sometimes, Her eyes
were full of tears, and now I realize at times, with poignant feelings, what I
never dared to believe or think: this little man there, called Satprem, did
Mother good. And one day it was over, She could not take my hand anymore, nor
any other hand. There was no longer any human being near Her.
I never believed that I could “do Mother good”! It would have seemed immensely pretentious to me. Well, sometimes, I wish I’d had this ego. We are completely distorted by spiritual morals. We try to minimize ourselves, and it is the last ingenious trick of the Asura. Freedom consists also in being great.
But I think it consists essentially in being able to laugh. I have never been able to laugh. Perhaps I am to learn it in this new place — if we laughed a little, it would be the best way of shedding all those bogeymen of the new world (including the spiritual ones).
Then this sentence, miraculously recovered in the
Agenda of 1962: “You understand, it comes from very high, it was decided on
high and a long-long time ago.” How soothing! All of a sudden, I told myself,
“But if it had been decreed, what happened after 73 has also been decreed,
decided «from high,»” I have not been completely mistaken, They would not
have let me be mistaken! The second phase was as
important and capital as the first one, when She spoke to me, while holding my
hand. She is still holding my hand! Oh, how silly we are, seeing nothing,
doubting everything, how this physical consciousness is blind. Then we do
despite everything. That is what I called “walking in the dark,” every step in
the dark. If there were a certain faith in the physical consciousness, it would
be self-evident! We would see Mother! There is probably a last physical ego that
produces a shadow as huge as the spiritual ego. This is the “magic spell,” it is
nothing but a spell, and it undoes itself. And what if we made this spell come
undone in our blue mountains? If we believed, really believed?...
But all of a sudden, I knew for a certainty that I had not been mistaken for four years, and that the Agenda was inevitable. This, too, was decreed — are all these people stronger than the Supreme?
One day, we will laugh a lot at these bogeymen. But we should be able to laugh at them now. When we turn round to look back, it is obvious — it should be obvious at once. Then all would be so funny-funny! We are very stupid — perhaps we will become a little less stupid. Anne is quite right. Anne is a capital element of this new Turning of Laughter.
Now for “serious” things (!)
I would like to sign a document in which I would give all my “copyrights” in every language, including those that are for the moment unfairly swindled by Auropress or by the Ashram, to the IRE — including all the film rights and possible adaptations. This concerns all my books since L’Orpailleur. If I kick the bucket, everything must conform to the regulations! (...)
So, we are counting the days....Lakshmi said that she wanted to take her cow, calf and dog with us! ... Noah’s Ark? Let’s create a very joyous Ark together, in Mother’s love.
With my love to each of you
Satprem
And
I take with me the four white pigeons of Deer House.
March 16, 1978
(Extract from a letter to a French reader)
... This is actually no longer the time when the New World or Mother can be shut up within the four walls of an Institution. Mother is out walking upon the world. No, She is not the “Mother of Pondicherry,” but the Mother of the Earth.
March 21-22, 1978
Midnight: we are moving out of Deer House, Nandanam.
March 22, 1978
(Personal letter)
Madras We are free, at last. We left for the Himalayas
on December 22nd, and we leave Pondicherry on the 22nd for a new cycle.
Yesterday, it was the equinox. I don’t know if I can write to you in a coherent
way.... I was in Madras yesterday with Kireet, applying to the Immigration
Office in order to be officially registered in Madras, bypassing
Pondicherry. They are going to ask, or have already asked for the transfer of my
file as of yesterday.... So, last night, I was back at Deer House at 10
p.m. and Roger dashed to Auroville in order to inform a team of Aurovilians +
the van, so that we could move out of the house at midnight by the small door.
We had to hurry, as the letter from the Madras Immigration Office was to
arrive in Pondicherry this morning, thus alerting the
trustees. A mad move out after a mad day, at 1 a.m., Deer House was
empty. The Aurovilians: marvelous with their love, silence, efficiency. And N.,
coping beautifully, putting a lot of true heart into it....(She was and is still
very marvelous with her everyday devotion, running a thousand errands on her
motorbike.) So we “slept” a few hours on the floor, and this morning at 8.30
a.m., we left Deer House forever in a taxi, leaving a letter (written by
Kireet) that our lawyer will give to the trustees, in which we enjoined them not
to force entry into the house, specifying that we had entrusted our keys to
Abhay Singh.... Tomorrow morning, 23rd, at 4.30 a.m., we are going to
Meenambakam before flying to Coimbatore, then taking a taxi again to Ooty and
... Harwood ... where we will camp, for the mover’s van will follow as it
can, with Lakshmi s cow, the dog and the white pigeons. Then, at the last
minute, the very day when Kireet, in Ooty, signed the purchase of Harwood,
on March 20th, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu issued a declaration: the forest
there would be cut to create tea plantations in favor of the repatriates from
Ceylon!... Just as if the adverse ghost wanted to strike again. The village was
upset. I don’t know what will happen, but I think that Mother is stronger than
all the ministers of the world and that our place is decreed. The
adversary is strangely determined. This morning, as we were driving out of
Nandanam in our taxi, we found the gate blocked by a bus of the S.A.S. with a
load of “visitors.” We had to wait ten minutes in order to find the driver and
ask him to move the bus so that we could pass (finally, it is our own driver who
started the bus). Strange.
I am too tired to tell you of countless little facts, miraculous and strange. I am going to soak myself in a bath, then try and sleep a little.
(...) I embrace you all very tenderly. I was so happy in the taxi this morning, like a child going on holiday! A cycle of sweetness, beauty, work, harmony and love.
Satprem
March 23, 1978
Harwood.
March 29, 1978
(Letter to friends)
Harwood
The first letter here, in the morning of our first day,
was Laffont’s letter, so kind and reassuring, after all my??; and in the
afternoon came your first letter with the address of the IRE on the back —
curiously enough, I immediately felt the vibration of freedom that was there in
that address, after these months, or rather years, of clandestine life. Yes, we
are breathing. It is truly like a cloak falling from my shoulders. Every time I
left Pondicherry, it was the same experience, on reaching Madras. I think (I am
sure) that besides their poisoned atmosphere, there was something else directly
and cleverly, if I may say so, directed at me. It created a kind of constant
weariness, like a cape of old age on my shoulders. How many times did Mother
tell me that her stooped shoulders had no physical origin. I cannot think that
these people did something deliberately, it seems to me so ... I don’t know,
inhuman. I cannot hold it against them. But what an unburdened breathing
suddenly. About one month ago, I saw Barun making all kinds of strange
movements, a circular gesture of the arms, as if spinning something around me,
but I was laughing — and he told me with a sort of nasty smile: I’ve made a
“formation.” I laughed. I cannot believe that they have this rather “skilful”
power, but they may use somebody else? In any case, it is over, finished, I am
out of reach. To think they dared to threaten Robert Laffont with ruining his
business, it is incredible, I cannot
believe that Mother’s children — as they all, in a part of themselves, no
matter how tiny it is, are and feel themselves — can do that without feeling
sick immediately. Are they that distorted? Even here, I (and Sujata as well)
continue to see them coming to attack me night after night, as if crowded in a
single lorry, with Andre in a driving position, and they come to attack me. It
no longer touches me physically, but it is still going on. They must be furious
because of the Agenda. And do you know that G.G. [from the Institute] —
really, he is innocent or stupid in some way — sent the Agenda to Sunil
who put it in Andre’s hands immediately (I heard of that before my departure).
It is incredible, what an idea to make these people’s nasty work easier! Doesn’t he understand that “kind people,” friends or brothers, don’t exist in these
conditions and that when you choose not to choose, you immediately swell the
ranks of the Enemy: you cannot remain nicely out of it all, it is
impossible — if you are not with Mother actively, totally, you find yourself
instantly in the ranks of the Adversary, you are forced to it, as it were.
Forces make use of everything and everyone and compel everything and everyone to
do the thing which will place them on this side or on that side. It is
ineluctable, we could say... There is some unconsciousness somewhere in G.G. and
the Adversary always knows how to find the way of pressing the button of this
unconsciousness, one day, and committing the serious mistake. You put the Enemy
on the inside — we all have the Enemy in a recess of ourselves and we must have
chosen ferociously, I might say, not to succumb without warning, at an
unexpected turning. (...)
As for G.G., there is only a somewhat childish something, which believes in “ideals” as a supreme panacea: the time of ideals is over! We are at the time of the automatic Fire. All ideals have fallen flat on their faces, and for a good reason, they are mental: we are at the time of Matter and or Fire in Matter — this is what “ideals” are. Ideals that unfold automatically, without words and ideas, as the Fire “brings out” impurities.
(...) I don’t know, in any case, Micheline’s name came opening like a sudden
flower — it is a very nice flower! The key, always, is simplicity, and no ego.
March 31, 1978
This compilation to answer Sethna. ...I no longer want to answer, I have suffered and toiled too much, answering thousands of times, but now all that is like a wound so painful in the depths of my heart that I cannot touch it without its hurting me so much within. They wounded me in an infinitely cruder way than the Gestapo and the human horrors of the concentration camps — you knew that this was savage, but these ones ... It is as if the whole of humanity or human sense were wounded in the depths of my heart. It only takes a word, a sentence, a remark or a memory and it hurts me within — as if I did not want to touch this world ever again. They filled me with horror. I cannot. I cannot “answer” their nasty things anymore. I wish I would forget them completely. Let them do as they wish! I would rather tell you about the mimosas, the eucalyptus trees and the birds of the forest, all is so vastly quiet here, but there are still practical things to settle.
... In fact, I am not yet at the end of the journey. I am here in transit and I will really breathe when I have found my exact place in Land’s End — no doubt about it, this is my final destination. Harwood is not exactly my place, despite all its charm and marvel. I so much long for reaching the end of the journey and resting my head really in some place where I will be in my true atmosphere (I mean: able to rebuild my true atmosphere, which we had to throw overboard in the wreck of Deer House). This move was a true wreck: our furniture and cases thrown pell-mell into a lorry, a real mess. We should have burnt everything behind. But Land’s End....
Mother
liked to think big, that is true. I have the impression that She thinks highly
of the idea (!) and that it is not for nothing that She found this miraculous
place for us (including the smiling stamp that sprung out of the pocket of the
recalcitrant owner of Land’s End). (...) The center of this work
is here, not Paris. It is here that we must materialize things. India is
at the heart of the world problem and we must unravel the knot here (what a dark
knot, as dark as our symbolic ashram). The only way to unravel it is to print,
materialize Mother in the atmosphere and distribute these books in spite of the
blockade organized by the Ashram with all the booksellers of India (they are
powerful, it is an incredible mafia). It would seem that the exemption from
customs duty and the import license [for the machines] are possible, thanks to
Bejoy Singh Nahar, Sujata’s uncle, a member of the steering Committee of the
Janata Party close to Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister. (...)
Now, are we going to start the joyous walk? I would like so much, so much, to start the true creation and to let disappear from my cells, from my body, this whole painful memory.
Satprem
END OF VOLUME 1
1 I still remember: I was on the right side of the street, going down to the gate.
2 She died in October 1932, when Sujata was almost seven. It was the only time Sujata saw her mother after she left.
3 Strangely enough, let us note that in those days (1956) Satprem or “Bernard” was only a remote acquaintance of Sujata’s, who she saw when he came to work in Pavitra’s office and meet Mother for those first interviews which were to become Mother’s Agenda, or when he sat by the sea. It was only three years later, in 1959, that their lives came closer. (It was at the end of 1953 that Satprem came back to India, and at the beginning of 1954 that he settled near Mother.)
4 Thus it was the vision of the place where Sujata and Satprem were to settle in 1978 (the centenary of Mother’s birth) to materialize Mother’s Agenda and continue the Work — to follow in Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s tracks.
5 A disciple close to Nehru, the Prime Minister of India.
6 In fact, twelve years later, in May 1973, we were all asked to “get out”.
7 Looking at it now (1979), this “dream” doesn’t seem to be from the subconscient but actually from the subtle physical, with that whole crowd of people relentlessly assailing Mother and exhausting her (and pushing Satprem away, besides). But despite the crowd, Satprem crossed through and came up “very close” to Mother, which concurs with her vision. “Dressed as a Sannyasin” means in his essentiality divested of day-to-day material circumstances.
8 Pranam: to bow down.
9 Sujata added: “The stars started falling into the sea, but there wasn’t any more water! It was a solid surface, it was ice, a sea of ice like at the poles. And that ice was not dazzling white, but rather gray-white, somewhat like frosted glass, not transparent but translucent. And the passengers wore a kind of blue belt.”
10 I underline some particularly important dates.
11 The new proprietor of the Ashram and of Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s Work. It was May, 1973 and Mother would leave only in November, 1973 (on November 17).
12 The “proprietor,” that is, Navajata. His “Society” and finances were to rule over the Ashram and Auroville ... for a while. He was to go so far as the Supreme Court of India in an attempt to have “the religion of Sri Aurobindo” proclaimed and acknowledged.
“Krishna in gold” is obviously the symbol of Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s “new creation,” the supramental Power they sowed in the Earth and which is to bring out all the hidden Falsehood — causing the confusion, the riots and the disorder we can see spreading everywhere — for the Divine Reign to be established and True Man to emerge from that chaos.
13 “Sweet” in French.
14 Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s tomb, in the Ashram central courtyard.
15 Nandanam was the garden where Sujata and Satprem took refuge after Mother’s doors were shut.
16 It is only later that I understood the meaning; at the time, I thought Mother was about to give up food, which meant the end of animal life — not for a moment did I think that Mother could “leave.”
17 The General Secretary and oldest disciple of the Ashram.
18 I still believed that Mother’s Agenda could be published as it was, in extenso, without being cut or censored by the Ashram.
19 Yes, and all the little crows rush at it.
20 The place where my brother killed himself.
21 André Brincourt was the Director of Le Figaro Litteraire.
Deer House is the name of the house where I took refuge with Sujata and Mother’s papers, in this big garden named Nandanam.
22 Barun Tagore, the then “proprietor” of Auroville printing press, “Auropress,” was to publish Satprem’s novel By the Body of the Earth or the Sannyasi in 1974.
23 Sujata forgot to say that she also saw golden hairs on Mother’s arm ... vhich seemed to us very enigmatic for a long time.
24 In French “my Sweet One.”
25 It was in January 83 — nine years later.
26 The Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS) of Navajata.
27 In 1978, Sujata and I were already in quest of a hideout in the Himalayas.
28 In fact, our watchman had been dismissed by Counouma and Co. to be replaced by a more “reliable” watchman.
29 Pourna, Andre Morisset’s daughter and a friend of Barun’s, would join the mob that would try to prevent the publication of Mother’s Agenda.
30 Barun used a sordid little tantric power to influence Laffont (this was shown to me through a dozen rather unpleasant visions), and of course, he used it against me (which was also shown to me in a painful way). It was not until April 30, 1984 that Laffont would give me back (that is, would give back to The Institute of Evolutionary Research) the rights of The Sannyasi, unjustifiably held by Auropress-Barun.
31 Some fragments of the Agenda that I had published in the Ashram Bulletin.
32 Barun was to be swept away in September 1987 (when the Indian authorities seized Auropress), that is, thirteen years later.
33 That is how Mother called the “jasmine of India.”
34 Edgar Faure was the President of the French Senate.
35 Masai: “Sir” in Bengali.
36 Pranam: when the disciples came to bow down to Mother.
37 This is the name Mother gave to the red purslane.
38 Abhay Singh, Sujata’s brother, whom Mother had entrusted with the Ashram Workshop and the gardens of Nandanam, where Sujata and I were living — the trustees would brutally dismiss him.
39 This is the name Mother gave to the simple yellow sunflower (Helianthus).
40 Zinnia.
41 After he left, he said to Yolande: “He is a true man.” He had to understand ... because of what would happen next.
But it should also be noted that he said to me, as I was telling him about this Change: “Oh, you don’t know India, it can take several hundred years.” My God ...
42 What induced that “state of emergency” is that a great political leader, respectable and highly respected — Jayaprakash Narayan, an honest man — had incited people to rise in revolt against the Congress; he had even incited the army to rebel against the Congress government.
43 In India, “Uncle” is employed to show respect for an elder.
44 The Director of All India Press.
45 In August of the same year, there would be a murder attempt against Satprem.
46 The official Bulletin of the Ashram, which I was editing.
47 In the Rig-Veda, panis and dasyus are the beings of darkness who hide in their caves the “herds of light” that they have stolen.
48 An auxiliary press of the Ashram, managed by Madanlal.
49 I was still imagining that something could be revolutionized in the Ashram consciousness, and also that this extraordinary experience of Mother and Sri Aurobindo was going to shake or awaken something in the world’s consciousness.
50 It was in Sujata’s laboratory at the Ashram that Mother met Sujata every day until 1962, when she definitively withdrew into her upstairs room.
51 As a result of Sir CRN. Singh’s intervention.
52 A well-kept wood outside of Paris.
53 Breton headland (a perilous passage for seafarers).
54 A manuscript left by my brother François, in which he told of our childhood in Saint-Pierre and Belle-lie. “Bagheera” was my first skiff.
55 A little wood on the Brittany moors.
56 Sujata’s birthday, on December 12.
57 One of Auroville’s communities of which most of the then inhabitants were French people who represented the center of resistance against the S.A.S.’s takeover.
58 A little town in the South Indian hills.
59 I still did not know that, in accordance with the international law, I had the right to publish the Agenda myself. (I was to know it a few months later in France.)
60 National elections called by Indira Gandhi in order to end the state of emergency she had declared in June 1975.
61 Unfortunately, after Mother’s departure, Indira Gandhi fell into the clutches of a Tantric guru, Dhirendra Brahmachari, a crook who amassed a fortune and made her take all kinds of bad decisions and take all the wrong steps.
62 The new Governor of Pondicherry had been chosen and sent by Sir CRN. Singh and Indira Gandhi.
63 Mère ou le Materialisme Divin, published by Robert Laffont.
64 In France, a national organization for scientific research.
65 A French journalist who wanted to interview me on the radio for France Culture.
66 A French journalist.
67 A French radio channel.
68 Institute of Evolutionary Research.
69 Rajiv (his wife = Sonia) and Sanjay were the two sons of Indira Gandhi.
70 A serious letter, threatening imminent legal proceedings.
71 He had been Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s servant. A pure-hearted, fully devoted man.
72 The Director of France-Culture.
73 In English.
74 Entire pages torn by Andre Morisset from Pavitra’s diary, where he particularly used to note his conversations with Sri Aurobindo until 1926. What escaped has been published under the title: Conversations avec Pavitra (Fayard).
75 French stations.
76 A French newspaper Andre Brincourt was writing for.
77 Rakshasas are the demons of the vital world, while asuras are the demons of the mental world.
78 Institut de Recherches Evolutives.
79 Kireet Joshi, who had been the Director of the Ashram school for a long time, was then an advisor to the Government of India for Education and was working with Sir C.P.N. Singh.
80 Some of my conversations with Mother that I had published in the Ashram Bulletin, though Mother was often reluctant.
81 “For All,” the Auroville service that bought and distributed food, etc., for the whole community.
82 The battlefield of the great war in the Mahabharata.
83 The Gold-Digger. A French novel by Satprem.
84 In French: donkey.
85 Tandava: the destructive dance of Shiva.
86 1978 was the year of Mother’s Centenary (February 21).
87 South Indian harvest festival.
88 Auroville Review.
89 A French town where a local saint (Thérèse de I’Enfant Jésus) is worshipped.
90 In fact it was The Agenda that was about to come out.
91 On April 7, 1973.
92 See Agenda III, November 20, 1962.