Chapter 32Undated 1956

(Letter to Mother from Satprem)

Pondicherry Sweet Mother, I feel intensely, almost painfully, how much all my relationships with the outer world are FALSE, obscure, ignorant. As soon as I am away from the heart of my being, all my actions are approximations, all my contacts with other beings are turbid, my work itself becomes tainted with a thousand doubtful little motives. Mother, I know with a blinding certitude – even if this certitude is only mental – that the only solution is to come into contact with my true being. I know that by finding my true being I shall find the right action, the right relationships with the outside, and truth, knowledge, joy. I know this now in a profound way, and nothing can ever turn me away from it again. Every evening, this Truth comes physically to embrace me. And yet every morning, I have half-forgotten, and I spend nearly the whole day on the surface of my being.

O Mother, when shall my truth of the evening become my truth of the day?

Something HAS to explode in me and take possession of my entire being. It is not my force that can achieve this, but yours. Mother, I beseech you to open in me the doors of my true being. I no longer want this false relationship with the outside, this life of approximation. I want to be your instrument, not the instrument of this ignorant and suffering ego. Mother, I ask only for the true, the Light, that which is my real self. I have had enough, enough of this surface self that invades virtually all my days.

May your Will be done.

Your child who desperately needs you,

Signed: Bernard P.S. What is the obstacle?

Pondicherry Sweet Mother, I feel it is good to tell you what happened within me yesterday evening during the distribution, if only to express my infinite gratitude.

First of all, I began by feeling, perceiving in an absolutely obvious way, that it is you and you alone who has been doing my yoga, that you have been doing everything for me and that you have been there forever, guiding each one of my steps. I felt luminously that without you I would never have been able to go forward a single step and that, basically, all my efforts have served only to teach me the futility of my efforts, as it were, and to lead me to this point of helplessness where I must totally surrender myself into the hands of a greater Force – into your hands. And I felt so absolutely that you would do EVERYTHING for me if only I relied upon you totally. It was like a liberation, like a weight that you lifted from my heart. No longer was it a question of trying to cling inwardly, of pushing and pulling until I was stiff and aching within; it was enough to let you act.

Then I felt a dual movement enter into me, almost a physical movement that followed the rhythm of my breathing, as though every time I breathed in, I was receiving something, and every time I breathed out, I was offering myself. And this dual movement of receiving and offering seemed to grow within me, as though it were the very movement of the world, the breathing of the world that receives and gives itself. And I perceived that, at a certain moment, this rhythm could stop, the circle close again, the two breaths join in a luminous immobility. Then vaguely, I discerned – as though from far away, behind a veil – a kind of pure, brilliant white light, and saw that it was you at the heart of the world. And then I felt how marvelous it was to be able to give myself. I seemed to have grasped the secret of duality, for the joy of offering, for the joy of love. Then I felt that I was beginning to mentalize things. In a way, I was afraid of recording too well what was happening, and I held myself out to you in silence and in love, for it seemed to me that the experience could be an obstacle, a stopping place, whereas one must always go farther. Then it seemed that you were there – I did not see you exactly, but I felt, I felt that you were smiling at me as from behind a veil. The distribution ended all too soon, and then I had a class. But even this morning, a kind of joyous confidence in my heart remains with me, and the need to express my infinite gratitude, my love. I belong to you, Mother, with my body, my life, my mind.

Everything is grace.

Your child,

Signed: Bernard P.S. When things of this sort happen, should one bother you by writing about them, or simply be content with an inner gratitude?

(Mother’s reply)

It does not bother me at all, and you did well to write. Your experience is excellent, and I was very happy to read it – it shines like a light upon a new horizon.

With you, always.

Signed: Mother