Chapter 4September 13, 1969

don’t move, so that’s why I don’t need to do that.... I put it in practice constantly, more and more precisely (for instance, with all the government matters), and it’s very good because things shouldn’t be done with an AIM in view: one must do like this (Mother brings down her two arms as if to bring down the Force), and the consequence will come afterwards. But can someone do that if, for example, he is responsible for a group or an administration or...?

What I wouldn’t like is... (silence) I don’t know.

(long silence)

It obviously depends entirely on what one receives – everything is possible, I wouldn’t like people to think there’s only ONE sort of thing to be received. I don’t know if what I said makes it clear that one might receive anything.

Yes, you say above all that one shouldn’t have either desires or fears or preferences, and so on.

That’s obvious.

But of course, you don’t say that all kinds of things may come.

You understand, if the [true] state is perpetual, it’s enough, but Words are impossible.

(silence)

Too bad! (Mother laughs) We’ll give it.

RL. has seen something. He thinks what he’s seen is me, but in fact it’s his own mental projection, I think. Anyway, it expresses clearly enough the problem he is facing.... Basically, the thought that troubles him is to know whether he would do a better work by leaving the Church than by staying within it. That’s the problem he has been somewhat mulling over, because, for instance, next month in Rome, all the bishops are meeting in a synod, and on that occasion, a number of priests who are recalcitrant or refractory or rebellious, let us say, want to meet in Rome and hold a sort of antisynod to publicly prod the Church towards a more revolutionary path. So the thought crossed his mind...

To join them.... No.

Yes, that brings the level down quite a bit.

After that, he had a vision, and he imagines it’s me he saw, but I don’t think so at all.... It was on the seashore, a rather desolate and rocky landscape, and there was a sort of cave, a huge cave opening on the shore. From that huge cave there came out monks: a crowd of dark monks wearing cowls and black robes, who came out of that cave in a desolate and windswept landscape – it was dark, sinister. He saw that and felt like running away. And just when he felt like running away, he saw in the crowd someone who was me, dressed like a priest, the only one in the crowd with a luminous face, and I told him: “You see, one must stay here to bring the light into here.” I said to him, “As for me, I would stay on until I became a bishop.”

It can’t be you.

Of course not! But anyway, since I am somehow the “ideal” representation of his quest, he must have projected me into that. And I supposedly told him, “See, one must stay here to cast the light on this religious crowd.”

I don’t think the time has come.

I have looked a great deal...

I’d need a practical piece of information, I don’t know if you can give it to me.... Either way, there’s only one thing (whether he stays in there or comes out of it), either way he can do useful work – not in the same manner, but he can do useful work. As for me, I want him to choose the way in which he is safer – you know, I don’t trust those people in the least, I know they’re capable of ANYTHING. So either way, they can do as much mischief as they like – perhaps he knows which way he will be safer, by staying on or getting out? I don’t know... Staying on may be a protection, it may prevent them from doing certain things; getting out may make him less “detestable” to them, that is to say, they may expel him and leave him alone.

But he says, “If I am expelled and get out, I lose all power, I can’t do anything anymore.” And that was precisely the object of his vision: it’s by staying there that he can bring-light. That’s his problem. “If I get out, I can’t do anything anymore.” And he told me that all those priests who got out to try and make the Church progress have been expelled by the Church and no longer have any power.

Naturally they’ve been expelled by the Church! But the Church isn’t the whole world.

My fear is that he may still be very much Christian without knowing it, he may be under the impression that Christianity is the most important thing.

Yes, but he can’t do any more for Christianity, that’s the thing.

Ah, certainly not!

Yes, but deep down he keeps that desire of doing something for Christianity-of bringing the light in there.

But he takes it as a sort of work given to him by you.

And I answer that either way, I can use him. Either way, I have work for him.

I’ll tell him that. Because it’s symbolic: he wanted to flee from that place, and it’s when he was going to flee that suddenly he saw my face in that crowd.

Yes. There’s clearly (maybe not yet so very consciously), but there is in him a will to stay on, I think.

Yes, I feel so too.

But those priests meeting in Rome, they’re going to be excommunicated, no?

Oh, they’re already more or less excommunicated, their churches have been closed....

Oh!...

But they’re a small minority, made of people who are generally rather intelligent-intelligent people, mostly – and the press and the whole world are there, ready to exploit the affair.

They take advantage of it.

Yes, I am afraid it may only be an “intelligent” thing. Like what took place at the beginning of Protestantism. An INTELLIGENT thing, you understand: a mentalization of the opposition.

Yes, I don’t think there are any mystics in there – they’re basically Neo-Protestants.

Yes. But I can’t say, I don’t know them.

But that’s it, in fact.

But this Pope, he can’t last very long if he has a cancer... Me, I know someone who can cure cancer!... It would be fun to cure the Pope! That would put them all in a... oh, you can’t imagine how annoyed they would be! (Laughter)

This Pope, in good health, would be a very useful help to the work – but they’ll never let him be treated and cured. Those people are crooks, all of them.165

(silence)

But P.L. isn’t a clergyman, is he?

Yes, yes, he is a priest.

He’s a priest.... Oh, I didn’t know. But he doesn’t wear a robe?

165The same thing could be said of those who are today claiming to be the “proprietors” of Sri Aurobindo, Mother and Auroville. it is an eternal story repeating itself, at Pondicherry or in Rome – but this time, perhaps, the story’s ending will be Oh, he’s a priest....

Those priests wear the same dress everywhere, don’t they?

Now they’ve modernized all that, so they wear pants and a short neck, Protestant fashion – those are their great “reforms”!

(after a long silence)

Then he must stay on.

(silence)

Is it the cardinals who nominate the Pope?

Yes.

And from among themselves.

Yes.

Is it obligatory?

Yes, always.166 And P.L.’s friend, the cardinal, which place is he the cardinal of?

He isn’t a cardinal, I don’t know what he is, he is called a “monsignor.” But he is a man with a huge fortune, “Crores.” He has a gift for attracting money. So he founded charities or social organizations with all that.

Oh, he isn’t a cardinal.

No, but he is a friend of the Cardinal of France, I think.

Is he “forward” or “backward”?

He’s a fine man, but he is old.

Do the cardinals always live in Rome?

They live in their own countries. There’s one cardinal for each country.

166This is not always the case, as Satprem learned afterwards. Thus in the thirteenth century, Celestine V was chosen from among mendicant monks, but five months later he abdicated, probably in disgust. He was jailed by his successor (and later canonized!). In fact, although no rule demands that the cardinals should elect the Pope from among themselves, it is always