Chapter 2March 7, 1970

(After reading the following aphorism)

135 – All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil and pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss and good, all death an opening on widest immortality. Why and how this should be so, is God’s secret which only the soul purified of egoism can penetrate.

Yes, yes (Mother nods approvingly), that’s what I am doing right now. And one has be really persevering.

It’s not to compliment myself, but I think it’s not easy! Because as long as it’s vital or mental, it’s nothing – nothing at all! But when it becomes physical... it’s more difficult! (Mother laughs)

This aphorism remains wholly, entirely true.

(Mother goes into a contemplation

then gives Satprem a red rose)

This is “all human passions turned to the Divine,” and this (Mother gives a pink rose) is the Response.

I wanted to tell you first that Nolini had a very interesting experience. That was yesterday. He hadn’t been well for the past day or two: he had spells of dizziness, could hardly walk, anyway rather miserable. Then, suddenly (he had to go to the bathroom and had to walk, but his steps weren’t even steady), suddenly there came into him, “All this is because your physical consciousness doesn’t have trust: it doesn’t believe, doesn’t have trust.” Then, ALL AT ONCE, he felt something as if seizing him, and everything went away! He was perfectly fine, and it remained like that. He knew very well that in his physical consciousness there was doubt and all the old ideas – he swept it all aside and found himself perfectly fine. It happened in the morning; I saw him in the evening, and he was perfectly fine. That’s interesting.

There, that’s all I wanted to say.

arouses in people a whole quarreling spirit. So everyone is now quarreling! And I very clearly see that it’s the pressure of this Consciousness – what resists in them rises up. And what disorder here....

I am looking, I’ll see what will happen. I would need (because I myself can’t take an active part, it’s not possible), I would need a very energetic man, very, VERY open to the Consciousness, and at the same time VERY calm, capable of resisting this current – a kind of current of storm.

But anyway, things are moving, you understand, they feel as if everything is aroused, they’re no longer asleep and half inert, and that’s...

Health too is like that. The body will feel quite fine, and suddenly, as soon as some old movement comes back, ah... things will grate and cry, oh!... But the consciousness (in the body, I mean) is growing clearer and clearer, more and more precise.

The consciousness isn’t an idea, it’s a sort of... yes, a state of consciousness, an awareness of the Divines sole existence, of the sole Reality, and when it’s there, everything becomes wonderful (physically, materially). There are moments full of an intensity of harmony... quite exceptional. But then, when things grate, mon petit, they grate horribly!

And I get letters by the dozen: entreaties from people in all possible difficulties, physical difficulties (the most incredible physical difficulties), and then moral, material, external difficulties, inner difficulties – everything seems raging.

I had an odd dream, which may be related to that.... I don’t know, I was with you, and Sri

Aurobindo was there (though I didn’t see him).

Ah!

No, I didn’t see him, but he was there. Then, suddenly, you fell ill, or anyway you were lying

down, and Sri Aurobindo told me (I didn’t see him, but he told me), “Mother must take cold meat and cold vegetables!...” And it was as if he sent me on an errand to the person who needed to be told.... So I left, went this way and that, and I came to R.’s place, Auroville’s people, in a very dark and crowded room....

(Mother nods her head)

And R. shouted there, “Silence!” He had a very dark face, you know, almost blackened, and he

shouted “Silence” in this room. Apparently, it was those people whom I had come to tell that Mother had to take cold meat and cold vegetables!

(Mother laughs) Whatever can it mean?... Haven’t you had a sensation of what it means?

I had an impression that those people were terribly heated and were making you sick, and so they

had to give you some cold food!

(Mother laughs)

Very dark.

Oh, what a confusion.... But I don’t know why, at night I am very often connected with Auroville’s

people, and it’s as tiring as can be, you know.

Oh, that’s strange.

Very often.

But it shows you have something to do there.

Yes, but to tell the truth, it doesn’t interest me!21 (Mother laughs) It’s because they all read your book.

Yes, they came to ask me if I would speak on the radio – I said no!

Oh, (Mother laughs) I wasn’t told that, otherwise I would have replied!

But more and more, quite a few come from there [Auroville] to see me.

Yes, lots and lots of people read the book; it’s having an enormous action.... I constantly get letters from people who say, “I have read The Adventure of Consciousness, it’s been a revelation” – constantly, constantly. And the book is beginning to have a lot of effect in the U.S.A. and in Canada. So naturally, it gives you... tiring nights!

(silence)

But my impression is that this Consciousness has swept away all social conventions of good manners, good upbringing, so of course, all those who don’t have very deep roots behave like ill-mannered children (!)

(silence)

In the body (in the cells, the body consciousness), there is constantly a great battle between all the materialistic ideas and the true consciousness, and the result... (grating gesture). In the space of a quarter of an hour, everything starts grating – you have some pain, you’re ill at ease, everything seems about to be torn apart, with dreadful contradictions – and then, with the pressure of the true consciousness, suddenly pfft! everything vanishes in a minute, and it becomes... a marvel. But then, it’s not a stable thing: the struggle goes on.

But it’s really interesting.

(silence)

21As a matter of fact, Satprem started taking interest in Auroville only after Mother’s departure, when he saw that Mother’s