Chapter 6March 21, 1970

There was here beside you, and very... (how can I put it?) very visible and clear, what you were in a previous life. A head – I could have drawn it.... A shaven head, very large, with a longish chin and a thin nose. Yet, strangely, it’s absolutely you.

But a color... the very fair Indian color (the Indian color, that is, without any pink at all in it), large eyes like this, about twenty-five to thirty years. A head slightly bigger than yours (slightly, not much). But VERY CLOSE to you, I mean closely united.... A large forehead – large, a very large forehead. And the head like... it makes a pear-shaped head.

He was meditating, then at a certain point he looked at me: the gaze was wholly luminous.... He looked so close, so close – you understand, I didn’t go far or deep: it was there. It’s odd.

Didn’t you feel something? But my impression was that it wasn’t a new fact – as if he were there very constantly.

It’s amusing. I almost seemed to see with these [physical] eyes! The head is a little bigger than yours – not much, a little.

And it looks like you! (Mother laughs) This (gesture to the forehead): large. He looked settled there, not on a visit: settled.

What kind of help is he bringing?

It’s a being who has done a very intensive yoga. It’s a relationship with the higher consciousnesses. But very... he must have been very highly ascetic.... This [matter] wasn’t what preoccupied him: he was wholly in the relationship with the Consciousness – very, very concentrated.

My difficulty in distinguishing forces or influences is that it’s always translated as an intensity of

force in me, so I don’t know how to untangle: it’s always “force,” you understand, intensity.

Yes, and his must be VERY intense!

And he was smiling. Smiling as if in a very happy experience. But ALL WITHIN. Probably not very interested in the outside.

He must have been a sannyasin. Besides, he had... he was naked, there was just a small piece of cloth visible, but an orange cloth.... He was the color of very fair-skinned Indians.

And at one point he looked: his eyes were very beautiful, the gaze was very beautiful. A very intense aspiration.

Have you received yesterday’s Aphorisms?... Nolini might have something to say....

407 – I am not a Bhakta [lover of the Divine], for I have not renounced the world for God. How can I renounce what He took from me by force and gave back to me against my will? These things are too hard for me.

(Mother laughs) So T. asks me what he means. Then, there is another.

411 – After I knew that God was a woman [laughter], I learned something from far-off about love; but it was only when I became a woman and served my Master and Paramour that I knew love utterly.

What exactly does he mean? Do you know when he wrote that?...

I replied to T.:

“I cannot answer because as long as he was in a body, he never told me anything on this subject. “If someone knows the exact date when he wrote it, that may give some indication. “Nolini may be able to tell you when it was written or whether Sri Aurobindo told him anything about it.”

(To Nolini:) Do you know?

(Nolini:) At the beginning, when he came to Pondicherry [in 1910].

At the very beginning.... But then, what does he mean when he says, “When I knew that God was a woman”!

(Nolini:) He always used to say that Krishna and Kali were one and the same being.

Ramakrishna, too, once became a woman: God was Krishna and he became a woman; for a long time he had that impression.

Naturally, for me, the answer is this sense of humor! (Mother laughs)

(Satprem:) Yes, you write to T., “Sri Aurobindo had the genius of humor and one only has to

admire and be silent.”

That was my first reply, but after that, T. asked me, “Why exactly did Sri Aurobindo put it that way?...” It depends on the date when it was written.

(Satprem:) It looks like the same experience as Ramakrishna’s.

(Nolini:) Yes, always.... All the letters he wrote to Motilal were signed that way.

But the way he puts it!... (general laughter)

* * * Soon afterwards:

This morning, for HOURS I had (the BODY – the body) this experience that nothing exists except the Divine. And then, the two are like this (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand through those of the left). But for hours... The discomfort about very small things25 is much greater than in ordinary life, and the well-being is wonderful, and the two are like this! (same gesture indicating a close fusion) One needs to be very, very, very still. It’s bearable only in an inner peace.

For the body it’s bearable only when the time has come for it to be convinced that the Divine is the only Truth; then it’s fine.

Because it knows that the discomfort, however intense it may be, is sure to pass. So its at peace.... That’s what I have learned.... It began yesterday evening and lasted the whole morning – in fact, until you came, but it’s still there.

(long silence)

Yes, this Consciousness seems to be intensifying all things so as to make them more perceptible: all the circumstances of life. Fantastic affairs, fantastic!... Unbelievable. Diseases, misunderstandings, quarrels, everything but everything has become acute, so acute, as if to really force people to see them.

(silence)

One funny thing: a woman who was here (she left) wrote a letter which came in an envelope (an envelope that came in the mail with stamps and postmark from Geneva): a letter abusing the Ashram for the way she was treated here. At the same time (that letter came yesterday), this morning, a wire from Bombay thanking me for her stay! I mean, a telegram full of gratitude, saying, “I am leaving on Saturday for Geneva” (that is, today). And the letter from Geneva came earlier – yesterday – while the telegram reached today!... (Mother laughs) Impossible to understand. And there was the date on the telegram, of course. And the same names. The one full of abuse, the other full of thanks!... It’s not the only example – this one is more recent, which is why I mention it.

There is clearly a will to upset all our so-called habitual knowledge.

(long silence)

Ah, it will have to take a long time yet.... But things are going as fast as possible. Only, there is a lot of work.