Chapter 7September 19, 1970

She was someone like you, about your height [five foot two], your dimensions, and I said to her, “You’re so sweet, so sweet!...” She was all luminous, but her arms and legs were as if stuck to the body. And no fear – neither I nor the child were afraid.

(Mother looked better the previous Wednesday.)

Do you have something?

Now Mother, nothing special.... Have you seen any changes?

(Mother shakes her head negatively)

(Long meditation,

Mother pants for breath)

Do you have any questions?

(Mother shakes her head)

But it’s over now, isn’t it?

Oh yes, completely over.

(meditation again

with labored breathing)

Do you have anything to ask?

I saw a text by Sri Aurobindo that I found interesting....

Oh!

level. So he says:

“Working on the physical is like digging the ground; the physical is absolutely inert, dead like stone. When the work began there, all former energies disappeared, experiences stopped; if they came they didn’t last. The progress is exceedingly slow. One rises, falls; rises again and falls again, constantly meeting with the suggestions of the Vedic Asuras, ‘You can’t do anything, you are bound to fail.’

“You have to go on working and working year after year, point after point, till you come to a central point in the subconscient which has to be conquered and it is the crux of the whole problem, hence exceedingly difficult.... This point in the subconscient is the seed and it goes on sprouting and sprouting till you have cut out the seed.”

7 January 1939

(after a silence)

Then doesn’t he say something more... more encouraging? (laughter)

(long silence)

What did he say, “a point”?

“A central point in the subconscient... and it is the crux of the whole problem.”

(after a long silence)

He didn’t say what it was?

No, Mother.

(Mother gestures to say she does not know

long concentration)

Nothing, nothing comes, nothing.

(long, panting silence)

Nothing, there’s nothing to say. No experiences, nothing. What time is it?

Eleven, Mother.

Is there no work?... Working avoids concentrating.

You see, it gives me a discomfort all over like this (gesture at the top of the chest).