Chapter 6March 15, 1972

As Your Excellency knows, I have directed the Holy Congregation for the Eastern Church for nearly twenty-five years, and one of my most cherished memories is the journey I made to your beloved country in 1953. I have always held a keen interest in your great nation, but even more so after I visited it. It was thus with a very special pleasure that I accompanied His Holiness Pope Paul VI to the International Eucharistic Congress in Bombay.

On that occasion, the Holy Father expressed the wish to come in contact with representatives of your country’s main religious movements, and I know, Excellency, that he was given a biography of Sri Aurobindo.

It is in fact in connection with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry that I am taking the liberty of writing Your Excellency. I am sure you are aware of the reputation it has earned beyond India’s borders; I have been following its work and achievements for years. Recently, I was told of the difficulties encountered by those in charge of the Ashram in regard to the proposed creation of a university – a project expressly favored by the Indian Government; some Catholic students, in conjunction with a few priests, are displaying a strong opposition to this project.

I therefore request Your Excellency kindly to use his authority to avoid any incident that, at all events, would be highly detrimental to the harmony that His Holiness Pope Paul VI so much desires, in accord with the rules laid down by the Ecumenical Council Vatican II.

With gratitude, I remain, Venerable Lord,

respectfully and faithfully yours, Signed: Eugène Card. Tisserand It’s interesting. Who has replaced him?

I don’t know, nobody has been appointed yet.

But since then, they’ve been quiet here.

(Mother plunges in

Champaklal comes up to Mother,

abruptly pulling her out of her state)

I was in Italy.

Stories with cardinals....

(Satprem reads Mother some parts of the conversation of March 8 for the next “Bulletin”: “No