Chapter 2May 12, 1961

There is obviously a force at work....

When Sri Aurobindo was here, the work was done in another way; there was such an impression of hovering above difficulties, of acting on them from above. It was so strong that even rebellious elements, even things which were not going well, even... they were dominated from above and they could not manifest – they stayed like that. And as they could not manifest, they faded quietly away.

I have seen people (people from outside) who were enemies – all their enmity was pacified, pacified, pacified. They were unable to do any harm, even when they wanted to. Everything was made innocuous in that way. And it was the same thing here in the Ashram; as always, people had wrong movements and wrong thoughts, but all this, too, was dominated – it was pacified, pacified.

I had continued to work in the same way. But now... it’s as if everything has been engulfed. And the number of ugly things, petty movements, nasty reactions – everywhere, everywhere, in everyone, oh!... I am swamped with letters, and such letters! Such letters!

And I don’t see, I really do not see why all that needs to manifest in order to disappear. Because before, when it didn’t manifest, it faded away by itself; but now it creates problems and problems and problems. (For me they are not problems but stupidities; they are problems and complications for others.) And it’s so useless! So much time is lost, so much time coping with stupid reactions.... I don’t know why.

And nothing can be done until it’s over.

Aphorism 60 - There is no mortality. It is only the Immortal who can die; the mortal could neither be born nor perish. The Immortal can pass from the condition of life to the condition of death (but not ‘death’ as we understand it); ‘can die’ means ‘can change condition.’ The Immortal can pass from this condition to that condition and back and forth again. We call it ‘death,’ but it has nothing to do with either life or death. They are changes of state.

(silence)

I’ve had this notebook154 for days – don’t feel like answering.

I think I am! I’m not sick, in any case. No, I don’t need to be concerned with my body. It’s not that.... Probably the word-machine isn’t working. Whatever I read seems stupid to me, whatever I am living seems stupid to me; as for the way others understand things, it’s dumbfounding!

No, the mind must have gone on strike.

It’s uninteresting.

(silence)

I have finished my reading of the Veda. I have really tried my best, but I cannot manage to recapture that consciousness; do what I will, it seems childish to me, I don’t know why. Or else I am in the presence of a realization so far removed from what we are capable of now – but to enter into that we have to go behind the words, which requires a mighty effort.

If they really had that experience, it is admirable. But I don’t know. I don’t know if they had it PHYSICALLY – in the inner worlds of course, certainly! It’s all very well, one is very happy living in those worlds. But it is here – HERE! How to make of this life here, this world here, something really worth living.... Haven’t yet found the trick.

That’s all I can say. That’s what I am up against. That’s all, I am waiting.

(silence)

Yet there are worthwhile things in the physical life. I don’t know, but I still feel a nostalgia for...

Nostalgia for what? Have you actually known something worth being nostalgic about? What?

It goes back very far, to when I was a child: a sailboat on the sea.

Oh, such a trifle! It’s nothing, childish.

But it’s a wide physical life, and not without its beauty!

The physical life – yes, it’s nothing at all. All these things of the physical life – nothing at all, nothing at all! It’s childish, not worth thinking about for a second.

Unless one has the sense of the TRUE LIFE, of the Truth – it is nothing, nothing. All the rest is nothing, nothing – pastimes, childish amusements, the business of people who have nothing else to do. Ah, no! It’s not worth a second’s thought.

You don’t understand.

Even those momentary breakthroughs one can have in life before having found the Truth, when one is on the way and suddenly has glimpses of an immortal Consciousness, the contact with a truth, even that.... These experiences are all very fine, it’s very good, but it’s on the way. It is not THAT.

What is worthwhile is to seek the TRUE SENSE of life: to what does it really correspond? What is