Chapter 3August 8, 1961

extraordinary physical poise! And not only did this man know all those languages, but I never saw such a brain for arithmetic. Never. He made a game of calculations – not the slightest effort – calculations with hundreds of digits! And on top of it, he loved birds. He had a room to himself in our apartment (because my mother could never much tolerate him), he had his separate room, and in it he kept a big cage... full of canaries! During the day he would close the windows and let all the canaries loose....

And could he tell stories! I think he read every novel available, all the stories he could find – extraordinary adventure stories, for he loved adventures. When we were kids he used to let us come into his room very early in the morning and, while still sitting in bed, tell us stories from the books he had read – but he told them as if they were his own, as if he’d had extraordinary adventures with outlaws, with wild animals.... Every story he picked up he told as his own. We enjoyed it tremendously!

But one day when my brother had disobeyed him (Matteo must have been ten or eleven, and I perhaps nine or ten), I came into the dining room and saw my father sitting on a sofa with my brother across his knees; he had pulled down his trousers and was spanking him, I don’t know what for. It wasn’t a very serious spanking, but still.... I came in, drew myself up to my full height and said, ‘Papa, if you ever do that again, I am leaving this house!’ And with such authority, mon petit! He stopped and never did it again.

Some very funny stories! Anyway, I think that’s enough for now. How I have chatted away! You always make me chat!

X has written expressing his ‘gratitude for all the revelations OF THE SUPREME’ he has had during his meditations with me.

This is something new he has accepted, because the Supreme doesn’t usually appear in tantrism – they are in contact with the Shakti and don’t bother about the Supreme. But here he has come to accept it.

He has tried very hard to understand. But his spiritual conception has remained like this: one can – one MUST – master life, and in life, to some extent, a certain adaptation to the higher forces can be achieved; but there is no question of transformation: the physical world remains the physical world. It can be a little better organized, more harmonious, but there is no question of something else, of divinization – no question at all.

And this is probably why there are things he can’t make out in his contact with me, because he simply doesn’t understand. For example, these physical disorders baffle him, they seem incompatible with my realization. As long as the question of transformation does not come into play, the realization I had was sufficient to establish a kind of very stable order – reaction against the transformative will is