Chapter 6June 20, 1962

Pavitra was telling me the other day that, according to the latest scientific discoveries, matter in its present state can be immortal. There's no reason that it couldn't change (for it changes all the time) enough to avoid decay. Nothing in matter's composition stands in the way of its immortality – immortality of form, I mean. If science simply follows its own course (and does not suddenly find itself confronted with something beyond its grasp), there's no reason it should not provide people who don't have a mystical or occult turn of mind with a way to use the present substance in imperishable forms, without recourse to anything from other realms.

This is a great support for practical-minded people.

From the standpoint of spiritual knowledge, decay, dissolution and disintegration unquestionably result from a wrong attitude.

A wrong attitude?

Yes, a wrong attitude.

My own experience is going on in the tiniest details, details imperceptible in themselves but pointing in a certain direction that, increasingly, is this: when you take a wrong attitude, it immediately sets off all the disorders. Almost as if you shift into a wrong gear – the image is too rigid, of course, it's not really that... but we can say that the whole universe is rolling smoothly along and it's only when you go like this or like that (Mother indicates a shifting of gears) that disorders arise. You can have a wrong attitude in a number of ways. It's like a slight shifting of gears: things still work (assuming the mechanism to be particularly supple) but they grate – they grate and therefore wear out and deteriorate and break down. But if they were in the true position, there would be no friction.

The sense of friction doesn't exist – it disappears, there's no friction. Friction results only from the wrong angle... from something, a sort of shift.

Of course, this is much more easily expressed in psychological terms – psychologically, it's very simple, crystal clear – but even MATERIALLY it's like that.

* * * Later:

I had thought I would be able to see X for his birthday in December, but I don't know if I will have resumed my active life by then – it would greatly surprise me. Because, to tell the truth, if things are the way I have seen them (the way I have seen and felt them), then at the least a very serious beginning of transformation should be taking place – and well, for that, you know... years are nothing! Years are