Chapter 4October 20, 1965

(Satprem had sent Mother a letter complaining about his lack of experiences, in particular the fact that he never saw Sri Aurobindo, except once eleven years earlier, and that in addition Mother told him she

saw him only rarely. In the end Satprem wrote, "I wonder what I am doing here?")

I am not going to eat you, don't be afraid!

(Satprem's denial)

Tell me, have you anything new to add? Has anything happened since you wrote?... Nothing. You are in the same state?

Calmer.

Oh, good.

But it's the same state, because it has been there for a long time. For a long time I have been saying to myself, "What does all this mean?" I don't very well understand. There is a sort of frustration or...

It's the egoistic distortion of aspiration.

That is to say, a petty self engrossment that wants satisfactions. I am telling you bluntly because it's no use making sentences.

(silence)

When you were in hospital, for several days I was in constant concentration at night so that... My own way is a way that intelligent people regard as very childish, but which I find the best: I turn to the Lord and pray to Him with all the ardor of my consciousness; and I asked Him to save your life, which was in danger, with the knowledge of the cause and of what should cure you. And I didn't cease till a sort of certitude came that things would turn out all right. Not so long ago, maybe a few weeks, I did see something that was wrong, but still I insisted and hoped it was just a memory that had come up again from the subconscient....

This must no longer be, mon petit! You have gone beyond that stage. It's a darkness you really no longer belong to. And it's NOT your nature: it's something that has been imposed on your nature – by lots and lots of things. Lots of things. X says it was brought into your life from a previous life, but those stories... I see things very clearly, but it doesn't really matter. When one is in the true Light, it's relatively easy to clean all that up.

You must shake that up, mon petit! You must. In your being you have been and still are somewhere I don't forget that.

And then, there is in fact all that I have told you lately about this phase in the development because of which, outwardly... Yes, that's what I hear from everyone: "Why don't you change that? Why don't you free me from this? Why don't you eliminate that?..." So far, the power to do things instantly hasn't been given to me personally. I don't know why. But every time it is necessary to intervene, I pass everything on to the Lord and tell Him, "Do it."

(silence)

I see clearly, you know. It's a distortion of aspiration. In your consciousness – your most material consciousness – there is a feeling that it is an aspiration, and, as you say, a frustrated aspiration, and you haven't understood that it's because it's a distorted aspiration that you don't feel the response, but the response is there – not only the response, but an action.

I am speaking of an experience that would... an experience that is like a warmth in the heart – if I saw him, if at least I had the experience, yes, of seeing him...

Seeing him? With which part of your being? You can't see him physically.

I never see him. I tell you, I saw him once eleven years ago.

Well, yes, some people have never seen him since he left physically. But there is no need to see him in order to feel him.

Yes, but "to feel him" is an impersonal force, it isn't living. What I ask – what I asked – is the warmth of something that is living and is there: not a "force" that descends. Yes, of course, I know there is "The Force." But something to which one can turn, which one can remember because it's something living, human, close, something one sees.

It's not a question of seeing, it's a question of feeling.

But yes, it is!... "Feeling," one can imagine and feel anything.

But no, there's no question of imagining. You are still terribly attached to the body.

One lives in a body, doesn't one?

Ah! So do I.

Something one loves is something that's very close.

(long silence)

Basically, what you are complaining about is that you cannot love.