Chapter 5November 15, 1965

But it isn't mental. For the time being, it has nothing to do with thought.

(For some time Mother has been giving Sujata packets of ready-made soups from Germany, Sweden,

etc.)

...You'll become cosmopolitan, my child – cosmopolitan in taste.

(Sujata makes a face)

You don't want to? Is there something in your nature that doesn't want?

(Sujata:) Food, ever since childhood I haven't liked eating.

But mon petit, I have never been interested in food! I have never liked eating. When I was small, they had to think up all sorts of tricks to make me eat, to me it was the most absurd and least interesting thing. Well, I know the food of every country and have done a comparative study (!) of all cuisines, and I can be anywhere without it disturbing my body in the least.

It's not out of taste for food, it's out of taste for... (how can I put it?) the expansion of consciousness, the elimination of limits, and above all to prevent the slavery of habits – that's a horrible thing. To be the slave of one's habits is disgusting. Even when I was very small, that's how it was: no slavery. I was told, "But you must do this, because that's the habit," and I used to answer in a very little polite way, "Rubbish!"... To do things that way because the habit is to do them that way is no argument to me – free, free, free! The taste for freedom.

You mustn't be a little slave just because you were born from certain parents in such and such a place – it's by chance, not fate!

(Sujata:) No, Mother, it's mostly the sense of smell. There are certain smells I find very hard to bear.

But you must learn to bear them. Just do this: when you get a shock, stay very quiet and call – call the Lord or call me, it doesn't matter (laughing), it has the same effect! (Don't go about repeating this!) And then say, "Give me a widened consciousness," that's all. And then remain quiet. And then the next time the smell comes, you'll notice that, oh, it's not so unpleasant, and the third or fourth time, you will feel the Ananda behind it.