Chapter 3May 11, 1965

said I was white), and when it came to eating, the body said (in a moaning tone), "Look how I am, I can't eat." If I had had a little time (laughing), I would have given it a good smack and told it not to make such a fuss! But I didn't have time, it was time for me to sit down and eat – and I couldn't eat. So I had difficulty the whole day, because naturally those little pranks make life difficult.

But what to people is unconscious, what they don't understand or call "illness," is to me as clear as daylight; and it's always a CHOICE, there is always a choice every minute (for the material nature), and if the will isn't unshakable, if you aren't holding on to the higher Will with desperate and unrelenting eagerness, you let yourself go; and then the body becomes stupid: it faints, it has pains.... That same day when I couldn't eat (after lunch I always rest for some time to... well, those are the hours when I put the body in direct reception of the Force – it doesn't last very long, I don't have much time), but as soon as I lay down on the chaise longue, such pains! Howling pains that take hold of you... (gesture to the waist) at those spots that are open to the adverse attacks. I was lying down, but I was fully conscious then and I said to myself, "Oh, very well! You want to make a big scene.... All right, I will bear everything and I won't make a sound – and I won't budge, and you're going to keep still." Then I started repeating my mantra quietly, as though the body weren't in any pain. And after a while, the pain went away. The body saw it was no use, so it went away!

And I KNOW it's the same for everything, for all "illnesses," without exception. I see, I know the "origin" of illnesses, of the various disorders, all that is now crystal clear (it's a story that it could take hours and days to tell), and that's how it is. So when, in a more or less dogmatic or literary way, the sages say, "Disorder occurs because the nature has decided to be in disorder," it's not so silly.

It's... oh, a spinelessness which is one of the things most contrary to the divine Glory. The spinelessness that accepts illness, you know. And I am saying this to my body, not to anyone else – others, that's not my business, it's their work, not mine; I mean, I am present [in them] only as the divine Consciousness, and then it's very easy, a very easy work; but the work here, the sadhana in here...

But sick people... when I tell them, "Be sincere," I know what I mean: if they REALLY want the Divine, all that must stop. That's all.

I've made myself late again! You know what's called self-pity? (Mother caresses her cheek) "Poor little thing, how you suffer! How you are to be pitied!" Well, the material nature is like that, it says, "I want to be like You, Lord; but then why do You leave me in this condition?" – a good slap and march!

After having translated