Chapter 5January 26, 1966

(Regarding the previous conversation: the blue and pink Purani)

(Ironically) It’s a pity we can’t make pictures of those things, because Purani had lots of admirers and disciples, plenty in America, and so if I could send them a picture of Purani as I saw him, blue and pink (laughing), that would be charming!

(long silence)

There is at the moment a systematic demolition of all preconceived ideas, prejudices, habits, all the viewpoints – the social, moral, hygienic, health viewpoints – "it" takes hold of everything, one thing after the other, and it demolishes it with such irony!

Last night it was about "hygienic" measures concerning food, and there was such a comical demonstration of how ignorant the precautions we take are and of all sorts of prejudices we have... with scenes and pictures that would make priceless comedies on the stage, oh!...

It was about shrimps to be eaten (!) and it called to my mind how people are in Europe; they aren’t at all like here, hounded by the thought of the possible contamination of the food they eat: in Europe, if you see a fruit, you take it and eat it. Shrimps, I remember having bought some on display in a big grocery, but it was on the pavement, outside, anyway – you never gave it a thought. And nothing happens to you!... It was very early this morning, and so comical! Like the funniest farce – whoever wrote those farces? (Mother vainly tries to recall the name) I don’t remember now.... You know, names come on a tangent, and then all the similar sounds come on the other side. I tried to recall the name, something came by on a tangent, and on the other side, there came like a joke, "cartilage"! (Mother laughs) Whatever is the name of that "modern" who wrote farces, but wrote them very well?

Courteline.

(Mother laughs) Cartilage!

It was about those big shrimps that are called "jumbo prawns" here: they are as big as crayfish. Someone (a disciple here), who died rather a long time ago, came and brought me prawns; that is to say, I met him in the rooms downstairs... There are rooms that are reproduced somewhere, in a sort of subconscient, in fact the subconscient that has to be transformed, organized and so on, and there exists a sort of reproduction of the rooms downstairs [below Mother’s room], but not exactly the same (yet with the same layout), and a certain category of activities takes place there. That’s where we were together once, I told you: you were trying to clarify people’s ideas (!) It’s the same place. It’s not physical here, it’s in the subconscient. So then, there was that tall fellow who watched over the Samadhi for a long time, Haradhan; he was there. And when he saw me arrive, he told me, "I have brought something for you." And in a sort of dark-blue cloth, he had wrapped two big prawns, which he gave me! There were already cooked, ready to be eaten. The cloth wasn’t very much to my liking! So I thought, "How can I make them a little cleaner before eating them?" (Laughing) You know, it’s a farce – a farce to make you understand... your stupidity. I began by removing the... (what is it called?), it’s not "skin"... Oh, here too the word hasn’t come, but on a tangent came "cuirass"! (Laughing) Cuirass and cartilage!... Anyway... I removed that, and as soon as I had removed it, I said to myself, "You fool! Now it’s even more exposed than before!" I looked for a way, and I ran to a corner (in the place of Pavitra’s laboratory), found a water tap and put my prawn under the tap. Immediately someone