Chapter 6June 18, 1966

consciousness, but a consciousness that’s not intellectually formulated. And there’s a sort of rhythm like this (Mother gestures to show the very supple and harmonious motion of a pendulum), materially. What was forever working and harping on things (it’s unbearable), now, oh, it’s very, very pleasant, very pleasant. But up there (gesture above the head), "That" is there; it’s becoming awesome, you know, from the standpoint of action, of perception.

It’s not exactly a numbness, but...

You must have gone through the wrong door.

The wrong door?

Yes (smiling), you have opened the wrong door.

Maybe what you want to write is very human? I mean, very much in the human consciousness: the human reactions, human perceptions. Because if that’s the case... I find it so useless, futile, uninteresting, absurd, and, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, untrue, false. So then, maybe I am responsible! I find it sickening, you know, now that there is that sort of sweetness... a sweetness... It’s not drowsy, it has nothing to do with inertia; it’s a sort of... (same gesture of a pendulum), it’s like letting oneself flow along, but on a luminous stream. So, ever since this has been there, all human stories, all their stories in all fields, from politics to artistic creation and all that, oh, I find it terribly futile – and so ridiculously agitated.

My idea (if I have one), and what makes me persist in writing, is that all that I have said in an intellectual way, which appeals to people’s intellectual consciousness, I’d like to say it in a deeper way, which is a rhythm (people call it "poetry," but as for me I don’t understand a thing about poetry). What I’d like is to express an inner rhythm, to touch another layer of the being, deeper than those things of the intellect. "The Adventure of Consciousness" appeals to people’s intellectual consciousness, it’s to make them understand. But what I’d like is to touch something else. To say the same thing with an inner rhythm... images.

Maybe that’s why, maybe I am also responsible?

That’s right: I’m not in it, I’m not there.

You’re not there, no, but that’s because you are with me! (Mother laughs)