Chapter 3January 11, 1967

...In the afternoon, the lists [of appointments] have lengthened to such a point that I have no time left. Before, I used to start my daily work (the mail to be signed and so on) at 3:30, then it became four, and now it's quarter to five. There was a time when I finished at four, so I did the translation of Savitri (that was a very, very long time ago); later I finished at 4:30, so I still had time to take something, eat a little; now I finish after five, so (laughing) that settles it!

It MUST be like that since it is like that.

It's perhaps a lesson (it's an indication), but there is a purpose to it.3 As for me, I try to understand the lesson I have to understand. I am learning to be very patient....

Yes!

Oh, a patience... People constantly bring revolt, abuse, all that. To me it's an absolute zero, sometimes it's even amusing; sometimes I find it funny. But when I find it funny is not when I am in my best state, because when I am in my own state – the true state of compassion – it doesn't change anything, it doesn't even cause a small ripple on the surface, nothing. When it's funny is when it makes me start working on people who have done one thing or another. When something is working, then I find it amusing.

Yesterday I was asked the question; I was asked whether abuse, the feeling of being abused, and what in English is called self-respect (which is somewhat akin to self-esteem), have a place in the sadhana. Naturally, they don't, that goes without saying! But I saw the movement, it was extremely clear: I saw that without ego, when the ego isn't there, there CANNOT be that sort of ruffling in the being. Because I went back far into the past, to the time when I still felt that (years ago), but now it's not even something alien – it's something impossible. The whole being, even, strangely, even the physical constitution, doesn't understand what it means. It's the same thing when materially there is a knock (Mother shows a scratch on her elbow), like this, for instance: it's no longer felt the way an injury is felt. It's no longer felt that way. More often than not, there's nothing at all, it goes absolutely unnoticed in the midst of the whole; but when there is something, it's only a sense – a very... sweet, very intimate sense – of a help trying to make itself felt, a lesson to be learned. But not the way it's done mentally, always with a stiffening; that's not it: it's instantly a sort of offering in the being, which gives itself in order to learn. I am speaking of all the cells. It's very interesting. Of course, if we mentalize it, we should say it's the sense or awareness of the divine Presence in all things, and that the mode – the mode of contact – comes from the state in which we are.

This is the body's experience. And the only perception when there is some clash or other in individuals, some shock or other, is always a clear vision of the ego – the ego manifesting itself. They say, "It's the other's fault." I wouldn't 3This long phase of "invasion" from outside, which had started the previous year, and of increased difficulty with "people," as Mother used to say, was indeed going to end up in a first serious warning to Mother a few days later, on January 14