Chapter 7November 25, 1967

afraid of? Don't you see it's the Lord doing this to transform you?" Then the other: "Ah!..." And then it falls quiet, opens out, and waits. And... the pain goes away, the disorder goes away, and then everything works out.

It's wonderful. But if by some mischance the mind comes in, starts watching or judging, then everything stops and falls back into the old habit.

(long silence)

Basically, it's the vital, mental – and so on – ego, it's all of that which was – poff! – taken away.

It was a radical operation. So now there is a sort of suppleness and plasticity. And all this is learning (it's very much in touch with everything [horizontal gesture]), it's learning to find its whole support, its whole strength, its whole knowledge, its whole light, its whole will, everything like that (vertical gesture, turned to the Supreme), exclusively like that, in an extraordinary plasticity.

And then – the splendor of the Presence.

(silence)

There.

So what should I do to you?

I don't know, an operation!

A radical operation (Mother laughs).

Yes, perhaps.

But tell me, when they put you to sleep to open your stomach, were you conscious? Nothing at all? Nothing?

No.

We'll see....

We'll see.

It's very often like that: I get nearly twenty-five or thirty letters every day; out of them, I have time to read eight or ten, and at the time of reading them, most often there is no answer: they're at least ninety-eight percent useless. When there is something [worthwhile in the letter], the answer comes right away. Or when there is no answer right away, sometimes (often) I put it aside, and when I am alone, Sri Aurobindo comes and says to me, "Why don't you tell him this?" Then I immediately write it down. It happens very often. And always an answer, oh, with a sense of ridiculousness, of humor touching the exact point where the weakness or unconsciousness is. That's very funny. So I never try to find, naturally, never ever, it comes like that quite simply. When I have to answer, it comes; then I just have to take a paper, my pen, and I write it down. That's the part of the work which isn't work, but amusement.

* * * Soon afterwards:

I gave you a speech, twice.

Very early in the morning, while you must have been still asleep. Last night and the night before, very early, around four in the morning, I gave you a speech. Not quite "I" (and what's "I," in the first place, where is "I"? I don't know), it's... At times it comes from high above, like that, imperative; at other times, it comes from Sri Aurobindo, and that's much more close, intimate. And it was Sri Aurobindo, both times. I gave you a speech.

What was it?

He must have told you! And for you, it will come back like this (gesture from within); one day, all of a sudden, it will reemerge from deep within you. I even saw that (the experience was rather complete), I saw it go within, and saw that one day it would reemerge and would simply be like an inspiration or a revelation, or even simply like a knowledge: "Ah! So that's how it is!"

Very amusing.

Sri Aurobindo spoke very clearly. He told you WHY things are like this. But he told me not to say it, he told me, "I am saying it to him and one day he will know it."

But on what subject?

On the subject of what you told me last time: that your body left to itself doesn't have any experience. He told you why. And he told you how to do it. But that I can repeat to you; I can repeat the "how to do it": he told you that your body is still in a condition in which it has to go to school, and it's your inner being, your consciousness, your true self that must teach it. He said, "It is still at a stage when it must be taught its lesson, and so it must learn its lesson."

There. It's very interesting, and very intimate.

Then I asked him, "Should I tell him?" He said, "No, it must come out of himself, like that, it must be a sudden revelation, so that he will say, 'Ah! yes...'"