Chapter 1July 5, 1967

You remember that man who had left for Israel – the Indian Embassy has refused him a visa to come back here!...78 So he is forced to go to America (America is his country, he is American), he is going to America, and then, he writes to me, he will make some money so he can come and bring it to me!

Another boy here was to go and work in Germany with E., everything was arranged, then Germany said, "No, we don't want any Indians." So there's universal brotherhood.

But with the Israel affair and the stand they have taken, the Indians haven't made many friends.

No, they haven't.

Oh, but from Holland a woman who was here wrote to me (during the events), "I have never seen in my life such a display of hatred as the one we have here against Israelites!..." In Holland!

And in Germany, God knows it's the same thing. So it's not localized. It's the PRINCIPLE OF HATRED manifesting senselessly, without rhyme or reason.

In France, too, it seems there has been a widespread anti-Semitic movement, very violent.

In France it's not a majority, it's a small minority.

Is it?... I don't know.

It's the very minority that was on the side of Vichy during the war.

What was that marshal's name?

Pétain. Yes, it's that whole side.

Yes, the one who behaved like... He looked as if he wanted to imitate Hitler as much as he could!

No, but the incoherence of it all... Some resent India's attitude during the war, others resent Israel's victory in the war! So, never mind the most contradictory things in the same line of thought – it's a need... to hate. To be nasty, as nasty as possible.

* * * Soon afterwards:

I've had a rather strange dream.

Oh, tell me.

operation: an operation on his two feet, and on all his toes. Then he left for the operation (I should add that he left on his own, unhelped). After a few moments I saw him come back (yet it was a long operation), I saw him come back with his two feet heavily bandaged: there were big bandages on his two feet. Then I was quite astonished, because I saw him walk very soon afterwards: he no longer had any bandages and was wearing new shoes.

Oh!

New shoes, I can still see them... they seemed to me rather peculiar, cream-colored. And he who

didn't use to wear shoes had shoes on! But that was very soon afterwards.

Cream-colored?

Yes, the color of... like this box, if you like. Not cream-colored, it was pink... a mixture of pink and

cream.79 Ah! The feet are the symbol of physical life, and according to what I saw once (your dream seems related to that), EACH part of his body represented someone – or rather represented his, Sri Aurobindo's, MODE of expression in someone.80

One night I saw him like that, I told you. But it was extremely complex; I only noted two or three important things, but there didn't seem to be even one small part of his body that wasn't represented by someone.... So if we take the symbol of the feet to be the physical... Not only the feet, but all the toes, did you say?

All the toes, yes.

That is to say, a certain number of people.

In my vision, his two feet were me. But in my vision, his feet had white tabis on, to make me clearly understand that it was me. And in my vision, he walked on the edge of a path strewn with bare flintstones, so it was very hard and sharp-edged, and he said, "No, this is not the way it should be, let's walk higher up on the road so it's smoother," and he came back to the middle of the road. So if it's like this, if it's the same symbol going on, that would mean something concerning me – it may be.

The shoes are a clothing. A clothing... Pinkish cream, did you say?

Yes, pinkish cream.

It's the color of the supramental in the physical. That is how I have seen it.

So I would have a supramental clothing?... I would put on a supramental clothing? That would be amusing!

Your dream is very interesting, you know; it's not a dream, it's much better than a dream.

79In fact, the best definition would be pale orange, or salmon pink.

Yes, mon petit, I know that quite well! (Mother laughs) But it took one minute. You said he came back almost immediately.

Yes, he came back almost immediately. Then I was quite astonished to see him walk very soon

afterwards.

Yes, that's right!

He came back with big bandages on his two feet.

(After a silence) When did you have this dream?

Two days ago, during the night of Sunday to Monday.

That's right.

On Sunday, Sunday night, before going to bed, I complained (I can't say I complained very seriously, but you know, like when one is in a grumpy mood), I complained, saying, "But since You want me to manifest You, why do you allow me to feel so out of sorts!" There were all kinds of troubles – small ones, naturally, but when there are lots of them they add up to trouble plain and simple. So (laughing) I was grumbling! It lasted for the space of a second or two, after that I laughed! But I grumbled, I protested. As if it [the body] were telling me, "Why all these – yes, why all these painful operations?" So I immediately gave myself a sound slap, saying to myself, "You are still full of vanity, you've got what you deserve!" Then it was over.

But that's indeed the way it is; it's true, everything looks, oh, very serious, very difficult, very complicated, very... while if we were less stupid, it could probably be very easy and swift! It's clearly because of our own stupidity, without a shadow of doubt.

(long silence)

Just these last few days (because of all kinds of things – of people and things that come), I have been increasingly seeing that the human concept of divine Omnipotence is the concept of an omnipotence that would operate without rhyme or reason, through a succession of whims, senselessly – that's what people call "Omnipotence": being able to do the most stupid things at will.

Obviously, that doesn't quite conform to a higher Harmony (!) Yet human beings are like that: if the god they worship or want to manifest isn't willing to do, to execute whatever comes into their heads in a totally incoherent and arbitrary way, he isn't all-powerful!

I am magnifying it to make it more easily perceptible; it's not like that: they deceive themselves (if you tell them that, they protest), but they deceive themselves, and it comes to what I've just said.

When you succeed in going into that Consciousness of Harmony (but not an individual or local harmony), a universal Harmony – even ultra-universal, as the universe is only one part of it – then values are completely changed, completely....

(Mother shakes her head

and remains in contemplation)