Chapter 5October 19, 1968

Oh, yes!... Yes, it’s there!98 Something is going on, we’ll see.

(Mother speaks these words haltingly; they are interspersed with long silences, as though dropping

from far away... perhaps from eternity.)

I can remain without coughing, but because of that I can’t speak.... There’s nothing we can talk about. So there.

(silence)

The material, the physical is learning – it’s learning what it is – and that’s very interesting. But... it’s very hard to express.

(silence)

You see, I remain for hours and hours on end without speaking, and it’s like a development unfolding logically, but... This cough must be deliberate, to prevent me from speaking. Because I see things clearly.... One seems to waste one’s time speaking.

I remain, I can remain for hours, hours and hours like that, watching the development – a development at once universal and personal; but "personal," there is so to speak no person, it’s something curious. There’s a series of states of consciousness being organized.

(silence)

There is in an almost constant and general way the impression that material things – not only things, but perceptions, sentiments (kinds of odd sentiments that have nothing to do with...) and ways of being, perceptions, consequences, reactions – all that constantly strikes me as being... (yes, I might put it like this), as being different from what people think.

I don’t know how to explain.

We could say that causes and consequences... (But it’s not something thought, that’s what is difficult.) It’s certainly something I am now discovering, so... I don’t know if it’s the cause or the process of deformation between what is and what’s perceived (what’s lived, perceived).