Chapter 7December 28, 1968

the sea, where I have a very pretty tiny apartment.... There I meditate and go through all the teachings of Mother again by immersing myself in The Life Divine and the Questions and Answers. I lighted an incense stick. Suddenly my whole body broke into a profuse sweat, and an atrocious struggle began. If I could use religious terms from before my Ashramite experiences, I would say that all of St. Anthony’s temptations fell on me to destroy and shatter me spiritually. First, a disarray, a very deep distress of helplessness: What use is my life? What am I doing? Why do I live? My efforts are useless.... Then there was the attraction of woman, which came to ridicule my continence.... Everything was called into question: whys and more whys made my head burst. After that came the invasion of power: Why did you renounce the hope of becoming a bishop? Glory would have come to you.... Then the desire for money.... Everything in a macabre and at the same time attractive carrousel. Finally, total solitude... abandoned by all, all having gone away: my friends, my connections in the Vatican, my family, all of you. How much time went by? I do not know. Nevertheless I think I heard a very small voice... (but I was so weak that I cannot say if it was true) telling me, ‘Do not weep, I am with you. If I am with you, others are superfluous, and if you are without me, others won’t be able to help you....’ I remained in a void... the whole night passed. In the morning, the sunshine, everything was so beautiful! When I returned to the Rome house, I was told I was transformed! So there."

I did say that to him ["I am with you"].

Occultly, those people are very skilled.

For at least two days in a row, I felt he was in a great difficulty. I thought it was the "others" causing him difficulties....

I didn’t say it with those words ["I am with you"] because I never say "I am," but the consciousness was like this: "The Lord is with you." Only, I can’t say it with words, because for them, as soon as you speak about "God," their whole religion comes back. It was the FACT of consciousness that I put on him. But you can tell him that it’s exactly what I wanted to say to him. It took that expression in him because, in him, I represent... the other side of life.

It’s good, it’s exactly what I wanted to make him feel.

(After listening to the music composed by Sunil for the New Year.)

Did you like it?

It’s very beautiful, very powerful.

Usually I play some music for him, and he composes from it, but this time I didn’t play, so he took some old pieces of mine; with that he makes contact and composes.

An American musician has come here, and I sent him to Sunil (he’s a pianist). He said he’d heard some of Sunil’s music there, in America, and at first people are a bit bewildered, but that when they’ve heard it several times, they become quite enthusiastic.

As for me, I find it creates an atmosphere: it BRINGS DOWN an atmosphere. And the human voice is quite lovely, well mingled.

* * *

(Then Mother listens to the conversation of December 21: the "universal box.")

It’s going on, day after day after day.

And the same thing never happens twice: either it’s another spot in the body having the experience (another activity, another movement in the body), or it’s an unresolved detail, or else... There’s a whole field – a huge field – of studies and observations, precisely about the relationship with other bodies and the extent to which this body does work for other bodies. It’s very interesting – oh, very interesting! Because all that is taking place without the intermediary of thought. So the body has a sensation or an experience, or it perceives a disorder, or... and it acts on that; then, after a while, it notices it’s not about itself, it’s another [body]. That’s how it acts.

All that still seems to be in a limited field, but I am not sure it’s not far more general. All the time (almost all the time), there seems to be an intervention of the psychic, as if the psychic made the body remember (I don’t know how to put it), made the body remember its universality, and as if it weren’t only for itself that the body is expressing movements of consciousness – the movements of the higher Consciousness that it expresses: the effect is general.

We’ll know that. We’ll know all that... later, in...

But the body has a strange sensation, really strange, of being as vast as the earth, even vaster (it can’t be expressed, because that’s not the true way of saying it), but there’s something like this: a sort of inner identity expressing itself in the plane... (Mother searches for words)... In the higher Consciousness, it has an effect. I don’t know how to put it.

And in that consciousness, the strange thing is the importance of one minute, which to our consciousness is nothing – there it has an importance.... In one minute, something... general can be done. Naturally, all words are stupid, but that’s how it is. One minute.

In one minute... To such a point that the body perceives that one minute like this (Mother slightly rotates two fingers) is a victory; and one minute like that (Mother rotates her two fingers the other way) is a catastrophe. And not only for itself (for itself, it’s on a small scale and concentrated, it’s not the same thing), but it’s general.

It’s an observation that began today (for hours, you know), and quite acutely. But it’s new – new in its ASPECT; it’s the continuation of all that preceded, but in the aspect it has taken on, it’s completely new. In other words, the body consciousness may be becoming aware of it in a new way.

All that is an approximation. After some time, maybe it will be more precise. It’s the quality of time that’s changing.

It’s a beginning. We’ll see.

All that isn’t expressed well, but how should it be expressed? I don’t know. Later, perhaps. So I’ll see you next year, on the very first day of the year.

On Wednesday?

Yes, it’s the first day of the year! (Mother laughs with mischievous delight)