Chapter 6February 20, 1968

She has no trust whatsoever, she thinks she is infinitely superior. Only, from a political point of view, she is very careful not to come into visible conflict [with Mother], because she feels that would hamper her action.

She wanted – and she said I had allowed her (which is standing truth on its head) – she wanted to open an LSD club in Auroville. Because I wrote to her... being as objective as possible, I wrote it could be useful only under the control of people who have the spiritual knowledge AND the power to control and assist. So she turned it upside down and said, "Mother has given her permission on condition that there are people with knowledge who control..." So there. And the "people with knowledge," of course...

In the end, whatever happens in life, in action, is to make the movement of transformation and ascent as rapid as possible. Perhaps there are times – there is a rhythm, and there are times more favorable to harmony, but a stagnant harmony, and so one tries to do away with, or at any rate suppress, all dangerous movements that might stop the progress or even lead towards destruction; but there are other times when there is a very strong push towards transformation, and, I must say... with a risk of possible damage. Certainly since 1956, it’s plainly visible that there has been something pushing and pushing and pushing to hasten the movement, and... it results in some very dangerous extravagances.

It’s with this knowledge and this certainty – this vision of things – that most of the time I remain as a noninterfering witness. It’s only if things take a really nasty turn – then one is forced to intervene.

We’ll see.

(In the weeks preceding February 21, her ninetieth birthday, Mother has had hardly any time to eat or

sleep, spending hours to see people, work, write letters and so on. Satprem remarks that she does not

look tired.)

If there weren’t people’s thought, the collective suggestion, and maybe – maybe – a subconscious suggestion (the cells may possibly still be subject to a subconscious suggestion, that’s possible...), otherwise, with a few seconds of... (gesture of drawing within), like that, plunging back into the Supreme Consciousness – everything is fine, I am never hungry (and don’t feel the need to eat), I am never sleepy (and don’t feel the need to sleep). Only, there is, still the old suggestion, and also people’s whole thought that if I don’t eat I’ll become weak and fall ill; that if I don’t sleep I’ll get tired and fall ill – that sort of refrain. The cells don’t believe in it but... You understand, they think they have a duty to eat and a duty to sleep, otherwise... And I clearly see that work isn’t AT ALL what tires me: I am not more tired after having seen forty, forty-five, fifty people... than after having seen one ill-disposed understand – then I have to concentrate, to make an effort. Sometimes I have to... (gesture showing the Force coming down to strike), there are people to whom I "say," "You’d better keep still, otherwise something is going to happen to you." I don’t even think it, you understand, but the Force goes like this (gesture). Not with many, but now and then there are such people.

But the nerves remember... You know that after living with Sri Aurobindo for a year, when I left at the time of the [first world] war, because of the war, all the nerves fell ill: they were in a state of irritated tension (I think they call it neuritis, when all, but all the nerves are ill). It’s particularly painful, and everything is disorganized all over: the circulation was disorganized, the digestion was disorganized, everything was disorganized (it was in France, in southern France). The nerves remember that, and I don’t know why, once when things here were very difficult, they remembered. Sri Aurobindo was there and I told him (I think I’ve already told you the story): I absolutely had the sense of a hand coming and taking the whole pain away like that – in one second it was gone. And it had never returned. Now, from time to time, when people are ill-disposed or their thoughts are bad, and when in addition there’s no rest, no eating, no sleeping, then from time to time, here or there, the nerves get strained. It’s a sharp pain at its height. In France, I had it for weeks. Sometimes it comes, and then I have to keep still and... melt... in the Divine Presence – then it’s over, it goes away without a trace.

But when they feel ill at ease, they remember. They ask, "I don’t know what should be done to erase this memory." I take them to task, I tell them they’re stupid, but... Then they keep still.

But what I find interesting is this: there’s no hunger and no sleepiness; that doesn’t exist, it doesn’t correspond to a sensation, not in the least. There is very clearly the sense of harmony and disharmony; when the atmosphere is harmonious, or at least of goodwill (there can always be a greater harmony, that goes without saying), then it’s all right.

With some people, the minute they come in, there is a tremendous descent, very often of Kali’s power or Maheshwari’s power (not the Supreme, but what they understand best), very often – right away, instantly. Then everything is stilled. And it’s very amusing, it’s interesting: the Response (the Response, what responds) is what makes me very clearly realize the state people are in. It’s not at all a mental perception: I know what they think only by inference, from what took place [i.e., the type of force that manifested in Mother]. Then, quite naturally, I know: they must be in this state of mind.

But I wouldn’t be able to say what they think; some people, for instance, can tell you very well, "This or that is what you are thinking," but I couldn’t. All that is mental is quite foreign to me. But I could say very clearly what is their state of receptivity, of goodwill and aspiration – and automatically, without trying to know it, simply from what is created in the atmosphere.

(silence)

Sri Aurobindo is always there. At times he becomes very active, especially when people "pump" or pull or crush you under the weight of all their difficulties and all their desires. Then (these last few days have been like that), I might put it into the words he often used, but this is his attitude: "They accept the God only when they can crucify him."

I find that so interesting, you know!

They accept God – the Divine – only when they can crucify him. That is to say, they recognize the Divine in a body only if that body is fit to be crucified or tortured. And then, if things go wrong, "So he’s not divine!"

He is not divine....