December 4, 1968 (Mother still has a cold) What's new? Nothing? Yes: V.[[The disciple who had for the first time seen that mitered prelate repeating mantras. ]] saw the photo of the Vatican man, and he confirmed, he said, "This is the man." This is the man ... (Mother looks at the photo) Oddly, he's an intelligent man. But these people are hypocrites; they think in one way and act according to another principle. He isn't obtuse, he's a man who can understand. As for me, he strikes me as a cruel man. Cruel ... V. also said, "He can kill." He can kill ... maybe. It's the other side of his nature. There are many people who could kill if they had the courage t

April 20, 1968 (Mother holds out a note on Auroville) (Question:) How dependent is the building of Auroville upon man's acceptance of spirituality? (Mother's answer:) The opposition between spirituality and material life, the division between the two has no sense for me as, in truth, life and the spirit are ONE and it is in and by physical work that the highest spirit must be manifested. I got today a letter from a Swedish lady, I think (Swedish or Norwegian, I don't know), who bought a crucifixion.... A HUGE painting - huge, I forget its size, but it's fantastic, something like thirty feet high. She asks me what she should do with it! She wants to send it to m

October 26, 1968 I have nothing to say. I can speak, but I have nothing to say! Are you all right? I hardly cough anymore.... But I have nothing to say. (silence) This physical, this physical consciousness (I don't think it's a personal physical consciousness), the general physical consciousness was, in this body, seized with such a pity, oh! ... I can't say "pity" ... it's something very special: a very intimate, very tender compassion for the human physical condition. But it seized me in massive proportions! Nothing else remained in the consciousness, and if I hadn't controlled it, I would have started crying and crying.... That has been the dominant note of these

July 3, 1968 And your translation of "Savitri"? But I have work to do. I no longer have time. I no longer have time to do anything. It's a pity. That is to say, now F. has taken it into her head to translate Savitri with me (all she does is look in the dictionary when I need a word), right from the start, and I've reached the second page! It'll take ten or fifteen years! But I find it very interesting, because I only have to be still, and Sri Aurobindo dictates to me. So there remains one or two little corrections in the French, and that's that. He tells me the word: for this word, this word. Like that. It's very interesting. Only, I do five or six lines every time.... But now

February 17, 1968 Ah, before we start work ... I've received this: (Mother first holds out a letter) "Here are a few pages of our issue on Auroville, the city of love guarded by the four Mothers." Signed: Y. (Then Mother holds out a leaflet showing ...'[[The sketch is indescribable, but it might well look like a cross section of bowels. ]] If you can make out anything, please tell me. Can you? No. You can't make it out? And I thought you would explain it to me! It's quite a muddle there. Is it a snake biting its tail? To be precise, it's really a mental construction. Oh, yes. And the text... There isn't even a little vibration of truth in it. Yes, i

March 13, 1968 (Regarding an old Playground Talk of May 27, 1953.) You say this: "Yes, science can find. If it moves in a very definite direction, if it progresses sufficiently and doesn't stop on the way, they will find the same thing that mystics have found, that reli gious people have found, that everyone has found, because there is only one thing to be found and not two. There is only one. So you may go a long way, you may wind and turn and wind again, if you go long enough without stopping, you are sure to reach the same point. Once you have reached there, you feel there's nothing at all to be found! There's nothing to be found. And that's the power.

September 21, 1968 Mother, it would be good if I could have your protection,and Sujata too - both of us. Why? We're not in good physical health. Oh! What's wrong? Sujata has been running a temperature for several days, a high temperature; last night she fainted and was as if "thrust" against the wall: she hurt herself. As for me, last night too I caught a fever. Bah! ... What's that? I don't know. Both of us. There's something trying to bother us. Page 256 (after a long silence) I don't know.... I told you at the beginning that I had felt something coming from there [the Vatican]. There is something. There is something ... a kind of r

January 3, 1968 Mother arrives forty-five minutes late And I come with my work unfinished! The work remains to be done (Mother points to a bundle of letters).... Now the nights begin at 11 P.M., no more lunch, of course rest is out of the question, and no more exercises, so ... And people and people and more people ... at least a quarter of whom go back unsatisfied, without my having seen them, because I don't have the time. I think it's because my whole life long, until the age of about forty, I was perhaps the most punctual person in the world: I was always right on the dot - maybe there was something proud which has got a good knock! That's how it is. But one thing is s

October 30, 1968 (Regarding the message Mother has given to Satprem for his birthday.) "Here are the Light and the Divine Love which are always with you on the path, every outcome of which is only the starting point for a new stage." It's precisely the experience I've had these last few days (yesterday, I think), just before writing the card. We always set an end to things - but there isn't any. There isn't any. The truth is, one rises like this (Mother draws a curve that reaches a point in space), but it's in order to go like this (gesture of a new curve rising higher from that point on), and again like this - for ever and ever. It may be an individual consciousne

June 3, 1968 I've just come from there [the music room where Mother receives visitors]. I saw some twenty people.... There was Orissa's Chief Minister (Orissa is the first province in India to give money for a pavilion in Auroville: they gave a lakh of rupees). He is a nice man. The people from Orissa, they are nice people; of all provinces, they are the ones who seem the most eager to forge ahead, to change something. And Bengal? Isn't it ahead? They're a bit ... fanciful. I mean, they talk a lot - they talk very well! Those from Orissa are more practical - they're generous, a very generous nature: they give a lot. Bengal ... they know, or feel, that they are the country's intell