Oh, a few days ago I was told a frightful story - what depths humanity has sunk to ... it's unbelievable. Have you heard this story of the slaughter of baby seals?

When seals are born (a certain species of seals), they're all white, and they remain so for a few weeks, then they lose their hair and turn gray-gray or yellowish, like their fathers and mothers. And as it's the fashion to wear all-white fur coats, some people ... It's organized by some trader or other: seals gather at the time of giving birth, there's a place there, in the North, on an island, where they gather in their thousands, and each mother gives birth to a single child. So those people go there in boats, fully equipped, and when the seals are born, they kill them - thousands of them at one go. It takes ten or fifteen skins to make a coat .... And they slaughter them. But then, for the carnage to be cheap (you understand, it shouldn't cost too much), they club the animals on their heads, then with big butchers' knives they skin them on the spot-skin them while they're still alive ....

That is to say ... it seems they shriek, you know, they aren't dumb. It seems it's ...

What happened is that a television reporter went there without knowing what was happening (he went there for something else), and he came upon that. He was so horrified, you know, so disgusted that he resolved to make it stop. And for maybe two years, he has been campaigning all over the world - through television and all sorts of means - for people to intervene. There was a strong pressure on the prime minister (it's in nor-them Canada and northern Norway, I think, on perpetually frozen islands), and they obtained from Canada's prime minister (charming people!) that instead of clubbing the baby seals supposedly to death, they would throw diesel oil on them, because that asphyxiates them fast .... But people found it too costly (such unbelievably low depths, you know!), so they went to the prime minister and asked him to lift his ban - and he did it! He allowed them to be slaughtered like that .... It seems the mothers (they've just given birth, you see, they're suckling the pups) try to defend them - so to prevent them from seeing what goes on, they put out their eyes .... Well, when I was told that, I saw a humanity sinking into ... an abyss of ignominy.

Then they brought cards to me (they're preparing a new movement), cards with big photos - those little ones, if you knew how sweet they are! And intelligent! They're first-rate. And I saw the photo before knowing anything of the story; I looked and said, "Oh, what a lovely little one!" I instantly saw: receptive, admirable, an admirable kid! So there are photos of those little ones, there's a portrait of the crook who arranges the whole thing, a portrait of the reporter, and cards with the portrait of one of those little ones, with at the top, in French and in English, "Let baby seals live." Like that. And a place for one's name and signature. And at the back, a place to add something if one wants to. They asked me if I wanted to sign. I said yes. There was one card addressed to Norway's fisheries minister, one to Canada's fisheries minister, and one to Canada's prime minister. So I put my stamp: "The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram." I didn't add anything, I left the sentence and signed. And we'll send them.

But when I was told that ... Why, why? ... And those women who wear that ... all those animals' suffering, all those animals' horror, their terror-they wear all that on their backs. And it doesn't give them nightmares! ... Unbelievable.

It seems the fashion is to go dancing wearing a stole made of two or three skins of those poor beasts ....

People are getting insane!

Of course, up there [in the North], that [kind of savagery] is there. It's only ONE example, one sort of epitome. But this IGNOBLE consciousness is everywhere on earth .... I saw it like that. But it's one thing that has as if crystallized to awaken the reaction.

Oh, those little ones ...

Seals are highly evolved animals, they aren't among the unconscious ones. There was one on the cover, with eyes staring at you like that, it was delightful! ...

(silence)

So this affair put me in contact with all that. It's the sign that it's going to go away.


Page 372-73 , Mother's Agenda , volume 10 , 11th Oct - 1969