Yesterday I sent you something (there wasn't much of it, just a taste): it's a bit of the pistachio puree they make for me. Concentrated food. [[Mother was already seeking the 'new food.' ]] It's funny - I have got it into my head to make you a gourmand! (Mother laughs) Good-bye, mon petit.

page 118 , Mother'a Agenda , volume 2 , 7th March - 1961

(Sujata:) Food, ever since childhood I haven't liked eating.
But mon petit, I have never been interested in food! I have never liked eating. When I was small, they had to think up all sorts of tricks to make me eat, to me it was the most absurd and least interesting thing. Well, I know the food of every country and have done a comparative study (!) of all cuisines, and I can be anywhere without it disturbing my body in the least.

It's not out of taste for food, it's out of taste for ... (how can I put it?) the expansion of consciousness, the elimination of limits, and above all to prevent the slavery of habits - that's a horrible thing. To be the slave of one's habits is disgusting. Even when I was very small, that's how it was: no slavery. I was told, "But you must do this, because that's the habit," and I used to answer in a very little polite way, "Rubbish!"... To do things that way because the habit is to do them that way is no argument to me - free, free, free! The taste for freedom.


page 297-98 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 , 15th Nov - 1965

I find that all those meats they have given me to "build me up" make me heavy, especially with the hot days starting again. Couldn't I go back to vegetarian food?
It doesn't really have an action on the consciousness, I am absolutely certain of that. Meat can give the body a feeling of great solidity, but in my opinion, solidity is most important, most important - I don't believe in a spirituality that "etherealizes," that's the old falsehood of the past.

No, the body's heaviness ... You must not only conceive but understand and accept that the purpose of this heaviness is to repair the body's internal damage, and the body must in fact change this heaviness into a sort of constant tranquillity so that order is restored everywhere.

I don't believe that the impression of being "light" is a good impression. Because both the so-called lightness and the so-called heaviness have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the yoga and the Transformation. All those are human sensations. The truth is quite different from and quite independent of those things. The truth, of course, is the cells' conscious aspiration to the Supreme; it is the only thing that can actually transform the body; and it is very, very independent of the domain of sensations.

On the contrary, it's good for the nerves to calm down, and I think that when the nerves strengthen, their first movement is to calm down, and that gives the impression of a heaviness, almost the impression of a tamas, but it's a sort of quiet stability, which is necessary. There. That's how I see it.


Basically, in order to cure the misdeeds of that physical mind, it's not bad to become ... we could say in jest, vegetarian in the sense of becoming a plant - the peaceful life of a plant, like that (gesture, stretched out in the sun).

Yes, there is a kind of vegetative immobility which is excellent for overcoming the agitation - the frantic agitation - of that physical mind.... Oh, look, it's the sensation of a waterlily floating on water: those large leaves spreading out like that - a very quiet, still water, and a waterlily.

The waterlily is the white flower opening up to the light, above those large, floating leaves.... Oh, how good it is to be carried.

When the nerves have really calmed down because one has eaten well, one can go into a blissful contemplation - don't be occupied with anything, above all don't try to think: like this (gesture of floating, offered), invoking the Lord and his Harmony - a luminous harmony - and then lying like that at least half an hour, three quarters of an hour after the meal. It's very good, it's excellent. Don't fall asleep: blissful - nothing, being nothing. Nothing but a blissful tranquillity. That's the best remedy.

I think that's easier after eating well!

Try to be a waterlily.... A waterlily, that's pretty!

Even watching animals is very pretty - they know far better than men how to rest.

We could make a slogan: if you want to keep well, be a waterlily! (Mother laughs) ... I see the picture of a pond in the sun.

In reality, I deserve some credit for asking people to eat well.... You know that I had difficulties: for two days, it was nearly impossible for me to eat - and I am so glad! But I always scold myself: it's a weakness - a moral weakness. I am in a very good position to say so, because I have the same difficulty as you with those questions of food, and that's very bad. It's not out of personal taste for food that I am preaching (!), but in order to react against the other tendency. Every time something comes and prevents me from eating, immediately, spontaneously, the body says, "Oh, thank you, Lord, I don't have to eat!" I catch myself and give myself a slap.

page 64 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 , 27th March - 1965

We may conceive of a new light or force giving the cells a sort of spontaneous life, a spontaneous strength.
Yes, that's what I said: food can disappear. That's conceivable.


page 218 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 30th Sep - 1966

Regarding food

... What's necessary above all is to eat without hurrying: to eat very peacefully. That's indispensable. But very peacefully, not just slowly: there must be inwardly a sort of very slow rhythm, as if one had all the time one needed, in total peace.

This (gesture to the forehead) must be calm, it must live in a sort of eternity. Then one digests well. If the thought is very active, it's bad. There must be a kind of inner relaxation and the sense of a very regular, very vast rhythm.


page 39 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 31st Jan - 1967

For instance, there is here that old idea of vegetarian food. Some people write to me indignantly that these "holy rules" are being increasingly broken in the Ashram! Someone wrote to me a first time, asking me to answer; I neglected to. So he wrote a second time to tell me, "What can we do if you don't answer?" I answered (they'll probably bite their tongues at my reply), I replied something like this:

"Truth is not a dogma that one can learn once and

for all and impose as a rule. Truth is as infinite as

the supreme Lord and It manifests every instant

for those who are sincere and attentive."

I could have added other things but didn't, so as not to wage battle too openly!

The same day, that is, just today, I got another letter.... The whole letter ranted and raved about all that's going on in the Ashram, saying, "What! This place is worse than the world!" and so forth. (All this in the name of "truth," naturally.) So (laughing) I answered:

"Were Truth to manifest in such a way as to be

seen and understood by all, they would be terri

fied by the enormity of their ignorance and false

interpretation."

I hit hard this time.

And it's going on.

Day after day it's like that, growing acute. Everyone is the "defender of the Truth." One about food, another about money, another about business, another about relationships ... - everyone has his hobby-horse.

The wonderful thing is that till now not one has told me, "Maybe my opinions aren't true?" - not one! "Maybe my way of seeing or feeling isn't true?" - not one. They are all in full Truth!

It's very interesting.


page 81 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 22nd March - 1967