Sri Aurobindo had made certain statements about me in those letters, and Z deleted them. (Anyway, it makes no difference for your book, because I'm not at all keen on having any statements about me published.)

But Z is not honest. He hasn't been honest at all.... We were forced to intervene once or twice because his deletions distorted the meaning. We finally told him (for the book published here), 'We won't publish it unless you restore these things.'

(silence)

I have also reread A.P.'s 'Evening Talks.'
Oh, in that, too, there are a lot of.... I myself wasn't present, so I don't know what Sri Aurobindo said, but I have a kind of feeling.... Just recently they wanted to publish something similar in Mother India [[A monthly review published by the Ashram. ]] - 'Conversations' with me noted by A. Luckily it was sent to me first: I Cut EVERYTHING! Such platitudes, my child! Oh, it was disgusting. I said, 'This is impossible. I have NEVER spoken like that, never!' It was flat, flat, flat, with a superficial, word-for-word understanding! Oh, horrible, horrible.... Whatever passes through people is terribly, terribly lowered - popularized, made commonplace.

Anyhow.... Only Sri Aurobindo can speak of Sri Aurobindo. And as for their notes, it's still Sri Aurobindo A la Z, or Sri Aurobindo A la A, and all the more so since Sri Aurobindo wrote in very different ways depending upon the person he was writing to (gesture indicating different levels).

page 94 - Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 18th Feb 1961


Oh, I've had all sorts of examples! ... All these errors serve as tests. Take the case of P.: for a long time, whenever someone arrived from the outside world and asked to be instructed, he was sent to P.'s room. (I didn't send them, but they would be told, 'Go speak to P.!') And P. is the sectarian par excellence! He would tell people, 'Unless you acknowledge Sri Aurobindo as the ONLY one who knows the truth, you are good for nothing!' Naturally (laughing), many rebelled! (You see, out of laziness - so as not to be bothered with seeing people or answering their questions - one says, 'Go find so-and-so, go ask so-and-so,' and passes off the work to another.) Well, it was finally understood that this wasn't very tactful, and perhaps it would be better not to send visitors to P., since so many had been put off. But actually.... I was told about it afterwards and I replied, 'Let people read and see for THEMSELVES whether or not it suits them! What difference does it make if they're put off! If they are, it means they NEED to be put off! We'll see later.' Some of them have come full circle and returned. Others never came back - because they weren't meant to. That's how it goes. Basically, all this has NO importance. Or we could put it in another way: everything is perfectly all right.

page 113 - Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 4th March 1961
But in what sense did this realization mark a turning point in Sri Aurobindo's sadhana?
No, the phenomenon was important FOR THE CREATION; he himself was rather indifferent to it. But I did tell him about it.

It was at that time that he decided to stop dealing with people and retire to his room. So he called everyone together for one last meeting. Before then, he used to go out on the verandah every day to meet and talk with all who came to see him (this is the origin of the famous 'Talks with Sri Aurobindo' [[Evening Talks, noted by A.B. Purani. ]] ... - Mother is about to say something severe, then reconsiders - anyway ... ) I was living in the inner rooms and seeing no one; he was going out onto the verandah, seeing everyone, receiving people, speaking, discussing - I saw him only when he came back inside.

page 299 , Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 2nd Aug. 1961.

The subtle physical is right here (gesture on the surface of the skin). Some people are sensitive in the subtle physical; you move your hand near them and they feel it immediately. Others don't even notice - it depends on the subtle physical's sensitivity. And the circumconscient surrounds it like an envelope. If there are no tears in it, this envelope is a magnificent protection. [[We are not sure, finally, if this envelope and the circumconscient are one and the same thing, but this is how Sri Aurobindo speaks of it: 'The first thing one sees when one has broken the barrier is the vital-physical body. It is around the physical body and with the physical it forms as it were the "nervous envelope." The force of a disease has to break through it to reach the body - except for the attacks on the most material parts. You can then feel the disease coming and also feel in the nervous envelope the part of the body which it is going to, or intending to, attack because what is in the nervous envelope has a material counterpart in the body. Thus it is the vital-physical which is first attacked and then the force takes the form of a disease in the system. I had myself the experience of fever all around the body.' (A.B. Purani, Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, Volume 1, p. 232) ]] And it's not dependent on any spiritual or intellectual rationale, but on a harmony with Nature and life, a kind of stability in the material being. People with strong envelopes are almost always in good health and succeed in what they do. It isn't something mental - when they do a work it comes out nicely, if they want to meet someone, they meet him. Things of this nature.

page 304 , Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 5th Aug. 1961.

... My nightly work begins around nine, till four in the morning, and it's divided into three groups of activities (nightly activities). The last group is generally between two and four in the morning, and that's when I deal with all the people! ... That, mon petit! ... It's quite comical - it's not always too pleasant, but still it's comical, oh! ... I see people as they are (Mother laughs); not as they think they are or want to be seen: I see them as they are.

I get information like that, all the time.

Take Purani, [[A charming old disciple who passed away recently (on December 11, 1965). He was the author of Evening Talks. ]] for instance: I used to see him almost every night, and then some fifteen days ago (ten to fifteen days ago, I think [[For Mother, fifteen days = six months. It was on June 18, 1965 (see the conversation of that date). ]]), before he left his body here, like that, I saw him in a place ... It's a place which is entirely made of a sort of pinkish gray clay - it's sticky, gluey, and rather liquid (Mother makes the gesture of stretching chewing gum). There were lots of people. It was a place where lots of people were going to prepare themselves there for the supramental life - but not in their present bodies, which means they were preparing something in order to be ready for the supramental life in a future existence. And I had been taken there; there was a good number of people who had taken me there so I would see (so I would have an action of control there). But as for me, great care was taken to prevent me from being touched by that substance (it was important that I shouldn't be touched), so they wrapped me in golden veils and all sorts of things, and I was walking along. And I saw him ... I was walking on a sort of verandah (but it all had a very peculiar character, all was made of a ... bizarre matter), and there was a sort of large courtyard which was entirely made of that semiliquid, semigluey matter which looked like very diluted but very sticky clay (same elastic gesture like chewing gum). And suddenly I saw Purani rushing into it. From the far end he comes to me covered all over in that and sweeping through it with such strokes! He had it all over his face, all over everywhere! You could see nothing but that. I told him (laughing), "Oh, you like it!" He told me, "Oh, it's very nice, very nice!"

Since that evening I haven't seen him again. And then, some twelve or fifteen days later, I don't remember, he left his body.

It was a preparation.

I see some very, very amusing things.


page 341-42 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 , 28th Dec - 1965

I saw Purani last night. It's the first time I have seen him since he went out of his body.[[Purani, a charming old disciple, who passed away on December 11, 1965. See Agenda VI, conversation of December 28, 1965, p. 341. ]] There were other people too. I saw him in a subtle physical world and he was all light blue and pink, and everything around him was pink and luminous (Mother makes a dancing gesture). He was pleased, oh, so pleased, he said, "Now I am happy!"


page 21 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 22nd Jan - 1966