June 9, 1962 (In the course of the preceding conversation, Satprem had thought that rather than a subjective change, a change in one's attitude towards things, there should be an objective change, a power capable of changing the very substance of things: their property of hardness, for instance. Here Mother elucidates her previous statement that "if matter were changeable, it would have changed long ago," a statement that, at first glance, seemed to shatter all hope of transformation.) There is nothing to change! Only the relations between things change.... As an analogy, look at what science has discovered about the so-called composition of matter at the atomic level - there's nothi

June 6, 1962 Did you see anything last night? Feel anything? ?? I am asking because last night I tried ... it was around four in the morning and I was concentrating on trying to build that bridge [between your waking consciousness and the other consciousness]. You didn't feel anything? It's very vague. It's another way of remembering, that's why. It must give a sort of woolly effect to someone not used to it.... You know, when you want to draw your consciousness within - what people call "concentrating" - for meditation, for instance, or japa, well, to the sharp-edged surface consciousness the movement of interiorization is like entering something ... not exactly "smoky," be

July 18, 1962 (Concerning the vibration of supreme Love Mother experienced on April 13:) Matter needs quite a preparation to make it strong enough to hold those vibrations, and ... and the body seems to be given a trickle to see how much it can bear. But there's such an immediate intensity of joy in all the cells, in the heart and organs, that it all seems on the verge of exploding. It comes just to tell you, "See, this is how it is." I can bring it on at will simply by putting myself in a certain state. But then I notice that someone ("someone" ... well, that's a way of speaking) is dosing it out, allowing the contact for a certain Page 262 length of time or in a certain

December 8, 1962 You said something mysterious the other day [December 41 concerning Sri Aurobindo's departure. You were speaking of the sense of impermanence you had, of total uncertainty, and you said, "It's no longer a destruction, but it's not yet an ascending transformation...." It was a real physical destruction; so I am saying it's not that any more, but it's not yet the realization. (silence) (Mother laughs) I didn't tell you the other side. What's the other side? That's for later. What do you mean, the other side? No, what he seems to be giving me these days, since December 5, is a very clear vision and experience of why he had to leave. But that ... it's

April 28, 1962 (Letter from Mother to Satprem) April 28, 1962 Satprem, my dear child, It would be good to get moving again on the book. These past few days I have started thinking about the August Bulletin. In a few days I will probably be able to start working. In that case, I could ask you to come in the morning and you could read me whatever you have ready. We will do the aphorisms in June; it will probably be easier then. Tell me if you have any plans for work (your work); we will arrange things accordingly. Page 133 You can bring me the work you have finished on the first day you come. With you always. Signed: Mother Later on, there will be many thin

January 12, 1962 (Concerning Satprem's question on the experience of the "supramental ship":) Did you get my note, petit? I've said something on the subject somewhere.... Do you remember that gentleman from Madras who had asked a question?[[An American, a friend of President Kennedy, who had made an analogy between tracking down a deer in the forest and tracking down the Supermind: " How can the Supermind be detected, in the way a huntsman would detect a deer in the forest? By which signs can it be recognized?" See Agenda II, February 25, 1961, p. 96 ff. ]] There was an indication there.... Because I followed the thread, I put myself back in contact with the experience of the

August 8, 1962 (Mother listens to Satprem read a passage from his manuscript.) It's very good. It's really excellent. Oh, it's dull, it's lifeless.... What gives you that impression? Do you happen to have one of those criticizers in you? Sri Aurobindo says we always carry with us someone who criticizes everything we do. He classifies the gentleman as an adverse force, one with an individual form. Yes, you're always saying it won't do, it's no good.... Because I feel that things should be said with another kind of force. It seems like all these sentences could just as well be put one way as another, you understand - it's not inevitable at all.... I could say things this way, b

May 29, 1962 ... But isn't this second book on Sri Aurobindo something imposed by circumstances? Is it really something that must be done, that already exists and has been decreed? Personally, I do see one. I see a Sri Aurobindo.... (silence) Almost no philosophy, nothing intellectual - almost a story. His work presented in an entirely practical and matter-of-fact way, like the talks I used to give to the children here. When I said to the children, "This, you know, is why you are here," I told them in a way they could understand, didn't I? Well the book should be like that. If I were to write (I will never write a book on Sri Aurobindo! Never, never, never - I know it), but were I

April 13, 1962 (After a perilous month, Mother has suddenly had the formidable, decisive experience, and she gives her first message. She is lying on her bed in the room upstairs, and has become quite thin. It is around ten in the morning. Her voice has greatly changed. Schoolchildren can be heard playing in the distance.) Night of April 12-13.[[ Mother gives the first part of this message in English. ]] Suddenly in the night I woke up with the full awareness of what we could call the Yoga of the world. The Supreme Love was manifesting through big pulsations, and each pulsation was bringing the world further in its manifestation. It was the formidable pulsations of the eternal, stu

November 23, 1962 (Satprem reads a passage from his manuscript in which he says in particular: "We cannot take one step up without taking one step down.") That's what I am experiencing in my body now - exactly what you say: each step forward forces you to make ... not a step backward, but a step into the Shadow. And on the physical level it's terrible. (silence) But your book shouldn't give the impression that it's always that way - that the Light can't be established on earth until all the Shadow is transformed. In fact, the very work of transformation is to change all this shadow into its aspect of light.[[Mother is alluding to the passage in Savitri where Sri Aurobindo spe