September 6, 1967 I have four baskets full to the brim, more than a hundred letters to read! So in the morning (Mother shows a stack of letters on her table) this much comes, and in the afternoon it will be the same thing. Then A. comes in the evening at seven with other letters.... That is, twenty-five to thirty letters a day. Out of them, if I work hard, I can reply to four or five! So you understand, the residue piles up: four baskets! *** Soon afterwards I have made discoveries these last few days.... I have discovered that in former lives (I don't know which ones), my psychic being was several times in a tortured body. And it comes back for (how should I put it?) a coll

December 27, 1967 (Mother studies an enlargement of the photograph of the November 24 darshan, which she already commented on in the conversation of November 29.) I am beginning to think it's a sort of "prototype of a way of being." A prototype, up above, of a way of being. I don't know, it's that and not that; I don't know how to explain.... It strikes me as a photograph of what might be popularly called a "mood" - a universal way of being. It's very odd, at any rate. (Laughing) We could call it a mother's way of looking at her progeny, or the Creator's way of looking at his creation! ... Very odd. You see, we've always been given the picture of a smug and self-satisf

May 17, 1967 I don't know if you would be interested in this: I've read an article on the electric power of cells. [[Sunday Standard, May 14, 1967. ]] Oh! An Italian professor did some research in Mexico. He says: "Human cells can generate enough elec trical energy to electrocute another human being standing eighteen feet away. Dr. Ruggiero, who feels that his experiments in human cells may result in the cure of paralysis, says that an electrical energy screen generated by human cells could be used to stop bullets. Electrical energy could make a 'human dynamo' capable not only of inflicting death, but of literally walking on air. By con necting cables t

June 24, 1967 Much to say, but ... It's better to reach the end. It's a curve - it's better to reach the end. It's too early to talk. (After a silence) The near totality of the body's movements are movements of habit. There is, behind, the consciousness of the physical mind (what I call the "cellular mind") which, for its part, is constantly conscious of the divine Presence and anxious not to let in anything except That. So a whole work is going on to change, to shift the origin of movements. I mean that instead of that origin automatically being habit, the work is for the divine Consciousness and Presence to automatically be the prime mover (Mother makes the gesture of forcing the co

July 26, 1967 (Mother, laughing, holds out to Satprem a note she has just written:) "The goal we aim at is immortality. Of all habits, death is certainly the most inveterate!" We could call our world "the world of bad habits." There has been for some time, I don't know, a sort of benevolent, smiling and ... constructive irony. As if a "spirit" had come. Then, there is another thing (but I know that one), which Sri Aurobindo used to call a censor. He told me, "You have a very strong censor in your atmosphere." It kept criticizing me constantly, all the time; not so often now, but it's still there. And now and then, it tells me, "But you shock people! They expect something nobl

June 14, 1967 (For the past eight days, Mother has been "ill," just as the conflict between Israel and Egypt was unfolding.) A great battle.... I have learned a great many things. And it's going on. I've made discoveries.... Diseases, accidents, catastrophes, wars, all of that is because the human material consciousness is so small, so narrow that it has a rabid taste for drama. And of course, there is, behind, the vital being having fun, also influences ... anyway all that enjoys an opportunity to delay the divine Work and make things difficult. And all that takes pleasure in that Page 177 naturally encourages drama. But the seed of the difficulty is that smallness,

September 16, 1967 (Regarding a rather painful letter Satprem has received from the same very Catholic lady.) Yes, the first impression was ... painful, then I took a good look; and at bottom, the whole trouble comes from the fact that this person has a very high opinion of herself, she judges everything from the height of her superiority - for instance, that air of benevolent compassion for the Ashram.... But that was my first impression when I saw her the first time, and it has been growing since then. And this letter has confirmed everything. So then, I didn't say anything, but yesterday I made F. talk about the lady, and she finally told me, "There is something I have n

June 17, 1967 With this Israel affair, I have been made to write all sorts of things, to answer all kinds of questions (Mother looks for her notes).... Did I show you this? "Those who serve the Truth cannot take one side or another. Truth is above conflict or opposition. In Truth all countries unite in a common effort towards progress and realisation." This was in answer to someone who asked whom one should "take sides" with. There is also that man who wrote from Israel, saying that their success, their victory exceeded anything they had hoped for. And he adds, "They seem to be too materialistic to know the real source of it" - he knew. But he says (he is A

November 4, 1967 (Regarding the storm that coincided with Kali Puja.) Your home isn't flooded, is it? In the room over there, water fell on the table beside my chair, so I put a flower pot and gave people all the wet flowers! Has Kali calmed down? (Laughing) Maybe she got dampened! She laughed.... She can laugh, too! *** (The conversation turns to Mother's Playground Talks - "Questions and Answers" - from 1950 to 1958. Satprem is preparing their first publication and complains that he cannot trace the original texts:) Q was quite free in her movements, there are even some Talks which she destroyed - she didn't like them! For a long time I used the

January 31, 1967 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. *** Soon afterwards There is such a curious thing: at times the atmosphere is grumpy, grouchy; all that comes, all that enters is like that; at other times