December 7, 1965 Regarding Mother's recent "illness" It was what people call "black magic" - I don't call it black magic, but it was an adverse formation, which I saw in all its details exactly on December 5. On the 5th itself I saw it, and afterwards I understood. It was extremely interesting, but it's impossible to repeat. On the 5th, at the meditation, I knew what it was (the day Page 319 after you came). Extremely interesting. Maybe one day I will tell it, but it's very, very private. On the afternoon of the 5th, after I had understood clearly and seen everything and done everything, suddenly ... (you know how Sri Aurobindo used to take away illnesses: it was like

June 12, 1965 Regarding a letter Mother wrote to a disciple: ... There are all kinds! Complications, lots of complications; there are all kinds of ill will, at least of people who go round in circles instead of going forward. And stupid inventions. The other night ... Because the head is always still, like this (gesture to the forehead, palms open to the Light from above); I give thanks to the Lord for that, and it's always like that; so I don't decide what's to be done, I don't decide what's to be answered - nothing: when it comes, it comes. And some people had played a really nasty trick ([laughing] I couldn't care less!) and I wasn't budging. And as it happens, in the middle of

June 14, 1965 (Mother looks for a card to reply to a disciple on. One card is illustrated with a big fish.) What's the fish a symbol of? I don't know. The Buddhists use the symbol of two intertwined fish. I think it's Multitude? I often have underwater dreams: the other day, for instance, I went under water (and without any difficulty) and there were hosts of fish - I was fishing under water. But those fish were dead, or had just died - hosts of fish that weren't decomposing, that were still good, but dead, because they didn't have any more air or water. Generally, fish in the sea mean Multitude.[[. In a personal context such as this dream, fish, according to Sri Aurobindo

August 7, 1965 I had a long conversation with you this morning. I told you many things. Did you hear? No, nothing. This morning, for, oh, at least a good hour, an experience came: the true attitude and true role of the material mind - lived, not thought. Lived. It was interesting. A sort of tranquil beatitude.... It was about the relationship between the constant state and the action that keeps coming from outside and interrupts (or has the habit of interrupting when it shouldn't), interrupts this constant state. There were examples, and the first that came was you, the relationship with you, and the way out of the "state of illness," I might say, and also the complete bloss

November 6, 1965 Are you better? Not really. Oh! ... (Laughing) What's to be done!? At night, the last two or three nights, but especially last night (in the middle of the night, after midnight), and for at least two hours, I am carried away in a movement, but a frightfully swift movement! I am lying on something which is a sort of silvery light - a silvery light. And I am lying on it, enveloped in it, and carried away in such a dizzying movement that ... you feel as if your head is going to break. And there are people with me - you are one of them. Really? Yes! Last night it lasted two hours. And you feel like holding on to something, because it's so dizzying....

September 11, 1965 (On September 6, after months of clashes in the Kutch desert, Indian troops penetrated into Pakistan. Karachi calls for help from the "Western allies." New Delhi orders a general mobilization. On September 16, China will declare its support of Pakistan. On September 19, the Security Council enjoins India and Pakistan to cease fire and the U.S.S.R. proposes a meeting at Tashkent. On September 22, India and Pakistan order a cease-fire. On September 25, China reiterates its claim to 35,000 square miles of Indian territory. This is the second Indo-Pakistani conflict since Independence. There will be a third in 1971 over Bangladesh.) We are threatened with a blackout

July 21, 1965 There is a slight hope that this material mind, the mind of the cells, will be transformed. This is good news! Page 184 Isn't it! I am quite astonished. I noticed it yesterday or the day before. I wasn't well, anyway things weren't pleasant, and all of a sudden, here was all this mind saying a prayer. A prayer ... you know how I used to say prayers before, in Prayers and Meditations: it was the Mind saying prayers; it would have experiences and say prayers; well, here we are, now it's the experience of all the cells: an intense aspiration, and suddenly all this starts expressing it in words. I noted it. And then, interestingly enough ... It was dinner t

September 4, 1965 (About a second operation that Satprem should - supposedly - undergo. Mother refuses and advises some exercises:) I was in fact asking for you to cure me without any operations! No, the body must be helped! It goes without saying that in the exercises and in the material aids and in everything I will put the Consciousness, but one must help - one must help the body. It's a necessary modesty. It's the same thing with food. We are obliged to eat, of course, and that's not interesting, it's not for pleasure, but ... (Mother speaks to her body:) "Look here, be modest, indispensably modest: it's necessary to eat and you must eat." And in addition, we must eat wha

October 10, 1965 And your nights? (Satprem looks deeply disgusted) Oh, there's a whole work going on at night. Oh! ... The whole petty subconscious working of habits, with all the gradations of the importance it assumes in the general consciousness, and, very interestingly, according to the proportion of the importance, it gives the scale. There was the whole scale, from the little manias people have, which of course are very superficial and mere habits, to the known maniacs or half-mad - the whole scale, along with the whole working. And then, the perception that it's just a question of dosage: we all belong to the same substance! It was seen so concretely that it was quite inte

May 29, 1965 (Regarding X's visit) ... He has become more sober, he doesn't speak so much anymore. You know he had made a prediction about Ml's wife? What was her name?... (Names ... it's something rather odd: when people have left their body, their name goes away, I can no longer remember it - it's cut off, there is a break; I have to stop and let a sort of material memory come back, but in my consciousness it's cut off, there isn't any name anymore: the name has gone away along with the body - which is quite as it should be, of course.) He had told her, "Oh, you will live another ten years." - The next month, she left. So I think it threw some cold water on him, because obviou