There is a way of looking at things - an all too human way - which sees me as VERY dangerous, very dangerous. It has been said time and time again.... There was an Englishwoman who came here after an unhappy love affair. She had come to India seeking "consolation," and stumbled onto Pondicherry. It was right at the beginning (those English Conversations[[ Conversations with the Mother, 1929. ]] are things I said to her; I spoke in English and then translated it - or rather said it all over again in French). And at the end of a year's stay, this woman said to me (with such despair!), "When I came here I was still able to love and feel goodwill towards people; b

So, mon petit, I have talked the whole time and we still haven't done anything - another day without working! (Mother laughs) It's a curious thing ... speaking evidently helps me follow the experience. But I can't just begin speaking all alone up in my room! And talking to a tape recorder is useless. Up to now, it certainly flows the best with you - by far. I haven't tried with others, although occasionally I've said something to Nolini, but his receptivity is fuzzy (I don't know whether you can understand this impression: it's as though my. words were going into cotton-wool). Once, as I told you, I spoke with R., and with him I felt that three qua

There's something I SENSE there, without being able to express or understand it mentally. There must be some difference, even in the behavior of the cells, when you leave your body. It must be another phenomenon that takes place. During all that period of concentration and meditation on what happens in a body after death (I am speaking of the body's experience after what is now called "death"), well, several times the same kind of vision came to me.... I had been told (shown and told) of certain saints whose bodies did not decompose (there's one here, there was one in Goa - fantastic stories). Naturally, people always romanticiz

I remember the whole experience, of course, but the body-consciousness forgot. The slightest difficulty, even the shadow or the recollection of a difficulty, was enough for it to start up all over again: "Oh ... oh! Now what's going to happen?" The same old anxieties and stupidities. So I realize that we have to keep on trying. What's annoying, though, is that in order to shake it all up, I have to go through some pretty bad moments physically. So don't worry, I understand how it is for others! I myself never lose either consciousness or contact with ... not with Knowledge, but with the total EXPERIENCE of identification. Only here in M

(A little later, Mother listens to Satprem read various letters of Sri Aurobindo, then a letter she herself wrote in English during World War II about the attitude of the disciples toward Hitler and the Allies.) "The world situation is critical today. India's fate too is hanging in the balance. There was a time when India was a absolutely secure, there was no danger whatever of her being victim to Asuric aggression. But things have changed. People and forces in India have acted in such a way as to invite Asuric influences upon her: these have worked insidiously and undermined the security that was the

There's a letter from T.F. complaining about the films shown [at the Ashram] and saying that films should be instructive and show admirable things.... But for a film to show admirable things, people should live those admirable things, no?! She even wrote to me that they were a whole group of teachers who intended to write and circulate a letter asking for a change - I don't like all that. It's a small-town boarding-school spirit. So yesterday evening, I wrote an answer. (Mother reads) "We would like to be able to show the children pictorial representations of what life should be, but we still have not reached that stag

The story narrated in the film went like this: Narada, as usual, was having fun. (Narada is a demigod with a divine position - that is, he can communicate with man and with the gods as he pleases, and he serves as an intermediary, but then he likes to have fun!) So he was quarrelling with one of the goddesses, I no longer recall which one, and he told her ... (Ah, yes! The quarrel was with Saraswati.) Saraswati was telling him that knowledge is much greater than love (much greater in that it is much more powerful than love), and he replied to her, 'You don't know what you're talking about! (Mother laughs) Love is much more powerful than knowledge.' So she chall

I wanted to clarify something.... I don't know if Mona Lisa and Marguerite de Valois were your incarnations, but weren't they contemporaries!?... Yes, but I told you - four at once![[ Conversation of June 27. ]] Four at once. And, in general, they were the different states of being of the Mother - the four aspects. Generally one aspect in each embodiment (when there were four). Or else this or that aspect might have been less present in one embodiment and more present in another. Sometimes there was a fairly central presence and then at the same time less central, less important emanations. But that has happened several times - sever

Oh, listen, it was Y.'s birthday the other day. I told her to come. She came: her face was exactly like her monkey's! She sat down in front of me, we exchanged a few words, then I concentrated and closed my eyes, and then I opened my eyes - she had the face of the ideal madonna! So beautiful! And as I had seen the monkey (the monkey wasn't ugly, but it was a monkey, of course), and then that, "Ah!" it struck me, I thought, "What wonderful plasticity." A face ... oh, a truly beautiful face, perfectly harmonious and pure, with such a lovely aspiration - oh, a beautiful face! Then I looked a few times: it was no longer one or the other, it was ... it was something (wha

(The conversation is cut short at that point by a disciple who comes in to announce his friend Anousuya's death.) At what time? Just now, we just had a call from the hospital. I am asking this because V. told me she would be going there, she said Anousuya wasn't feeling well. So I looked, and ... (V. wanted me to send a line to Anousuya), I took a paper and wrote ... I don't remember the exact words, but it was: "The unshakable faith that God's Will alone is realized." I don't exactly remember, I wrote what was dictated. And at the time of writing it, I knew it was over. I didn't say anything, but I knew.