August 6, 1966 V. is going to Calcutta "to learn mechanics."[[V. is a young disciple who came to the Ashram as a child and never left it. ]] Have you agreed? My first reaction was to find it stupid. But he wrote to me again to tell me that people at the workshop were very enthusiastic and that he had been much encouraged to do it and that he was quite happy and that it would be an opportunity for him to learn all that he didn't know, and so forth. It was pages long. So I wrote to him, "You will go to Calcutta." Page 169 You know, they all need a lesson in order to learn; they cannot learn without a lesson from life. I, for one, try, I try to spare them the lesson - if there

February 11, 1966 (Mother carries on with her translation of "Savitri": the vision of the plane where all the formations of the human mind are found.) All things the past has made and slain were there [[As if lost remnants of forgotten light, Before her mind there fled with trailing wings Dimmed revelations and delivering words Emptied of their mission and their strength to save The messages of the evangelist gods, Voices of prophets, scripts of vanishing creeds. (X.IV.642) ]] Quite interestingly, I am following all these experiences of Savitri. The experience of those different joys, I was surprised to have it a few days ago; I said to myself, "Strange, why am I made to see the

M o t h e r's   A g e n d a   1966-11-30 November 30, 1966 Are things better than last time? Oh, it's all right. These are decisive moments ... they come now and then. From an occult point of view it's a well-known phenomenon: Théon told me about it, so did Madame Théon. But when you have gone through it, afterwards things are immediately better, there is quite a considerable improvement. But there are lots of people doing a kind of black magic. Again? Yes, a great many. I have been told this several times, but naturally ... There are a great many of those so-called swamis and sadhus who are quite simply tricksters, but they have a rudimentary occult knowledge in a field where, unfortunately,

July 6, 1966 118 - The love of solitude is a sign of the disposition towards knowledge; but knowledge itself is only achieved when we have a settled perception of solitude in the crowd, in the battle and in the mart. 119 - If when thou art doing great actions and moving giant results, thou canst perceive that thou art doing nothing, then know that God has removed His seal from thy eyelids. 120 - If when thou sittest alone, still and voiceless on the mountain-top, thou canst perceive the revolutions thou art conducting, then hast thou the divine vision and art freed from appearances. 121 - The love of inaction is folly and the scorn of inaction is folly; there is no inaction. The s

March 2, 1966 ... Things are getting tighter and tighter. I work till 9:30 at night to prepare the birthday cards for the next day. I saw an "amusing" little occurrence last night.... I wanted to see you (or was trying to see you) and you were in a room just next door - there was infernal noise! A noise of people talking and talking. Ashram people. It's strange, it's the first time that noise has disturbed me in a dream - what a din they were making in there! I felt like telling them, "Do shut up!" That's how it is, exactly how it is. But I saw you last night, so you did come. That's how it is. (Then Mother stops abruptly, goes and leans on her elbows at the window) Wait, I am

September 3, 1966 Sujata would need to be protected a little. She has been getting knocks continually for the past six months. (Turning to Sujata) Who's been hitting you? She has got at least four on her hands and she can't type anymore. Who from? She knocks herself, or else at basketball. You knock yourself or you get knocked? Both. We'll protect that ... (Mother draws a circle around Sujata's hands three times), like this. That too is a habit. It's nothing but habits: forces playing in Nature. So it takes an inner movement (Mother makes a tiny gesture of disjunction) to break the habit. At times you feel as if a small force is following you. Yes, that's ri

August 27, 1966 (Mother shows the text of a note she has written for the disciples:) "Every time you act under the impulse of Falsehood, it acts as a blow on my body." *** Do you have anything to say? No, you are the one who must say. No. I always make a resolve not to speak. Why? Because it waters down the experience. This is also words (Mother shows the stack of "Questions and Answers" for the next Bulletin). Yes, but... Page 181 We live in words. Well, yes, it can't be helped! It's unfortunate. Until the world is made differently... No, one can't think without words, but one can know without words. The phenomena of consciousness tha

June 29, 1966 This morning I got a letter from a little girl who asks me, "What is consciousness? I asked my teachers, they answered me it was very hard to explain"! (Mother laughs) So she's asking me. And since she asked me, I've been looking at it. How can we express it? Do YOU know how it can be explained? Because the words we use are meaningless. Spontaneously, I'd say it's the fire or the breath that carries the whole world. It's the fire that makes everything live - that makes the chest breathe, that makes the sea heave ... That's not bad! What would YOU say? Here is what I found: it's the cause of existence - the cause and the effect at the same time. But that's not it.

June 2, 1966 Is the difficulty of the other day over? Oh, I've had an experience, a new experience. I mean, it's the cells of the body that have had a new experience. When I lie down on my bed at night, there is an offering of all the cells, which regularly surrender as completely as they can, with an aspiration not only for union but for fusion: let there remain nothing but the Divine. It's regular, every day, every single day. And for some time, these cells or this body consciousness (but it isn't organized as a consciousness: it's like a collective consciousness of the cells), it seemed to be complaining a little, to be saying, "But we don't feel much. We do feel" (they can't say

M o t h e r's   A g e n d a   1966-12-07 December 7, 1966 (Mother hands Satprem a flower called "Grace," then a second "Grace.") Would you like a second Grace?... There's never too much of it! Oh, the other day someone asked me a question on the message for November 24,[["There are these three powers [governing life on earth]: (1) The Cosmic Law, of Karma or what else; (2) the Divine Compassion acting on as many as it can reach through the nets of the Law and giving them their chance; (3) the Divine Grace which acts more incalculably but also more irresistibly than the others." (Sri Aurobindo) ]] and Sri Aurobindo replied. It was so interesting! I saw something all of a sudden. While he was speaking it