February 19, 1966 (Regarding a Playground Talk of April 9, 1951, in which Mother spoke of the degeneration of taste, of the war and what a new war would mean:) "Now, to tell you the truth, we are on the upward curve again. I think we have really reached the bottom of incoherence, absurdity and ugliness - the taste for the ugly and the unsightly, the dirty, the offensive. We have, I think, reached rock bottom.... If it's taken in the right way (and I think there are people who have taken it in the right way), it can lead you straight to the Yoga, straight. That is, you feel a sort of very deep detachment from all the things of this world, a very intense need to find som

August 17, 1966 ... As for me, I can't see anymore. The way in which I see is something very interesting - I can't say that I can't see anymore. It's very interesting. Something suddenly comes alive (an object or a face or a letter or ...), clear, precise, almost luminous. The next minute, everything is blurred. I seem to be told, "This is worth seeing." So I look at it. "And (laughing) don't bother about that"! On the 15th, that boy, the Communist architect who was here left, because he found that "moral laws aren't sufficiently respected'! ... His very words. He left. But then, his thought keeps coming all the time - not "thought": something from here (the heart), it keeps comin

June 15, 1966 ... He is mentally very limp. But I too feel mentally in a limp state! I get the feeling of a complete numbness. Then that's perfect. Yes, but then I can't write! Page 135 Listen, Sri Aurobindo wrote the whole Arya for I don't know how much time, five years, I think, without a single thought in his head. I don't think, but I do have the thoughts of the physical, material world, the material mind. Yes, that's there. Oh, it keeps running? Yes, it keeps running. But all the rest has stopped running. There's a sort of numbness. I wouldn't complain if I didn't have to write! With me, it's the other way around; it's here [materially] that it has becom

March 30, 1966 (The following conversation, in which Mother speaks entirely in English, took place while she listened to the English transla tion of the conversation of March 4, in which she said in particular: "It becomes just a choice: you choose things to be like this or like that....") I had the same experience in the cell-consciousness. It lasted for Page 76 one hour and there it was truly almost miraculous. The same Consciousness as this consciousness I had in what we can call the "material mental" (that is, the collective consciousness of the cells), but this morning it was in the cells themselves, this Consciousness [the eternal Consciousness Mother spea

October 5, 1966 About the financial situation, I have a little story to tell you, which took place on Sunday or Monday. I told you that the situation was quite ... to ordinary consciousnesses, it was critical. And there was a payment to be made. I don't remember the material details, but something had to be paid very urgently (I think it was to the workers: they were hungry and hadn't been given their money). And I needed a certain amount - which I didn't have: I had nothing. Then a sort of compassion came into me for those people who didn't have any money. I saw it wasn't right, and I couldn't do anything because there was none. So, in the evening while I was walking (I have an hour of

October 8, 1966 (The conversation is about Satprem's forthcoming birthday. We publish it despite its personal character, for the "rhythmic" significance of birthdays is of general interest and there is always, as Mother says, a curve from the past that doesn't readily connect with the curve of the future.) It will soon be your birthday.... I can see that what we call "birthday" is an opportunity to take stock. That's why people consult astrologers on certain dates. The individual has a certain relationship or set of relationships with the Universal, and there must be a rhythm, things recur automatically at the same point in time. So every year, it should be possible to take

August 15, 1966 (Message for Sri Aurobindo's birthday:) "Not the blind round of the material existence alone and not a retreat from the difficulty of life in the world into the silence of the Ineffable, but the bringing down of the peace and light and power of a greater divine Truth and consciousness to transform Life is the endeavour today of the greatest spiritual seekers in India. Here in the heart of such an endeavour pursued through many years with a single-hearted purpose, living constantly in that all-founding peace and feeling the near and greatening Page 174 descent of that light and power, the way becomes increasingly clear. One sees the soul of India ready to ent

M o t h e r's   A g e n d a   1966-11-23 November 23, 1966 After reading an excerpt from the debate with Death: If God there is he cares not for the world; All things he sees with calm indifferent gaze, He has doomed all hearts to sorrow and desire, He has bound all life with his implacable laws; He answers not the ignorant voice of prayer. Eternal while the ages toil beneath, Unmoved, untouched by aught that he has made, He sees as minute details mid the stars The animals's agony and the fate of man: Immeasurably wise, he exceeds thy thought; His solitary joy needs not thy love. (X.IV.646) Yes, but we need his joy. All this was said to me this morning. Abs

May 14, 1966 I have queer eyes.... They have become peculiar. This eye [the left] sees extremely clearly - extremely clearly - almost more clearly than before, but in the entire corner here, in the very corner, there is a sort of little fog, very, very small like a needle point - no, a pinhead. So that I can't read with it. With this one [the right] I can read, there's nothing, but it's dimmed: there isn't half the clarity of the other. But the left is fantastically clear! Very well. So I am accustomed to reading with a magnifying glass [with the right eye], and it has become that way; but when I look at a photograph with a magnifying glass, the photo starts having three dimensions (ges

SERIES ELEVEN Series Eleven To a sadhak of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. How can my effort to serve the Divine become more perfect? By wanting Him more and more in every part of your being – integrally. 11 October 1966 * In 1958 the Mother said, “If things go on advancing at this speed, it seems more than possible, almost evident, that what Sri Aurobindo wrote in a letter is a prophetic announcement: The supramental consciousness will enter a phase of realising power in 1967.”¹ Have things advanced at the required speed? Yes. 2 January 1967 * May I try to make my nights conscious? I pra