May 18, 1962 The other day you said, "What I call Me high above, my consciousness, is completely outside the body." And on April 3, you also said something that gave me a kind of jolt: "I am no more in this body." Why?... Have you really left this body? (very long silence) How can I explain it?.. (long silence) I don't know how to explain it.... I could almost tell it as a joke: for years and years I felt my consciousness to be outside my body - I always used to say it was there (gesture above the head), and not in my body. But from the time of that first experience [April 3], when the doctor said the heart had been physically affected and would stop working if I wasn't care

February 6, 1962 These past few days I have been reading Perseus [[Perseus the Deliverer, a play in five acts by Sri Aurobindo. ]] - it was performed here, so I knew a little of it but it never much interested me. But reading it the way I read now, I have found it VERY interesting, I have discovered all kinds of things, all kinds. Yes, I have noticed that in the space of (I don't remember when we performed it,[[ The play was performed some eight years earlier, in December 1954. ]] you were already here) ... between then and now there is at least a good fifty years' difference - a fifty-year change in consciousness. But in practice, I am always up against the same problem. Look

December 15, 1962 (Mother shows Satprem some pamphlets printed during Théon's time, "Fundamental Axioms of Cosmic Philosophy," which have just been found among some old papers.) This is pretty funny! (Laughing, Mother reads.) "In his physical state, man is the supreme evolutor. "There is but one law, the law of Charity, and it is one with Justice. "There is but one disequilibrium: the violation of this law. "The cause of disequilibrium is excess. "Perpetual evolution towards perfection.... "Mortality is the result.... "Mortality"! What a word! Page 451 Infant mortality! "Mortality is the effect whose cause is disequilibrium. It is accidental and tem

October 30, 1962 My translation [of The Synthesis of Yoga] will be finished soon - I'll miss it. But aren't you going to start on Savitri? It suddenly seemed terribly ambitious to me.... (Laughing) My stock of words isn't so great! (silence) H.S.[[A Chinese disciple who translates Sri Aurobindo into Chinese. ]] has written to me, and there was a sentence in his letter that brought a certain problem to my attention. He said, "I have done so many hours of translation - it's a mechanical task." I wondered what he meant by "mechanical task" because, as far as I am concerned, you can't translate unless you have the experience - if you start translating word for word, it no longe

November 30, 1962 Another prophet! (Mother hands Satprem a typed sheet.) India is full of prophets. But this one is rather interesting because he's the first who seems to have seen this [Sing-Indian] war from the standpoint of the inner action. He seems to be a good man. He lives in Madras, (Satprem reads:[[Note in original English. ]]) A. has a neighbor who is an educational officer (retired). He does serious Puja daily and has certain powers of foretelling, mind-reading etc. He is under instructions from his Guru never to send back people without answering their questions of whatever kind; never to get angry under any conditions; never to accept money; and never to tell things o

June 16, 1962 It's going to take a long time, this business. [[The transformation. ]] When I look ahead, I see no radical change (that is, a change of organization, of life and so forth) before a VERY long time, a very long time. We have to have a lot of patience. No, it's not a matter of patience - it's like this (Mother holds her hands above her head, open to the Eternal). (silence) It gives me the feeling of a bell that no one rings! It's there on the table (you know, those little dinner bells) ... and no one rings it. Well. Page 215

February 17, 1962 Are you more conscious now in your dreams, or not? Sometimes.... Yes, yesterday there was something, but my memory of it is rather hazy. I meet you from time to time ... in very different places. That's why I ask. What do I do there? All sorts of things. But quite often we are looking for ... things related to expression - sometimes images, sometimes sentences, sometimes.... I have told you I frequently meet you in a kind of library without books. It's very interesting. It is open on top, below too, and no walls; it is extremely spacious, certainly almost as vast as the earth. And there are pigeonholes that seem to hang in the air, with all kinds of thing

February 27, 1962 72 - The sign of dawning Knowledge is to feel that as yet I know little or nothing; and yet, if I could only know my knowledge, I already possess everything. So, what's your question? You have nothing special to say?... (Mother shakes her head) I did prepare something, it goes like this: in sleep one can have a very exact knowledge of what is going to happen, sometimes with astonishingly accurate material details; it's as if everything were already worked out down to the least detail on an occult plane. Is this correct? What is this plane of knowledge? Is there more than one? How can one gain conscious access to it in the waking state? And how is it that

March 13, 1962 You're in a bad mood; oh yes, I could see it from far away. (Satprem voices various complaints, then adds.) And then to top it off, the other day you tell me this Agenda isn't interesting either, that it's not worth keeping. So what am I doing here? What? What's not worth keeping? Your Agenda. My Agenda? But I treasure it! Oh, you said it didn't interest you.... Me? I said that! Page 121 Yes. You sure did! Then I was lying. No, obviously not. But you said it didn't interest you and it should be filed away in a corner or I don't know what. So what am I doing here? You surely misunderstood me. I said it's unpublishable for the time being;

December 12, 1962 (Satprem tries to question Mother on the reasons for Sri Aurobindo's departure.) Oh, no! No, I don't want to talk about it. I would rather not listen to it, I don't want it kept. [[Rightly or wrongly, Satprem did not keep the recording of this conversation, not to obey Mother, for he was never very obedient, but because the words that follow rent his heart. He didn't know at the time how very true they all were. ]] Those were terrible days I lived through then. (silence) I am only beginning to come out of it. In any case, not today. I don't know if it has to do with something general, but on December 9 an avalanche of very unpleasant things came down on