September 14, 1968 (Almost the entire time is spent in contemplation. Towards the end, Mother asks:) Nothing to ask? I have a strong impression of Sri Aurobindo. Ah! ... He is constantly there. Page 255 (Mother goes into a contemplation again) So, till Wednesday. Will the translation of the "Notes" be ready?... If it's not on Wednesday, it will be for Saturday. I've got into the habit of long silences. (long silence) A sort of sense of the uselessness of speech. Page 256

November 2, 1968 Anything? I got a letter from P.L. But it's not complete. How do you mean? I'd written to him and told him V.'s vision, with the descriptionof the person doing magic at the Vatican, and I'd asked him, "Look silently and see if it corresponds to someone." He writes, "Yes! I know who it is." Oh, he said yes. Yes, he says, "I know who it is and I'll send you his photo." Iam waiting for the photo.... Here's what he writes: "V.'s vision has come to show me the accuracy of the person's description: it is Msgr. Z, archbishop in the Holy See's State Secretariat, an intimate friend of the Holy Father's and his private collabo rator.... Oh

March 27, 1968 On April 1st, the sports season opens, and I've given an ... appropriate message. I started with a paradox: "The first condition for acquiring power is to be obedient. Page 88 "The body must learn to obey before it can manifest power; and physical education is the most thorough discipline for the body. "So be eager and sincere in your effort for physical education and you will acquire a powerful body." It's logical. That's all. * * * Soon afterwards Everybody is quarreling.... Oh, quarrels about absolutely nothing - everybody gets angry, everybody quarrels. It's been like that for the past three days. Astrologers say it depends o

August 3, 1968 (Mother remains very tired. She nevertheless listens to a long paper on Auroville, which she rejects, and prepares with Satprem a note summing up the ideal of this future city:) " For millennia, we have been developing outer means, outer instruments, outer techniques of living - and finally those means and techniques are crushing us. The sign of the new humanity is a reversal in the standpoint, and the understanding that inner knowledge and inner technique can change the world and master it without crushing it. "Auroville is the place where this new way of living is being worked out, it is a center of accelerated evolution where man must begin to change his world

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