April 8, 1970 (Regrettably, Satprem did not preserve the recording of the following conversation, perhaps feeling too acutely the negative appearance of Mother's difficulties, although that very negativity was the condition of the experience. At the beginning of the con versation, Mother makes a fair copy of a text to be reproduced.) My eyesight has gone down a lot these last two days. (silence) There's a difficulty.... I am beginning to be unable to eat, so ... Things are becoming difficult. Is it the consciousness or the body? It's ... I don't know. I don't know what's going on. (silence) Page 141 The body seems to be straddling ... (gesture betw

July 29, 1970 Goings-on, complications .... But couldn't Nolini do something? Nolini wants peace. Ah, what about you? What do you have to tell me? I've received a letter from Monsignor R. [P. L. s friend]. Wouldyou like to see it?... You know he was supposed to come at the end of last year, I think, and "as if by chance," he was prevented from coming. I am not surprised. Then, quite recently, he underwent a grave operation. But inFebruary he had written you a letter which he never sent, and he gave it to Z [[Someone living in the Ashram, who has just returned from a stay in Europe. ]] for you. Oh!... Is he still ill? No, he's convalesci

April 15, 1970 There seems to be a more and more powerful Pressure, and all difficulties are arising (gesture of rising from below). People quarrel and ... oh! And it's not just here, it's all over the country. And I am told it's all over the world. You know, it's like a Pressure ... (gesture of implacable descent), so everything rises. (Mother's voice is husky) A dozen letters everyday, from people imploring for help.... Everything is becoming difficult. Things will probably have to become still more difficult. It looks like that.... Only, it's ... just at breaking point. Page 147 Russia and America have reached, they say, the "balance of terror." It's

May 20, 1970 (Those last few days, Mother had her left eye slightly infected, then an abscess in a tooth - Satprem too.) After the eye, it was the teeth.... One thing after another. Anyway ... It's just going on. Page 195 (silence) Did you see the brochure [on Auroville and Religions]? It's nice.... I had it distributed in Auroville. People from "Auromodèle" come in turn every Tuesday afternoon (five or six of them), so yesterday I gave them that. But I too see some of them: one after another they come to see me. Ah! Yes, one feels they're beginning to wake up a little. Yes, yes, it's beginning to stir. A few are nice.... What do they tell you? I

October 28, 1970 (Mother gives Satprem the message for the year 1971.) Blessed are those who take a leap towards the future. *** Page 357 (Mother tries to read with difficulty a few lines from Savitri written in large characters. These passages are meant to be set to music.) At times I read very clearly, and at other times ... There walled apart by its own innerness In a mystical barrage of dynamic light He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile Erect like a mountain chariot of the Gods Motionless under an inscrutable sky. ................ Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze These grades had marked her giant d

November 18, 1970 (Mother gives Satprem, as every time, soup packets. Then she comments:) There has been something like a small catastrophe! It is that in Africa all Indians are sent back, or their properties are confiscated, and it's from Africa that we used to receive the cheese! (laughter) So we won't have cheese anymore ... but I still have this coming from Germany (Mother gives a tube). There has been a bigger catastrophe in Pakistan. What happened? Well, there are maybe three hundred thousand dead. What! There was a cyclone followed by a tidal wave: a huge wave, morethan fifteen feet high, which swept a whole area, and there are maybe three

May 13, 1970 R. asked me to say what we mean by religion.... (Mother holds out a letter) Sweet Mother, the notion of religion is most often connected to that of the quest for God. Should we understand it in that perspective alone? Aren't there today, as a matter of fact, other forms of religion? I had written something BEFORE I received this question. It came in English: (Mother holds out a note) We call religion any concept of the world or the universewhich is presented as the exclusive Truth in which one must have an absolute faith, generally because this Truth is declared to be the result of a revelation. Most of the religions affirm the existence of

May 30, 1970 (Mother looks absorbed) I didn't remember this book [Thoughts and Aphorisms] at all. Have you seen the latest ones? (Satprem reads) 529 - Indiscriminate compassion is the noblest gift of temperament, not to do even the least hurt to one living thing is the highest of all human virtues; but God practises neither. Is man therefore nobler and better than the All-loving? 528 - Human pity is born of ignorance and weakness;it is the slave of emotional impressions. Divine compassion understands, discerns and saves. Page 218 You answer: "To understand the divine intention and to worktowards its accomplishment, is that not the

November 4, 1970 (Satprem reads the second part of the sixth chapter of On the Way to Supermanhood: "The Tearing of Limits.") It's a whole new world. (silence) As for me, I could keep listening like that without moving for hours! It's very restful. I don't know how to explain.... It's very restful. It's strange.... You no longer feel like moving, no longer feel like speaking, nothing anymore. (Mother nods her head and goes into a contemplation) Page 367

May 16, 1970 (Mother's voice is quite husky.) No voice.... But it doesn't matter.... Can you hear me?... If you have questions, you can ask them. Things feel as if they're grating and difficult. Yes, yes. (long contemplation) I can remain like this twenty-four hours a day. Eating has become a problem.... (silence) Page 193 Sometimes one catches a glimpse of the heroism it takes to do the work you're doing.... (Mother laughs) The body is enduring enough, I can't complain. If there were a certitude, if, for instance, Sri Aurobindo said, "This and this and this is like this," then it would be very easy! But what's difficult is ... You see, you are surrounded b