Undated 1956 (f)
(Letter to Mother from Satprem)
Pondicherry
Sweet Mother, I feel it is good to tell you what happened within me yesterday evening during the distribution, if only to express my infinite gratitude.
First of all, I began by feeling, perceiving in an absolutely obvious way, that it is you and you alone who has been doing my yoga, that you have been doing everything for me and that you have been there forever, guiding each one of my steps. I felt luminously that without you I would never have been able to go forward a single step and that, basically, all my efforts have served only to teach me the futility of my efforts, as it were, and to lead me to this point of helplessness where I must totally surrender myself into the hands of a greater Force – into your hands. And I felt so absolutely that you would do EVERYTHING for me if only I relied upon you totally. It was like a liberation, like a weight that you lifted from my heart. No longer was it a question of trying to cling inwardly, of pushing and pulling until I was stiff and aching within; it was enough to let you act.
Then I felt a dual movement enter into me, almost a physical movement that followed the rhythm of my breathing, as though
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every time I breathed in, I was receiving something, and every time I breathed out, I was offering myself. And this dual movement of receiving and offering seemed to grow within me, as though it were the very movement of the world, the breathing of the world that receives and gives itself. And I perceived that, at a certain moment, this rhythm could stop, the circle close again, the two breaths join in a luminous immobility. Then vaguely, I discerned – as though from far away, behind a veil – a kind of pure, brilliant white light, and saw that it was you at the heart of the world. And then I felt how marvelous it was to be able to give myself. I seemed to have grasped the secret of duality, for the joy of offering, for the joy of love. Then I felt that I was beginning to mentalize things. In a way, I was afraid of recording too well what was happening, and I held myself out to you in silence and in love, for it seemed to me that the experience could be an obstacle, a stopping place, whereas one must always go farther. Then it seemed that you were there – I did not see you exactly, but I felt, I felt that you were smiling at me as from behind a veil. The distribution ended all too soon, and then I had a class. But even this morning, a kind of joyous confidence in my heart remains with me, and the need to express my infinite gratitude, my love. I belong to you, Mother, with my body, my life, my mind.
I want only what you want.
Everything is grace.
Your child,
Signed: Bernard
P.S. When things of this sort happen, should one bother you by writing about them, or simply be content with an inner gratitude?
(Mother’s reply)
It does not bother me at all, and you did well to write. Your experience is excellent, and I was very happy to read it – it shines like a light upon a new horizon.
With you, always.
Signed: Mother
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