April 3, 1958
(Letter to Mother from Satprem)
Kataragama, April 3, 1958
Sweet Mother,
I was waiting for things to be well established in me before writing you again. An important change has occurred: it seems that something in me has ‘clicked’ – what Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘central will,’ perhaps – and I am living literally in the obsession of divine realization. This is what I want, nothing else, it is the only goal in life, and at last I have understood (not with the head) that the outer realization in the world will be the consequence of
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the inner realization. So thousands of times a day, I repeat, ‘Mother, I want to be your instrument, ever more conscious, I want to express your truth, your light. I want to be what you want, as you want, when you want.’ There is in me now a kind of need for perfection, a will to abolish this ego, a real understanding that to become your instrument means at the same time to find the perfect plenitude of one’s personality. So I am living in an almost constant state of aspiration, I feel your force constantly, or nearly so, and if I am ‘distracted’ a few minutes, I experience a void, an uneasiness that calls me back to you.
And at the same time, I saw that it is you who is doing everything, you who aspires in me, you who wants the progress, and that all ‘I’ myself am in this affair is a screen, a resisting obstacle. O Mother, break this screen that I may be wholly transparent before you, that your transforming force may purify all the secret recesses in my being, that nothing may remain but you and you alone. O Mother, may all my being be a living expression of your light, your truth.
Mother, from the depths of my being, I offer you a sole prayer: may I become your more and more perfect instrument, a sword of light in your hands. Oh, to get out of this ego that belittles everything, diminishes everything, to emerge from it! All is falsehood in it.
And I, who understood nothing of love, am beginning to suspect who Satprem is. Mother, your grace is infinite, it has accompanied me everywhere in my life.
We are still in Kataragama, and we shall only go up to northern Ceylon, to Jaffna, around the 15th, then return to India towards the beginning of May if the visa problems are settled. Only in India, at the temple of Rameswaram, can I receive the orange robe. I am living here as a sannyasi, but dressed in white, like a Hindu. It is a stark life, nothing more. I have seen however, that truth does not lie in starkness but in a change of consciousness. (Desire always finds a means to entrench itself in very small details and in very petty and stupid, though well-rooted, avidities.)
Mother, I am seeing all the mean pettiness that obstructs your divine work. Destroy my smallness and take me unto you. May I be sincere, integrally sincere.
With infinite gratitude, I am your child.
Signed: Satprem
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P.S. My system is not in perfect condition due to this absurdly spiced food, and the river water that is used for everything.
(Mother’s reply)
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 4.10.58
My dear child,
It is with great joy that I shall receive you when you return in May.
We have a lot of work to do together, because I have kept everything for your return.
I am trying to be near you as MATERIALLY as possible in order to help your body victoriously pass through the test.
I want it to come out of this tempered forever, above all attacks.
May the joy of luminous love be with you.
Until we meet,
Signed: Mother
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