May 25, 1959
(Letter from Mother to Satprem)
Tuesday, 1 o’clock
Satprem, my dear child,
I can only repeat the prayer that I made to the Supreme Lord this morning:
‘May Your Will be done in all things and at every moment. And may Your Love manifest.’
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As for you, I received your promise made very solemnly at a moment of clear consciousness, and I am sure you will not fail in it.
My love is with you.
Signed: Mother
(Satprem’s reply)
May 27, 1959
Mother,
If it is to make me feel all my wrongs that you remind me of my ‘solemn promise,’ then I am ready to acknowledge all these wrongs. I am guilty, without any extenuating circumstances, and I expect no indulgence.
I can easily understand that your task on this earth is not particularly encouraging and you must find our human matter stupid and rebellious. I do not wish to throw upon you more bad things than you already receive, but I wish you could also understand certain things. I am not made for this withered life, not made for putting sentences together all day long, not made for living alone in my hole – friendless, loveless, with nothing but mantras, and waiting for a better that never comes. For three years I have wanted to leave and each time I yielded out of scruples that you needed me, though also because I am attached to you. But after the [book on] ‘Sri Aurobindo,’ there will be something else, there will always be something else that will make my departure look like a ‘betrayal.’ I am fed up with living in my head, always in my head, with paper and ink. It was not of this that I dreamed when I was ten years old and ran with the wind over the untamed heaths. I am suffocating. You ask too much of me; or rather, I am not worth your expectation.
A love for you might have held me here. And indeed, for you I have devotion, veneration, respect, an attachment, but there has never been this marvelous thing, warm and full, that links one to a being in the same beating of a heart. Through love, I could do all, accept all, endure all, sacrifice all – but I do not feel this love. You cannot ‘give yourself’ with your head, through a mental decision, yet that is what I have been doing for five years. I have tried to serve you as best I could. But I am at the end of my rope. I am suffocating.
I have no illusions, and I do not at all suppose that elsewhere my life may at last be fulfilled. No, I know that this whole life is cursed, but it may as well be truly cursed. If the Divine does not
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want to give me his Love, may he give me his curse. But not this life between two worlds. Or if I am too hardened, may he break me. But not this tepidness, this approximation.
I am not really bad, Mother, but I can no longer bear this life without love. That is all.
There is someone here who could have saved me, whom I could have loved. Oh, it has nothing to do with all those things you might imagine! My soul loves her soul. It is something very serene. We have known each other for five years, and I had never even dreamed of calling it love. But all the outer circumstances are against us. And I do not want to turn anyone away from you. Anyway, if I sink into the depths of the pit, or so I tell myself, it is no reason to drag someone else along with me. So this too is one more reason for me to leave. I cannot continue suffocating all alone in my corner. (It is useless to ask her name, I will say nothing.)
You are imposing a new ordeal on me by asking me to go to Rameswaram. For you, I have accepted. But I shall go there sheathed in my sturdiest armor and I will not yield, because I know that it is always to be begun again. I do not want to become a ‘great Tantric’ or whatever else it may be. I want only to love. And since I cannot love, I am leaving. I will arrive in Rameswaram at 2 in the morning, and will leave again by the 11 o’clock train.
I want to go to New Caledonia. There, or elsewhere … there are forests there. Africa is closing up. You must help me one last time by giving me the means to leave and try something else with a minimum of chance – although, at the point I’m at, I laugh in the face of ‘chance.’ I need 2,000 rupees, if that is possible for you. If you do not want to, or if you cannot, I will leave anyway, no matter where, no matter how.
And once again, you can judge me all you want, I acknowledge all my wrongs. I am guilty in a guilty and stupid world (which loves its stupidity, no doubt).
Signed: Satprem
The ‘aphorisms’ will be ready tomorrow.
I have nothing more to add.
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(Mother’s reply)
5.28.59
Satprem, my dear child,
This morning, the problem and its solution appeared to me very clearly; but since, for quite obvious reasons, I am both the judge and the accused in this matter, I cannot make a decision; not that my judgment would necessarily be egoistic, but it would have no authority.
Only someone who loves you and has the knowledge can find the true solution to the problem. X’ fulfills these conditions excellently. Go to him and simply be what you are, without blackening nor embellishing, with the sincerity and simplicity of a child. He knows your soul and its aspiration; speak to him of your physical life and of your need for space, solitude, untamed nature, the simple and free life. He will understand and, in his wisdom, will see the best thing to do.
And what he decides will be done.
My love is unalterably with you.
Signed: Mother
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