November 20, 1962
(Mother looks weary.)
The situation is bad, very bad. They’re on the verge of taking Assam – things are very bad.
But for what reason? Why are they doing this?
It seems they’re circulating maps in China showing Nepal, Bhutan, Assam and the rest as all part of China.
So that’s their intention – to settle there.
It’s not very clear why.
National ambition. To put a constant pressure on India and force it to go communist.
To impose their rule, you see – they’re at the door and can enter whenever they want.
Why did they take Tibet?
And then they’ve declared that Gaurishankar is Chinese – the summit of the earth is China, not India at all…. Ambition.
(silence)
And this side of Bengal and Assam is full of Chinese who settled there years and years ago; there are thousands and thousands of them, doing business. And all the communists support them, and it seems they keep a very accurate and meticulous list of those for and those against communism. (What do they base it on? I don’t know – on what people say or do.) And the idea is that it’s all going to be taken like this (gesture of encircling India).
It’s nasty.
Things seem to be taking a nasty turn.
But what I find perhaps even more incredible than the leaders’ incompetence – Nehru, Menon, and so forth – is that for twenty years there hasn’t been a single Indian to see things clearly and speak out – there’s been no one in India, no one. For twenty years there have been two idols, Nehru and Gandhi,
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and then some 400 million stupefied people,[[700 million in 1981. ]] with no one to see things clearly. How is it possible?… No one!
But Nehru had a very good foreign press. They considered him almost a god in Europe and America. And Gandhi! … Oh, they were…. The whole world is like that, mon petit – they don’t understand. They don’t understand. Nobody understands.
(silence)
We will see.
I believe we WILL see – it’s going to be now: we’re going to see.
Maybe we’ll see from another world. (Laughing) It’s possible.
They have bombs in America and Russia (China hasn’t boasted about it, but they may have some too) that can destroy a whole city – one is more than enough, you don’t need two. The Russians in particular: a single bomb and a whole city, even the size of London: vroom! Nothing left. (That’s the theory, but still, there’s always something true in it.) We saw what happened to Hiroshima, it was pretty bad. Well, if that was ten, then what they have now is a thousand – that’s the proportion.
In other words, they’ve turned all their intelligence towards destruction.
Some say, “It will deter them from fighting.” But that’s childish!
(long silence)
China has already recalled its ambassador from Delhi. The Indians haven’t recalled theirs from Peking, but they’ll be forced to. This kind of thing can’t be one-sided, one side recalling its ambassador and the other side leaving theirs; and the minute they recall their ambassador, the bombing starts.
Not many airplanes have pilots nowadays – that’s old-fashioned. The planes do their business all by themselves. They are completely automatic. So what’s needed is truly a Power that can act on the most mechanical matter. I mean for protection, for instance: these things don’t depend on human wills, nor even on beings of the terrestrial atmosphere – the Supreme alone can decide. Just as He decides “This is to be done,” so He also decides … ["This won't be"]. That’s all. He is the only recourse.
There’s no longer any hope that a human being can give protection by his own power – it doesn’t work any more. If the Lord is
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protecting you, fine, nothing will happen to you. But as far as knowing what He’s going to decide…. For if He decides upon such a destruction, it means the earth truly needs it – otherwise He wouldn’t decide it.
Anyway, it’s best not to think about it – we’ll see soon enough. We’ll see from this world here or from a more subtle one (laughing), that’s all.
All I know is that it was a very bad night, and I woke up this morning completely drained and with plenty of difficulties – and it’s not over yet.[[On this same day, November 20, China announced a cease-fire and withdrawal of its troops. ]]
***
Later:
If things take a bad turn, soon no one will be able to move; once again we’ll be (gesture) shut up in an egg.
When Sri Aurobindo was here, you went to sit in the room he was in, and felt perfectly sheltered from everything – and it was true.
The only danger at the time was Japan, and Japan had officially declared it wouldn’t bomb Pondicherry because of Sri Aurobindo. But at least there were still men in their planes, and they could choose not to bomb. But you don’t tell a jet plane “Don’t crash here”! It crashes wherever it can.
Yes, but it’s still hard to see why they would come here.
If they want to bomb Madras, that’s just too close. Between the oil wells in Assam (that’s what they want – very useful to have …) and the Chinese, there’s the same distance as between Pondicherry and Madras, so you understand…. They certainly have a motorized army, so it’s nothing at all.
Anyhow….
And all night long (or a good part of it in any case), Indira Gandhi’s thought was here, clinging to me (Indira Gandhi is Nehru’s daughter), and the jewelry was sent to her. [[Mother sent a special messenger to Delhi with a symbolic gift of 925 grams of gold (some from her own jewelry), as a contribution to national defense. ]] It was handed over to Nehru, who passed it on to Indira.[[ Indira Gandhi will come to power four years later, in January 1966. ]] And she wrote me a letter I received yesterday – a very (Mother searches for the proper word) … a very
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amicable letter; a letter from someone who has understood that this gift was an important element – not on a worldwide level (!), but because it was important that people know I have made a gesture of collaboration. But it didn’t end there. The letter came yesterday; generally, of course, when I see a letter coming, I see it BEFORE receiving it; but here it was SHE, she herself, thinking [of Mother], thinking, thinking, thinking over and over again. (With Nehru, it’s always very blurred: he doesn’t have sufficient mental power for his position, he lacks the required strength of mind, so it’s always hazy; when you tune in to him, that’s the impression you get – blurred gesture – not solid.) But with her, it kept coming and coming and coming. They must be feeling … or beginning to feel that something other than what they have is required.
We shall see.
I don’t forget what Sri Aurobindo said – declared (in writing): that in 1967 the supramental Power will be behind all the earth’s governments. Whether it’s these people or those or whoever, they will be directly, maybe not consciously, but directly under the influence of the supramental forces, which will make them do what has to be done. And so, of course, the first result will be a kind of worldwide collaboration – he explicitly told me that, and he wrote it down. That’s what he had seen. But he didn’t say we would get there without … without catastrophe. He never said that.
Well, mon petit.
So next time you’ll have your book with you.
Yes, I hope so.
No, you must!
I’ve been floundering…. But you know, for years I’ve had the intuition, the premonition, that 1963 would be a terrible year – personally.
Sixty-three.
Personally, because every ten years (’43, ’53 …) something catastrophic has happened to me.
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The qualifier[[ "Catastrophic." ]] we use depends on our limited individual vision, but the fact in itself is probably quite correct: there will be a serious upheaval. But this doesn’t mean it will be catastrophic. You see, it may be precisely the opening to something higher, and a new birth to Truth. Personally, I am certain of a very rapid progress [for you], because I see it. But I don’t see any personal catastrophes. I haven’t seen that at all.
Unless…. Once, you know, when Sri Aurobindo was still here, I saw…. But it was just a vision, and lots of visions come (this was especially true at that time) as possibilities formed in a given world and descending towards the terrestrial manifestation. They come for me to give them the support of my consent, if I find them interesting. So there are all kinds of things! And most of them get sorted out at that point. But anyway, I had a vision in which Pondicherry was completely engulfed by a bomb (in those days there weren’t such powerful bombs – so the vision was partly premonitory). So if that happens! … (Mother laughs) As a result of the bombing, I was trapped in a radioactive area (it had been buried underground but not flattened – a kind of cave had been formed), where I stayed for two thousand years.
I woke up after two thousand years with a rejuvenated body. It was a very amusing little story…. And I say “vision,” but you don’t watch these things like a movie: you LIVE them. I somehow extricated myself from that sort of sealed grotto, and where Pondicherry had once stood (it had been completely razed), I came upon some people working…. They were VERY DIFFERENT, and quite bizarre. I myself must have looked funny, with a kind of costume totally alien to their epoch. (My clothing had also survived the destruction – the whole thing was right out of a storybook!) So of course I attracted some curiosity and they tried to make me understand. “Ah, yes – I know …” one of them said (I understood them because I could understand their thoughts – those two thousand years had enabled me to read people’s minds), and they led me to a very old sage, a wise old fellow. I spoke to him and he began leafing through all kinds of books (he had many, many books), and suddenly he exclaimed, “Ah, French! ” An ancient language, you see (Mother laughs).
It was very funny. I told the story to Sri Aurobindo, and he had a good laugh.
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