January 25, 1964
In the Illustrated Weekly they have published photographs of the Pope’s visit to Palestine, and there is one in which he is prostrating himself: he is kissing the ground on the Mount of Olives, where Christ, as the story goes, was informed that he would be crucified.
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It put me again in contact with that man.
And his intention is clear: to make religion quite real, in the sense that it isn’t a myth, it isn’t a legend – it’s truly God who came, and so on. So, to him, this is “human greatness” prostrating itself before the “divine sacrifice.”
There is another photograph in which he is embracing the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church – heretics formerly, now they embrace each other.
And all the people around him (they are well-dressed, you know, with modern suits) look like puppets, mon petit! Oh, it’s awful! … Awful. He at least has a force – or a will, at any rate. And he has a plan, he knows what he wants.
(silence)
He is also the first Pope to travel by plane, so they took his photograph in the plane – he gives a “broad smile,” he looks very happy.
(long silence)
In sum, it is the glorification of physical suffering as a means of salvation.
I must say I kind the whole story repugnant – that crucifixion being flaunted everywhere. There’s nothing so clever about Christ! There are millions others who died without making such a fuss!
That was also my feeling, and it was Théon’s too. But Sri Aurobindo … as for him, he clearly said that it had brought a sense of charity, humaneness and fraternity on earth that didn’t exist before.
Yes, it certainly did bring something. But they just remain there.
Ah, the Falsehood is to remain stuck there, yes.
***
A little later
We’ll have to revise some of these aphorisms [by Sri Aurobindo] little by little. Do we still have quite a few ready?
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Not many. But at the rate we’re commenting on them, we still have at least a year to go!…
(Mother laughs)
I haven’t yet had the time to prepare the “Bulletin”: I’m catching up with my work.
It doesn’t matter. Besides … people are arriving by the hundred. Next month is going to be a bit difficult … although I’ll see as few people as possible. But still …
See (Mother takes out an appointment pad), all these are people announcing their coming and asking for appointments – just look! (an endless list)
I could speed things up and prepare the “Bulletin” earlier?
No. I’ll be better also (Mother still has her cold), it will give me some time to get better…. Not that the ideas aren’t clear (!), on the contrary … there’s a sort of very precise and sharp vision of things, but speaking is difficult.
But what-I say is hard for people to understand, I find…. I gave that text from the Agenda to A. – he didn’t say anything. Which shows that he didn’t understand anything. As for Pavitra, he clearly didn’t understand anything.
To them it’s platitudes, mon petit! They take it just on the surface.
But when Sujata reads it, she understands! Yet she didn’t listen to you.
But mon petit, Sujata is trained, she has typed it all, she has gone through it all.
Anyway, I don’t care.
Personally, I’m very reluctant to touch up what you say under the pretext of making it more “readable.”
Oh, no! It would become absolutely useless.
I’m reluctant to do that – and I don’t do it. I could easily make it more “literary.”
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No!
But I find it absurd. I’ve never done it. I can’t do it.
It wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
Too bad for them!
They just read the words, you know!
Exactly!
They read the grammar of it.
That’s right!
For instance, with that “dialogue with a materialist,”[[See Agenda IV, September 7, 1963. ]] my experience lasted for two days, for hours on end. So there were all the arguments and counterarguments. It was extremely interesting. But I didn’t say what the arguments were. So Pavitra told me, “It lacks life.”
But I find it full! The whole essence is there.
But it isn’t “explained.”
But it doesn’t need to be explained!
It would be very good if there were no need to explain….
But, for example, that “dialogue” was only the memory of the experience. When I have the experience WHILE you are here and describe it to you, it’s much stronger.
Yes, obviously.
So it would be better to try to have the experience while speaking to you – or rather speak to you while having the experience.
I remember that while I was having that experience, I had the feeling that all materialism was ESSENTIALLY defeated, that there was a definitive answer, and that the force or power (because there is a Power behind materialism, a sort of sincerity that doesn’t want to deceive itself), that that Power was overcome
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and convinced. And so, it has some importance. But the experience itself should be expressed for the power to be there. What I told you was only a reflection. Anyway …
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