July 28, 1964
(This conversation is about Dr. S., who left for the U.S.A. for a brain operation. The operation consists in introducing a needle into the diseased spot and injecting liquid oxygen to destroy the group of affected cells. The first operation took place three months earlier, and the second was scheduled for this month.)
I’ve just received a long letter from Dr. S…. You know that one side was operated on and that … To make it interesting, I should tell you the story from the beginning.
Before his departure for America, when he spoke to me about the operation, I immediately saw not only that it was dangerous (that was obvious, he himself knew it), but that it couldn’t be conclusive, and that at any rate one operation wasn’t enough. When he spoke to me with the enthusiasm of someone who at last sees his salvation, I asked him, “Are you really sure it will be conclusive? That one operation is enough and the disease won’t come again?” He almost got angry! He thought I was … (laughing) an atheist of medical science!
Anyhow, he left.
Once he arrived there, they immediately told him that as the disease was affecting both sides, both sides would have to be operated on: they would perform the first operation on the right side to cure the left, and six months to a year later they would perform the second operation on the left side to cure the right – the first blow.
Then, the operation was extremely painful, it lasted four hours, and the result was as I had perceived: the result is paralysis. (All they can do is paralyze, then they have to reeducate.) Anyway, it seems his reeducation has gone well. And the American doctor told him it was only a question of will. You see how hazardous that operation
Page 139
is which was claimed to be definitive and absolute. Well.
Anyhow, the American doctor told him, “At any rate, there’s nothing else I can do for another three months.” So he has waited there for three months. And I, all that time – all the time, almost constantly – I kept seeing death written over the second operation. But I knew that if I sent a letter, it would be useless, it would only create an atmosphere of distrust, that’s all. So I made formation upon formation, formation upon formation, on the American doctor. Finally, S. asked me for a talisman for the second operation – I sent it immediately, with a great concentration of force so that nothing fatal should happen.
Recently, on July 20, S. enters the hospital for the second operation. The American doctor keeps him two days, three days, then tells him, “I can’t, I won’t run that risk….” It seems that during those three months, he had operated on several people for whom it was also a second operation, on the other side, as for S., and all of them ended in hemorrhage, paralysis, or death. So the American doctor declared, “I won’t run the risk.” S. replied, “It doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather die than be crippled.” But this American very cleverly told him, “I won’t do anything without the permission of your ‘Mother’!” So they sent me a telegram saying that the American doctor refused to operate because it was too dangerous, and they asked for my opinion. I answered, No operation.
At the same time, there was a telegram from E. (who wanted to be present at the operation), an exultant telegram saying that for her (E.), it was proof that S. would be cured not by surgery, but by a supramental intervention. She said it to S. too, who was rather unhappy (!) Anyway, he is coming back.
But in this case, there was such a precise action of the Force…. And at the same time I had another experience (but a much more personal and subjective one), which confirmed me in my perception … Did you read Rodogune by Sri Aurobindo? In Rodogune, there is a scene in which an eremite meets a young prince and utters these words, “This man has around him the atmosphere of someone who is going to die.” (The prince had just won a great victory, anyway all was for the best, and he had decided to go to such and such a place; that’s when the eremite uttered those words.) When I read that, I tried to make contact with that vibration the eremite called “the atmosphere of a man who is going to die.” And when I received S.’s letter telling me that with the talisman, he was sure all would be well – exactly the same vibration. That sort of exultation, of assertion of power and force, and,
Page 140
behind, there was exactly the same vibration. So it confirmed for me what I had seen.
But I was very happy with the American doctor’s receptivity.
And when I received El’s telegram saying it was proof that S. would be cured by a supramental intervention and not by surgery, in her telegram there was a light – E. is a very impassioned person, but suddenly I saw the light of a revelation. So I thought, “That’s why.”
But (laughing) S. isn’t too enthusiastic! He doesn’t have faith, you see. He says he will be “very glad … to be worthy of this Grace,” instead of saying, “I have faith that the Grace will …” It’s a polite way of saying (Mother laughs), “I don’t believe in it.”
So he is coming back, crippled.
One side is cured.
The left side. And the American doctor isn’t quite happy about the extent of the cure…. Which means, as always, that however things seem to be in the world, when they are brought into contact with the Light, that is to say, a concentration of Truth, they appear in their stark reality: all the ballyhoo about that operation and all the illusion gathered around that miraculous power of surgical cure, it all vanished into thin air. The American doctor himself, according to Dr. S.’s letter, was shaken and lost trust in the absoluteness of his system. But from the first minute, you know, I saw that there wasn’t even sixty percent of truth in it. There is an entire obscure field, which they deliberately ignore and which showed itself in broad daylight in order to make itself known. And for Dr. S., it’s the same thing: “A doctor COULD NOT be deluded,” and he didn’t want to admit it. When I told him that one operation might not be enough, he almost got angry: “Why do you say such things!” (Mother laughs) He knew it as well as I did, but he didn’t want to admit it.
He will have gone through a terrible experience.
Oh yes, and very, very dangerous – he knew it. But to some extent I can understand: a surgeon who can no longer use his hands …
But from the beginning, I’ve seen that he couldn’t be cured, because he doesn’t really have faith. He has a sort of diluted knowledge that there are "forces behind" the material forces, but still, for him, the concrete reality is Matter and its mechanism,
Page 141
and so remedies must be mechanical. Because I tried to cure him several times, but there was no receptivity, none – like a stone, you know.
Maybe it will be better now?…
In any case, if he is to be cured in a supramental way, I don’t feel called upon to do it, because he has no trust in me – he likes me, he has a sort of … “worship” is too big a word, a worshipful feeling for a god who’s very nice (!), but (laughing) from whom you shouldn’t expect too much: “He’s rather ignorant of the things of this world; now and then he may perform some miracles (Mother laughs out loud), but that’s miraculous!”
It’s strange that, with that kind of attitude, he came here.
Oh, he left everything to come here.
That’s strange.
No, it’s very strong inside him; the inner call is very strong: it’s the outer reason that veils everything.
He left everything, but he knows darn well that he left everything! He’s very conscious of his “sacrifice,” which means that in his consciousness there’s no correspondence between what he gave and what he has received – what he gave, as when you stake everything on a future benefit.
Anyway, he’s coming back.
* * *
(Later, Satprem puts in order some loose papers of Mother’s, fragments of notes, etc., and stumbles on these lines:)
“Every moment contains the equilibrium of all the simultaneous possibilities.”
That was an experience.
It’s the same as saying that at every moment, you can change everything; if a force comes and changes that equilibrium, all the consequences are changed.
In other words, there is neither determinism nor law of “cause and effect” or any of that – there is a determinism, but externally.
(another fragment of a note)
Page 142
“Sri Aurobindo told N. in a dream that there would be a great change on December 6.”
Page 143