September 12, 1964
(Satprem reads Mother an old “Talk” of February 24, 1951, in which she refers to the memory of past lives and the unbridled imagination of certain people.)
I didn’t name her, but it was Annie Besant. She recounted all her lives with all the details – right from the ape! I didn’t read her books, incidentally.
Oh, I tried several times, but it’s really all stories, it gets on your nerves.
Yes, that’s what I call “spiritual storybooks.” Worse than that: spiritual pulp novels!
It’s shallow. And it has done a great deal to devalue true knowledge.
(Mother nods her head)
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(Then Satprem reads a passage in which Mother talks about young children who remember their previous lives, the village where they lived, etc., with precise descriptions.)
That’s amusing: a few days ago, after I saw you last time, one day I saw a whole story about that, which came back to me (it takes the form of a memory, but those things come from outside). It was about a seven-year-old child who told all his memories of his past lives. It came all at once, and I thought, “But why am I seeing this?” I watched it all and why and how it happened – a long story. And then it went away. It must have been while you were writing down the Talk!
It keeps happening like that all the time!
I still wonder, “But why has this come?” instead of saying to myself, “Oh, here he is reading this story!”
Amusing.
It’s growing more and more precise. I lack a very tiny thing in the receiving set … a very tiny impersonalization. But maybe if it were there the attention wouldn’t be caught: the thing would unfold (Mother shows a film being projected in front of her), and then it would go away.
For the moment, it comes, I stop it [the "film"], and then I work on it to clarify the ideas, put things in their place, see all the relationships; and when the work is finished, it goes away.
Only, it takes the form of a memory, so I wonder why I “remember” that – it’s a lack of true objectification. That’s how I explain it: otherwise, maybe the thing wouldn’t be stopped, it would pass on.
But it is an entire “reconstruction” of the mental functioning.
* * *
(From the same Talk from the past, Satprem reads a passage in which Mother tells the story of Queen Elizabeth, who, dying, received a delegation from the people in spite of her physician’s protests: “We shall die afterwards.”)
Is it recent?
It’s from 1951.
Again this whole story of Elizabeth came back to me a few days ago!
Since then, a part of the consciousness has been more self-assured, but it hasn’t changed its attitude … (how can I explain it? …). Its
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attitude towards the Divine, towards the Work and towards life, is the same, but there is a greater clarity and a greater certainty – and a sort of integrality in the experience.
But I said, “It’s recent,” because the things that to me are old are those that give me the feeling of having changed my position and of having a completely opposite outlook – this Talk hasn’t changed.
This remark, “We shall die afterwards,” is my own experience, it wasn’t a “dream” – in fact, it’s never dreams: it’s a sort of STATE you enter VERY CONSCIOUSLY, and all at once you relive a thing.
Even now I can see the picture: I see the picture of the people, the populace, myself, the gown, the person who nursed me – I see the whole scene. And I answered … It was so obvious! I felt so strongly that things are governed by the will that I answered, “We shall die afterwards,” quite simply.
In English, not in French!
* * *
Just before Satprem leaves, Mother shows him a stack of letters:
There are very funny things all the time: I answer letters I haven’t received! Then I receive them afterwards – my answer is already written down!
Things of that sort….
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