May 22, 1966
(Satprem chances on notes of Mother’s in a pile of files.)
(Laughing) They are everywhere! Here, there, everywhere…. Once, Sri Aurobindo (I think it was in 1920) said to me one day, “Oh, they have put my room in order, I can’t find anything anymore!” For their part, they said he had his papers everywhere: on his bed, on the chairs, on the table, in the drawers, on the shelves; there were papers everywhere, notes and so on. But he knew exactly where everything was. Then they “put things in order,” they “tidied up” – and he couldn’t find anything anymore! It was very funny. I asked him, “Would you like me to do your room and clean it? I won’t touch anything.” – “Ah, if you don’t touch anything …” (Mother laughs) So I left the papers on the bed, on the chair, on the table, on the shelves! I cleaned a shelf, then in a book I found some money. I told him (thinking it had been forgotten), I told him, “I found … a hundred, two hundred rupees” (I don’t remember now) “in a book.” (One banknote was in one place, another note was in another place.) He replied, “Yes, I am forced to hide it, otherwise they take it from me!” (Mother laughs)
But I am no good at hiding places!
You see, I instinctively go and take the book, I open it and find the money. So I asked him, “Would you like to entrust your money to me? I will keep it for you.” He replied, “That would make
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things simpler.” But after a year, I had three thousand rupees of his money, coming from books, from here and there! I told him (laughing), “See, it has borne fruit!”
***
(Then Satprem reads to Mother a fairly long text, and ends up completely exhausted.)
Are you tired?
It’s as if all the vital force were going away.
(long, refreshing concentration)
You must go rest.
Now I am fine! But I don’t know why, the force goes away very quickly.
But do you get rest at night?
Oh, yes, I’m quite all right. But strangely, as soon as I exert myself in any way, I seem to …
You can’t do it.
I can’t. But why?
Because we are in a very acute phase of transformation, very acute, mon petit. So when you have one foot on the ground and another foot in midair, it’s not the time to … There are phases like that. It doesn’t last a very, very long time, but it may last a month or two, or three. Afterwards, it’s finished. Then, after that, there comes another period like that. One should remain very calm in such cases.
But I’ve noticed that when I do material things – small things
- there seems to be a tremendous vital force flowing into the
work, and in the end I find myself exhausted through having
done nothing at all! How come all that vital energy goes away?
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It’s because all the vital force is used to keep the body’s balance in the phase of transformation. That’s what I have called “the change of government,” it’s the phase of transformation. And during that change, well, all the vital force is there just to keep your balance so you don’t topple over. Because it’s difficult.
One must remain very calm and do what is indispensable, nothing more.
In ordinary life, when one doesn’t know, with people who don’t know, there is a tremendous wastage of vital forces, for no reason. Well, we no longer have the right to do that because all that vital force is there, as I said, concentrated to keep the body’s balance.
It’s a very, very widespread state in all those who … not who do the yoga, but for whom the yoga is done. And it’s done … (how can I put it?) almost without their knowledge – all that puts them in a fit state to do it is, first, aspiration, and then, trust. Those are the two things: the faith, the trust that the divine Consciousness is at work, and then the aspiration for transformation. That’s all that’s needed. And the work is done. But that work implies, in fact, not a loss of equilibrium but a change of equilibrium. A change of balance. And in order to go from one equilibrium to the other, well, one must stay very calm.
But the difficulty you are referring to is something I have every minute.
People who don’t know (there are many of them, almost all of them don’t know) feel they are ill. But it’s not an illness: it’s a change of balance, which takes on all kinds of forms depending on each one’s character and nature. So when you don’t pay attention and there is a loss of balance, something happens which results in what doctors call “an illness,” but if I had the time to have fun and ask them questions, they would be forced to tell me that each case is different – each case: there aren’t two identical cases. They say, “Yes, it looks like this or it looks like that or it looks like this.” And it’s nothing but the transition from the old millennial equilibrium to a new equilibrium which isn’t yet established, and in the transition between the two, well … one must be careful, that’s all. And cling very, very firmly to the higher Harmony.
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