June 6, 1970
(Satprem reads out to Mother a letter he has received from F, a
disciple who tried hard to intrude into the conversations between
Mother and Satprem, notably under the pretext of translating
Savitri into French. Maneuvering was beginning
to make itself felt.)
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It would alter the whole character of our meetings, don’t you
think?…
I wasn’t keen on it. (Mother looks relieved)
I think it’s better she doesn’t come.
***
Wouldn’t it be good to do the rest of the "Program for Auroville"
with Aurovilians, since you started it?…
I had them speak to see what they would tell me…. Almost all of them are terribly lazy, so I’d like to tell them that manual work …
(Mother writes)
4. Work, even manual work, is indispensable to
the inner discovery. If one does not work, if
one does not put one’s consciousness into
matter, it will never develop. To let conscious
ness organize some matter through ones body
is very good. To put things in order around
oneself helps to put things in order in oneself.
Another point:
One should organize one’s life not according
to external and artificial rules, but according
to an organized inner consciousness, because
if one leaves life alone without imposing on
it the control of a higher consciousness, it
becomes hazy and inexpressive. It means
wasting one’s time, in the sense that matter
remains without conscious utilization.
***
Have you seen the aphorism?
(Satprem reads)
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534 – The rejection of falsehood by the mind seeking after
truth is one of the chief causes why mind cannot attain to
the settled, rounded and perfect truth; not to escape false
hood is the effort of divine mind, but to seize the truth
far-wandering error.
(Mother comments:) Sri Aurobindo calls "divine
mind" the prototype of the mental function that is
totally and perfectly surrendered to the Divine and
functions under the divine inspiration alone.
If a human being lives only by and for the Divine,
his mind necessarily becomes a divine mind.
***
(Then Mother takes up the reading of Savitri: the end of
the Debate of Love and Death.)
Is it a speech by this gentleman?
Yes [laughing], yes, it’s the end.
The end of his speech?
One of us should write…. If it’s more convenient for me to write, I’ll write.
It’s always better to have your handwriting! But if it tires you,
it’s quite easy for me to note it down.
"Tires," oh no! It’s just that it [Mothers handwriting] is no longer good. It’s no longer as it should be – but it doesn’t tire me. So we’ll put:
(Mother writes her French translation
of the following verses:)
If thou art Spirit and Nature is thy robe,
Cast off thy garb and be thy naked self
Immutable in its undying truth,
Alone for ever in the mute Alone.
Turn then to God, for him leave all behind;
Forgetting Love, forgetting Satyavan,
Annul thyself in his immobile peace.
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O soul, drown in his still beatitude.
For thou must die to thyself …
That’s for sure! Thou must die to thyself to reach … à la suprématie divine [divine supremacy]?…
"To reach the divine heights"?
No, we must put "God" in Death’s mouth.
For thou must die to thyself to reach God’s height:
I, Death, am …
Happiness?
I, Death, am the gate of immortality.
Savitri, X.IV.647
He’s clever!
Every time you read it again, it’s new.
But that’s a very interesting phenomenon. Every time I read Savitri, I feel as if I am reading it for the first time, really. It’s not that I understand differently, it’s that its completely new: I never read it before! It’s odd. Its at least the fourth time I read it.
And truly there’s everything in it. All the things I’ve discovered lately were there. And I hadn’t seen it. It’s odd.
The first time I read it was a revelation; it hung together perfectly well from beginning to end, and I felt I had understood (I did understand something). The second time I read it, I said to myself, "But this isn’t the same thing as what I read!…" It hung together, it made up a whole – and I understood something else. Then, recently when I read, at every passage I said to myself, "How new this is! And how the things I have found since are there!" Today again, that’s how it is, as if I read it for the first time! And it puts me into contact with the things I have just discovered.
It’s a miraculous book! (Mother laughs)
We’ll continue in the same way.
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