September 12, 1970
(Mother gives "Transformation" flowers.)
You and Satprem …
I am not allowed to take salt (Mother gives Satprem soup packets), it seems that this difficulty [in the left eye] comes from eating too much salt….
What do you have to say?
Are you better, Mother?
Yes, a little. It’s a little better. It’s not yet … (Mother shakes her head).
But I’d like to drink a few drops of water, because …
(Sujata goes and asks for water)
Only, I can’t eat really yet.
It’s better, and last night, the second part of the night, was relatively better, that is to say, without constant pains.
(Mother drinks, or rather tries
to drink a few drops of water)
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I realized … Previously, to me, staying for hours silent, still, concentrated, was … it was my great satisfaction; now I can’t anymore: I have uncontrolled movements. I have to be occupied, on the contrary. If I am occupied, I am relatively all right. Either occupied almost mechanically, that is to say, with signing photographs, and so on – that keeps my body peaceful – or else, occupied with answering: I am asked things, questions are put to me.
It’s only the eyes…. Eyes are strange. Of course, this [the swollen left eye] is troublesome, but at times I see almost clearly, and at other times everything is behind a veil. But breathing isn’t normal yet. It seems there was an inflammation in the lungs (Mother touches the top of her chest, on the left side). That’s not quite normal yet.
Is the anguish still there?
That … it was a frightful battle. It’s not fully over yet. You see, things [i.e., the experience under way] have to be transferred from the sensation to the consciousness; but the consciousness can’t manage to … [get hold of it]. In the consciousness, it’s all right; in the sensation, it’s impossible. So then, as I had it in the sensation first… Naturally, the minute I became conscious, it was easier to bear, but that shouldn’t affect the sensation.
(Mother is out of breath)
And then, the breathing isn’t free…. Those two things should go, then it would be fine.
There’s a physical diminution, of course (Mother touches her legs). I walk with difficulty and I have become stooped in a way quite … Its bad for breathing.
Only, I have noticed that it depends on a certain attitude…. The trouble is that circumstances (gesture around) force me to think of this body, you understand? That’s troublesome. When I don’t think of it, I am fine – when I think of the work or look at things, I am relatively fine. But this body has become very … very cumbersome.
I can’t walk alone, you know – I could, but there’s the possibility of losing balance, so they don’t want to let me – they’re quite right. But …
And then this (Mother touches her throat and chest), breathing is short, bad, not free.
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But then, there would seem to be a sort of will to force you to
remain in your body, since your concentrations are taken away
from you, all that is taken away from you….
Yes, yes.
As if to …
Yes, that’s right! Ah, when I start doing this (gesture of rising above the body), instantly, instantly a terrible discomfort: it’s NO. It’s exactly like that.
(silence)
For me, this life in the body is almost a torture, in the sense that it has no interest in itself, you understand…. I had stopped enjoying it physically long ago. To such a point that people don’t understand why I suffer: I don’t look ill, except for this short breath which isn’t that serious. I have nothing that may really be called a suffering – nothing. It’s a sort of … At any rate, the least I may say is a complete lack of interest: whether I eat or not… The only thing is that I can’t rest, in fact I can’t… (Mother gestures as if withdrawing from her body) go into a … [higher consciousness]. That’s something … For SO MANY years, so many years, more than twenty years maybe, I would lie down in bed and phew! (gesture of withdrawal) I would go into the Lord. And I am now forbidden to do this – that’s probably what is the greatest suffering.
It’s likely that… it’s likely that I couldn’t have borne this work, I would have left my body; it was too natural to … (gesture of going out above). But … (Mother brings her two fists down as if she were forcibly pushed down or held in Matter). But I didn’t take the precaution of really pulling the Force into the body…. I might say that my body had too much (probably the way of seeing and reacting to the material world), too much … [[Mother perhaps means "too much the consciousness of the worlds above." ]] Extremely rarely in my life – extremely rarely did I have Ananda in the physical body. It’s only when I would see beautiful things (Mother lifts her eyes as if to look at the coconut tree near the Samadhi, which she can no longer see), that it, certain moments of contact with Nature – then I had it – but otherwise all my life there was never … (how can I put it?) an occasion for Ananda, you understand.
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(Mother stops and tries to breathe)
And then it’s troublesome not to breathe freely. Of course, when you are active, you don’t notice it, but when
you’re there, like this, doing nothing, and you spend your time
panting for breath … it’s unpleasant.
(silence)
You see, all my life there was a complete indifference for the way things are: whether they are this way or that way didn’t matter. Now, see … I’ll give you an example: I asked for water, didn’t I, and the water I was given was too cold, so I couldn’t take it; otherwise I would have taken it anyhow, but I couldn’t, I have a lump in my throat. Instead of giving me cool water, they gave me almost ice-cold water…. [[Mother has a new attendant. ]]
Yes, I saw.
I couldn’t drink it. But then, you become so unbearable, you know! Things have to be exactly like this or like that – it makes others’ lives unbearable.
No, Mother. No, no!
So it works out this way: it has to be the doctor who says, "It MUST be like this." So … You understand, it’s ridiculous.
That is to say, material life is given an importance infinitely greater than it has ever had, and it’s no fun!… It’s just when it’s full of difficulty, grating …
So naturally, as I look tired, they don’t want to tell me about what’s going on, don’t want to give me work, don’t want to … And it makes for me an atmosphere exactly opposite to the one I would need.
Now I’ve asked to be given work…. And you see, if I speak I get out of breath.
(silence)
But all this is the sign we’re getting near, Mother….
Yes.
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There must be … in fact, deep down in the body, there must be a spring, there must be something THERE.
Yes … yes, but what?
(silence)
The Divine Will there.
(Mother nods her head, and goes into
a long and rather peaceful contemplation)
Ah, do you have anything?
No, Mother.
What time is it?
Five to eleven.
(Mother plunges in again, then emerges
from her contemplation, suffocating)
Ah!…
(Mother plunges in again, then has
an abrupt movement in her legs)
See, that’s it, these movements come as soon as I concentrate.
And then, if I persist, it takes on … I start howling. There.
It’s only if it remains in some activity or the other that these movements don’t come.
You understand, if I don’t get into some activity and persist [in going within], I literally start howling as if I were tortured.
(silence)
Yesterday I asked the doctor – not Sanyal, [[Dr. Sanyal is Mother's usual doctor. ]] Dr. Bisht, an intelligent man. He told me that some of the brain’s cells are independent, they aren’t controlled (in normal people), and they are the ones that become prominent when such movements take place…. So would those cells be under the control of the subconscient?…
But how is it that I would remain FOR HOURS concentrated like that, and nothing happened to me – they never had the power to stir.
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(Mother is absorbed in a long silence)
There are so many things that one doesn’t know….
And when you ask doctors to tell you what they know, you get a feeling that it’s only a partial, superficial observation, and the true thing is lacking. So when you ask them, they say, "Ah no, that we don’t know." So there we are, like that… You understand, I feel as if I am plunged in a world I do not know, struggling with laws I do not know … and to work out a change I do not know either – what’s the nature of this change?…
It’s not too pleasant.
When you do that in good health and in movement, in action, it’s quite fine, quite lovely; but like this, as I am here, you know, with a physical helplessness, it’s terrible!
I don’t think that, I don’t think that, but I am there, not knowing, not knowing what’s going on. So then … it’s not particularly pleasant.
Yes, but Mother, I really feel that through this darkness, this igno
rance of the "laws, "you are being KNOWINGLY carried to the point
where the solution will be found – all this is organised, it’s not
"adverse" circumstances, you really are carried.
You are right. You’re right. If you like, I might say that I think that way (I don’t think, but …), there is a perception like that. But … there’s everything in between.
Yes … Yes.
Well, then! (Mother laughs and takes Satprem’s hands) Go on thinking that way.
Yes, Mother, I FEEL that way.
Yes … I hope I am capable – this body. You see, that’s there, that doubt.
But if you have reached this point – if you have reached this point,
Mother, it means the time has come, otherwise you wouldn’t be
there. If you are in this condition, it just means the time has come.
But of course, I know that very well – I know very well that it’s the time when … It’s the time to make the Attempt, but will it succeed?
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I don’t know…. Is it (to put things more clearly, if you like), is it destined to succeed? That’s the doubt. Is it destined to succeed? [[ How they mock and sneer, both devils and men! // "Thy hope is Chimera's head Painting the sky with its fiery stain; // Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead...." (A God's Labour) ]]
To me it CANNOT … it cannot but succeed!
Why can’t it?
Because you are the body of the earth!… Because this is really
the Hope.
Oh, isn’t that poetry?
Of course not, Mother! That’s how it IS. One just has to see: the
outer world is more and more infernal.
Ah, yes, that’s true.
So that’s what it is in your body.
(Mother takes Satprem’s hands
with tears in her eyes)
It makes me feel like crying.
(silence)
Thank you.
(Satprem kisses Mother’s hand)
Thank you. [[This conversation, and Satprem's cry at the end, as if to shake off ... we know not what, strangely resemble the last conversation he will have three years later with Mother, on 19 May 1973, as though he had to shake off an atmosphere of impossibility and negation around Mother. ]]
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