March 27, 1965

I find that all those meats they have given me to "build me up" make me heavy, especially with the hot days starting again. Couldn't I go back to vegetarian food?

It doesn't really have an action on the consciousness, I am absolutely certain of that. Meat can give the body a feeling of great solidity, but in my opinion, solidity is most important, most important - I don't believe in a spirituality that "etherealizes," that's the old falsehood of the past.

No, the body's heaviness ... You must not only conceive but understand and accept that the purpose of this heaviness is to repair the body's internal damage, and the body must in fact change this heaviness into a sort of constant tranquillity so that order is restored everywhere.

I don't believe that the impression of being "light" is a good impression. Because both the so-called lightness and the so-called heaviness have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the yoga and the Transformation. All those are human sensations. The truth is quite different from and quite independent of those things. The truth, of course, is the cells' conscious aspiration to the Supreme; it is the only thing that can actually transform the body; and it is very, very independent of the domain of sensations.

On the contrary, it's good for the nerves to calm down, and I think that when the nerves strengthen, their first movement is to calm down, and that gives the impression of a heaviness, almost the impression of a tamas, but it's a sort of quiet stability, which is necessary. There. That's how I see it.

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Basically, in order to cure the misdeeds of that physical mind, it's not bad to become ... we could say in jest, vegetarian in the sense of becoming a plant - the peaceful life of a plant, like that (gesture, stretched out in the sun).

Yes, there is a kind of vegetative immobility which is excellent for overcoming the agitation - the frantic agitation - of that physical mind.... Oh, look, it's the sensation of a waterlily floating on water: those large leaves spreading out like that - a very quiet, still water, and a waterlily.

The waterlily is the white flower opening up to the light, above those large, floating leaves.... Oh, how good it is to be carried.

When the nerves have really calmed down because one has eaten well, one can go into a blissful contemplation - don't be occupied with anything, above all don't try to think: like this (gesture of floating, offered), invoking the Lord and his Harmony - a luminous harmony - and then lying like that at least half an hour, three quarters of an hour after the meal. It's very good, it's excellent. Don't fall asleep: blissful - nothing, being nothing. Nothing but a blissful tranquillity. That's the best remedy.

I think that's easier after eating well!

Try to be a waterlily.... A waterlily, that's pretty!

Even watching animals is very pretty - they know far better than men how to rest.

We could make a slogan: if you want to keep well, be a waterlily! (Mother laughs) ... I see the picture of a pond in the sun.

In reality, I deserve some credit for asking people to eat well.... You know that I had difficulties: for two days, it was nearly impossible for me to eat - and I am so glad! But I always scold myself: it's a weakness - a moral weakness. I am in a very good position to say so, because I have the same difficulty as you with those questions of food, and that's very bad. It's not out of personal taste for food that I am preaching (!), but in order to react against the other tendency. Every time something comes and prevents me from eating, immediately, spontaneously, the body says, "Oh, thank you, Lord, I don't have to eat!" I catch myself and give myself a slap.

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