April 14, 1973

(Mother is very short of breath, she seems to be in pain.)

My nervous system is being transferred to the Supramental. It feels like ... you know, what people call "neurasthenia" [[Mother may have used this term in its original Greek root meaning: "strengthless nerves." Unless she meant "neuralgia" in its broader sense. ]] - they have no idea what it is; but the entire nervous system is.... It's worse than dying. [[We recall Mother also saying, "When people come into my room with ill thoughts, all the nerves are tortured." ]]

Yes, Mother.

But I think ... I think I can transmit the divine Vibration.

Oh, yes, definitely!

Will you tell me if you feel it?

But, Mother, being with you is fantastic - it's being ... it's a

 torrent ... it feels like a purifying fire, it's.... It widens you, it

 fills you - that's IT, in a word!

So, would you like to stay [to meditate]?

You know, Mother, ever since you've become supposedly

 powerless, I have started to feel the supreme Mother. When

 you had all your powers ....

But I know it's my body ... this body.... Look, I have accepted - the Lord asked me if I wanted to undergo the transformation, and I said yes (I would have said yes in any event), but it's ... to the ordinary human consciousness, I am going mad. [[See the Addendum. ]]

Yes, I understand, Mother. I understand.... Anyone else

 would have left umpteen times, rather than sit through all this

I really understand.

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What about you, are you all right?

Yes, yes, Mother!

What do you feel when we sit like this [in meditation], is it all right ?

Oh, Mother, I feel at the very Goal of my life!

Good. What's the time, tell me?

It's 10:25.

So up to ... I don't know, 11:00 or 11:10 ... I'll keep you with me.

Yes, Mother, keep me!

(Mother plunges in)

ADDENDUM

A Grain of Rice?

To the ordinary human consciousness, I am going mad." What

happened on November 17, 1973? Or rather, what is happening?

I have pored over Mother's every word for so many years, I have

 LIVED them all with a pounding heart - or a broken heart. What

 actually happened? And why? ... I can never accept the idea that

 she left because the attempt failed - we may as well say that evolu

tion has failed, or that she quit the game, or that it was too difficult

 - nothing was too difficult for her, she fought like a lioness. To

 say - as they all said - that "the body failed" because it was too old,

 or due to one thing or another, demonstrates that they never felt or

 even grazed that Power: "That" can revive a dead man and all the

 dead ... without its making any difference. So ... what happened?

 There was one moment when Mother lost the contact with her

body, or rather, when THAT lost the contact with Mother's body. Did

 she not say (on March 10), "If I lost the contact - but that's impos

sible!" Another day in 1971 (on December 4), she had said, "Only a

 violent death could stop the transformation, otherwise it will go on and on

 and on ......

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Therefore, there can be only two solutions to the mystery - I was

 about to say "murder mystery," but can one call it by any other

 name? What other term could better elucidate the enigma?

 Assuredly, Mother had that horrid entourage, but it was in no way

 exceptional, neither in good nor in bad: the people around her ex

actly represented the average humanity and the ordinary physical

 consciousness, for which what she was doing was just questionable

 dreams and hallucinations. They all believed her old, senile or even

 "insane," and on the brink of death - but could the beliefs of

 human pygmies get the better of that Consciousness? Of that

 Power? Of that Will? Could the attempt fail because of our belief

 or disbelief?

Thus she was alone among them - she was soon to be truly alone,

 from May 19 onward, exactly thirty-five days after the present con

versation. I still hear Mother's son artlessly asking me, a few days

 after that May 19, "How will we communicate with Mother now?"

 "There will be NO MORE communication," I replied. He was flabber

gasted - not I. WHO could she "communicate" with? But as I said,

I was positive that the experience would continue with or without

 communication: Mother was going to sever the nutrient link to the

 old physiology - they did not let her. There remained cataleptic

 trance, the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty - they did not want it. I can

 still hear the voice of the Brute: "No, I don't want to.

So? ...

Did she decide to leave? No one will ever convince me that

Mother "decided," or that she was old, or insane, or incapable.

 any case. But He also uses human instruments - otherwise this

world would have never existed - and these human instruments

 have a freedom of choice, they are not mere puppets in the hands of

 "God" Or rather, to be more precise, they have a choice between

 being the Divine's puppet or the devil's - and maybe BOTH ways

conspire to lead us to an unforeseeable goal.

Hence, humans decided They said no to the trance, no to the

 experience, no to the fairy tale; they could not stand it anymore - it

 had to stop.

A particular fact has haunted me for the past seven years, a par

ticular passage in Pranab's speech which he delivered a few days

after Mother's departure. (Once again, I am not accusing anyone: I

 am chronicling History; I would like to report the facts, the words,

 the characters as accurately as I can - I am Mother's scribe, that is

 all ... and I love her, because it's lovely to love.) Now, in that

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 speech, we find a small remark, the kind of remark one makes in

 passing, as the most "natural" thing in the world. Pranab is describ

ing the "last days." You call them the "last days" AFTERWARDS,

 when the story is over - in the meantime, it's just life as usual:[

(original English)

"At night [on November 14], She said, 'Make me walk.' We

 were very hesitant, but as She insisted, we lifted her up from

 the bed. She could not walk, staggered a little, almost collapsed.

 Seeing this, we put Her back in bed. We saw that Her face had

 become absolutely white and the lips blue. Then we decided

that whatever She said, we must not take Her out from the

 bed again to walk. She took about 20 minutes to recover; She

 started saying, 'Lift me up again, I shall walk.' We refused.

 She asked why we were refusing. We said, 'Mother, you are in

 such a weak condition that it will do you harm.' Then She

 said, 'No, lift me up.' We did not. She began to plead, some

times shout. All this continued until fifteen minutes past one.

 At that time we thought we would give Her some sedative, so

 that She might rest quietly. Then we gave Her SIQUIL as the

 doctor had prescribed. It took Her about 45 minutes to

 become quiet and She slept from 2 to 4 o'clock, but after get

ting up She started saying, 'Pranab, lift me up and make me

 walk. My legs are getting paralysed; if you help me to walk

 again, they will become all right.' But we did not listen. She

 went on entreating till about 6 o'clock when She fell asleep."

Yes, she fought like a lioness - till the very end Is this the plea of

 someone "who has decided to leave"?

This was on November 14, three days before the "end"

"On the 15th," Pranab reports, "at night again ... She

 wanted us to help Her to walk, we refused to do that. We said,

 'Mother, you should not walk.' She immediately obeyed us....

From that day She became absolutely obedient."

How long had they been giving her SIQUIL? And what is SIQUIL, in

 the first place? [[SIQUIL is the Indian brand name for triflupromazine hydrochloride, which is manufactured in India by Sarabhai Chemicals, and by Squibb in the U.S. (under the brand name VESPIUN). ]] A doctor friend of mine had explained to me: "It's

 a dangerous drug." But I could not believe in that kind of thing, it

 was simply too horrible.

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Seven years later - it took me seven years - one day in September

 1980, as I was passing a small local pharmacy on my way back

 from Madras, I decided to get to the bottom of it. I went in, asked

 for SIQUIL, pulled out the "directions" from the box and ... read,

 dumbfounded:

"Studies have revealed that over-sedation is not always

 necessary to benefit such psychotic symptoms as agitation, de

lusions, hallucinations or delirium. SIQUIL greatly simplifies

 home management of emotionally deranged patients, many of

 whom might otherwise previously have been hospitalized.

 These patients adopt a more realistic behavior, become less of

 a burden to their families and are more easily approached for

 training purposes and eventual rehabilitation.... SIQUIL is

 especially indicated in the treatment of severe acute and

chronic mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, mania,

 depression, delirium, senile psychoses and psychoses caused

by organic brain disease."

So, that body ... whose cellular consciousness had been prepared,

 refined, trained by decades of yoga....

There is simply nothing to say.

They had had enough. They were unanimous.

I now recall a "dream" I had twelve years earlier, in which

 Mother seemed dead "because she had eaten a grain of rice." What

 kind of "rice" was it, that minuscule particle capable of breaking

 her body?

Yet, even if we find the physical cause of her departure, we will

 not have found the true reality - for the Divine uses everything, in

cluding our human errors, to turn it into his unforeseeable Honey.

I recall Sri Aurobindo: "the Eternal's dreadful strategy." [[Savitri, I.II.17. ]]

Indeed, Mother's "end" is not the end. "Wait till the last act," she

 had said.

But still....

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