December 18, 1965

(Sujata:) Why is Pavitra in such poor condition?

The doctor predicted he wouldn't be able to move anymore at all, and he climbs the stairs, goes here and there. Only, it's quite an effort. But the doctor said, "He won't be able to move anymore, he will be bed-ridden." So it's already a big achievement. It's an ankylosis of all the muscles.[[In fact, a cancer. ]]

(Sujata:) When I see him in the morning, it's terrible. It takes him a long time before he's able to move, and he is in a lot of pain.

Yes, it hurts.

Oh, he walks about through sheer willpower. I know that. I know, because as a rule you're finished, you can't move anymore.

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(silence)

Ultimately, the whole difficulty comes from the amount of unconsciousness left in the Matter we are made of. That's ... that's terrible. And then, that's what it takes to pull this Matter out of its unconsciousness: all the suffering, all the disorder, all the pummeling.... That's what I see every day. And the degree of stupidity ... To us it's stupidity, we call it stupidity, but ... You know, the intermediary to which this unconsciousness responds is the mentality of the cell, the material mentality, but then, when this material mentality is seized with an idea, it is actually possessed by the idea and it's almost impossible (not impossible but extremely difficult) for it to free itself - it takes an intervention from another domain.

Diseases are just that. It's the same thing with the doctor's illness: this tremor is the possession by an idea, it's what in the conscious intelligence is expressed as the possession by an idea, a hypnosis - a sort of hypnosis accompanied by a fear in matter. The two things together: possession and fear, a sort of fearfulness. And a sense of helplessness in all that. The possession by an idea and a helplessness to reject it, and a fear, a helplessness to resist. And then a sort of fearfulness that is translated in us by, "Oh, it's going to be that way ... oh, it's going to be a disease...."

In the old Scriptures they used to compare that with a dog's twisted tail. And it is truly like that, it's a sort of TWIST that you try to straighten out and which goes back to its shape automatically, idiotically - you untwist it, it twists up again; you reject it, it comes again. It's extremely interesting, but it's miserable. Miserable. And all illnesses are like that, all, all of them, whatever their external form. The external form is only one way of being of the SAME THING - because things are arranged in every possible way (there aren't two identical things and everything is arranged differently), so then, some follow similar twists, and that's what doctors call "such and such an illness." But if they are sincere, they will tell you, "There aren't two like illnesses."

But what toil it is! ... I am fighting with that at the moment, it's a fistfight.

How much time will it take? I don't know. What price will have to be paid? I don't know.... Yes, certainly, we can picture the end: when we have got the "hang," the deeper law or true power that governs those things, ah, then ... we'll have the power to do something.

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Until then, we have to hold out. Do you know what holding out is? It's being like this (immobile gesture in the Eternal). You are assailed by innumerable ideas, a general defeatism (same gesture) - be immobile in an ascending and progressive faith.

Oh, I remember, I said the other day that perfection is eternal and it's because of Matter's resistance that, on earth, perfection is progressive.

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