(Mother, laughing, holds out to Satprem a note she has just written:)
“The goal we aim at is immortality. Of all habits, death is certainly the most inveterate!”
We could call our world “the world of bad habits.”
There has been for some time, I don’t know, a sort of benevolent, smiling and … constructive irony. As if a “spirit” had come. Then, there is something else (but I know that one), which Sri Aurobindo used to call a censor. He told me, “You have a very strong censor in your atmosphere.“ It was all the time, constantly criticizing me; not so often now, but it’s still there. And now and then, it tells me, “But you shock people! They expect something noble, great, imposing, and you always speak in an ironic tone!” Yesterday again, some people came to see me—and jokes keep coming to me all the time. I tell them jokes, and I watch … (laughing) they look appalled!
As if that was constantly saying, “But don’t take things seriously!… Don’t take things seriously, don’t take things seriously … that’s what makes you unhappy! That’s what makes you unhappy, it makes you unhappy, you must learn to smile,” like that. And above all, to make fun of ourselves, that’s the most important thing: to see how ridiculous we are—the slightest pain and we are full of self-pity, oh!…
At times one protests….
It’s a very odd atmosphere, and amusing. But it’s a very good cure for that inveterate illness which is self-pity. The body is full of it, it pities itself as soon as there is the slightest trouble—and that aggravates it terribly.
And then, what goings-on … The goings-on at the School, oh, those are … priceless stories! But yesterday evening, I suddenly became indignant about a boy, the boy who had been accused of copying. He asserted he hadn’t copied, and I saw he hadn’t (but what I saw was almost worse!), and I said, “No more exams”—a dreadful row everywhere! Then K., who is really a good boy, wrote to me, “Should I not rather tell the boy that you decided he hadn’t copied, because he must be worrying?” I thought, “Poor K.!” But anyway, it was a nice gesture, so I said yes. Then he called the boy, told him what he had to, also that exams were abolished and the whole matter was over and done with. As soon as the boy left him, he went and told his friends a world of lies: that I had asked K. to apologize, to express regret and reinstate the boy, and a lot of fibs … a series of terrible lies (and lies about me). You understand, I had had a movement of sympathy for K. for what he had done; it shows a sort of nobleness of soul in him: he was so convinced, but he accepted what I said and made that gesture because he thought the boy must have been worrying. Then the boy’s thoroughly disgusting reaction … I had to restrain myself (inwardly): I was displeased. I had hoped, on the contrary, that that goodwill would give rise to a somewhat noble response, but all that is a sort of degradation…. Yesterday, I was on the point of giving the child an inner slap—I stopped myself from doing so, but he has clearly put himself in a bad spot.
Now they write to ask me, “How can we know whether the children follow if we don’t have exams?” I had to explain the difference between a type of individual control based on observation, on a remark, on an unexpected question, etc., which allows the teacher to situate the child, and the other method in which you are forewarned, “You will have an exam in eight days and the subject will be on what you have learned”—so everyone starts revising what he has learned and preparing himself, and that’s that: the one with a good memory is the one who passes. I have explained all that.1
If I had been a teacher, my objection to this decision would not at all have been from the teachers’ point of view, but from the students’ because I remember my studies, and if there had not been an obligation every three or six months to revise what was learned in class, well, you know, one would have just let it go.
Well, too bad!
But it’s a sort of discipline that makes you revise things.
If you aren’t interested enough in the subject to try and remember it and retain the result of what you’ve learned, well, too bad, it’s just too bad.
The students’ point of view is false, the teachers’ point of view is false.
The students’ point of view: they learn just to appear to know and to pass their exams and pad out their heads with all kinds of things…. The teachers’ point of view is to have as easy a control as possible and to be able to give marks without giving themselves too much trouble, with a minimum of effort. As for me, I say: each student is an individuality, each student should come not because he wants to be able to say, “I have studied and I am going to take my exams,” but because he is eager to know and he comes with the will to know. And the teacher must not follow the easy method of giving a subject and seeing how each one answers, and whether the answer is good or bad, and conforms to what he has taught or not: he must find out whether the student’s interest and effort are sincere, and everyone according to his own nature—for the teacher it’s infinitely more difficult, but that’s education. And they protest.
As regards the teachers’ point of view, I certainly agree entirely …
Yes, but they are the ones who protest! (Laughing) The students don’t protest. But I wrote to the teachers: the students who want to please their teacher or who learn by heart in order to seem to know what they haven’t understood, well, those students aren’t interesting—and they are always the ones about whom I am told, “He is a good student!”
But you know, I remember, I clearly remember my attitude when I was studying, and I clearly remember all my classmates and which one was to me an intelligent girl, which one was a chatterbox…. I have some very amusing memories about that, because I couldn’t understand what meaning there was in learning in order to seem to know (I had a tremendous memory at the time, but didn’t make use of it). And I liked only what I had understood.
Once in my life I took an exam (I forget which one), but I was just at the age limit, that is I was too young to sit at the time of the regular exam, so they had me sit with those who had flunked the first exam (I sat at that time because it was autumn, and then I was old enough). And I remember, we were a small group, the teachers were greatly annoyed because their holidays had been cut short, and the students were for the most part rather mediocre, or else rebellious. There I was, observing all that (I was very young, you understand, I don’t remember how old, thirteen or fourteen), observing the whole thing: a poor little girl had been called to the blackboard to do a mathematical problem, and she didn’t know how to do it, she kept stammering. Me (I wasn’t being questioned just then), I looked and smiled—oh, dear! The teacher saw me and was quite displeased. As soon as the girl was sent back, he called me and said, “You do it.” Well, naturally (I loved mathematics very much, really very much, and also I understood, it made sense), I did the problem—the chap’s face!… You see, I wasn’t in that (in the small outward person): I was constantly a witness. And I had the most extraordinary fun. So I know the way children are, the way teachers are, I know all that, I had great fun, really great fun.
At home, my brother was studying advanced mathematics (it was to enter Polytechnique2), and he found it difficult, so my mother had engaged a tutor to coach him. I was two years younger than my brother. I used to look on, and everything would become clear: the why, the how, it all was clear. So the teacher was working hard, my brother was working hard, when suddenly I said, “But it’s like this!” Then I saw the teacher’s face!… It seems he went and told my mother, “It’s your daughter who should be learning!” (Mother laughs) And it was all like a picture, you understand, so funny, so funny! So I know, I remember, I know the reactions, the habits…. That’s why I didn’t want to look after the School here because I thought it would be a headache and everyone would fall on me! Then I was forced to because of that copying affair. But now I find it funny! (Laughing) And I tell them outrageous things!
It’s so amusing, so amusing!
For a time I attended a private school: I didn’t go to a state school because my mother considered it unfitting for a girl to be in a state school! But I was in a private school, a school of high repute at the time: their teachers were really capable people. The geography teacher, a man of renown, had written books, his books on geography were well-known. He was a fine man. So then, we were doing geography (I enjoyed maps more fully because it all had to be drawn) and one day, the teacher looked at me (he was an intelligent man), he looked at me and asked, “Why are towns, the big cities, settled on rivers?” I saw the students’ bewildered look, they were saying to themselves, “Lucky the question wasn’t put to me!” I replied, “But it’s very simple! It’s because rivers are a natural means of communication.” (Mother laughs) He too was taken aback!… That’s how it was, all my studies were like that, I enjoyed myself all the time—enjoyed myself thoroughly, it was great fun!
The teacher of literature … He was an old fellow full of all the most conventional ideas imaginable. What a bore he was, oh!… So all the students sat there, their noses to the grindstone. He would give subjects for essays—do you know The Path of Later On and the Road of Tomorrow? I wrote it when I was twelve, it was my homework on his question! He had given a proverb (now I forget the words) and expected to be told … all the sensible things! I told my story, that little story, it was written at the age of twelve. Afterwards he would eye me with misgivings! (Laughing) He expected me to make a scene…. Oh, but I was a good girl!
But it was always like that: with that something looking on and seeing the sheer ridiculousness of this life which takes itself so seriously!
All those things have come back these last few days, because of this affair.
I can recall only one instance when I took things seriously, and even then (laughing), I put on a serious LOOK. It involved my brother, who was still quite young (my brother must have been twelve, or less: ten, and I eight—no, nine and eleven, something like that, mere children). My brother was quick-tempered, he was easily angered and would speak very bluntly, almost harshly. One day he talked back to my father (I forget about what); my father was furious and put him across his knees (my father was an extremely strong man, I mean physically strong), he put my brother across his knees and … (laughing) started spanking him; he had pulled his pants down and was spanking him. I enter and see that (it was taking place in the dining room), I see that, see my father, look at him, and say to myself, “But this man is mad!” And I told him, “You stop at once, or I’m leaving this house.” (I was two years younger than my brother.) And I said it with such seriousness, oh! And I was resolute. And my father … (laughing) was flabbergasted.
All those memories have come back like that. So now I remember to what extent—to what extent the consciousness was already there. But it was amusing.
(silence)
And the ease: whatever I wanted to do I could do. But there was one thing (now I understand, at the time I didn’t know why it was so): whatever I wanted to do I could do, but after a time, I had experienced the thing and it didn’t seem to me important enough to devote a whole life to it. So I would move on to something else: painting, music, science, literature… everything, and also practical things. And always with extraordinary ease. Then, after a while, very well, I would leave it. So my mother (she was a very stern person) would say, “My daughter is incapable of seeing anything through to the end.” And it remained like that: incapable of seeing anything through to the end—always taking to something, then leaving it, then after a time taking to something else…. “Unstable. Unstable—she will never achieve anything in life!” (Mother laughs)
And it was really the childlike transcription of the need for ever more, ever better, ever more, ever better … endlessly—the sense of advancing, advancing towards perfection. A perfection that I felt to be quite beyond anything people thought of—something … a “something” … which was indefinable, but which I sought through everything.
So all that has come back to be sorted out, put in its place, offered (gesture upward), and now, it’s over.
Here is the text of Mother's fourth and last note on the subject: "Naturally the teacher has to test the student to know if he or she has learnt something and has made a progress. But this test must be individual and adapted to each student, not the same mechanical test for all of them. It must be a spontaneous and unexpected test leaving no room for pretence and insincerity. Naturally also, this is much more difficult for the teacher but so much more living and interesting also. I enjoyed your remarks about your students. They prove that you have an individual relation with them—and that is essential for good teaching. Those who are insincere do not truly want to learn but to get good marks or compliments from the teacher—they are not interesting."
July 25, 1967 ↩
The famous Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. ↩
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