… But he talked with Pavitra, it seems he is interested in the quest for the “inner divine,” that’s what he wants to find. He said, “The divinization of the earth is all and well …” (Mother laughs) but what interests him is the discovery of the inner divine.
Did he say anything to you?
Yes, while we were talking about dogmas, he said that all those outer things had no value for him and what mattered to him was the ascent here [gesture to the heart], the assumption and resurrection here.
That’s good. If that’s how he understands religion, it’s good. Well, he seems to be sincere in his own quest.
He told me that in reality, the sacraments, rites and so on didn’t interest him much, but that he didn’t want to leave either the sacraments or the rites, because, he told me, “If I leave them I leave their society, I am excluded and have no more means of action.”
He wants to do something?
Yes, his idea is to broaden his Christianity, to find a truth and then take it there.
Oh!
He even told me something I found quite Christian; he said, “Deep down, I have a desire for total consecration, total self-giving, to be like a martyr and give my life for that new truth….” He thirsts to be a martyr—the martyr of the Church.
Sri Aurobindo once said (jokingly, as it were), while talking with those around him (I was there and we were talking about Christianity and the “new Christ”), he told them, “Oh, if the new Christ comes, the Church will crucify him!”
(silence)
Oho! So he has ambition….
Yes, obviously it’s a kind of ambition. But it stems from something sincere.
Yes, a good intention.
Well, it’s all right, we’ll see what happens.
(Mother continues the conversation and holds out to Satprem a peculiar rose, which in a few petals seemed to want to be red, then turned pale yellow.)
It looks as if it doesn’t know its own mind!…
Just like people: they want to do one thing, then end up doing another. Perhaps it will also be like that with this brother A.?
Anyhow, it’s the first time I’ve heard someone say he wanted to change something: the others want to change the new thing to fit their religion, but he wants to bring the new thing into his religion to change it. It’s good. It’s a good intention.
Why are people hypnotized by the past?… It’s odd. The thing was very interesting when it came, of course, very necessary; it had to come, it did its work—but now it’s over.
They don’t know how to move on. They just sit down like that—“Now I’ve found it! I’ll sit down and won’t budge.” (Mother laughs)
Sri Aurobindo always used to say, “I don’t want people to do the same thing with what I have said….”
One must always go farther.
And he continues to tell me new things, it’s very interesting…. This morning again, for a long time, it was as if everything established were swept away: “Ah, no! A little farther, a little higher, a little truer….”
(silence)
He also talked to me about people’s fears—his Prior’s, for instance.
He is afraid?
Yes. This Prior is a very nice man, sincere, who seeks the truth, but finally he is afraid.
That’s it.
And he told me, “The devil isn’t in sin: this is where the devil is!”
In fear, yes.
But even so, in the end he said, “You too are part of the Roman unity.”
Ah, but I was told the same thing. A “leading light” of the Church said to me, “But what do you know? You belong to the universal Roman Church.” I told him (laughing), “Well, I don’t mind, that doesn’t bother me!
But they’re annoying with their Church!
(Mother laughs) They’re like that.
Rome!… But Rome was a nonexistent fetus when there had already been millennia of wisdom.
But Rome is nothing! I don’t know why in Europe they attach so much importance to this whole affair….
The world begins with them.
Even from the standpoint of culture, Rome was far inferior to Greece…. I don’t know why—but it’s the case of all the Latin countries, I think.
They put everything upside down.
That’s what always stops me, because you feel you pour on them or give them some good substance …
And they change it.
… and it simply goes to swell their Roman affair. That’s what bothers me.
Yes. Oh, but they aren’t the only ones to do that. As a matter of fact, all the old things seem to be swelling up as much as they can so as not to disappear. I received today a greeting card from a former disciple…. (Mother looks for the card) His name was A.C., an Israelite who was here and then went to England. In England he belonged for a long time to the “Sri Aurobindo Group,” then when the war between Israel and Egypt broke out (or a little before), he became fanatical, a fanatical Israelite: “I want to work for Israel alone.” And as he had been contacted about Auroville, he answered, “Can Auroville help Israel?” Things of that sort. And right now, it’s the New Year there, so he sent me this (Mother shows a card with seven candles illuminating the world, and wheat sheaves). In the past, he called me The Divine Mother, and Sri Aurobindo was The Lord. Then in his last letter, it was “Guru” (I have become the guru!), and, “I want to inform you that I have left the group.” And now he sends me this card: “To the Mother… God bless You” (Mother laughs). And it’s the same thing, of course! Over there, few people are religious, they have a much more practical mind, but he has the religious temperament, so now it has become like this (Mother puffs out her cheeks), his Judaism is swelling up. The seven lights and the sheaves of prosperity…. I found it touching: “God bless You” (Mother laughs).
I remember, long ago, right at the beginning (I think I had just moved into Sri Aurobindo’s house), someone, I forget who (did Tagore have a sister?…1), she was a tall and strong woman, rather awe-inspiring, who had come to spend a day in the Ashram, and she said to me, “Why don’t you keep some rooms and rent them out to visitors? You would get ten rupees a day.” (Mother laughs) I stared at her, I was flabbergasted (she was teaching me to be practical!). And at the end, she said, “God bless you.” At that point I couldn’t restrain myself, and I answered her, “It’s already done!” (Mother laughs)
So it’s the same thing everywhere, a patronizing attitude.
And when they are too small to swell themselves up, they enter religion and swell it up: they turn it into an enormous thing that dominates the world.
Ah, never mind, if they find it amusing….
(silence)
What do these people call “sin,” to begin with? What is sin?… When I am told about sin, I answer, “You know, sin is not being Divine.”
So the whole world is in sin.
To them, to Catholics, sin is that miserable affair of sex. Yet they do bless marriage! They bless marriage, and when you are married by the Church, it’s for eternity! If you go to hell, you go to hell together; and if you go to heaven, you go to heaven together—but you can never separate! (Mother laughs) Word for word, I am not making anything up.
But I told him, “Yours is a barbarous religion.”
What did he say!?
But he rather agreed! His idea is to bring some new air into it.
(silence)
But it’s very much like when you want to clean a pond and you stir its depths: it becomes disgusting, it all rises up…. Every day there come two or three things … Anyway.
It was not Tagore's sister but a relative of his, Sarala Devi Choudhurani, a revolutionary whom Sri Aurobindo had known in Bengal. ↩
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