(As Satprem goes upstairs to see Mother, he meets the doctor coming downstairs, who informs him that Mother has chest pain and her heart is in poor condition. Mother is sitting on her couch, very pale.)
We have to do the translation of the message for the 15th of August.
I chose this (Mother holds out a paper to Satprem):
“One needs to have a calm heart, a settled will, entire self-abnegation and the eyes constantly fixed on the beyond to live undiscouraged in times like these which are truly a period of universal decomposition.”1
Sri Aurobindo
May 6, 1915
(silence)
Is it universal decomposition?
(Mother smiles and nods)
Do you have any news?
From Rome?… He’s coming around the end of the month. The Monsignor cannot come right now, he might come later. He’s written a very good letter, by the way.
Oh! Will you read it to me?
It’s written to J., following the letter I wrote, in which I said that inwardly you had replied “abundantly” to his letter, better than with words. So he writes:
“I have been many times in direct contact with Mother, and I feel her force enveloping me. Yesterday I began reading Mother’s Prayers and Meditations. It is a splendor. Every day P.L. and I talk about the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Every day. The Lord has taken you by the hand to this oasis of peace and light: bless him. I envy you!… Together with P.L., we form an invincible team. We have great plans—and will realize them. I thought I was ‘old,’ but P.L. has revealed to me that ‘you become old when you stop progressing.’”
It’s good.
Do you have news of your publisher for The Human Cycle?
No, nothing at all.
Bah!
(Mother goes into a long contemplation)
What happened is this: the body suddenly (yes, it came over it one day like that) got a sort of… not exactly disgust, but at any rate a dissatisfaction at its way of being and all its movements, all its consciousness and everything, and then… (it obviously corresponded to a movement—a movement coming over it—of transformation), then there was complete decomposition. And very spontaneously, with all the sincerity it’s capable of, it gave itself to the transformation, saying, “Either transformation or decomposition.” Like that.
So things appear to have taken an accelerated turn, and all the old energy which came… in fact which came simply from the ego, from the sense of personality—gone. And materially, the result was that the pulse started behaving more than fancifully.
But spontaneously and constantly, the body is invoking, invoking, invoking….
Only, it’s still in the phase when it hurts all over—everything is miserable, everywhere. And… there’s no positive joy, you know, there’s a sort of sense of wonder, but… And then, absolutely no strength.
I’ve been forced to cut down all the work; during the minute or minutes of contact with others, the Presence comes very positively, as always, but… (Mother shakes her head). Circumstances seem to arrange themselves to give proof of the Presence and Help; for instance, the power over others is still there, but this… (Mother points to her body, implying it can no longer retain anything and there is no longer any power over the body).
(silence)
I don’t know.
Have YOU been told anything about me?
No.
I don’t know what they are saying among themselves, but I have a very strong impression that all of them think it’s the end.
No, no! No, no!
No?
No, Mother. No, no!
The consciousness is clear, clear, so clear, you know, absolutely unaffected,2 absolutely, but…
Clear—perhaps even clearer.
Just yesterday, I couldn’t speak at all: as soon as I uttered one word, I would start coughing and coughing. It’s the first time I’ve spoken since I saw you last time.
No, Mother, on the contrary, all of us3 have faith—a natural faith—that it really is the ultimate possibility and CANNOT but work out!
The body has given itself up in all sincerity, really in all sincerity. Only, is there too much to be done? I don’t know.
(Mother goes into contemplation)
Ah! So, till next time…
On Saturday…. But people do understand, Mother.
Do they?
Yes, the “Notes on the Way” have helped them understand.
Oh, good.
They know a work is being done.
Good… (Mother laughs ironically).
Mon petit…
From a letter from Sri Aurobindo to Mother in France. ↩
Poignantly, Mother was answering the question in the surrounding atmosphere. ↩
??? ↩
***
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