(The "healer" referred to in this conversation will often recur in this Agenda, and will play a decisive role in Satprem's life, in the sense that through a sort of reductio ad absurdum, he will make Satprem suddenly understand who Mother really is.)
Have you heard of that healer?… Someone has written from France, the son of a farmer (I think), anyhow not an intellectual in the least, who by accident became aware that his hands have a healing power. So he writes a very long letter narrating all he did, how he developed himself, and so on, until he came across your book;1 and when he read your book, for him it was a revelation (he doesn’t have a philosophical mind or anything), he said, “Could it be that I am unknowingly following Sri Aurobindo’s yoga?” So he writes to me narrating everything and asking me that question.
How this uneducated man read the book and it was like a revelation!… He says he’d like to come here for a few weeks—in fact he is coming, he has already bought his ticket. It will be interesting.
Yes, surely.
This man… I don’t know, I think he is now oldish; he worked in the subway, things like that, but his parents were from the land, they were farmers.
He narrates several of his experiences, strange ones. They don’t at all look like those of the usual healers, they seem to be… He seems to have something.
He noticed his hands had a healing effect on himself, by laying on his hands…. According to his letter, that power seems to run in the family, because a niece of his, I think, used to cure animals by laying on her hands.
But what I found interesting is that here is an uneducated man—he had no formal education—who read your book and felt “the Thing.”
Oh, but those are much more receptive than the others!
Oh, yes.
(silence)
You know that I sent my “Sannyasin” to Paris, and the publisher of the “Gold-Washer” didn’t want it. He found it was “speculations,” “abstractions.”2
Oh!… Is this gentleman of yours an idiot?
Then F. here has read my book (I don’t know why I was impelled to give it to her, because I didn’t intend to), and she has been very touched, it seems. She has a friend in France and wants to ask her to present it to another publisher.3
(Mother nods her head)
What do you think of this “Sannyasin”?
I think it’s all right.
I think your book is very fine.
Do you?
Yes.
Well, I’m glad to hear that!
Of course, your book is very fine! But it’s a book of tomorrow, not a book of yesterday. And this gentleman of yours is probably a man of yesterday.
But I am hopeful.
(silence)
I mean, someone who reads this book and doesn’t feel anything has to be inwardly com-plete-ly obtuse—it’s the mind going round in circles.
But the very strange thing is that for those people… all that we find abstract and false, they find concrete and true!
Yes.
It’s very strange.
Yes, that’s true.
It’s exactly the other way round!
Yes, exactly, they live in complete Falsehood.
But listen, yesterday, I saw a dozen young men and women who came, I think, from America (they were from various countries), and they’d asked to see me. I said, “I am not keen to see them.” But they had asked, and L. was moved to pity and brought them to me. Mon petit, if you knew how HOLLOW they were!… Hollow, nothing but words. And what questions they asked me!… “What is responsibility?…” One of the girls asked me, “What’s the Divine?” (They’re all ultramodern people, you know, much too intelligent to believe in any godhead! They’re far above that.) She asked me with a derisive little air, “What’s the Divine?” So I looked at her (Mother looks hugely amused), and told her, “The Divine is the perfection you have to realize.”
I had some real fun!… There was nothing more to be said. (Mother laughs)
Yes, there’s nothing more to be said!4
(silence)
In some fifty years, your book will be very famous. But it’s ahead of the times. But there may be some people with flair—it’s a question of flair: they may not understand anything, but they feel.5
(long silence)
I have wondered if we couldn’t have in Auroville a publishing house, because Auroville is an international township, and so we could have an INTERNATIONAL publishing house. There would be books in every language. That would be interesting.
Auroville is beginning to be fairly well known in America. There’s a lady (I told you about that) who is planning to come in a boat for 1972—she is very interested in Auroville, she has gatherings and is in touch with the government. It seems to be moving fairly well there. So we could have a publishing house in several languages.
What we should also have is cinema—it has such a tremendous power.
Ah!
We should have a studio.
You know, F told me she saw this book as a film.
Yes, it could well be.
That would be interesting.
Because with cinema, you reach millions of people. And you have everything: you have light, music, colors, faces… everything!
But it could be done.
Only it means huge funds.
Yes.
But I would enjoy a lot working on a film…. I find it’s such a complete means of expression: pictures, music, everything is there.
Do you know Paolo?… He makes films. Why wouldn’t you do that together?… He is coming back.
I feel there’s an extraordinary means of work there.
Yes.
A book reaches but in a still limited way, whereas a film means millions of people reached all at once. So to make a beautiful, a TRUE film…
Ah, but this book would make a very good film! You could see that when Paolo comes back, he is used to it.
It could start with Italy, it doesn’t matter, then it would go to France, and then… It can go everywhere.
Yes, here’s an idea!
The power of a beautiful picture!… It sinks in so easily, you can convert so many people—at least open them, open the doors.
Yes, yes.
(long silence)
And what about… what’s this thing called?… I can’t recall the name: you know, cinema at home?…
Television.
Television…. But it would be better as a film than on television.
Yes, television is very limited. And its public is generally rather vulgar. It reaches a lot of people too, but it’s limited.
I am mentioning it because Y.’s idea is to have television in Auroville (they’re working on it). A receiving center, and a transmitting station, so as not to depend on others: a television station in Auroville itself.
But television is quite suited to scientific, technical broadcasts, documentaries, information—on that level, it’s very useful.
Yes, but not for literature.
Not for the beauty of pictures.
I don’t know, I have never seen it.
It’s a very small screen, like this.
I used to like cinema a lot. I always thought it could be used to good purpose.
Oh, yes, it’s an extraordinary means.
(silence)
But you could turn your book into a film?
Yes. It requires some work, but it can be done.
My idea is through Paolo, but naturally you should… Paolo could give you technical advice, but you should be the one who does it.
Yes, certainly, it can be done.
I have a feeling that if I speak to him about it, he would do it with pleasure.
The movement in Italy is doing very well.
They’re far more receptive in Italy.
Ah, it’s because they’ve had painful experiences, mon petit. They know what it means to be oppressed.
Also they don’t have that intellectual arrogance—that’s French.
(long silence)
Someone has just written from America (I think it’s America), they’re preparing what they think will be a “revolutionary” film: it’s about Hitler, the war, and children!… But it’s so old! They don’t know how awfully old it is!
This book would have to be made into a film: in Italian if it’s for Italy, in French and in English, and then (smiling) we would see… you understand, we would have to make three different films out Of it!
Yes, that would be very amusing!
Just to see…
Well, it would be interesting. In America, in France and in Italy. Comparing the three would be very interesting!
As for me, I have SEEN scenes from your book, I have seen them—I always see scenes. Even now, I see scenes… Is it in this book that you write about someone who dreams he has died?
Yes.
I see that. Also the end: I see the end. I see several images. So I would be very interested to know which one would take those images—those images are somewhere in a subtle world.
We’ll see to that.
Even if it takes a few years, two or three years, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
But you’ll have a sequel, won’t you?
(Satprem opens his hands)
There has to be a sequel.
Send it to me!
Yes.
(long silence)
***
(Then Mother returns to the previous conversation about materializations, and Satprem’s note in which he asked, “But Savitri goes into death in search of Satyavan… so Mother is going to bring back Sri Aurobindo?”)
I’ve received your note…. But you know that Sri Aurobindo said he wanted to come back on the earth only in a superhuman body… a supramental body.6
(silence)
A host of problems have instantly arisen…. You see, there’s a considerable difference between human life and animal life, and there will be a considerable difference between superhuman life and human life (supramental life and human life). But then, IN WHAT SENSE?… Take wholly… practical things: Will they have houses? How will they live?…
We can conceive that food will no longer be needed, that there will be another method of sustenance, but…
No need of houses!
(Mother does not hear and goes on)
Individual life or collective life? A constructed house, or a… spontaneous house?
They don’t need houses, they draw back within!
You think they can make themselves invisible?
Yes, they can draw back within.
Ah, that’s what came to me, but I don’t…
They draw back, and then project themselves, like this [gesture of contraction and expansion].
(Mother approves and “looks”)
That’s what came to me. (Laughing) It was even… it didn’t come as thought at all, it came as FACT—A Sri Aurobindo who becomes visible, whom you can hear… and then (Mother laughs), who disappears!
That’s wonderful, mon petit! It would be wonderful.
(Mother smiles and keeps looking)
A number of things would have the power to be visible or invisible: to appear just when there’s a reason for them to, and to disappear when they no longer need to be there…. It opens up magnificent horizons!
Yes, but it’s already like that in the subtle physical.
Yes-yes, but…
Basically, it’s the screen between life and what people call “death” that must… disappear. Because when I say that those beings “draw back within,” well, to us they become “dead,” you understand? To human beings, it means they’re dead. So in fact, there would have to be a passage.
No, no! Because there remains a body you destroy or bury.
Yes, but with this supramental being, in fact no “body” remains: he interiorizes (meaning that to humans he becomes “dead”), or exteriorizes, meaning that to human beings he becomes alive—going from one state to the other at will.
But that’s my whole experience, that it’s not true, there isn’t “life and death.”
Well, yes, precisely! There’s no such thing. But there’s still a veil or a screen between the two states.
But it’s NOW still like that—we can foresee a time when the screen is gone.
Yes! So then, when it’s gone, Sri Aurobindo will be able to go from one state to the other.
Oh, that, he would constantly be there, he would constantly appear.
How to pull down the screen?
Ah!…
How to go from one to the other?
(long silence)
We’ll see that. It opens up… a whole field of experience.
(Mother remains “looking” for a long time, then suddenly looks very amused)
I’ve just had a vision… of what a life will be like in which beings of the supramental will mingle with physical life… It will be… You know, for three quarters of humanity, it will be a terrible panic! Someone appears all of a sudden (Mother laughs), and just when you want to say something to him, ploff! nobody there!
You can picture that…. The brigand about to do his mischief, someone appears… and just when he wants to defend himself, poff! (Mother laughs) nobody there.
A tre-men-dous means of action!
So basically, later on when this life is established, it’s only the untransformable residue that will… really be death. And that will go on decreasing.
(silence)
We’ll SEE! (Mother laughs)
I have a feeling that doors have opened.
(Mother gazes at the future)
Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness. ↩
"All that is the most vital and important for you will appear to be abstractions and speculations." A friend of Satprem's in the same publishing house gave him this explanation: "Were you writing about Vietnam, the Black problem, LSD, the Third World or Marcuse, we would a priori be interested, even if we disagreed with you. But capital letters frighten us. Social peace is a topic; Peace isn't." ↩
Gallimard, who will not reply. ↩
Among the questions, there was also this one: "What should be the goal of our life?" Mother's answer: "Materially speaking, to be shrewd. Spiritually speaking, to be sincere." (!) ↩
Four years later, at the end of 1973, when Mother left her body, the French publisher Robert Laffont will take this book for publication. ↩
For a long time Mother at times confused "superhuman" with "supramental," but she clearly means the latter and not the former. ↩
***
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