The Mother

Agenda

Volume 1

June 7, 1960

... I have to see some fellow again whom I saw yesterday. But I told him to come at 11 o'clock. So if I leave here at 10:55, that will give me enough time.

They brought these people to “Prosperity” to introduce them to me. You know, I had precisely the impression that they feed only on banknotes! (Mother laughs) It makes you gray, oh!... And dry like dead wood.

They came to see their son (son, son-in-law, nephew... anyway, it's the same person) about some business – some money matter. Then one of them asked to see me. I thought they would simply send some woman – not at all: the whole group, face to face and in a circle, and they began lecturing me on business!... So I had some fun. Once they had their say (they weren't moving, they were planted there), I told them, “Listen, since you are here, it must be for SOMETHING!” And then I gave them a lecture. But just imagine, one of them was so shaken that he asked to see me again this morning. The one who was shaken wore a handsome pink turban.

So I said, “All right, let him come.”

There. Now, what do you have to say?

Me? I have come with some work... To say?...

It's not going so well?

(the disciple grimaces)

Are you sure? Believe it or not, but I'm not so sure.

You aren't sure of what?

That it's not going so well.

???

You look a little... You were frowning at me at the balcony! (Mother laughs) But...

No, it's about your nights.¹

I don't know... (In a disgusted tone) Really... I don't know. It feels like only some dynamite could make all that move.

Huh?

I feel that nothing but constant dynamiting could blow all that up. It doesn't move; it can't do anything, can't feel anything, can't see anything. It's... it's all blocked.

(long silence)

Does it feel like a wall?

Myself, I...

It feels like something I can't get across. I'm getting nowhere, I'm always turning in circles, the same groove...

Yes.

... something has to break, PHYSICALLY break. It could keep on turning like that for centuries.

Hmm!... But life is like that. Physical life is like that – for everyone. This feeling of it turning round and round and round and round – and it's the same for people, objects, countries, the whole world.

Something changes, of course, but it's so... phew! I mean, at the speed it's going, it will take us millions of years to make any perceptible progress. We might just as well say it's not moving.

These days I've been feeling very clearly this thing that doesn't move.

But just now... You see, when I am in contact with you – not when we're sitting together, but at the balcony or at the meditation or... at any time at all – this contact is very good, very good, very luminous and clear. I wrote you that, and it's getting more and more tangible. But when we're HERE together, it feels as though it doesn't move... Something is preventing it from taking place HERE. So when you spoke... (it was when you made a face), I looked.

It gives me the impression of something like... Yes, that's it, like a caveman – Oh (Mother speaks mockingly), surely one of the cave artists or poets or writers! The intellectual life of the caves, I mean! But the cave happens to be low and when you're in it, you are like this (Mother stoops over), but the whole time you want to stand up straight. That makes you furious. That's exactly the feeling it gives me – not a cave meant for a man standing on his two feet; it's a cave for a lion or for... for any four-legged animal.

It's symbolic. I'm speaking symbolically.

And so...

(silence)

Ah, that's what it is! Your cave... it IS like that, it's really like that, I understand why you feel you have to blast it with dynamite! But if you go right to the end – right to the end – there's no more top to the cave, it's wide open to the stars. I can see it. Go to the very end. It's very dark. It's very dark and not very enticing, and it feels as if... it may still be worse – but it won't be worse. Go right to the end, and suddenly you'll be able to stand up straight.

(long silence)

It looks like you are stubbornly trying to go through where you can't go through.

And it's suffocating and irritating and annoying and... tiring and...

(silence)

You're going to make a face again!

But that's how it is; I feel it is so... (How can I put it?) There are always at least two ways of doing things. I have a very strong feeling – very strong – that you want me to take you by the hand and go together...

Do you have that idea or not?

(no answer)

I'm talking about our relationship, nothing exterior or physical.

It's strange, but I rarely “see” you in a very physical way – you, just as you are.²

Do you only see me physically?

No, on the contrary, I have difficulty...

But my little one, it's useless to “see” me physically!

It's rather something which has no image that I call “Mother.”

Yes, but that's so much better! Much better. That is the very obstacle for most people: they want to see me as I am – but as I am, as my body is, it's stupid. It's absolutely stupid.

No, no – that's not what I mean. I'm speaking of the relationship I have with you, the true one – what I was telling you about just a moment ago. Because, you see, I'm going to tell you everything! (Mother laughs) I have the impression that it would go much faster if I could pick you up, put you here (Mother touches her heart), carry you here and tell you, “Calm yourself, listen!” But it's not possible (alas). You're always fast on your feet with your head touching this very low ceiling. Myself, I can't be like that. I'm not even sure (laughing) if my feet would get in!

Anyway, my child, it's not that I'm not trying – I am trying. And it's not that you can't – you can. That's the problem... You know, it's as if you were stubbornly trying to turn the key the wrong way in the lock.

I don't know. I suppose it's the ego.

What do you mean, the ego?

The ego, the knot, I don't know. I don't know what movement to make.

(silence)

And just imagine! The other day, in the middle of the night, I suddenly found myself inside you. “Ah, so that's what he's like,” I said. I woke up in the middle of the night with that. And right away I said to myself, “But... (laughing) but why is he like that!?” And this lasted... perhaps one or two minutes, maybe more. I was... I felt like kicking out in every direction... in a kind of rage. And the next second, I thought, “But why all this? My goodness, it's so easy; the remedy is simply to do this...” and immediately (I did what I always do, you see – it's how I am constantly), quite simply, I melted into the Supreme. “Enough of all this” – and the very next second, everything was all right.

So then I thought, “This surely must have had some effect [on the disciple]. What has happened?” I am... I was literally in peace.

And that's really how it was... Hmm, maybe that's what it's like for an infant shut up in his mother's womb, so he kicks about in every direction – and for a long time. He's had enough of being shut in.

It was a kind of rage against something that shuts you in.

But note that this is not something particular to you, for as I have told you, all physical life feels like that to me, as though people were confined in a kind of... shell – this feeling of separation, isolation. This division everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. It's dreadful. Every encounter is a shock.

(silence
Mother looks at the disciple)

Good.

It's not a matter of something breaking – it shouldn't break (that makes even more pieces, we don't want more pieces), it should... melt.

Something that melts.

¹ The disciple is still complaining about his nights.
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² The disciple means in meditation – to imagine Mother in her physical form or to use her physical form as an “object” of meditation. In fact, he was very afraid of getting caught.
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