The Mother

Agenda

Volume 11

October 21, 1970

I found some old papers.

(Satprem reads)

“I am told that you intend to distribute a reproduction of the portrait you did of me. It would be better not to introduce in this gathering anything personal that might suggest the atmosphere of a nascent religion.”

It was for Auroville and it was a portrait by Y, did you see it? You saw that portrait?! (Mother laughs)

It was a polite way of telling her. Only, she didn't listen to me, she distributed it.

*
*   *

(Then Mother listens to the English translation of an extract from the “infernal Agenda” of September 9, which Satprem intended to publish in the forthcoming “Notes on the Way.” Nolini reads out his translation.)

It's not interesting.

It's so personal....

(Mother shakes her head and plunges in)

(Mother, in English:) It seems to me too personal to be published.

(Mother plunges in again)

I don't know....

Its gone, it's over.

I would like the two of you [Nolini and Satprem] to be absolutely sincere: is there nothing in you that thought, “No, it can't be published”?

(Satprem:) I didn't have that impression. I had the impression it could be useful. But I think Nolini will be more objective since he wasn't here when you spoke.

(Mother to Nolini, in English:) Tell what you feel absolutely sincerely.

(Nolini:) I have found that it was a little too personal.

(Mother approves:) Too personal.

(Nolini:) Not the whole but part of it. I feel like that.

(silence)

I am afraid it might be an occasion for... it might encourage in people morbid experiences.

(Satprem:) Yes, Mother, that's true.

That's what bothers me. It's better not to. It means encouraging morbid things in people.

Yes, I saw some like that.

*
*   *

(Then Satprem prepares to read a new chapter of Supermanhood: “The Bifurcation.”)

We should get the introduction translated into Hindi. I'll see with R.

Do you know that C. S. [a German translator] is here? Have you seen him?

No, Mother.

Not yet?

No, he is not on very good terms with me.

Oh? Why?

Listen, Mother, for about two years I have worked a lot for him. And every time... I received dozens of letters in which a sort of microscopic mental possession increasingly revealed itself, something very petty, very ugly, always clinging to... I can't say, it's like a mental dwarf in him, full of venom, full of bitterness. There s a point there that isn't pretty. So whenever I tried to send him a little... (what shall I say?) balm to help him, every time he sent me back a letter full of venom. After a year or two, I realised I was only encouraging this sort of reaction. So one day I wrote to him and said, “Now it's in Mothers hands, I can't do anything more for you.”

What is it about?

About nothing! He tells me that my book, “The Adventure of Consciousness,” is a huge falsehood...

Does he say that?

Yes! He says his whole life has showed him that my book is a falsehood, because he has realized nothing of what I wrote, and it's all false, a falsehood. So in every letter he would return to, “Yes, you say that in Pondicherry, where you are in the light and peace, but as for us over here... Your book is a falsehood!”

Then whatever is he coming here for?!

I don't know... but he suffers, you understand! He's unhappy, poor man. On the one hand he is pulled by the good side, and on the other by his little gnome. I didn't cut off my relations with him for personal reasons – I don't take offense at all – but because I saw it didn't help him, that's all. Otherwise I have nothing against him – he suffers, poor man.

As for me, I have never spoken to him.

There's a mental deformation. A sort of sourness, you know, a bitterness, a venom.

I haven't found anyone yet to translate into German....

In Auroville?

(silence)

Or you could ask A., Mother, he knows all the Germans who come here.

A. isn't much of a psychologist. It's better to wait and be sure. Ah, I am listening.

Do I still read you? Aren't you tired?

No, no.... I've noticed this: I no longer know what it is to be tired – even physically.

There has been a tremendous change, but it's not yet... I can't say anything about it.

(Satprem reads)