India - the Mother

November 26, 1958

(Extract from the last talk with the children at the Playground.)

In the end, the vast majority of men are like prisoners with all the doors and all the windows shut, so they suffocate (which is rather natural), but they have with them the key that opens the doors and the windows, and they don't use it. Certainly, there is a time when they don't know that they have the key, but even long after they do know it, long after they have been told, they hesitate to use it and doubt that it has the power to open the doors and windows, or even that it may be a good thing to open them! ... They are afraid of losing themselves in that light and in that freedom. They want to remain what they call "themselves." They love their falsehood and their slavery. Something in them loves it and remains clinging to it. They feel that without their limits, they would no longer exist.

That is why the journey is so long, so difficult.

Questions and Answers (1957 - 1958): 26 November 1958