India - the Mother

September 18, 1965

(Mother first reads out her message of September 16. It may be noted that Mother had at first written "shall fight," then, in the afternoon, changed "shall" into "must.")*

... A member of UNESCO has asked a stupid question, something to this effect: "There was a time when India represented the spiritual consciousness" (or "taught the spiritual consciousness," I don't remember now), "but now that she is engaged in such a war, who will play this role?" So instead of replying to the question, because I might have told him a thing or two, I answered what you've just read.

[Satprem:] Of course! All those Europeans ... for fifty years they have been told about Gandhi, so now they don't understand!

That's right. Let your throat be cut without saying a word...

[Sujata:⁴³] Long ago, you said, "If there is another war, it will be over India."

Yes, that was long ago.

But when the division between India and Pakistan took place, Sri Aurobindo wrote very strongly: this division MUST go somehow or other, "by whatever means," he said.⁴⁴ And to me he said, "If they can't agree on doing it, they will fight."

[Satprem J And yet, if we give credence to official declarations from Delhi, they don't at all intend to go right to the end. They only intend to "adjust" the border a little.

... They are all afraid.⁴⁵ Afraid of world opinion

Yes, exactly.

...So China has sent her ultimatum.⁴⁶

I don't understand why they give advance warning, by the way. If I were them, I wouldn't.

No, they don't intend to do anything.

They don't intend to do anything?

They want to intimidate without doing anything, and they want to know how the world will react. And America reacted immediately.⁴⁷

(After a silence) In Pakistan, there was a firing system of the latest American model, in which they take aim with, I don't know, electrical systems, and they can fire several thousand shots in ... anyway, it's frightening; and shots that reach exactly where they want. It's quite an organization. They've become very efficient. It was given to Pakistan by the Americans. And it had to be destroyed. So one of the Indian pilots went and crashed his plane into it. Naturally, the plane crushed everything—he too was crushed. But the installation was demolished.... People here are capable of such things. If they feel what Sri Aurobindo says in this letter I have just given you, that "the leader of our march is the Almighty," if they feel that way...⁴⁸

That's what made the strength of the Japanese in the past. That's what makes the strength of people here, once they are convinced. That's how the Japanese took Port Arthur;⁴⁹ there was a sort of ditch around the fortress, as there are in fortified places, and because of that they couldn't get in; well, they let themselves be killed till they were able to walk across on the bodies: the bodies made a bridge by filling up the ditch, and then they walked across.

People who are conscious that death isn't the end, that death is the beginning of something else, it gives them a strength that these Europeans cannot have.

Clearly, circumstances are arranged to help us move on.

Mother's Agenda: September 18, 1965