India - the Mother

September 29, 1965

One has the feeling that this Pakistan problem is symbolic, and that until it is sorted out, India will not play her role in the world.

That's right.

And it's through this symbol that the hypocrisy of "Gandhi's India" and all her errors must at the same time be swept away.

Absolutely.

You said you had received indications?

Material ones: letters, people, things ... I can't talk about that.

A political movement.

The message ["India is ONE ..."] has gone about everywhere, and has been accepted.

It's better not to talk about that.

We'll be really glad when it's sorted out ... because it's a lovable country, this!

It's predestined.

There aren't two like this one; it is true that there aren't two countries alike, but the others are all sorts of different things on the same plane, while this is found only here.

It's something you breathe in with the country's atmosphere.

I had this experience very, very strongly. When I left here [in 1915], as I got farther away, I felt as if emptied of something, and once in the Mediterranean, I wasn't able to bear it any longer: I fell ill. And even in Japan, which outwardly is a marvellous country—marvellously beautiful and harmonious (it WAS, I don't know what it is nowadays), and outwardly it was a joy every minute, a breathtaking joy, so strong was the expression of beauty—yet I felt empty, empty, empty, I absolutely lacked ... (Mother opens her mouth as though suffocating) ... I lacked the important Thing. And I found it again only when I came back here.

Mother's Agenda: September 29, 1965