August 8, 1964
… There are some strange things. When I went to Japan, I met a man there who was a striking reproduction of my father – the first moment, I wondered if I was dreaming. I think my father was already dead, but I am not sure, I don’t remember exactly (my father died while I was in Japan, that’s all I know). But he was the same age as my father, which means they were born together, at the same time. My father was born in Turkey, while this one was born in Japan – but anyway, it WAS my father! And this man took to me with a paternal passion, it was extraordinary! He wanted to see me all the time, he showered me with gifts…. And we could hardly talk to each other, as he knew very little English. But what a resemblance! As if one were the exact replica of the other: same size, same features, same color (he was exceptionally white for a Japanese, and my father wasn’t white as northern people are: he was white as people from the Middle East are, just like me).
It always surprised me. You know, people often say, “Oh, they look like each other,” but that’s not it! He was like an exact replica.
But inwardly too, occultly too?
There was a kind of affinity.
He was an inventive man – my father also had a very inventive imagination. But my father was a first-rate mathematician, while I don’t know about this man…. He had invented a "meditating machine"! It was really very interesting, I even brought it back;
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but it worked with batteries and I couldn’t replace them, so it’s useless now. It must still be around somewhere. But it’s a machine … like the prayer wheel, something of that sort, but it was a "meditating machine"! It was very interesting. There are some strange things….
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(Regarding an Italian or Spanish reader of “The Adventure of Consciousness”:)
The best thing is for them to translate for themselves. That’s the best way of reading; when you really want to understand a book, you should translate it.
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(Mother again takes up the filing of her loose notes and stumbles on two slips of paper that seem to be two rather close versions of the same experience. The first “version” is as follows:)
“Suffocated by the shallowness of the human nature we aspire to the knowledge that truly knows, the power that truly can, the love that truly loves.”
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