My "Invocation" and "Supreme" notebooks⁴³

Every day I play “The Invocation” and “My Lord Beloved Supreme,” and I also write “The Invocation” and “Supreme.” In one notebook I write “Supreme” in two columns, side by side, and I write the date. In another notebook I write “The Invocation.” I have decided that I am supposed to do it every day, the way I play the music and sing. But I play a nice trick! I tell my Lord Supreme that I want to go a little faster. I go on, past the actual date. I go five, six or seven days ahead, for both “The Invocation” and “Supreme.” Then I am very happy. After all, it is I who am writing it, so there is nothing wrong if I go ahead of the actual date.

The funniest thing happened! When I came to this place, for the first few days I was writing “Supreme” and “The Invocation.” But my table had so many things on it: my artwork, my largest Tote-a-Tune, my picture of Mother Kali, and my acrylic paints. All kinds of things were on my table. It was absolutely a jumble. I said to myself, “I am sure I have gone a few days ahead,” so I put those two notebooks inside the drawer. I said, “I will remember them. I will take them out every day.” But my remembering became all forgetfulness! When I finally remembered the two notebooks, I said, “O God, what have I done? Why did I put them inside the drawer? I should have kept them on top of the table!”

I was finding fault with myself. I said, “How could I do this?” I opened up the drawer and saw the two notebooks. I got the happiest surprise when I saw where I had stopped. Can you imagine — both days I had stopped at the page dated December 7th, which is tomorrow! I was so thrilled to see that I was still ahead by one day. Again tomorrow I will fool myself and go four or five days ahead, and in that way I will save myself. But I am not going to keep my notebooks inside the drawer any more. Then they will draw my attention.

For three or four years Minati was the one who kept the account of my repetitions when I was doing japa. It started with Minati. Then Paree used to take down the number. I started with 4,000, then I went to 6,000 and 7,000. Finally I did japa 15,000 times.