Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-45_July 11_1962.htm

July 11, 1962

(Referring back to the conversation of July 4: “One must die unto death to be born to Immortality.”)

When I said that, oh, you can’t imagine, I had just been seeing it somewhere – somewhere in a dazzling light – and it was full of marvelous meaning. And of course when I uttered it I wondered why … why it was no longer the same. It was absolutely wonderful, it explained … not that it explained everything, but it was a revelation. There must have been some fault in the transcription. It all came back after you left. I looked and asked myself, “Why did I say it was so marvelous!” And I understood: when I saw it, I really SAW, saw those words, more dazzling than the most brilliant diamonds and full of a marvelous power of knowledge, as though it held the key to things; but when I spoke it, it became almost flat. At any rate, it was utterly flat in comparison.

What did you feel when I said it?

I felt there was something in it….

It was sheer splendor, a dazzling sight! And when the revelation was gone and only the memory of this brilliance remained (which I still have), I wondered, “What was there in those words: to die unto death?” … It was glorious, mon petit: to die unto death. But what I said is nothing.

When you said it, I felt it held a secret.

Yes, yes! The POWER of the thing.

And they were the very words, the exact words – but those words … something else was in them. Perhaps it’s the transcription…. And yet, they were those very words.

It’s most interesting.

And now, trying to understand, one does find something, but it’s nothing.

As soon as something is translated into words, expressed mentally, it’s funny how it falls flat. It all seems to fall flat.

Yes, it’s finished, flat, flat – drained.

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Yes, something is toss, irredeemably lost…. We need another mode of expression.

Silence, perhaps.

No … I don’t know, I imagine colored waves….

Maybe. Ah, that day [April 13] the whole creation was colored waves, but not like the colors we have here, it was…. Ah, that day! …

For a good two hours it was absolutely…. The world, the whole creation seemed like a child at play, that’s how I related to it. And what play!

It was smiling, easy – VERY lovely, very easy.

It has never faded, it’s always there (gesture behind the head), and at any moment I can immerse myself in it all over again. But what a difference when, after THAT, you come back to an awareness of what is speaking, at least as tremendous a difference as with that “to die unto death.” Similarly, that “to die unto death” contained the full Power of THAT. [[Mother added: "This is what makes all the difference - the creative Power." ]] It was clear and … stunningly powerful. And the same impression: easy, easy. There’s really no question of hard or easy – it’s spontaneous, NATURAL, and so smiling. And that “to die unto death” was filled with such JOY! Such joy…. I could almost have said, “It’s plain as day! Don’t you see how plain it is! But that’s it: we have only to die unto death, and that will be that!”

(silence)

Recently, for a short part of my nights, I suddenly find a certain task set before me dealing with this one’s or that one’s mental constructions. And then I feel I am facing a tremendous, destructive falsehood – a TOTAL contradiction, in fact, of this endlessly unfolding creative vibration.

Some of the people concerned are here, others elsewhere – that is, it’s the mental state (even the higher mind in some cases, not necessarily very down-to-earth) of this one or that one or…. It comes individually (and the person’s name along with it). And a kind of uneasiness takes hold of my body, as if I were in the presence of … I don’t know, in ordinary life I would say, “Go away! ” (Mother brusquely shoos something away) But here it is presented

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for me to do a particular work (I know the people, some are here, others elsewhere; they’re people I am in touch with for the yoga). So I am faced with these mental formations and each one is HELD like this (Mother grips the thing with both hands) so that I don’t simply brush it aside. Then (it’s certainly a good opportunity to go completely crazy!) I slowly bring in the divine Vibration, and I hold it like this, without moving (Mother holds this vibration tight and drives it in like a sword of light), without moving … until everything fades away into silence.

I haven’t had the chance (laughing) to ask them what happened to them!

Probably they were not immediately aware of it, but it’s sure to have an effect.

This has never happened before, it’s brand-new. Before, there was always that Power transmitted through the higher mind (what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind); it was up there, dissolving, dispersing, changing, doing a whole lot of work, without any difficulty, effortlessly (gesture above the head showing the tranquil, irresistible flowing of a stream), nothing to it. That was my constant, second-to-second action, everywhere, all the time, for everything that came to me. But THIS is completely, completely new. It’s a sort of imposition, almost like an imposition on the PHYSICAL brain (I presume it must be for changing the brain cells). And I am allowed to do only one thing (Mother grips the mental construction presented to her); it’s right in front of me like this and won’t leave me, it clings like a leech, stock-still. So I have to bring in the supreme, divine Vibration, the Vibration I experienced the other day [April 13], and hold it steadily (sometimes it takes quite a while) … until all is hushed in a divine silence.

(silence)

Either today or yesterday, when I got up around 4:30 or a quarter to five in the morning, I immediately (how shall I put it?) … I deliberately, out of habit, thought of you. “Must this [the operation with the sword of light] be done with Satprem too?” I asked. There was no answer and so far nothing has come.

When I think of you it always takes me into a very crystalline and luminous region – very crystalline, sometimes with…. A state where I can communicate effortlessly.

Yet I have the feeling it’s closed up.

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It’s not closed up.

I don’t feel I open out this way [vast, horizontal gesture].

No, it’s not this way (horizontal): it’s that way (vertical). No, it’s not universal. And the more it descends, the more…. But personally, I am always in contact with you above your head.

It’s not partitioned – no, there aren’t any walls, it’s not like that. Rather it’s a concentration with (how to explain?) some irregularities, in the sense that suddenly there’s a very intense light, flashes of lightning, and then … it dims. Some places are extremely bright, receptive – receiving, receiving, receiving; others are … not asleep but more passive. And it’s not like this (horizontal), it’s like that (vertical). And all your activity is above the head; it’s very, very active there, but not walled-in – very active. Now and then there’s a small burst of light.

I always see you that way. You LIVE there (gesture above the head).

You have few contacts with external realities. Your true life is there. It comes down a bit here (Mother points to the upper forehead), and goes like that (gesture above and around the head). It extends beyond your body, and is very active and steady. Then from time to time there’s a cascade, a lovely, shimmering cascade (gesture). You know, like a luminous fountain. It’s VERY pretty, showering down like raindrops. And then here (the upper forehead) it starts moving.

Ah, it’s good, it’s interesting.

Yet I don’t feel it’s the true life.

Oh, no!

The true life … it will come.

The true life is something else, something that’s yet to come. It is something else.

The true life is Satprem. That’s for later on. When it does come forward, then you will get a sense of the true life.

It will come.

And you mustn’t be impatient – impatience leads to imitation: and unwittingly, in all sincerity, you imitate things within yourself, within your own experience, you imitate the realization – that’s what impatience does.

The true life in its SIMPLE purity cannot come until … until the Lord Himself is doing and deciding everything, acting, realizing, living, having the experience. When everything is in His hands and

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you have absolutely nothing to do and don’t even know WHERE YOU ARE, then … then it comes in its purity, not before.

This is the difference, the radical difference, since the experience [of April 13]: there is nothing but the Lord. All the rest … what is it?… No more than a habit of speaking (not even a habit of thinking, that’s all gone), a habit of speaking; so the less one speaks, the happier one is. Otherwise … nothing. And what else could there be? It is He who sees, He who wills, He who acts.

Then everything comes spontaneously, easily, with such great simplicity.

It will come, mon petit – no impatience.

For the moment it’s on the right track. It’s going well.

Ultimately, there’s always a kind of yearning, more or less veiled, for the satisfaction of realization (gesture of sitting down). I know it: we want to see ourselves being, progressing, acting, to see ourselves … (Mother laughs).

That’s all, mon petit.

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