Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-058_July 19_1967.htm

July 19, 1967

(Following the last conversation on

 the psychic being.)

These last few days I’ve had a series of experiences on this very subject, very interesting experiences…. With the same person, whom I see every day, let’s say, or very often, the impression the contact has (an impression that stays on for a shorter or longer time) depends on the presence of the psychic. With the same person, you understand, the same relationship, at certain times it becomes full and you have the sense of something … yes, full – not exactly "living," but … (I can’t say "solid" because there’s nothing hard about it), but full, substantial; then, at other times, it’s thin, fleeting, neutral. And I have observed (with the same people in the same circumstances), at times you have the sense of a … more than living contact (the word "living" isn’t enough), an EXISTENT

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contact, rather; an existent, durable contact (but not "durable" in time: durable in its nature); at other times with the very same people (often in the same circumstances), it’s thin, flat, it’s dry, superficial – it may be very active, apparently very living, but it has no depth…. And I have seen that it is when the psychic participates and when it doesn’t.

So I have now reached the point where every minute I can feel (“feel,” I don’t mean perceive psychically, I mean feel materially) when the psychic is there and when it isn’t. It’s very interesting. These last few days.

And it makes the whole difference, in the sense that … Well, it’s like the difference between a picture or a representation or a narration and the thing itself – between a picture and the thing itself, between a narration and the thing itself. That’s the difference. With the one, it EXISTS; with the other, it may be living, but it’s … superficial and … momentary. And as I said the other day, it doesn’t at all depend on how important what you are doing is (important according to the mental notion, of course), on how important what you are doing is or how grave the circumstance, none of all that: simply, the psychic is there or it isn’t. That’s all.

Which amounts to saying that the CELLS THEMSELVES feel the difference, perceive the difference.

Now I don’t remember, because I don’t note those things mentally, but it’s an experience I had with someone I see very often (maybe every day, I don’t know, I forget who it was). One day, for a time, the impression of an existent relationship, full and … I could call it “comfortable,” with a sense of security; the same person in the same circumstances: suddenly like an image of himself: hollow (mentally very living and active), but hollow and dry, indifferent – nonexistent, so to say.

That was a few days ago. I forget who it was.

And it has given me the key to the whole entire problem.

Basically, we could say that it’s the difference between the same life, the same existence, the same organization – the same life on earth – with the Divine’s Presence now perceptible, now unmanifest. And that’s how it is from the point of view of the entire earth.

***

Soon afterwards

What do you WANT?

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(silence)

I know very well what I want.

(Mother goes into a long concentration

 lasting about a half-hour)

Nothing to say?

One should remember always.

Remember … Did you feel anything special?

Yes.

What?

I did something – not something special because I usually do it – but more totally, I might say, than usual. I’d like to know if you felt anything?

I don’t know…. It seemed so much THAT.

Yes.

I told you the other day about what I call the “transfer”; for two days (more than two: several days, but especially yesterday and today), a work has been going on to make it continual, that is, to allow nothing except That.

Then there begins to come a kind of material power of EXTENDING – extending the zone, you understand, extending it like that (encompassing gesture) to what’s immediately near. So today, instead of applying the Force like this (gesture from high to low), as I always used to do, I … it was as if encompassing your body in the same movement of the cells.

It was successful enough! And I’d like to know if you felt a difference.

I’ve never had such a strong impression of That, and … so

 strongly THERE.

Ah! Then that’s it.

I do it at night for you, only it’s more subtle than with the physical presence.

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(silence)

It’s being done.

It’s being done in the sense that it’s becoming more and more constant.

It is the action of a perfectly conscious aspiration, increasingly constant, and the Response which brings the immediate result of that aspiration…. But it’s still a completely new field – new from that total, integral point of view. Formerly, everything going on in the body (I don’t mean this one, I mean it in a general way) was a reflection and an effect of the “Thing,” while now, it is the Thing itself. But the millennial habit of being otherwise is so strong that the impression is … It’s like … (the comparison is poor, but anyway), like stretching a rubber band; so, as long as you keep it stretched (gesture of keeping Matter at full stretch), the effect is there; but if the tension stops, even for a second (gesture of abrupt flattening), it falls back out of habit…. Which compels you to constant tension. But it won’t always be like that. It is the transition from one habit to another; once the other movement is established, then it will be natural, this constant tension won’t be necessary.

We’ll see how much time it takes.

And for the first time with you, I (because the result, too, was rather concrete and constant this morning), I tried to encompass. It’s far from being what it should be, but there has been a result. It’s very far from being “that” which it should be, but …

(silence)

This extraordinary impression of the unreality of suffering, unreality of diseases, unreality … It’s very strange. Then that whole millennial habit comes along and tries to deny and say … and say that it is the state you are in which is unreal! So then, it’s there. Because there is no mental action or thought or any such thing: it’s all in the vibrations … There are moments, you know, of inexpressible glory, but it’s fleeting. And the other thing is there – pressing all around….

When you succeed in keeping the [material] mind absolutely inactive, it’s relatively easier, but when the mind comes and assails, then … Then you almost have to use violence to repulse the onslaught, to establish silence.

That’s why until you reach that state in which the mind can be like this (vast, calm gesture), absolutely still … When there is nothing except the consciousness, then it’s all right. Before that, it

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 seems impossible, an impossible work. But when the mind is replaced by the consciousness, then …

There’s no time left for anything. We’ll work some other day!

(Mother laughs)

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