Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-148_March 17_1973.htm

March 17, 1973

I had a question I wanted to ask you.

What is it?

I was wondering about the difference between…. You

 remember, in the past you used to go into trance, into the

 inner states. I wanted to know the difference between the

 trance you knew in the past and the one now?

Completely different.

So it isn’t a "trance."

No.

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No, it’s another type of consciousness. The difference is such that I wonder … sometimes I wonder how it is possible – at times, it is so new, so unexpected it’s almost painful.

Aah!…

So I ask myself, "What?" And externally I see but one solution: externally – I repeat OM Namo Bhagavateh. Constantly – that’s for the outer being. And inside … (gesture, hands open in immobile contemplation) …

(silence)

… an extraordinary silence. I think I’ve been in it for a few minutes, but sometimes it’s an hour…. And the opposite too: I feel time drags on and on, and it’s been only a few minutes. Which means that time is different. But then, if the value of time changes…. Our time is based on the sun, you see, but there, it is another reference.

So, in other words, you don’t actually go out of Matter?

No, not at all.

It’s a new condition IN Matter.

Yes. Yes, yes, exactly. And ruled by something other than the sun don’t know what…. Probably the Supramental consciousness.

(silence)

At mealtimes, for example, sometimes I think I have eaten very fast, and it has taken me more than an hour. Other times, I feel it took a long time – it took just a few minutes. So if you look at that from an ordinary standpoint, you feel that … people will think you’re crazy. So there’s a sort of recommendation: silence, silence, silence, silence….

Not too much with me, please!

(Mother laughs)

I wanted to know if personally … if personally I was in the

right direction.

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(Mother is absorbed for a few seconds)

The answer was immediately YES, but it wasn’t I who gave the answer.

(Mother is absorbed again

 and comes back almost immediately

 with a movement of suffocation)

You see how it is: now, as soon as I try to know something, I feel such a suffocating heat I think I am going to die. There. Do you understand?

Yes.

That’s how it is.

Yes, Mother. Yes, one shouldn’t "try to know," that’s the point.

(Mother plunges in)

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