(Satprem, as usual, complains about his totally
unconscious nights)
There has been for some time a deliberate will not to leave the body. In the morning, when I emerged from my night activities, I would often notice that a whole work of readjustment had to be done in the body, as though the concentration of forces had been disturbed and even undone in the night and everything had to be started up again. It was a sheer waste of time. Previously, in the evening when I stretched out on my bed, I would go limp, a complete relaxation (one should always do that), that is, surrender, and the consciousness would rise above. There was a concentration of forces, but it wouldn't last: after two or three hours, everything was taken up by the night's activities. But now, instead of that there is a will to keep the whole consciousness in the body, to concentrate and keep all the energies so that the work in the cells may go on undisturbed. And I see that the effect lasts much longer; even when I wake up (or rather when I get into external activity), I can see it goes on, it doesn't cease, and it resumes as soon as I am outwardly awake. A sort of concentration of energy, of consciousness, force, light, which starts working in the cells at night. So then there's nothing, no activity, there's a contemplative silence.
I had only one instance of activity in these last four nights, one morning between two and four, two hours I spent absolutely conscious and active with Sri Aurobindo, who had made "changes" in his activities and his organization of the subtle physical; he had made changes and wanted to show them to me, to let me know about them. And he showed it all to me for two hours. But that was the only thing, and as for the rest - everything, going to see people, going here or there, doing this or that - I have stopped it all. And things are better.
So I wonder if this decision hasn't had an effect on your sleep? That's quite possible.
***
Soon afterwards
I've had an amusing experience these last three days.... Y. sent
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me a whole treatise on LSD [[Lysergic acid diethylamide, a hallucinogen. ]] (Mother takes a file on her table).
It seems the man who discovered it did so by accident (that's always how it happens): he took a dose without knowing it and without knowing what it was, and the effects on him were extraordinary. (He was a Swiss man, a doctor, I think, or a chemist, I don't know. [[The first synthesis of LSD was achieved in 1938 by two Swiss scientists. On April 16, 1943, one of them, Dr. Albert Hofmann, inadvertently swallowed traces of this substance and discovered its strange psychological properties. ]]) And now, for the first time after years (the discovery took place years ago), for the first time he has consented to give a description of his experiences. Naturally, Y. enthused over it, she prepared a report for me and sent it to me.
As you know, I am very busy. I didn't have time to read these papers, but I also know that Y. is rather impatient (!), and these last three or four days I had been saying to myself, "I must ABSOLUTELY see that, otherwise it won't do. I've GOT to see that...." And it kept coming back. Then one morning (in the morning, at the time when I have all my experiences), while I was sitting, I suddenly felt something so heavy in my head, heavy in my chest, and ... odd. I had never felt that before. And all the sensations had become as if violent. So I closed my eyes, and ... you know, an avalanche, a stampede of forms, sounds, colors, even odors, which imposed themselves with a reality and intensity - I had never known that before, never.
I watched, then I said to myself, "But that's a good way to go insane!" And I started doing what had to be done for it to stop. But it wouldn't stop! It wanted to go on. So I thought, "It's clearly here for a reason. Since it's imposing itself in this way, it means there's a reason for me to have this experience." I watched, studied, observed. And I saw it was a magnified faculty of sensation - inordinately magnified, you understand - BECAUSE the equilibrium between all the faculties of the being had been disrupted.
The natural equilibrium which makes things balance each other, harmonize and organize spontaneously into a coherent whole with a conscious existence, was shattered - shattered to the benefit of the faculty of sensation. Naturally, that faculty of sensation was terribly multiplied (or aggravated, I might say) and even imposed itself brutally. And I saw that something had upset the equilibrium. Something that had the power to upset the equilibrium of the being - to insist on one point to the detriment of all others.
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Once I had seen that, a sort of tranquillity came into me and it was over.
I didn't give it any more thought. For three days I didn't think about it again. It seemed to be some extravagance or other. Yesterday evening, I decided I would read those papers. I asked Pavitra to read them to me. The man describes his experiences - the first description is just what happened to me!
So I had the experience he had when he took the medicine! He describes it (I couldn't read everything), he describes it exactly as I felt it. So (laughing) I had the experience without swallowing the medicine! Simply because the consciousness was turned to that. [[Here is Dr. Albert Hofmann's description: "Vertigo. Intermittent sensation of heaviness in the head and the body, as if it were filled with metal. Everything seemed to topple over. When I closed my eyes, I was overcome by an uninterrupted succession of fantastic images of extraordinary intensity. All sound perceptions (the sound of a car, for instance) were transformed into optical effects, each one creating a corresponding colored hallucination, constantly changing forms and colors. At times I felt I was outside my body." ]]
But then, I understood! And those people imagine it's a way to "develop human consciousness" and open it up to "unknown horizons".... The effect (now I am absolutely sure of it) is the dislocation of the being's equilibrium.
In my case, it's very sensitive, because the equilibrium is very conscious, willed, organized, and naturally that makes a considerable difference; for them (laughing) it's "just like that," a fancy. And then, they are convinced (Y. included) that humanity can make great progress with that! It makes them "conscious of a whole realm they didn't know." But ... it creates one more falsehood in the consciousness, because the perception of a SINGLE aspect of reality to the detriment of all others is a dreadful falsehood. As I said, the impression it made on me was: "It's a good way to go insane."
To them it's accidental, in the sense that they take the medicine and think, "When I stop the medicine, naturally it won't happen again" - but that's not true! It can give the being the habit of disorder, the habit of imbalance.
There.
It was yesterday evening that Pavitra read me the complete description of the experience I had had ... without knowing what it was. I found that very amusing!
I haven't read the whole thing, only half of it, I am going to read the other half. But according to what they say there, now it's, oh, tremendously widespread!
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Now, we may ask if it's necessary for mankind to fall into general imbalance in order to reach a higher equilibrium?
But it's perfectly clear that one doesn't need drugs in order to have experiences - I didn't take drugs!
That's what they think, they think it gives them a certainty that it [the other worlds] isn't imagination, or, for the more reasonable ones, that there are many more things than they know or can imagine. But you can find all this out without swallowing drugs!
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