It's all the same thing, but the word realization can be reserved for something that is durable, that does not wear off. Because everything on earth fades away - everything fades away, nothing remains. In this sense, there has never been any realization, for everything fades away. Nothing is ever permanent. And I know for myself: I am doing the sadhana at a gallop, as it were; never are two experiences identical nor do they recur in the same way. As soon as something is established, the next thing begins immediately. It may appear to fade away, but it doesn't fade away; rather, it is the basis upon which the next thing is built.
**
This morning while I was on the balcony, I had an interesting experience: the experience of man's effort, in all its forms and through all the ages, to approach the Divine. And I seemed to be growing wider and wider so that all the forms and all the ways of approaching the Divine attempted by man would be contained in the present Work.
It was represented by a kind of image in which I was as vast as the Universe, and each way of approaching the Divine was like a tiny image containing the characteristic form of this approach. And my impression was this: Why do people always limit, limit themselves? Narrow, narrow, narrow! They understand only when it is narrow.
Take all! Take all within you. And then you will begin to understand - you will begin.
**
It was in 1910 that I had this sort of reversal of consciousness about which I spoke the other evening - that is, the first contact with the higher Divine - and it completely changed my life.
From that moment on, I was conscious that all one does is the expression of the indwelling Divine Will. But it is the Divine Will AT THE VERY CENTER of oneself, although for a while there remained an activity in the physical mind. But this was stilled two or three days after I saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914,
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and it never started up again. Silence settled. And the consciousness was established above the head.
In the first experience [of 1910], the consciousness was established in the psychic depths of the being, and from that poise issued the feeling of no longer doing anything but what the Divine wanted - it was the consciousness that the divine Will was all-powerful and that there was no longer any personal will, although there was still some mental activity and everything had to be made silent. In 1914, it was silenced, and the consciousness was established above the head. Here (the heart) and here (above the head), the connection is constant.
Does one exclude the other?
They exist simultaneously; it's the same thing. When you start becoming truly conscious, you realize that it depends upon the kinds of activities you have to do. When you do a certain kind of work, it is in the heart that the Force gathers to radiate outwards, and when you do another kind of work, it is above the head that the Force concentrates to radiate outwards, but the two are not separate: the center of activity is here or there depending upon what you have to do.
As for the latest experience,' I can't say for sure that no one has ever had it, because someone like Ramakrishna, individuals like that, could have had it. But I am not sure, for when I had this experience (not of the divine Presence, which I had already felt in the cells for a long time, but the experience that the Divine ALONE is acting in the body, that He has BECOME the body, yet all the while retaining his character of divine omniscience and omnipotence) well, the whole time it remained actively like that, it was absolutely impossible to have the LEAST disorder in the body, and not only in the body, but IN ALL THE SURROUNDING MATTER. It was as if every object obeyed without even needing to decide to obey: it was automatic. There was a divine harmony in EVERYTHING (it took place in my bathroom upstairs, certainly to demonstrate that it exists in the most trivial things), in everything, constantly. So if that is established in a permanent way, there CAN NO LONGER be illness it is impossible. There can no longer be accidents, there can no longer be illness, there can no longer be disorders, and everything should harmonize (probably in a progressive way) just as that
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was harmonized: all the objects in the bathroom were full of a joyful enthusiasm - everything obeyed, everything!
1. May 1, 1958.
As it was the first experience, it started to fade slightly when I began having contact with people; but I really had the feeling that it was a first experience, new upon earth. For I have experienced an absolute identity of the will with the divine Will ever since 1910, it has never left me. It isn't that, it's SOMETHING ELSE. It is MATTER BECOMING THE DIVINE. And it really came with the feeling that this thing was happening for the first time upon earth. It is difficult to say for sure, but Ramakrishna died of cancer, and now that I have had the experience, I know in an ABSOLUTE way that this is impossible. If he had decided to go because the Divine wanted him to go, it would have been an orderly departure, in total harmony and with a total will, whereas this illness is a means of disorder.
Is this experience of May 1 related to the Supramental Mani
festation of 1956? Is it a supramental experience?
It is the result of the descent of the supramental substance into Matter. Only this substance - what it has put into physical Matter - could have made it possible. It is a new ferment. From the material standpoint, it removes from physical Matter its tamas, the heaviness of its unconsciousness, and from the psychological standpoint, its ignorance and its falsehood. Matter is subtilized. But it has surely come only as a first experience to show how it will be.
It is truly a state of absolute omniscience and omnipotence in the body which changes all the vibrations around it.
It is likely that the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much more - it does not resist. And I am convinced that among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the sponge - it all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.
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The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they don't have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.
Unless they go beyond all this and have enough spiritual knowledge to be able to make the ego surrender ... in which case the realization will naturally be much greater - it will be more difficult to accomplish, but the result will be far more complete.
When you had this experience of February 3, 1958 [the supra
mental ship], the vision of your usual consciousness, which is
nevertheless a Truth Consciousness, no longer seemed true to
you at all. Did you see things you had never before seen, or did
you see things in another way?
Yes, one enters into another world.
This consciousness here is true in relation to this world as it is, but the other ... is something else entirely. An adjustment is needed for the two to touch, otherwise one jumps from one to the other. And that serves no purpose. A progressive passage has to be built between the two. This means that a whole number of rungs of consciousness are missing. This consciousness here must consciously connect with that consciousness there, which means a multitude of stairs passing from one to the other. Then we will be able to rise up progressively, and the whole will arise.
Its action will be somewhat similar to what is described in the Last Judgment, which is an entirely symbolic expression of something that makes us discern between what belongs to the world of falsehood which is destined to disappear and what belongs to this same world of ignorance and inertia but is transformable. One will go to one side and the other to the other side. All that is transformable will be permeated more and more with this new substance and this new consciousness to such an extent that it will rise towards it and serve as a link between the two but all that belongs incorrigibly to falsehood and ignorance will disappear. This was also prophesied in the Gita: among what we call the hostile or anti-divine forces, those capable of being transformed will be uplifted and go off towards the new consciousness, whereas all that is irrevocably in darkness or belongs to an evil will shall be destroyed and vanish from the Universe. And a whole
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part of humanity that has responded to these forces rather too ... zealously will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.
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