Vertical time' - a sort of absoluteness in each second. As if Mother were experiencing her body at the level of subatomic physics. A new mode of life in matter.
The course of 1961, the year of the first American voyage in space, arrives at the heart of the great mystery– "It is double! It is the same world and yet it is.... what?" In one world, everything is harmonious, without the least possibility of illness, accident or death – "a miraculous harmony" – and in the other, everything goes wrong. Yet it is the same world of matter - separated by what? "More and more, I feel it’s a question of the vibration in matter." And then, what is this "vertical time" which suddenly opens up another way of living and being in the matter, in which causality ceases to exist – "A sort of absoluteness in each second"? A new world each second, ageless, leaving no trace or imprint. And this "massive immobility" in a lightning-fast movement, this "twinkling of vibrations," as if Mother were no longer experiencing her body at the macroscopic level, but at the level of subatomic physics. And sixty years of "spiritual life" crumble like a "far more serious illusion" before.... a new Divine... or a new mode of life in matter? The next mode? "I am in the midst of hewing a path through a virgin forest." Volume II records the opening up of this path.
I have the right to 150 pages! The publisher is giving me 150 pages in his collection.... Terrible.... But in this 'Sri Aurobindo,' you understand, I would like to make his whole poetic aspect stand out, that poetry which is like the Veda, like a revelation, so a bit of space is required: it can't be squeezed into a few lines, or reduced to a skeleton.
This analogy between the ancient form of spiritual revelations and Savitri, this blossoming into poetry of his prophetic revelation is... what could be called the most exceptional part of his work. And what is remarkable (I saw him do it) is that he changed Savitri: he went along changing it as his experience changed.
It is clearly the continuing expression of his experience.
There were whole sections he redid completely, which were like descriptions of what I had told him of my own experiences. Nolini said this. When I recently reread Savitri, some phrases were very familiar and I said to Nolini, 'How odd, these are almost my very words!' And he replied, 'But this has been changed, it was written differently; it has BECOME like this.' As the thing became more and more concrete for him, he changed it. The breath of revelatory prophecy is extraordinary! It has an extraordinary POWER!
What struck me is that he never wanted to write anything else. To write those articles for the Bulletin1 was really a heavy sacrifice
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for him. He had said he would complete certain parts of The Synthesis of Yoga,2 but when he was asked to do so, he replied, 'No, I don't want to go down to that mental level'!
Savitri comes from somewhere else altogether.
And I think that Savitri is the most important thing to speak about.
From time to time I use a line from 'Savitri,' placing it in the book like an open window. That's all I can do.
(A little later, concerning Sri Aurobindo's biography, Mother remarks:)
All those details have always horrified me.
If anyone ever wanted to write about me, the first thing I would say is: NOT ONE WORD about my personal life—not a word.
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