Notes on the Way

29 November 1967

I have some new photos, taken on the Darshan day. Photographs taken by a telescopic camera. They are not enlarged, they are as they were taken. (Mother shows the photos to the disciple.)

I do not know, but at each Darshan I have the feeling that I am a different person, and when I see myself in this way, objectively, indeed I see a different person every time. Sometimes an old Chinese! Sometimes a kind of transposition of Sri Aurobindo, a veiled Sri Aurobindo, and then sometimes a person whom I know very well, but who is not this one: once I was like that. This has happened to me many times.

But here also, I have the feeling that it is someone... it is altogether different from what you usually are.

Isn't it so!

And I have the feeling that it is something I know.

Yes. And I too have the same feeling exactly. I look at it and I say: I know this person very well—but it has nothing to do with this body.

But it is something that I know!

Indeed, it is very well known, but it is not this (Mother points to her body); it is not here, but it is very well known.

I do not know why, it reminds me of a painter.

One does not know for certain if it is a man or a woman, one is not sure.

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I asked myself if it was not a being that lived in a world other than the physical world of earth. Because it is... I know, but not with the intimacy of bodily sensation; yes, it is someone whom I know very well, whom I have often seen.

I have the impression that it is someone I have already seen.

Oh, yes! But I do not know if you have seen him in this world. (Turning to the other disciple) You do not know that person?

It is not the same Mother!

Yes.... Perhaps it is a picture. You are perhaps right. But which one, I do not see.

Someone who is very familiar to me, but... if I were told that it was a historical person, I would not be surprised.

It is strange. And it becomes more and more so. As the body catches the inner rhythm, this increases.

It cannot be a physical being.

What is it? We will know one day....

It is very familiar.

Yes, but my impression is like this: someone I have known very intimately, with whom I have lived perhaps, but not me, you understand. That is to say, the body says: "It is not me." Inside, it is quite different: there is no "I-you", all that does not exist; but the body, it has still got that, it says: "This is not me, it is someone whom I know very well, very well, but it is not me."

Why does it happen like that at the balcony?¹

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It can be two things. Perhaps the original consciousness divided into two in a past life (this has happened several times) and was manifested in two different bodies at the same time; and so there has naturally been an intimacy, probably even an intermixing of life—this may be a physical occurrence. But it may also be someone existing in a permanent way, in a permanent form somewhere with whom we are in constant contact in that world (overmental or supramental or other) and the feeling within is: yes, I know. It may be either of the two things, I do not know yet which one.

(After a silence) It is more an expression, a type of vibration, an atmosphere, more than exact features. Yes, it would be rather that, someone who exists in a permanent way somewhere and with whom we are in contact.

And that would explain this sensation of not knowing whether it is a man or a woman: it must be a being in an asexual world, where there is neither man nor woman.

(Silence)

The body by itself has more than a feeling, a kind of... it is a knowledge—more than a knowledge, it is a fact: there are many, many beings, forces, personalities who manifest themselves through it, even sometimes several at the same time. That is a very common experience; we know, for example, that Sri Aurobindo is there, he speaks and sees, he has his own way of seeing and expressing himself, that happens very often. And then often it is Durga or Mahakali or... very often. Often, it is a being from very high up, very permanent—very permanent—who manifests himself, and then there occurs a kind of absolute in the being. Sometimes it is beings from a plane nearby who try to make themselves felt, express themselves, but that is under control.

The body is used to that.

And what was strange is that this time, the 24th, when I

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went to the balcony, it was someone... (and this happens to me from time to time, but more and more often) someone who looks from a sort of plane of eternity with a great benevolence mixed in (something like benevolence, I do not know how to express it), but with an absolute calmness, almost indifference, and the two are together, looking like that (Mother describes waves far down below), as if it was seen from very far away, from very high up, from very—how to say it?—seen with a rather eternal vision. It was that which my body was feeling when I came out to the balcony. The body was saying: "I must aspire, there must be an aspiration so that the Force may descend upon all these people", and That, it was like this (sweeping gesture from above). Oh! Very benevolent but a sort of indifference—the indifference of eternity, I do not know how to explain it. And all this the body feels as though something were making use of it.

This is why these photographs interest me, it is to have the state objectified.

We shall know.

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