SOME DIARY-NOTES OF 1956, THE YEAR OF THE
SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION
ON FEBRUARY- 29
(As February 29, 1988 will mark the eighth anniversary of
the great event which took place thirty-two years ago in a
leap year, a dip into a sadhak's Diary of 1956
will be of interest.)
Bombay, March 4
On December 18, last year, on a Sunday night the Divine Grace came forth to meet me and lift me up. I was feeling a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Then, towards early morning, perhaps at 4.30 or 5, I had a dream. Even after waking, I could not think it a dream, so concrete it had been, so intensely real — more real than any event in so-called waking life.
I found myself sitting at the top of the staircase leading to the darshan room. Suddenly the door of that room opened and the Mother came out and sat near the threshold, facing me. We held each other's hands and looked into each other's face. All of a sudden, with a smile she put her face forward and kissed me on my right cheek. I was so surprised, and I spoke from the depth of my heart, "O Mother, thank you!" She kept smiling.
A couple of days later I wrote to her, asking if this dream had been based on any genuine occult experience. In answer to my letter, she smiled as she passed by me after tennis and said: "It's all right." I said: "Was it real?" She nodded, saying "Yes" and, still smiling, passed on. I was extremely happy.
Today after two and a half months the Divine Grace has again come to me. It is a Sunday once more and I have just got up from sleep. I was feeling lost and depressed, so far away from Pondicherry. In my dream last night I found myself going to the Mother for pranam. She was sitting
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cross-legged. As soon as I reached close to her she caught my right hand and pulled my face to her own and again kissed me on my right cheek. Our faces kept touching for some time. Love leaped out from my heart to her and I was happy. I felt saved — and, on waking, resolved to let no depression, no influence from the past, overcome me.
I had dreamt of the Mother on the 29th of February, too, in the train on the first night of the journey from Madras. There also I was going for pranam. I saw a wide open space in the centre of which the Mother was seated. People were flocking towards her to do pranam. Somehow I could not throw off my slippers quickly enough in order to join them and reach the Mother. My left foot failed to get clear and while shaking it I woke up. But right in front of me, in the compartment, I saw the Mother standing in a faint patch of light coming from a window. I looked steadily at her. On examining her body I noticed that some part of the berth opposite mine and a bit of the woodwork above it were making up her face and form. But this observation on my side did not make any difference to my seeing her. The material things were the support of her projection into the physical plane. I saw her for nearly one-fourth of a minute. It was fine to feel that she was with me even when I was not in Pondicherry. Then I shut my eyes for a moment and opened them once more. She was still there. A second time I shut my eyes. On opening them, I found her gone.
May I feel her presence all the time! I shall be in Bombay for about three weeks. Before I left Pondi, I said to the Mother: "I wonder how long I'll have to be away." Without any hesitation she replied: "You must be here on the 29th of March." I said: "All right, Mother. I shall come back for that date." Evidently this date which will mark the forty-second anniversary of her first arrival in Pondicherry has a particular importance this year. She has called Eleanor Montgomery also for it — up to the end of April. From March 29 to April 24 is the period of a special descent — the culminating point being 23.4.56 — a series of consecutive numbers.
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Bombay, March 18
Again last night I had a dream of the Mother — a very warm and intimate one.
Pondicherry, March 26
Yesterday in the morning I wrote to the Mother, asking what had happened on two dates about which I had heard Ashramites talking: February 29 and March 8.1 opined that it was something connected with the Supermind's gripping the physical world.
In the evening, after tennis, the Mother passed by, smiling — and said: "You are behind by a century."
I gave her a note at the Distribution of groundnuts at the Playground: "From what you said after tennis I am sure that the whole blooming thing has come down. Hurrah! And now there is hope for such as I."
She read the note and laughed and said: "Years ago I had told you that I would call you when the Supermind would come down. So I did call you. But you didn't understand."
I replied: "Mother, I came as soon as I could. And on the very day of the descent — February 29, as I hear — I saw you standing in the railway compartment of the Bombay Mail in which I had left Madras."
"Oh, it was the same day? It is very good that you saw me.
Far back in 1938, just before I left for Bombay at the end of February, the Mother promised to call me home if the Supermind came down. She was expecting the descent some time in May. I, however, got no telegram — and Sri Aurobindo later explained to me that the kind of descent expected had not happened.
I learnt many years afterwards that the Supermind did come but could not be fixed in the very substance of Sri Aurobindo's body.
Now, on February 29, late in the evening it came down
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for good. What Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had worked for during 30 years happened at last.
I wonder when the world will realise that the greatest event in its history took place. Of course the detailed working out of the Supermind upon earth and even in the Mother's body will take long, but the full general presence of it in her is there now and also its general working on ourselves and the world.
There is now hope for the weakest amongst us, for the Supermind is above the universe's laws and brings sheer omnipotence to our aid.
It seems that three immediate effects are possible. One is a sudden and radical clearing of difficulties. Another is a slow but quite perceptibly sure clearing. Still another is a final gathering up of difficulties prior to their clearance: difficulties may appear to increase but really what will take place is like the sweeping together of the dust of a room before throwing it out. One must have no fear: one must face everything with faith and certitude.
I find examples of all these effects here in the Ashram. I myself feel the second effect.
I can hardly contain myself with joy at the Mother's victory. May all our hearts belong to her!
March 27
I asked the Mother to clarify to me the exact thing that had occurred. She said Nolini had told her that I had been putting all kinds of questions to him and that I could not grasp what he had been telling me. I said to the Mother: "I was not satisfied with his answers. I had the impression that he himself did not quite know." She remarked: "I had the same impression."
I asked: "Can we say that the involved Supermind has burst open as a result of the descent?"
"No. That is what you thought. But, though it has not come up, its coming up is now a certainty. It is only a matter
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of time. And I may tell you that to talk of a descent as we commonly do is also not correct. We can speak of a descent only when there is a question of something below and something above. In the human frame of consciousness there are levels and there is something above which can descend. But for the universe as a whole there is no below or above. A descent can be spoken of only in relation to an individual. In relation to the entire universe we have to speak of a manifestation. The Supermind's light, consciousness and force have manifested. The Ananda hasn't yet done so."
"But surely something has to manifest from somewhere? The Supermind was not in the universe. Where did it manifest from?"
"You are being too intellectual. You can't understand things that way."
After this talk I figured to myself that somehow, in the universal framework, all that we call "planes" must be not in , a ladder but all together — the non-physical universes subtly and secretly present along with the physical in a single original self-extension of divine consciousness.
March 31
This is the poem I wrote before the Supramental Manifestation was announced. In fact, I wrote it in Bombay.
Doors in the ultimate Secrecy cleave wide
And out of them dances an immortal dust,
A shower of scintillating silences
Falling for ever on a city of dream.
Softly the splendour stirs in every stone.
One single wideness grow the seeds of sleep.
A fathomless flower exploding with no sound,
Ommnipotence unfolds from earth to sky.
(Note on December 3, 1987: The poem is a strange production.
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The first stanza seems to prophesy in another frame of vision what happened in late evening on February 29, 1956. The second appears to go even beyond that event to the breaking out of the involved Supermind.)
May 6
Today I feel somehow that at last I am quite ready to be taken up entirely by the Mother into the New Life.
May 24
I wrote to the Mother: "Ever since I came back from Bombay I have been constantly feeling supported by the new Power that has come into the earth's atmosphere. I have been feeling that all difficulties belong to an old world that is really dead. But, although the sense of being a part of your life and of your work is often strong, I seem to be lingering just within the borders of the new world instead of penetrating right to its centre. I want so much to be wholly yours. Won't you do something to absorb me into yourself? What should I do on my side?"
When the Mother came out from her bathroom after reading my note, she said: "Ca viendra" ("It will come"). I asked her: "When?" She replied: "Surely you don't want me to mention the date?" Then I said: "No — but please make it come soon." She smiled.
May 30
I wrote to the Mother: "Is it true that you have said the following or something like it? — 'Only four people realised the fact of the Supramental Manifestation — one in the Ashram and three outside'? I can very well believe that there was only one person in the Ashram — namely, yourself! But the three outsiders puzzle me. How did they manage to do what hundreds here didn't?"
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The Mother told me: "What I said was not that four people knew it to be the Supramental Manifestation, but that when the Manifestation took place they had some unusual experiences because of it even if they did not understand why. I at first thought there was only one person in the Ashram to whom an unusual experience had happened, but afterwards I found there had been two. Among those outside, I counted you."
I was surprised to hear this. The Mother continued: "You wrote to me — didn't you? — that on the night of February 29 I was with you. I had promised you long ago when you had gone from here that I would inform you at once if the Supermind manifested. I never forgot this. And when the Supermind did manifest I went out to tell you."
"You actually did that, Mother, for one like me?" I asked. She answered "Yes."
I feel unspeakably grateful to find that she thinks me so connected with her work.
September 20
This is what happened in the train from Pondicherry to Madras between 11.45 p.m. and 12.45 a.m. I was seeing my sister-in-law off up to Madras. I had a dream ending with a very vivid impression as if of an experience. I found the Mother sitting and I came and knelt down. On the palm of my right hand, just below the base of the index finger, she placed something with the fingers of her right hand. She said: "I am giving you the Supramental Purity." I felt extremely happy and for a moment I thought she was about to kiss me on the forehead. I said to myself: "My face is unwashed and grimy. It won't be nice for Mother to kiss it." Then she brought her face close to mine and touched my forehead with her own. She remained like this for a little while. I was deeply moved and clung on to her legs or perhaps arms, I can't say for sure. Then I woke up, with the emotion and the happiness still with me, as well as with the
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sense of the beginning of a new important working in my sadhana. But was this only something with a personal significance? Or did the Mother really visit me to announce some new supramental truth manifested?
September 22
I spoke of my dream to the Mother. She said: "On that very night I wanted to give you something and I did so."
November 25
In the morning the Mother said: "I am not giving you any books on this birthday. You have all of them." I replied: "Not all. I don't have On the Veda and Poems from Bengali." She asked Champaklal to keep them ready. When she went for lunch, I kept a note for her on the table by which she would pass on her way to the bathroom: "The books you will be giving me are certainly welcome, but what I would most like to read today is something else. You once told me that you would show it to me one day — but I think you said that you would do so when I would be more worthy. If greater worthiness is the standard, I feel sure I shall not be shown what I want. But one can always hope for Grace. I am referring to what you wrote on February 29, just after the Supramental Manifestation."
On finishing her lunch the Mother stopped at the table and picked up my note. Usually she takes my notes to the bathroom and reads them there. But this one she read, standing by the table. Then she went to the bathroom and afterwards came to me as usual. I had kept ready the flower whose significance is "Prayer". On taking it from me she said: "I have read your prayer. If I can find the paper on which I have written, I shall bring it for you in the evening's interview. If I have to search for it for an hour I shan't be able to show it to you.
In the evening when I went into her Playground room, I
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saw that she had brought the paper with her. She said: "You won't understand what I have written, but try to keep your mind absolutely quiet and receive it." I said: "Perhaps it is not meant to be understood." She laughed and said: "Probably." Then she explained the background of the writing: "The whole thing is not so much a vision or an experience as something done by me. I went up into the Supermind and did what was to be done. There was no need for any verbal formulation as far as I was concerned, but in order to put it into words for others I wrote the thing down. Always in writing, a realisation, a state of consciousness, gets somewhat limited: the very act of expression narrows the reality to some extent. Well, here is what I wrote."
Then she read out the French. It began with the words: "La presence divine est la parmi nous." She was as if addressing all of us. The next sentence was: "J'avais une forme d'or plus immense que tout 1'univers." Then she went on to say that she found herself in front of a massive door, on whose other side was the world. And she heard the words "The time has come." She heard them in English and not in French. Then she lifted up with her hands a huge hammer of gold and struck one blow upon the door. The door crumbled down. A tremendous flood of light poured out and swept all over the universe.
When the Mother had finished reading, I asked to take the paper in my hands and to read it by myself so that I might catch better the French. She hesitated just a bit and said, a little shyly and doubtfully: "You'll give it back to me?" "Of course," I replied, laughing. After I returned the paper she remarked: "When I came back from the Supermind I thought that, since the outpour was so stupendous, everybody would be lying prostrate. But when I opened my eyes I found everybody sitting quietly and perfectly unconscious of what had happened."
I thanked the Mother very much for the act of Grace in her showing me the precious document.
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(Note on November 25,1987: It was more than three years later than 1956 that on February 29, 1960 the Mother made public the contents of "the precious document." I knew I was not meant to disclose to anybody the act of Grace on November 25,1956. So I kept the secret. It appears that the Mother had told Dr. Sanyal what exactly had occurred. He wrote down something afterwards and asked Norman Dowsett to correct the English. Norman, instead of returning the report to Dr. Sanyal, seems to have sent it straight up to the Mother. Referring to what had been submitted to her, she told me some time in April of the same year that human beings have no proper understanding of things and make a mess of what is wonderful. It was in this connection that she mentioned having written of the event of February 29.)
November 26
No hope for me unless you break
Even from within my cave
The gate of God the Gloom,
Just as you broke from the infinite room
The door of God the Gold
And set free wave on dazzling wave,
Omnipotence-sea that rolled
Over all earth and gulfed all things
In the Love that turns clay Supermind.
But, O sweet splendour, find
Yourself not only high above
But deep below in the blindnesses
And crumble down my stone
Of a heart! Unless
You are one With my night I shall never be
One with your solar infinity.
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