The Spirit of Auroville

On 26th December 1969 I went to the Mother to hear the New Year music. There was also a Message given by her:

The world is preparing for a big change.

Will you help?

That day happened to be one of my days with the Mother. She recited from Savitri only one passage, for it was very long. After the work she read my prayer, and on the same sheet of paper she wrote:

It will be realised by the Supreme Power and Love.

That night I had a wonderful vision:

I went out of my body. My subtle body was now soaring up and up in an enormous space. There were the moon and stars. The atmosphere was very light, cool and soothing. I felt free like a bird. I did not realise how far I went up but now I could not see the moon and stars. I was beyond the heavenly bodies. There was endless space before me. Suddenly I saw something shining from the far horizon. I headed towards the glow. Now I was not soaring up vertically but my movement was as if I were swimming into a vast space. I was coming closer and closer to my destination. My first glance fell on two huge Suns—the one on the right was golden yellow and the other on the left was golden red. Their edges were touching and mingling with each other. I came still closer by crossing an immense lake which was packed with diamond-like lotuses and emerald leaves. The reflection of the two Suns added glory to the breathtaking beauty of the marvellous scene which was spread out like a panorama before my eyes.

I was now floating a little above the lake. Its coolness enveloped my subtle body. Here the Divine had strewn lavishly her exquisite Beauty and Wonder and Quietude. The divine vibrations were overwhelming. I was engulfed by the new consciousness.

I reached the Suns. Their Force and Power were absolutely still and calm. Then I saw a narrow passage between the two Suns. I entered it, and on the other side I saw a golden world. There was nothing there except the golden Light. I landed slowly on the divine soil, but to my surprise, I was a little above the soil. I could not set my feet there. I was not walking but floating in this enchanting atmosphere. I came across a few luminous beings who were active, but their activities were without any sound. Everything was heavenly. There I felt the perfect Consciousness, Harmony, Peace and Silence. I was simply bathed in the Golden Light, in the soothing vibrations of a quiet joy and happiness. I roamed here and there freely, and silently communicated with the beings. Nothing was new to me because I identified myself completely with this magnificent World of the Golden Light.

I was reluctant to come back to the dark world of falsehood. But alas, the next morning I saw myself lying in my bed. I felt extremely sorry and lost, and shed a few silent tears.

At once I remembered the whole passage from Savitri which the Mother had recited the previous morning and on which she had given her comment. The passage recounts an experience of Aswapathy, the Yogi-King, father of Savitri:

A glimpse was caught of things for ever unknown;
The letters stood out of the unmoving Word. ||8.18||
In the immutable nameless Origin
Was seen emerging as from fathomless seas
The trail of the Ideas that made the world,
And, sown in the black earth of Nature’s trance,
The seed of the Spirit’s blind and huge desire
From which the tree of cosmos was conceived
And spread its magic arms through a dream of space. ||8.19||
Immense realities took on a shape:
There looked out from the shadow of the Unknown
The bodiless Namelessness that saw God born
And tries to gain from the mortal’s mind and soul
A deathless body and a divine name. ||8.20||
The immobile lips, the great surreal wings,
The visage masked by superconscient Sleep,
The eyes with their closed lids that see all things,
Appeared of the Architect who builds in trance. ||8.21||
The original Desire born in the Void
Peered out; he saw the hope that never sleeps,
The feet that run behind a fleeting fate,
The ineffable meaning of the endless dream. ||8.22||
As if a torch held by a power of God,
The radiant world of the everlasting Truth
Glimmered like a faint star bordering the night
Above the golden Overmind’s shimmering ridge. ||8.23||
Even were caught as through a cunning veil
The smile of love that sanctions the long game,
The calm indulgence and maternal breasts
Of Wisdom suckling the child-laughter of Chance,
Silence the nurse of the Almighty’s power,
The omniscient hush, womb of the immortal Word,
And of the Timeless the still brooding face,
And the creative eye of Eternity. ||8.24||

The Mother's comment ran:

All these images are meant to break the ordinary receptivity of the mind, and to open it to the conception, vaster; truer; creative, of the Supramental.

It is only in a receptive silence—when the whole inquisitive mind stops moving—that one can feel and understand the images described in these verses.

Also my memory flew back to one of the Mother's letters of the preceding year, when I had expressed to her my wish to go back to my own world of Beauty and Peace:

I am leading you to a place much more beautiful than the one from which you came—a place of full and harmonious Consciousness.

I felt strongly that my vision of the Golden World was a glimpse which the Mother had given me—and that actually she had taken my consciousness there. But according to our human nature, I thought that the vision might be some kind of mental formation by myself; it could be simply a dream. I wrote to the Mother in order to make sure, because what I had seen had the look of a living thing, which I can never forget. She answered:

Happily, the true worlds and the true Consciousness are not a dream, but the only real Reality for those who are sincere and conscious.

Bonne Année

for 1970

with all my love and blessings.

Then I did the painting of my vision and showed it to the Mother. She said:

It is very impressive.

Then I did the painting of my vision and showed it to the Mother. She said:

It is very impressive

This painting will appear along with the lines of Savitri and the Mother's comments in the book About Savitri Part Three.