The Growth of a Flame

Dreams

With Sri Aurobindo's Interpretations

Mother,

What is the meaning of the lotus in the water and the swan near the lotus?

The lotus Is the offering of the consciousness, the swan is the soul.

Mother,

Last night I saw a dream. Mother put a big packet of saffron (kumkum) in my hand.

What is the symbolic meaning of saffron (kumkum)?

Yes. It means purification - so if it has any significance, it can only mean that the Mother gave you a power of purification to use.

Mother,

Last night I saw a dream. There was a big city near a seashore, but it was on a great height above sea level and in this city there were many bungalows. The bungalows were far apart and the population scanty (in proportion to the bungalows or land). But there was no light in the city. It was dark everywhere. In this city, I had to

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go from one bungalow to another. One bungalow was very far, I was ready to go but I had much luggage with me. So I was confused about what to do with the luggage. At last, a cart driver came near me and said, "Ben, I shall take you wherever you want to go, but what will you pay me?" I agreed to pay him eight annas. An ox was joined to the cart and a small boy started to drive it. The cart was as small as the boy. The reins of the ox were in his hands, but he was carelessly driving and allowed the cart to go anywhere. I felt as if he would throw me in the sea. As the careless driving happened repeatedly, I took the reins in my hand and bringing the cart on to the road I gave the reins to the boy. I had to do this very often. After this, I woke up from my sleep.

Mother, what is the meaning of going from one bungalow to another? And why was there darkness in the city? What is the meaning of the cart and why did the little boy drive so carelessly? I humbly pray at your lotus feet to let me know the significance.

The town represents the physical consciousness in which there is no light. The boy represents a force or a person who wants to take you away from your safe place high above the sea level. Everything about him is small and inefficient - he does not know how to drive and would throw you into a great calamity (falling into the pits) — it is not something that will happen, but

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something that would or might happen, if you allowed yourself to make the change. It is a repetition in other forms of the meaning of your dreams about the woman in the Meditation House.

2.10.32

SRI AUROBINDO

(N.B. The narration of the following dream is missing, therefore, only Sri Aurobindo's interpretation is given below.)

Kamala,

In your dream the woman you saw was clearly the appearance taken by a hostile force that wanted to take you out of the Ashram and the yoga and the Mother's protection into the ordinary consciousness and the world and the life outside. If any pressure of that kind comes in any form, what you have to do is resolutely and persistently to say No; for then the hostile force loses its strength and can do nothing. The other details of the dream were all symbolic of the approach of your inner being to the Mother.

1.11.32 

Sri Aurobindo

Mother,

It was early morning between 5.30 to 5.45 a.m. I was standing with Champaklal in the corner of his terrace ladder. There was one high wall near the door of the Rosary House which is

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in the courtyard of the Library House. There was something like a terrace. On that, there were beautiful green crotons; Sri Aurobindo came near the wall from the new room and the Mother also followed him. I told Champaklal that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had come there. Sri Aurobindo started drawing a string swiftly from high above. I could not make out whether from the sky or from other places. The string was being drawn when I looked up, the string could be seen upto some height only. I could not see beyond that. Still the string was continuously coming down and I thought that a heap must have formed, but when I looked down I found it to be very little; otherwise in proportion to which Sri Aurobindo was drawing, there should have been a big heap. The speed of drawing the string was beyond imagination.

I saw this dream at daytime.

Mother, what is this string? I could not make out from where it came? Why could I not see it? I humbly pray to you to explain the meaning so that I may understand the dream.

Kamala,

The strings you saw me pulling down are the lines of consciousness which can connect the personal being with the Divine Truth; they are above out of reach, I am bringing them down into the human mind, life and body. You can see only a part of them because they

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reach into the heights far above the human mind, and you see only a little of what is brought down because they go into all parts of Nature down to the subconscient of which the ordinary human mind can see very little. That is the meaning of the dream.

Mother,

Last night I saw my sister Yashoda in my dream. This evening when Mother came on the terrace, I was looking at her from my window. At that time I felt as if Yashoda came there and started loving me.

Mother, these days, I have been seeing Mahesh, Yashoda, Haribhai and Dayaben in my dream. Mother, I want to go to bed as well as wake up calling your name and remembering nothing but your face. Why are my relatives frequently coming in my dreams? Please help me uproot these things from my being.

Do you think of them or speak of them much in the daytime? If so, it will come up in your sleep also and bring them in your dreams to you.

Mother,

I saw the following dream two days back.

I along with two or three ladies had gone to the

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beach for a stroll. Suddenly, I started going straight up into the sky, higher and higher. At first, I was wondering as to what may happen to me, but soon this thought disappeared. After going up about one mile, I thought whether Bhagirath would have gone as high to bring down the Ganga on the earth. At that height, I found that the atmosphere was quite different and very pleasant. I saw golden light around me. The other ladies with me started screaming and said that Kamu vanished somewhere. When I looked down from that height, I saw the sea beneath and felt that in case I fell down I would be drowned. But after sometime I gradually returned safely to the earth. But this was a little away from the place from where I had gone up. Afterwards my eyes opened.

Mother, does this mean anything?

The sea was the sea of the vital consciousness by which men ordinarily live. The stairs are the stairs of sadhana by which one tries to ascend to the Divine Truth — on these you were able to climb up through the Mind till you were able to see the golden Light of the Divine Truth. When you came down from this glimpse to the ordinary consciousness you found that even in the ordinary you had reached a higher level than before - a level above the vital nature.

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Mother,

There was a terrace and all the sadhaks were meditating but some were talking amongst them. Mother, when you came down the stairs for meditation, you saw some of them talking. Seeing this, you said, "Even while meditating you talk!" You became very angry and went upstairs suddenly. Seeing this, I felt that now we would not have the chance to offer pranam to Mother. So I followed her but I could not utter a word. Looking at my sad face, Mother said, "All are allowed to offer their pranams." Then we all bowed down to her and Mother gave us flowers, which we carried happily with us.

Mother, does it have any meaning?

No, it has no symbolic meaning - it is simply something that you saw on the vital plane.

Mother,

Tonight I saw in my dream that you wrote something in English on a small piece of paper. I tried to read it but I could not, still I felt very happy and thought that Mother had written something nice for me.

Mother, I pray to you to tell me what you wrote.

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It may have been something about your coming to the Mother, - that Mother was not forgetting you. Generally when one sees a letter like that, it is the thought which the person writing it wants to convey to you.

SRI AUROBINDO

Mother,

The other day I saw you in my dream.

You were distributing soup to everyone in the hall where somebody told me that Ambu was making various idols of God out of clay. I went to see them and selected from them an idol of Lord Krishna resting in the lap of Sheshnag. However, I ran back to the hall without taking that idol thinking that the Mother might finish the distribution of soup. I found that the Mother had already finished her work and got up and she was instructing Champaklal to keep the little remaining quantity of soup on the small stove in the hall so that it would remain hot. Thinking that the Mother would not know, I started going back but she saw and called me. I went to the Mother and she happily gave me the soup and patted me. This made me very happy. The Mother had worn a blue sari.

Does this mean anything?

No — it simply happened in the vital plane.

SRI AUROBINDO

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(The narrations of the following dreams are lost. Only Sri Aurobindo's interpretations are given below.)

It must have been your psychic being that was there as a child with the psychic beings of others. The two chained people may be the mind and the vital, kept chained so as to allow the psychic to have play. They get free from time to time and the vital may do mischief - which you felt.

SRI AUROBINDO

It is a dream of the vital plane in which Mother was giving the things indicated by the garlands, new birth, transformation etc.

SRI AUROBINDO

Mother,

I saw you in my dream last night. I offered my pranam to you and you pressed your full hand over my head with force and then you gave me a white Offering flower and a big stalk of Tulsi. I felt so happy.

Mother, does it have any meaning?

No, except just what happened. The Mother blessed you in the vital and gave you devotion and self-offering.

SRI AUROBINDO

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Mother,

This evening when I sat in meditation I saw the very bright colour of the Supramental Beauty flower before my eyes. I could not make out whether the colour itself was bright or it looked brighter due to the reflection of light falling on it. Behind this colour, I saw a figure - it seemed like a map of India. The colour of the map was to some extent creamy. Mother, what is the meaning?

When I sit in meditation and do japa of Mother, Mother, Mother, everything becomes quiet. I find peace inside and outside and I chant Mother, Mother, Mother very vigorously and I feel tremendous peace. This time I heard the word Mother, Mother, Mother in the surrounding atmosphere too.

I had this sort of experience before I went to Gujarat. But after coming from Gujarat, it stopped. This morning, it started again. I pray Mother to help me.

What is it that I hear as Mother, Mother around me. Is it true or a delusion?

The atmosphere you carry around you is part of your consciousness as much as the rest that you feel inside you. When you repeat the name of the Mother, it begins to echo in all your consciousness the Mother, outside as well as inside you. What you experience therefore is quite true and it is a good experience.

SRI AUROBINDO

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Mother,

Last night I saw as follows.

In the morning, like all other persons I also went to the Mother to offer my salutations. After doing my salutations, when I raised my head, the Mother gave me a pink flower and said, "You are unfit for this yoga. You are not progressing in it and you do not even remember us."

Mother, I feel the other way, that is, for the last so many days I have remembered Sri Aurobindo and you more and more. As regards my progress in yoga, who else can know better than you?

It may have been simply a formation in the vital, a suggestion meant to disturb you. If there was any truth in it, it must have been not to you but to some part of your being that Mother was speaking, telling it that it was not progressing or remembering her and at the same time she was giving you the flower indicating some psychic consciousness or movement by which this inertia would be removed.

SRI AUROBINDO

Mother, S

For the last ten or fifteen days, I have been having a fear about some snake. When I go to bed to sleep, I feel as if a snake is moving around my bed and also near my feet. This morning when I went to the bathroom I actually stepped

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on a scorpion but I was saved by Thy Grace.

Mother, why am I having this fear of a snake?

It is not clear. It looks like a suggestion (imagination) of the vital plane forced upon your mind. Did you kill the scorpion?

SRI AUROBINDO

Mother,

I have been seeing my sister Yashoda and all members of my family in my night's dream.

Mother, help me to see you and remember only you in my dream.

These dreams in which one sees relatives, known people, scenes of the old life come from the subconscient and such dreams are easily remembered than others because this part is nearest to the physical.

SRI AUROBINDO

Mother,

I see Jagdish, my younger brother, coming here in my dream. When I ask him why he came back so soon, in less than three days, he replies that he has been here only and did not go to Gujarat for ever.

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It is probably simply a thought of his on the vital plane that came to you.

SRI AUROBINDO

Mother,

This evening at 7.00 p.m. when I was sitting in meditation I saw a big heap of blue 'Sincerity' flowers on the staircase of the meditation house in a blue ocean.

Mother, does this mean anything?

Perhaps it is the infinite sincerity in the Divine.

Mother,

Last night I saw a dream.

At night, all were meditating in the compound of the meditation house. I came to offer my pranams to you. I said, "Of late, I feel tremendous affection for you and I also feel very very happy." Hearing this, you were pleased and patted me on my shoulder and then you gave me a white flower and a piece of golden thread.

The meaning of the flower would depend on what flower it was. It is likely to be some kind of purity since it was white, but of what part is not clear without knowing the kind of flower. Gold thread would mean

 

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something of the divine Truth in the consciousness.

Mother,

I saw the following dream.

There was a big building amongst many trees of "Realisation". When I was wandering among them, Hiren saw me and he lifted me with his arms, so I reached the top of the "Realisation" trees. He asked me to collect as many flowers as possible. Saying so, he took me to four or five trees. I plucked flowers with child-like joy. When I saw this dream, I felt as if I was seven years old.

Does it have any meaning?

It was probably some force lifting your psychic being (the child) so that it could arrive at some realisations. The figure of Hiren in the dream was probably only a mental figure representing the Force — it was not Hiren himself. The mind often brings in familiar figures in this way.

Mother,

"This time, when my father Kashibhai comes, I feel that he is going to die." These thoughts are constantly haunting me, sometimes these thoughts go away and come again.

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Two-three days back, I saw in my dream that Kashibhai had gone mad.

Mother, lately I am having bad dreams in my sleep. It is my humble prayer to save me from such dreams and make me see you only.

This and the dreams about madness are suggestions in the atmosphere (people have been thinking much about death and madness) taking form as thoughts and dreams.

Mother,

I saw a dream like this. I came to see you on my birthday. You said to me, "Kamala, I willingly allow you to go to Gujarat for a few days." If it is true, may I go to Gujarat after 21st February?

The dream must have been a formation in your mind in dream - for there was no such intention on the part of the Mother.

''Determination."

After hearing your word from the roof of the library house I was very happy and I began saying to Anilbaran, "See, how majestic the Mother looks!"

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Mother, what is the meaning of this?

Trying to aspire to be your true child.

It was the symbolic representation of some of my world activities.

With my love and blessings.

It was a moonlit night. I was sitting in Motiben's lap under a banyan tree by the sea shore, enjoying the sight of the surging waves. All of a sudden the tide turned and started rising. I even told Motiben that we might get drowned because it appeared like Pralaya to me. Soon a huge wave drowned us and we were submerged in water. But I was not afraid at all; on the contrary, I found it very enjoyable.

Mother, what is the significance of this dream?

The sea must have been only the symbol of a new consciousness submerging the old.

SRI AUROBINDO

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