Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1

Visions and Voices

The year 1933

      Sometimes scenes come before my eyes even when I have not thought of them and when I have not wanted their presence. Are these images mental or subtle?

      These are not mental images. There is an inner vision that opens when one does sadhana and all sorts of images rise before it or pass. Their coming does not depend upon your thought or will; it is real and automatic. Just as your physical eyes see things in the physical world, so the inner eyes see things and images that belong to the other worlds and subtle images of things of this physical world also.

      Suppose an image has appeared before one's eyes. If one had not desired or even thought of it, would it not disqualify from being called a mental image?

      No, it is not like that. A mental image may also come suddenly, e.g. if someone is thinking of you, you may see a mental image of that person.

      Can one stop such mental images when one does not want to see them?

      One can always dismiss them and if one is very

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conscious one can put up a mental will against their appearance.

      Has one no power to do anything with his inner eyes? Can they not turn and look towards the divine worlds?

      You see what you are able to see, it is a mental vision. If you try to see this or that, you are likely to create mental images only. It is only by the development of consciousness that you can see the divine worlds.

      Are subtle images restricted to any particular object or realm?

      Subtle images can be images of all things in all worlds.

      Everything not physical is seen by an inner vision.

      I saw Mother's form in a dream last night. Was it real or was it imagination only at work?

      What do you mean by real? It was the form of Mother in a dream experience. Imagination applies only to the waking mind.

      But cannot false forces take the form of the Mother?

      If false forces take the form of the Mother, it will be with some bad object. If there is no attack or wrong suggestion, you need not suppose that it is false forces that have done it.

      Of course it is always possible that something in your own consciousness has constructed a dream about the Mother or put her figure there when she

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herself was not there. That happens when it is only a dream, a number of ideas and memories etc. of the mind put together and not experience on another plane.

      In a letter about subtle supraphysical fragrance, you used the phrase: "Like the supraphysical light seen by the eyes." Do our eyes see the supraphysical light, then? Can one really enjoy it without going to the supraphysical worlds?

      What light? If you mean the supraphysical light you don't get it on the physical. You get the supraphysical inner vision often behind the physical sight and you see with that, supraphysical things as is perfectly natural.

      When one tries to do something that is contrary to the Divine's Will, what is it that tells one inwardly not to do it?

      It is the discriminating mind or the psychic that tells.

      You have said: "To hear and recognise the Mother's voice within is not easy." When is one ready?

      When one has equality, discrimination and sufficient yogic experience, — otherwise any voice may be mistaken for the Mother's.

      On several occasions I seemed to listen to people's thoughts. What being in me did this?

      It is not a being listening. It is simply that your mind became aware of the others' thoughts.

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      After I become aware of others' thoughts, if I am not careful and if I let them enter me they may take hold of my vital being and disturb my consciousness. If they come and pass, it is all right, but I must not stick to them.

      Certainly, but if you don't know where they come from, still they might come in and then you would take them for your own thoughts and find it more difficult to dismiss them.

The year 1934

      The Mother's body does not appear to me any longer a physical structure like that of other human beings. It is simply a particularised manifestation of a magnificent light. Is it really so? Or am I simply exaggerating my experience?

      No, that is all right — it so appears to the inner vision.

      Visions are not indispensable — they are a help, that is all, when they are of the right kind.

      I dreamt of an insect flying from near a lamp, entering my body and illumining it. Has it any meaning?

      The insect may symbolise some force of light on a small scale.

      In my last night's dreams I saw two events. First, J saw that the Mother would come out for her evening walk earlier today, and that I would somehow be

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present to see her. Second, I saw a new poem of Harindranath Chattopadhyaya. Both these predictions have become facts today.

      One can see beforehand things that happen in the physical. One can see them on the vital plane or on the subtle physical, — but the subtle physical foreseeing is usually more exact and sure.

      The Mother's Force has started working in my ears! Often it closes them as if with some physical substance. Then I feel quite deaf for the time being.

      It is through the ears that the thought vibrations usually come from outside.

      Yesterday I was sitting before the Mother and receiving something from her. At the same time I began to feel the near presence of H through a particular smell. But H was not at all present in the Hall and wherever I moved the smell also accompanied me. Once you wrote to me that each person has a special subtle smell different from others'. Was the experience something of the kind?

      It is simply that the subtle physical sense has been developed and you feel H near although he is not physically present — with that comes the smell.

      I had just closed my eyes — but was not asleep. Suddenly I saw a small bird coming down in swift flight. It knocked at my forehead, just above the inner mind-centre. I could not quite remember after-wards whether it entered in or fled away.

      It must have gone in. I suppose the bird indicates a power of ascension.

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      I wonder if what I feel as silence is the true silence. People say that by the silence is usually meant a state in which one hears the Divine's Voice. As yet I have not come across any such voice.

      Nonsense. The silence does not depend on hearing the Divine's Voice. Hearing voices is not always a very safe thing either unless one is clear first in the vital.

      During the noon nap there was a dream-vision. I saw your answer to my question about H. You had written, "Yes." The characters of the writing were exactly like yours. Can the hostile forces imitate your handwriting?

      They can imitate anything — but why should it have been the hostile forces?

      On the same paper you had drawn a sketch of a bottle. It was filled to the brim. Just above it there were two figures of small size, one representing the Mother and the other H. The figures were shown to be pouring something into the bottle. By the bottle you had meant Nagin. How do you explain this?

      I suppose it indicates something to be poured into you by her through H's help. These things seem to be mental and may be mental intuitions or mental formations.

      At times I feel as if a burning spark enters my forehead. It remains only for a while. What does it indicate?

      A spark of the higher dynamic force, I suppose.

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