At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo

06 December 1931

MYSELF: Mother, is the Ananda about which I have written to you this morning a vital Ananda?

SRI AUROBINDO: The Ananda you describe is evidently that of the inner vital when it is full of the psychic influence and floods with it the exterior vital also. It is the true Ananda and there is nothing in it of the old vital nature. When the psychic thus uses the vital to express itself, this kind of intense ecstasy is the natural form it takes. This intensity and the old vital excitement are two quite different things and must not be confused together. When there is the intensity with a pure and full satisfaction, content and gratitude leaving no room for claim, demand or depressing reaction, that is the true movement.

(6.12.31)