Mother's Chronicles (Book 1)

13

The Sleepwalker!

But Mirra's own sleep was . . . strange.

"Even as a child, very young, suddenly, plump in the middle of an action or a sentence or whatever, I would go off into a trance, and nobody knew what it was! At the time they all thought I was asleep! But I stayed conscious —with an arm raised or in the middle of a word, and next pfft! gone," Mother laughed. "Outwardly gone, but inwardly quite an intense, interesting experience. But that used to happen to me even when I was very small."

Mother reminisced. "I remember —I was perhaps ten or twelve —once there was a luncheon at my parents' house. A dozen or so people, all decked out in their Sunday best (they were family members, but all the same it was a 'luncheon' so there was a certain

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protocol; in short, you had to maintain a certain decorum!). I was at one end of the table, next to a first cousin of mine. He later became director of the Louvre for a time (he had an artistic intelligence, a rather capable young man). So there we were, and I remember I was perceiving something quite interesting in his atmosphere (mind you, I knew nothing; had I been told of 'aura' and all that . . . but no, not a thing did I know about occultism, although the faculties were already there). I was in the process of perceiving a kind of sensation I had felt in his atmosphere, when, with the fork halfway to my mouth, I was off! Did I catch it! I was told that if I didn't know how to behave properly, I shouldn't come to the table." Mother went into peals of laughter.

Memories came crowding. "Gradually, my body became a sleepwalker— that is, the link remained securely tied to it, but the consciousness of the form got more and more conscious."

Here, a word of explanation may not be amiss. Who amongst us has not had an out-of-body experience sometime or other? It can take place anywhere: on

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the operation table, at an accident site, or simply in bed while we are asleep. The latter is the most common experience, and happens to practically everybody. But in every case, the part of our being (we are made of many parts, aren't we?) that goes out is attached to the body by a cord or thread, or, as Mother called it, a "link." So long as this link remains intact and tied to the body, we can always return to it. But if for some reason or another the link snaps, then we cannot return to the body and are declared "dead." This link is extremely elastic and can be stretched indefinitely. It is also extremely slender.

Anybody soundly asleep, when awakened abruptly, can come to harm because of the risk of causing damage to the link. This is also the reason why it is considered bad to awaken a sleepwalker. Now, in the case of a sleepwalker, the consciousness of the body is so attached to the part of the being that goes out, that it identifies itself to that part and automatically follows it, doing what it does.

Let us go back to Mirra and see where her sleepwalking led her! "I got into the habit of getting up

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— only, not in the manner of ordinary sleepwalkers: I would get up, open my desk, take a sheet of paper and write . . . poetry. I who had nothing of the poet in me!"

Mother had once exclaimed, "Me! I am not a poet." She said candidly, "Savitri* is the first poem I appreciated in my life. Before, I was closed. Poetry had always appeared to me as mere words —hollow-hollow-hollow, nothing but words. Words for words' sake. As sound, nice enough, but ... I would rather music. Music is better."

But Mother's was not quite "the manner of ordinary sleepwalkers." To resume our story: "Yes, poetry! I would jot down things. And very consciously I would put everything back into the desk drawer, shut everything very carefully before going back to bed. One day, for some reason or other, I forgot, I left it open. My mother comes.... It was my mother who used to wake me up; because in France thick drapes are pulled over the windows, so she would

* Savitri; Sri Aurobindo's epic poem.

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come in the mornings, brusquely fling wide the drapes, thus waking me up, brrm! without forewarning. But I was used to it, so I would be about ready to wake up, otherwise it wouldn't have been so very pleasant! Anyway, she comes in, calling me with unquestionable authority, then finds the desk open and a paper inside, 'What's this!' She grabs it. 'What have you been doing?' I don't know what I replied, but she went to the doctor: 'My daughter has become a sleepwalker. You must give her some drug.' " Mother smiled ruefully, "It wasn't easy."

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