CWTVKS Volume 2

5) Experiences

When Rishi Atri hymns that when Agni is born, he is born as Varuna, he gives expression to a deep truth of spiritual life. For when the fire of aspiration, the Divine Will (Agni) is manifested in man, there is an effortless, simultaneous realisation of Vastness (Varuna is the god of Vastness)—the habitual littlenesses and narrownesses are left behind. His consciousness spreads out, it expands to embrace the Divine in its vast extension. Varuna is followed by Mitra (God of Love, Harmony). There is a feeling of love, sympathy flowing out to all, to the whole creation. Repulsion, fear, hatred, all these melt away at this rise of Love and identification with the rest.

11 June 1951

You speak of calm as ‘coming’ from somewhere. That is calm, of course, but it is a mental calm. There is a greater calm within ourselves, deeper, the spiritual calm which calls down the other calm. The spiritual calm is always there within, firm, immovable and serene. The supramental calm is still greater. When that is there even material elements can be rendered motionless and the calm imposed on them.

23 February 1949

Peace is not in the mind only. It is everywhere, it is within you and around you. If you learn to relax and yield to it, the Peace will envelop you all over.

18 April 1949

The Yoga-Shakti is of course working in the sadhaka, whether he is aware of it always or not. But if he is conscious of it and takes steps to be more and more conscious of its workings, that helps the Shakti and accelerates the process.

9 September 1949

When you progress in sadhana and the higher consciousness begins to act, the mind ceases to function as mind. Its substance is there of course, but not its activity. It simply falls mute.

21 September 1950

Ideas are dynamic. Unless the mind is truncated as it were from the rest of the being, when thoughts get formulated in the mind for expression there is some response from the vital; and after a time the vital gets habituated to respond rhythmically to the workings of the mind and the increasing harmony thus established results in the deeper part, what is called Psyche in our Yoga, coming forward, finding the field ready for its reign.

17 December 1948

The psychic being—the true centre of love—is the apex holding together as it were the two ends of the vital and the mental. It does not stand behind either. We may say, the vital from below and the mental from above have their meeting point in the psychic. When the psychic centre is active, it uplifts and pushes the vital in purified action; it warms and guides the mind in its activity.

30 September 1950

A balancing of the vital and the mental parts is a sign of the development of the psychic element.

26 April 1949

Intuition, telepathy, all these are on par with ‘the ability to walk on water’ in the Ramakrishna story, from the viewpoint of real spiritual life. They are at best expressions of capacity, that is about all.

5 October 1948

Looked at purely from a physical point of view i.e. if we look at the solar system alone as the centre and scene of creation, then, creation had a beginning at some point of time—millions of years ago—(when atoms started coalescing) and naturally, at some point of time in future (again millions or billions of years hence) it must have an end. Physical formations have a beginning and an end. In this context, the question of transformation etc. loses its urgency and even its meaning. But if we look at the whole thing as a movement of consciousness, then it assumes a new complexion altogether. The physical, the vital systems of worlds and all the other systems are different formulations of the One Consciousness-Energy. Consciousness is the Truth. It is because of this we say that all knowledge is at bottom subjective. For it is Consciousness as the Universal Mind that comprehends all knowledge and our mind, which is really a part of the Universal Mind, takes out as knowledge what is comprehended already in the larger term of the Consciousness.

Hence the fundamental importance attached to the change of consciousness in spiritual life. The higher the consciousness operative and normalised in man, the larger is his vision, loftier his stature and vaster his range. It is true, however, that as one arrives at a particular stage in the workings of the higher consciousness and gets identified with the consciousness itself on its purified and subtler levels, one begins to lose all interest in the body. For him this body appears as good as another and his interest in the retention and possibly transformation of the present body flags. The interest has to come again in a different manner.

28 December 1948

If you persistently knock at His Doors, He is sure to open them. Compared to that Event, experiences and realisations like wideness etc. are fireworks. But they are necessary to train the physical mind. Otherwise it would go mad under' the impact of the Revelation.

17 September 1948

Is it possible for man to continue to be his old self even after inner illumination? Does an inner realisation have an effect on the outer being or not? Can one continue to live out his petty likes and meannesses even if there is a radical touch of the illumination within?

The Gita of course says that even in the case of a Jnanin, life continues to be lived in accord with the settled nature. But it does not mean that there can be no transmuting change in one's outer life consequent on illumination. When there is a spiritual realisation or illumination within, the rest of the being is undoubtedly lifted up and a spiritual consciousness does settle upon it. What does not change is the mould of expression that is originally determined for each soul. For instance, one may be noble and generous—giving away everything spontaneously; the other may be acquisitive, sparing in gifts. These broad lines may continue to be the same. But the way and details or expression of a realised man certainly bear a different stamp—a spiritual stamp—about them. The Maharshi once told me how he was by nature physically combative and challenging in his earlier days. But after the realisation, things changed and his response to men and the world were no longer the same; they were quite different; a kind of in-different attitude had taken hold.

Once there is a radical spiritual realisation within, it cannot fail to have repercussions in the outer being. Man's outlook changes; at the very least an awareness of the equality of beings comes to the front.

8 September 1949

The visitor who wanted to show his feats last evening at the playground but walked away in a huff (apparently because he was ‘found out’) really lost courage. When persons with such powers come into the presence of the Divine or someone in a higher consciousness, the powers leave the man and get away or at least they begin to crumble. The man feels helpless and loses heart.

10 June 1951

(Someone had this vision: A beautiful peacock with feathers outspread; then a golden bird and then a pure white horse.)

This is a rare vision; it is very good. It is not a vision of the mind but a soul-vision, what is called in the parlance of this yoga, psychic vision. It can be looked at in two ways and both hold good.

The peacock is Victory; the Golden bird is a spiritual Being coming down from Truth-Consciousness to help her; the White Horse is the purified life-energy.

It can also be looked at this way: the peacock represents victory in sadhana; the Golden Bird is Sri Aurobindo's help coming down to lift her up; and the White Horse is the Mother's Force.

Some part of her entered the subtle planes, the world of symbols and saw happenings as related to her own being in symbols.

A very happy vision.

26 June 1951

Experiences do not really matter much in spiritual life. It is consciousness, not experience, that matters most. Even good experiences fail to leave a good effect if the person lives in a false or egoistic consciousness; they rather make him more swell-headed and leave him worse than before.

7 March1951

Samadhi by itself is no realisation. It is a part of the sadhana. One can make capital use of it for the realisation that is the aim of sadhana.

27-4-1949

It is more towards acquiring real strength than on the exercise of it that our effort must be directed.

18 September 1948