Sri Aurobindo, – Extracts

 

The supramental gnostic being…would not only found all his living on an intimate sense and effective realisation of harmonic unity in his own inner and outer life or group-life, but would create a harmonic unity also with the still surviving mental world, even if that world remained altogether a world of Ignorance. For the gnostic consciousness in him would perceive and bring out the evolving truth and principle of harmony hidden in the formations of the Ignorance; it would be natural to his sense of integrality and it would be within his power to link them in a true order with his own gnostic principle and the evolved truth and harmony of his own greater life-creation. That might be impossible without a considerable change in the life of the world, but such a change would be a natural consequence of the appearance of a new Power in Nature and its universal influence. In the emergence of the gnostic being would be the hope of a more harmonious evolutionary order in terrestrial Nature.

                                                (The Life Divine, CE, Volume 19, pp. 970-71)


Man is there to affirm himself in the universe, that is his first business, but also to evolve and finally to exceed himself: he has to enlarge his partial being into a complete being, his partial consciousness into an integral consciousness; he has to achieve mastery of his environment but also world-union and world-harmony; he has to realise his individuality but also to enlarge it into a cosmic self and a universal and spiritual delight of existence. A transformation, a chastening and correction of all that is obscure, erroneous and ignorant in his mentality, an ultimate arrival at a free and wide harmony and luminousness of knowledge and will and feeling and action and character, is the evident intention of his nature; it is the ideal which the creative Energy has imposed on his intelligence, a need implanted by her in his mental and vital substance. But this can only be accomplished by his growing into a larger being and a larger consciousness: self-enlargement, self-fulfilment, self-evolution from what he partially and temporarily is in his actual and apparent nature to what he completely is in his secret self and spirit and therefore can become even in his manifest existence, is the object of his creation. This hope is the justification of his life upon earth midst the phenomena of the cosmos. The outer apparent man, an ephemeral being subject to the constraints of his material embodiment and imprisoned in a limited mentality, has to become the inner real Man, master of himself and his environment and universal in his being. In a more vivid and less metaphysical language, the natural man has to evolve himself into the divine Man; the sons of Death have to know themselves as the children of Immortality. It is on this account that the human birth can be described as the turning-point in evolution, the critical stage in earth-nature.

                                                                                                (Ibid. pp. 684-85)


It is true that the soul can ascend into worlds of a greater consciousness beyond the earth, but it is also true that the power of these worlds, the power of a greater consciousness has to develop itself here; the embodiment of the soul is the means for that embodiment.

                                                                                                (Ibid. p. 680)


*

The Assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi

 

In VISHAAL 2/5, December 1987 (‘This Question of Purpose’), I discussed the number-powers 8 and 9 as parts of a connected process with respect to the vehicles or fields where the Integral and Supramental Yogas could be practiced. I would like to offer a further example of the connection and how the occurrence of an event on an 8-power day normally signifies that a further step must be taken; something else is to transpire which will round off that particular process.

This is most clearly demonstrated in the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi. I wish to show students the very great precision of the new cosmology concerning events which fall within the ambit of the Power insofar as they constitute a unified process.

It is not possible to discover a unified process of this nature unless one is provided with the key of a higher knowledge. The Gnostic Circle is that key. It is the cosmological blueprint that formed the basis for verification of the Solar and Lunar Lines as the helical arrangement around which the Supramental Manifestation could become consolidated on Earth, and particularly in India. Thus the inner triangle of the diagram, marking off the 9, 6, and 3 powers, numbers or planets, provided the central key with which the members of the Solar Line could be recognised as Evolutionary Avatars, in no abstract terms, as well as a verification of the members of the Lunar Line with its accompanying agents, Mahatma Gandhi and Kamala Nehru.

Concerning Mahatma Gandhi we discover a certain clue in his assassination which allows us to understand that it was part of a connected process. This clue involved Time and it lay in the very date of his demise. 30.1.1948, which, by the mathematics of unity, equals 8 (30+1+1+9+4+8=8). However, with this fact alone we are not able to predict the next step; we are only given the understanding that more is yet to come in a connected sequence, that what is to come is part of an unbroken line and it must involve the last stage of the process and the number 9. And this was indeed the case.

But what lies at the root of the matter? The issue was apparently the partition of India and, to a rather superficial assessment, it was the communal disharmony that led to Gandhi’s assassination. Yet this is only partly true. The far more essential factor is the establishment of the new creation on Indian soil and India as the field where certain key ‘knots’ would be unravelled for the Earth in the evolution of consciousness of the species. The new cosmology provides us with the means to understand what the process is that allows this to transpire. Of course a major issue in this unfolding is the partitioned condition of India at the time of Independence and the method required to heal that dismembering. We must, at the same time, understand what such a shattering of the subcontinent signifies in the higher harmony of things.

Historians have given their versions of the causes of Partition and the tragic occurrences this produced among the people of India, especially in the northern sector. But in the light of the supramental gnosis these ideas are only partially true. In the context of the new cosmology and its language, they represent the peripheral play, the conspiracy of circumstances on the circumference of the circle that represents the new creation. But insofar as the Supermind is the active power in the process, this ‘circle’ is a unified multiplicity, with a central, binding Sun at its heart; and therefore we know that this peripheral play of circumstances has now been integrated into the process, that it is indeed an integrated and harmonised unit we are dealing with. Consequently, each and every event that transpires within the new system is controlled, and it is a recognisable part of a unitary unfolding. It therefore has a sense, a purpose.

But to discover what this is one must have the light of a new and enhanced wisdom and an impeccable key of higher knowledge. This eschews sentimentality and demands a courageous power of seeing and discernment. For example, one sees Mahatma Gandhi’s true role – not as the father of the Indian nation but as the peripheral agent of the Lunar Line. And, above all regarding the issue under analysis, one is able to discern just what his contribution really was and how it was an accommodation of a sort. Given the totality of conditions prevailing and the complexity of the process, and above all the demand for an integral and harmonised resolution of those problematic knots, India was unable to respond to anything higher than his moral and ethical standard and an incomplete perception which centred on an equally incomplete understanding of the policy of non-violence and its consequences.

The framework Mahatma Gandhi provided left gaps in the structure. Thus vital energies escaped the process of integration. His insistency on a certain formula of non-violence and the generation of guilt as a key factor in his programme resulted in a failure to complete the work in 1947. It left dangerous energies unintegrated, and the result was the murderous partition with its accompanying massive slaughter of Indian by Indian. I repeat, this was directly connected to a formula that was incomplete and that failed to incorporate the totality of energies it sought to integrate. For we are always dealing with energy, the student must bear in mind, in different equations and complex patterns of interrelation. A mental and moral standard is insufficient to allow the new creation to become established on Earth. It is the Supermind alone that can successfully carry the world to the next stage in its evolution. And this is a vision far above the mental formula. However, at the time of Mahatma Gandhi’s participation nothing more was possible. And on the basis of the new cosmology we have a confirmation in the very date of Independence: it was indeed Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, 15 August, but the complete tally results in 8 (1+5+8+1+9+4+7=8). Hence this fact also permits the student of the New Way to realize that celebration of the event so long awaited was part of a larger process and that more lay ahead. In addition, it allows us to realise that what does lie ahead is directly related to whatever formed the basis for that incomplete celebration. Wisdom lies in the discernment that the partitioned condition of India on 15th August, 1947, would be the underlying root of whatever else was to transpire. And finally it all converges on the deeper causes themselves of Partition.

Thus the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi shortly after Independence also fell on a day of 8 number-power, 30.1.1948 (=8). The same power of the 8 that was present at Independence was still a factor to contend with. The matter would reach its extreme, in a directly connected sequence, 36 years later with the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Violence is ever the underlying theme. But the real problem, as with terrorism, lies with those unintegrated energies. Indeed, this can be traced to the human being and the mental constitution, – those unintegrated energies within the individual human instrument; for the knot to be undone is the same whether we view the matter collectively or individually. But an incomplete formula is not the solution. It left crucial energies disconnected from the process.

Indira Gandhi’s assassination was the outcome of that incomplete experience. She succumbed in a manner which displays with starkest exactitude the reality of this unresolved Knot and the resistant, ferocious energies which constitute its nature. But, at the same time, her demise is also a means to realise that the final stage in the process has been reached; and, moreover, that we are not likely to experience another situation of this order regarding the members of the Lunar Line if the energy released by her death is allowed to fulfil itself.

The date of Indira’s assassination was 31.10.1984. Students of the new cosmology cannot fail to note the importance of this date in the overall unfolding of the Manifestation. First of all, we may take the year itself, 1984. It represents a reversal of the year of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, 1948. However, what his reversal of numbers signifies is that a multiple of 9 is involved; that is, a cycle of 9 years, as in all other cases where the final two digits of the year are reversed. But this particular multiple of 9 adds weight to the thesis that we are dealing with a final step in a connected process, insofar as between 1948 and 1984 there are 36 years, or the 4th multiple of 9. Students of the new way know that this denotes a fourfold passage and hence a certain completion in a structure whose basic form is a division into four parts.

But the actual date of Indira Gandhi’s demise is the most revealing factor to establish a connection with Mahatma Gandhi’s. 31 October would be exactly 9 months after 30 January. Thus her death would not only fall 4×9 years after Mahatma Gandhi’s, but 9 months as well; with one additional day, however.

We must ask why there is a discrepancy of one day in so exact a pattern. The answer lies in the significant passage from 8 to 9. Had Indira’s assassination fallen one day earlier, to place it an exact 9 months after Mahatma Gandhi’s on the calendar, given the nature of our number system it too would have taken place on a day of 8 number-power. Whereas, the addition of one day, coupled with the 9 cycle of 36 years, presents us with the image of a completed process. That is, those unintegrated energies that found no adjustment or place within the former incomplete formula of non-violence, by 1984 had reached an explosive peak which demands integration. The indications are that only now can that knot be undone. This lies at the root of the problem Rajiv Gandhi, fourth member of the Lunar Line, faces in the Sikh conundrum.

It is also well to point out that 1984 marked the half-way point in the three final decades of this century, beginning with 1971 and ending in 1998, a year which coincides with the termination of the first 72-year cycle of the Aquarian Age. It is time now for a positive energy to manifest which can resolve these conundrums in unanticipated ways.


The passage from 8 to 9 describes the change which the human race is compelled to make for its survival. But survival does not consist in a continuity of the species as it is presently constituted. What is demanded is the introduction of something new, hitherto unmanifest, which will constitute the enhanced foundations of a new race. For this to come into being the present boundaries of consciousness, and by consequence the condition of the human instrument, must be extended. This extension is conveyed in number-power by the passage from 8 to 9.

It is a critical passage, fraught with danger, for when this stage is reached it implies that either a new creation comes into being or there is a total collapse.

The human being has never successfully accomplished this crossing; but it can no longer be postponed. An indication of this imperative need, represented by these number-powers, is the unusual interplay between Neptune, the 8th planet of our System, and Pluto, the 9th. The latter, because of its erratic motion, has swung into Neptune’s orbit and, for a time, has displaced it from its eighth position. It has thus intertwined itself with the 8th power. This situation will last until the end of the century. It is a clear representation of an interlinking, of a joint process which we cannot escape. The demands of the 8 must be met and integrated if we are to reach the 9 apex successfully; and this must be a joint process.

In the larger boundaries of the Earth’s age, we also face the same passage. We emerged from the 8th Manifestation in 234BC, when the ‘void’ became the favoured experience of the then spiritual elite. That Void is descriptive of the present impasse and the choice we face of either creation or destruction.

We are now in the 9th Manifestation, the culmination in a cycle of 77,760 years. It is the time of the great Birth. The consciousness which the Earth has been gestating is finally born. And within this critical Manifestation the Age of Aquarius is the most dangerous and, at the same time, the most significant and inspiring. For the 9th Avatar takes birth in this Age to complete the crossing, to secure the Victory.

There are two sections of the Gnostic Circle which demonstrate vividly this extension. Of particular interest is the passage through Scorpio, the 8th sign at the end of which lies Saturn, and into Sagittarius, the 9th. In Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem, Savitri, these are equally critical portions, for the 8th Book is the Book of Death, and in the 9th Book the Goddess follows Death beyond the boundaries set for the human being. She wilfully transgresses those limits and defies Death’s sombre warning.

Yet those are the very boundaries that we must now cross so that we may enlarge the present limits of our destiny; indeed, so that we may experience a higher destiny. And this is the crucial act of choosing that is demanded. In order to make this passage the act of choosing requires a conscious process which holds the key to a special release of energy for millennia closed in the dark cave of Scorpio, or the lowest centre of the human instrument, the sex centre. When this energy is released and utilised to create a new axial balance, this becomes the pivot around which the higher destiny can become organised because the true centre has come into being. It is then that Whole Time, or the full circle, can be the integrated experience of the individual and of civilisation, a condition never before known. Thus the final quarter of the Circle, consisting of the 10th, 11th and 12th signs, has always been the unknown, the ‘heaven beyond’, because the Void has consistently devoured the energies that are needed to effect the crossing. This is the ‘error of the Buddha’ which Sri Aurobindo announced would be rectified by Kalki, the Evolutionary Avatar who represents for humanity that victorious crossing.

Using the Lunar Line as an example, the student can better understand the danger we face as a civilisation through an enlightened examination of the conditions surrounding the deaths of Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, and of all that has transpired during the 36 years which have separated these two events. But of special importance is one factor – indeed, the factor that changes everything. It is the continuity of the Line, which was not truncated with the death of Indira Gandhi but which, facilitated by the conspiracy of circumstances that resulted in her assassination, saw the rise to power of the 4th in the Line.

It is this sort of continuity that is required for the successful passage and extension, a continuity that the very nature of the crossing demands. It is not the continuation of any particular party, political system or social structure. Rather it is a line drawn by Time through the corridors of destiny which must at all costs be maintained in order to secure the ultimate victory.

(For a more detailed analysis of the significance of Indira Gandhi’s death and its consequences for the Lunar Line, see VISHAAL 0/1, October 1985, ‘The Nehrus and the New Cosmology’.)


On the basis of the new cosmology it is possible to present even greater details in this matter, incorporating other dates and factors regarding the process India is living for the world. But for the time being I will limit myself simply to drawing attention to the exacting control of the Supermind, using Time as its executive Power, and its consequent ability to create and to organise the conditions for its own fulfilment, using all circumstances – positive and negative – for its ultimate and total victory. In 1968 the Mother realised that the new Power which had manifested by then would display a ‘new precision’ quite different from the mental exercise and the science which it has produced. [See, The New Way, Volume 2, Chapter 7, p. 319.] The precision she spoke of would be a power of seeing that could harmonise and integrate events in a related and interconnected form. To demonstrate the truth of her statement, periodically I present students and the sincere seeker with means to verify concretely and non-speculatively just how this new Power is expressing itself in the world today and the exciting manner in which the Supermind, armed with this new Power, has been organised for Earth use. The tools we are given as precise keys of knowledge themselves verify the Mother’s statement in a manner that leaves no scope for scepticism or despair and eliminates the old foundations of faith and blind acceptance.

However, a process of Yoga must accompany the usage of these keys of knowledge to provide for a direct experience, because the inner truths they hold will only be revealed in the course of a serious practice of the supramental yoga and a conscious participation in the foundation-laying of the new world.


P.N.-B.
‘Skambha’

25 December, 1987

The Mother’s Dream – Part 1 Defining the Old and the New

 

During the night of 2-3 July, 1957, the Mother had a remarkable dream. It constituted one of her greatest acts of prophetic seeing and was to indicate the course her yoga would take for close to two decades. But even after she left this material plane her dream continued to reveal its prophetic quality because what the Mother so accurately foresaw in this vision and described as ‘something which is yet to be manifested’, would enter its final stage of realisation precisely on the day of her original vision, 2-3 July, but 23 years after the dream took place and the Mother was no longer incarnate. The exactitude of this synchronisation, in such a fundamental matter which I hope the following discussion will make clear, displays once again the important role the Measure of the Year plays in the Supramental Yoga. July 3rd falls in the zodiacal month of Cancer, and as I have explained in articles appearing in VISHAAL it is the portion of the year particularly connected to Diti, the dark mother of the Veda, the force of the past, of inertia, and of Prakriti or Mother Nature. These facts are amply borne out not only by the contents of the Mother’s dream but by what was to follow in the future involving the same date.

In addition and of equal importance is the fact that July 2-3, 1957 was the exact 4.5 Orbit of the 1950s and hence a moment of singular importance in the Work, the orbit which the new cosmology describes as the Void and the dark Knot in matter. By the mathematics of unity, 2 and 3 July 1957 can be reduced to the numbers 4 and 5 respectively. These hold the key to the nature of the problem her dream revealed which we shall now analyse in detail.

The Mother saw certain key conditions of the Yoga which had not yet surfaced in the 1950s. It was only in the next decade in fact that she was actually to live the experience she had foreseen for herself and which would constitute a certain line of demarcation between the old and the new. To appreciate the value of her vision and the methodical control that exists in this Work, it is important to bear in mind that the Mother had no way of knowing just how accurate her dream was, insofar as certain of its key elements had not yet been unveiled; indeed, some would only come into being in the years to follow.

1956, the year before her dream, was a turning point in the Work. On 29 February, the Supramental Manifestation occurred which opened the doors to the new world. The ‘new time’ had come. But the actual direction the Yoga would take was still a mystery, the lines of which could only be understood to some extent through a certain symbolic language. With this knowledge one could connect the symbols indicating the future course with the things they symbolised, with the people and the events which at the time of the Mother’s dream had not yet manifested.

When I first read the account of this dream in 1974 or 1975, I was amazed at the precision of the symbols and the accuracy with which they corresponded to actual happenings on Earth; in particular I was delighted to be able to bear witness once again to the Mother’s extraordinary visionary power and the impeccable manner in which she had seen the course the Yoga would take. Not only was her vision superb but her ability to explain the symbolism the next day to her entourage revealed her profound grasp of the requirements of the Yoga. By the time I had read this account much of what she had foreseen had come to pass; for verification there was a record of her Yoga in circulation,  ‘Notes on the Way’.

However, in 1957 nothing of this had manifested, in particular the main revelation of her dream. This was the role a centre, or centering would play in the future of the Work. A careful study of the dream reveals that the Mother understood the part ‘a centre’ would play, especially in the Supramental Yoga where it is essential for the collective realisation, which is a distinguishing feature of that Yoga. Thus the question of a collective experience was the underlying theme of the dream [from TMCE, Vol. 9, pp.137-140]:

‘I have been asked if we are doing a collective yoga and what the conditions for the collective yoga are.

‘I might tell you first of all that to do a collective yoga we must be a collectivity (!) and then speak to you about the different conditions required for being a collectivity. But last night, [smiling] I had a symbolic vision of our collectivity.

‘I had this vision in the early part of the night, and it made me wake up with a rather unpleasant impression. Then I went back to sleep and had forgotten it, and just now when I thought of the question I have been asked, the vision suddenly came back. It returned with a great intensity and so imperatively that now when I wanted to tell you exactly what kind of collectivity we want to realise in accordance with the ideal Sri Aurobindo has given in the last chapter of The Life Divine – a supramental, gnostic collectivity, the only one which can practise Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga and be physically realised in a progressive collective body that grows more and more divine – the memory of this vision became so imperative that it prevented me from speaking.

‘Its symbol was very clear though of quite a familiar kind, so to speak, but so unmistakably realistic in its familiarity…. If I were to relate it to you in detail, probably you wouldn’t even be able to follow; it was very complicated. It was the image of a kind of – how to put it? – of an immense hotel in which all earthly possibilities were accommodated in different rooms. And all this was in a state of constant transformation: fragments or entire wings of the building were suddenly demolished and rebuilt while all the people were still staying in them, in such a way that if a person went somewhere even inside this huge hotel, he ran the risk of not finding his room again when he wanted to get back to it! For it had been demolished and was being rebuilt on another plan. There was order, organisation…and there was the fantastic chaos I have described, and in that there was a symbol. There was a symbol which certainly applies to what Sri Aurobindo writes here [‘The Supramental Manifestation’, pp.33-36] on the necessity of the transformation of the body, what kind of transformation should take place for life to become a life divine.

‘It was something like this: somewhere in the centre of this huge building, a room was reserved…for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a very old lady, a self-important matron with much authority and her own views on the whole organisation. The daughter had a sort of power of movement and activity which made it possible for her to be everywhere at once even while remaining in that room which was…well, a little more than a room; it was a sort of apartment, and its main feature was to be right at the centre. But she was in constant argument with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things as they were with the rhythm they had, that is, with precisely that habit of demolishing one thing to build another out of it, and then again demolishing another to rebuild another one – which gave the building an appearance of a frightful confusion. And the daughter didn’t like that and had another plan. She wanted above all to bring something quite new into this organisation, a sort of super-organisation which would make all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible to come to an understanding, she left the room to go on a sort of round of inspection…. She went her round, saw everything, then she wanted to go back to her own room – for it was her room as well – to take some decisive action. And it was then that something rather peculiar began to happen. She remembered quite well where her room was, but each time she set out to go there by one route either the stairs disappeared or things were so changed that she could no longer recognise her way! And so she went here and there, climbed up and down, searched, went in and out … impossible to find the way back to her room! As all of this was taking a physical appearance, which was, as I said, very familiar and very ordinary, as always in these symbolic visions, somewhere there was – how to put it? – the administration of this hotel, and a woman who was a kind of manager, who had all the keys and knew where everybody was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked, ‘Can you show me the way to my room?’ – ‘Oh, yes, certainly, it is very easy.’ All the people around looked at her as though saying, ‘How can you say that?’ But she got up and, with authority, asked for a key, the key of the room, and said, ‘I’ll take you there.’ Then she took all sorts of routes, but all so complicated, so bizarre! And the daughter followed her very attentively so as not to lose sight of her. And just at the moment when obviously they should have reached the place where this so-called room was, suddenly the manager – we shall call her the manager – the manager with her key…disappeared! And this feeling of the disappearance was so acute that…everything disappeared at the same time.

‘If…to help you to understand this riddle, I could tell you that the mother is physical Nature as it is and the daughter is the new creation. The manager is the mental consciousness, organiser of the world as Nature has made it until now, that is, the highest sense of organisation manifested in material Nature as it is now. This is the key to the vision. Naturally, when I woke up I knew immediately what could solve this problem which had seemed absolutely insoluble. The disappearance of the manager and her key was a clear indication that she was quite incapable of leading to its true place what could be called the creative consciousness of the new world.

‘I knew it but I didn’t have the vision of the solution, which means that this is something which is yet to be manifested; this was not yet manifested in that building – that fantastic structure – and this is precisely the mode of consciousness which would transform this incoherent creation into something real, truly conceived, willed, executed, with a centre which is in its true place, a recognised place, with a real effective power.

 

(Silence)

 

‘It is quite clear in its symbolism, in the sense that all possibilities are there, but in disorder and confusion. They are neither coordinated nor centralised nor unified around the single central truth and consciousness and will…’

Those who have studied my work and in particular all the volumes of The New Way, and those who have been following Vishaal, are in a position to understand exactly what the Mother was alluding to when she described this new power as ‘the daughter’ and her special characteristics of ‘power of movement and activity which made it possible [for her] to be everywhere at once while remaining in that room which was…right at the centre’.

These words describe the action at the third level of the Solar Line. And that third position is indeed the Daughter Principle. It is ‘movement and activity’ since it corresponds to the vital level in the fourfold composition of the species in evolution, and, above all, it has a special relation to the centre. The contribution of the third member of the Line lies particularly in this question of centering and the axis this brings into being. In consequence, it is the third element in the triadic gradation of Transcendent, Cosmic and Individual Divine. The last, the Individual, is the soul, the incarnate seat of a perfect centering in creation. Because the human being has never realised the fullest potential of the soul, this true centre has never been an integrated part of the evolution of consciousness of the species, and by consequence of the physical instrument used for this evolution on Earth. The lack of a perfect centre and axial balance is what defines death as experienced by the human species.

Students of the new way will recognise in the Mother’s dream and its analysis by her that the new power she described as ‘something which is yet to be manifested’ is the Third Principle which in 1957 had not yet been unveiled. This unveiling took place only in 1971; hence that year marked the conclusive divide between the old and the new. It signalled the beginning of a special, detailed work which would prove that what the Mother had understood of her vision was indeed accurate and constituted a great act of seeing accompanied by an impeccable Knowledge. Just as in the question of the meaning of the measurements and design of her vision of the Temple-chamber, the Mother here too was unaware of each and every detail regarding the way the truths she had perceived in this dream-vision would materialise. But she knew that her vision was accurate in terms of the way the Supermind would be organised for the Earth and the nature of that ‘new power’ that alone could introduce the new creation.

In 1957 the Mother foresaw the need for a ‘centre that holds’, that in this lay the secret to creating a cosmos out of the chaos. And this, as students of the new way know, is precisely the work of the Third in the Solar Line, the ‘daughter’ of the trinity.


In the course of her Yoga the Mother had a number of accurate prophetic visions. One was of course her vision and design of the inner chamber of the Temple; another was her experience of number-powers, in which she foresaw with remarkable exactitude the Solar and Lunar Lines in the symbolic form of luminous columns of numbers [see TVN, 0/1, October 1985]. This was certainly one of her most astonishing visionary feats. And then there is the dream we are discussing in the present article. Like the Temple-chamber’s vision, this also provides us with certain revealing details of the supramental yoga; but because of the almost casual manner in which the Mother mentions these important elements, they are likely to be disregarded or overlooked unless a very careful study of her dream is undertaken.

In the last issue of VISHAAl, (2/5, December 1987) I discussed the present condition of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in terms of its limitations for expressing and realising the Supramental Truth. The Mother herself had understood in 1957 just what would be required for such a collective work to be successful. And she knew that a ‘new power’ would have to manifest if a field were to be created where the collective yoga could be practised which would introduce the new species. At the heart of this special undertaking lay the creation of a cosmos; and in this the indispensable ingredient is a Centre – a true centre. The Mother gives us the precise details:

‘…this is something which is yet to be manifested; this was yet to be manifested in that building – that fantastic structure – and this is precisely the mode of consciousness which would transform this incoherent creation into something real, truly conceived, willed, executed, with a centre which is in its true place, a recognised place, with real effective power.’

Indeed, in these few lines we have the heart of the matter. But in analysing them it is apparent that what I wrote regarding the present conditions in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and in Auroville is true especially since the problem lies in the lack of a centre, a ‘recognised centre’. For when a true centre comes into being with ‘real effective power’, this is the beginning of the creation of a cosmos, the very first stages in the emergence, in effective terms, of the new supramental collectivity. The above description the Mother has given us is precisely what I mean by ‘a cosmos’.

I use the word ‘cosmos’ purposefully. It signifies harmony; and this is the keyword of the action of the Third Power – the new element the Mother alluded to as being able to transform the incoherent creation into something real and truly conceived. But her dream also foretells something more.

A cosmos necessitates a centre, just as the solar system requires a central sun. But what is the nature of a body that is able to function as a real centre, with ‘effective power’? It is a special alignment. An axis comes into being in such an alignment which creates a field that extends outward from its central point due to the convergence of the contraction and expansion directions; hence a ‘centre that holds’. It has the capacity then to bind certain related elements to itself, to keep bodies in orbit of itself. This is what the Mother means by ‘a centre in its place’, a statement which is likely to be overlooked in a surface perusal of her dream-vision. For it is this question of placement that we are concerned with, both individually and collectively, since this is what allows a cosmos to manifest out of the chaos:

‘…all possibilities are there, all activities are there, but in disorder and confusion. They are neither coordinated nor centralised nor unified around the central truth and consciousness and will.’

The Gnostic Circle is the blueprint of the consciousness of the gnostic being. It is also the blueprint of the new collectivity. The student may observe that the Sun lies at the centre of the Gnostic Circle. This is the symbol of the Supermind, the Truth-Consciousness, in Sri Aurobindo’s definition. And further, as a diagram of a collective expression, the central Sun is that ‘central truth and consciousness and will’ the Mother refers to above. This is what holds the collective consciousness around an axis in an orderly fashion, in a harmonious association. But the means to achieve what appears in the Gnostic Circle to be a simple attainment, in that the diagram merely describes the harmony of our own solar system and therefore a reality we are a part of and already manifesting in a sense, is actually considerably difficult. What is implied in the Gnostic Circle is a major shift, spiritually as well as physically. To begin with, the individual must dislodge the ego as the pivot of being and realise the divine Centre, that central Sun. Then a cosmos is truly born, with ‘real effective power’.

The world has never known such a condition of being. Yet the fact that the diagram used to describe this superior poise is simply the synthetic vision of our solar system indicates that this higher truth is the real purpose of the evolution of consciousness on Earth. Therefore what I am describing is truly an unveiling of a centre that has always been in its ‘rightful place’ but which has never been ‘recognised’ – a centre with a ‘recognised  place’, as the Mother disclosed in 1957 on the basis of her extraordinary dream.

Consequently the question of ‘recognition’ assumes a singular importance in the Work. It is linked to ‘unveiling’, and this is an individual and collective process. The individual unveiling forms the basis for the collective recognition of the centre. In this lies the question of choice and the importance the act of choosing acquires at the third level of the Manifestation. Therefore, a thorough analysis of the Mother’s dream indicates that the episode of the Temple would be one of the primary means to realise that individual and collective centre by a process of ‘recognition’, the outcome of the act of choosing. [See, The New Way, Volume 1, Chapter 7, page 91]


The Mother describes the daughter as the creative consciousness of the new world. However, in her talk she announces that the dream was disturbing; it left her with an ‘unpleasant impression’. It is clear that the abrupt ending of the experience without a passage in the dream to its phase of fulfilment is what left her with the unpleasant feeling at the sudden disappearance of not only the obstructing factor (the manager) but the entire vision as well. From this she realised that the new power was a thing yet to be manifested.

In this connection there is a very important aspect to the Mother’s vision, which subsequent events served to confirm. It concerns the daughter’s quest to reach her room, the ‘exact centre’ of the hotel. The Mother foresaw a situation that would begin to unfold more than a decade later, after she had left her body. In November of 1973, circumstances were set in motion similar to the Mother’s vision in which the daughter seeks to occupy her room at the centre of that chaotic hotel. In the successful accomplishment of this quest lay the outcome of the work that intensified as of 1971. Whether or not the new creation would actually come into being hinged on this attainment. And, interestingly, it did indeed involve ‘a room’; moreover, a ‘central room’.

The Mother’s Temple-chamber was that room, the abode of the Daughter Principle/Power, who adds to the supramental manifestation the perfect centering, the element which can create a cosmos out of the chaos.

The Rigveda is replete with verses describing this mother and daughter pair, sometimes referred to as ‘the two mothers’, sometimes it is the daughter who gives birth to the Son, Agni, the latter being that ‘true centre’, the navel of the world:

‘Heaven is my Father who created me: here is my central cord: the Mother, this vast Earth binds me down. The twin vessels are turned upward; within there the Lord ordained the birth of the daughter.’ (Mandala One, 164)


‘When he had made this sap of essence for the great Father Heaven, he came slipping downward, one close in touch, having knowledge. The Archer loosed violently on him his arrow of lightening, but the god set the flaming energy in his own daughter.’ (Shukta 71, 5)


‘The two mothers in whom is the Truth, in whom is the mage-wisdom, formed him and brought to birth like an infant child, they have put him firm in his place and make him grow. Men found in him the navel-centre of all that is moving and stable.’ (Mandala 10, Shukta 5)


‘Fire gives to us the Horse that carries the plenitude. Fire gives the Hero who has the inspired hearing and stands firm in the work; Fire (Agni) ranges through earth and heaven revealing all things, Fire gives the Woman, the tenant of the city, from whose womb is born the hero.’ (Mandala 10, Shukta 80)

In the Mother’s dream this ‘centre’ was not a temple of course. The room in question lay at the heart of an enormous hotel. And we may now ask, Why a hotel? This is because the concise imagery requires a symbol that in a single visual impact can convey a manifold meaning. The Mother explains the reason for that particular selection when she speaks of the hotel as a place where ‘all earthly possibilities were lodged’. It was for her the symbol of an exuberant albeit chaotic profusion of ‘all possibilities…and all activities’. Translating this at a later date to the actual realisation of the essence of her vision, we see that the temple-room stands at the heart of ‘the city’, which, as the extended field of the supramental yoga, was intended to embrace ‘all possibilities…and all activities’.

But there is an element lacking in this imagery to make it the symbol of the ‘real effective power’ and it is an element which the Mother saw was especially expressive of the daughter and her power. This was movement. The hotel is a static image. It does not at all convey the quality of movement. However, on a later occasion, 3 February, 1958, the Mother did incorporate this element in a vision she had concerning the supramental creation. She saw that world seeking to manifest in the form of a ship. In this the two ideas are conveyed because in a liner we have a ‘moving hotel’. (See Appendix l)

‘The daughter had a sort of power of movement and activity which made it possible for her to be everywhere at once even while remaining in that room…’. This question of a movement which nonetheless has a fixed centre (‘…that room which was…a sort of apartment, and its main feature was to be right in the centre’…) is an accurate description of the Power of Time, in particular as expressed in the Gnostic Circle. Without realising it, when the Mother spoke of this new power as the element that the daughter wished to introduce ‘in the organisation, a sort of super-organisation which would render this confusion unnecessary’, she was describing the action of the New Time, the supramental Time, whose especial characteristic is its centremost anchor in simultaneous time. This ‘anchor’ in the City is the Temple. In the Gnostic Circle it is the central Sun; and the Gnostic Circle gives us the minute details of that ‘super-organisation’ – a dynamic principle which brings into being the supramental creation.

The fact that the Mother’s vision did not incorporate this dynamism in its main symbolism is important to note. She herself explained that though she had known what had to be removed as the controlling power in the hotel (the manager), she had not until then ‘the vision of the solution, which means that it is something which is yet to be manifested’. Indeed, much has happened since her dream in 1957 to make it possible now not only to write with reasonable accuracy about the quality of that new and dynamic creative consciousness but to explain why this element was purposefully withheld from the imagery her consciousness chose to express the new Power. For around this question of dynamism hinges the establishment of the new way.

Sri Aurobindo continuously referred to this distinguishing feature of his revelation in letters to his disciples and in his major written works. Dynamism is a fundamental ingredient in the realisation insofar as all spiritual paths had failed to incorporate this element in a way which would make it a ‘real effective power’. This was because the Peace they had realised was ‘centreless’. It was a Peace in which the central binding element of the individual consciousness was dissolved in the transcendent extra-cosmic Beyond. Even a path such as Tantra, with its strong emphasis on a centre (bija’ or the Seed) and the worship of the dynamic Power of the Supreme, sought equally a dissolution in the ultimate Brahman.

Thus the Mother understood from her vision what had been lacking all along, symbolised in the chaotic ambiance of her hotel. It was a centre which though being at the heart of creation is still ‘everywhere’. That is, the individual finds his/her anchor in a true centre within, resisting the impulse, or rather the compulsion to dissolve the consciousness in the process. This is the key realisation of the Individual Divine, the third level of the trinity of Transcendent, Cosmic and Individual, the Third of the Solar Line, or the Daughter Principle, described as such by the Mother in her startling dream.

Hence the Gnostic Circle is a ‘wheel of Time’. To be exact, Time adds dynamism to the diagram. If we withhold Time the Gnostic Circle is no longer an image of the new City-Consciousness with the Mother’s Chamber at its centremost point, as the Anchor in the new Time. Without this dynamic Principle which the Third/Daughter offers to the Supramental Manifestation, the symbolism must perforce be a hotel, a static or rooted image of an essentially unmoving condition. It represents by consequence the fixed abode of material Nature.

Yet the hotel remains valid as a means of expressing the creative profusion of all possibilities contained in a single habitat or cosmos of individualised elements brought together in a unified multiplicity. At the same time, it is a magnificent symbol to express the old creation within which the new cosmos must arise. That is, as the Mother explained, the hotel is material creation and the mother and daughter are the two elements which describe the old organisation and the new. The former falls within the realm of Diti, as she is known in the Rigveda. She is the ‘old lady, a self-important matron with much authority’. In current terminology the old matron is the symbol of the status quo – precisely why the hotel as an image is selected, for it is a static symbol.

A very accurate description of Diti as the preserver of the status quo is given in The Magical Carousel, Chapter 4. Carousel’s Queen of Night is Diti. Her most valuable tool for the preservation of the old order is the exquisite comfort she provides, so perfectly conveyed in the tale. In order for her rule to survive the Queen of Night (Diti) must give her children every possible comfort, security and, above all, amusement. Boredom in such a situation is dangerous. Tension of any sort has to be eliminated because it is tension and dissatisfaction which drive the individual to seek a different condition. Hence I had written in VISHAAL 2/5 that a very clever strategy had been used by Diti to preserve the rule of the past and the status quo. The Queen of Night must give her children in her Ashram/Castle comfort, amusement and material security; otherwise what would be the fate of the spell she bewitchingly casts?


*


The levels of the Mother’s dream are many and extremely profound. I intend to discuss some at length because in this dream and related visions we have a key to the manner in which the new world is to take shape. To add a further dimension, I would like to describe a dream-vision I had sometime in 1967 or early 1968. Its value lies especially in the fact that when I had this dream I had no conscious knowledge of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, nor of their work. A connection with them was made only in 1971. Yet my dream is very much like the Mother’s in certain key aspects. One was the hotel symbolism. In my dream the question was also a transformation of the old and the introduction of the new, but in presenting it to students another purpose is served. We are able to come to a deeper understanding of the manner in which one’s consciousness shapes in our visions elements of an unknown future, utilising certain carefully selected images taken from our known world, from what has already been our lived experience in time.

Thus, in my dream a woman of my acquaintance (in real life) sought my help. But to understand the dream better I should explain that this person was a very close associate of the Teacher, the late J. Krishnamurti. She resided in Rome, where I too was then living. Her only connection with India was through her association with Krishnamurti, as was mine also at the time. Neither of us had been to India nor had we any intention of going there when this vision took place. Yet in the dream this friend was somehow residing in North India. It was almost as if a map provided an overall background for the entire dream, surfacing from time to time into prominence; it played a significant part in the entire unfolding.

In the beginning of the dream my friend was located in North India, but she appealed to me (in Rome) to give her advice on the basis of my astrological knowledge. Her disturbing problem was that she had inherited an enormous hotel in northern India. It was a huge, grand establishment, very old, almost ancient. I saw this vast structure in my dream, and it was truly magnificent. But the vexing problem was that it was in a completely dilapidated condition.

My friend’s dilemma resided in the fact that she simply did not know what to do with this inheritance. In fact, she was most disturbed by this ‘gift’, for its deteriorated condition seemed impossible to deal with. She asked for my advice before actually abandoning the hotel.

I remember examining the structure in my dream. The result was that I was simply awed by its superb quality. It was in a devastated condition, that is true, almost irreparable, it appeared. But I saw that the foundations were sound and the elements of construction were especially fine; and the craftsmanship and adorning materials were unsurpassed and could not be duplicated today. Consequently, overtaken by the enthusiasm this discovery brought, I urged my friend not to give up her inheritance at all. I was so taken by this hotel and what I saw its future could be that I encouraged her to re-do it, to make the structure whole and new once again. Moreover, I pointed out, it was her duty to do so, since she had received it as an inheritance.

At that point something significant took place in the dream. I was with the same friend in a boat. Again the map was the background of this sequence of the dream. Together we were sailing eastward for I ‘saw’ the Sicilian Island and later the Greek Isles to my right as we travelled swiftly east. An important part of this portion of the dream was the concrete sensation of strong winds moving us forward, speeding the boat along as it skimmed the top of the water. Then my friend leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, ‘It is strong winds from the Indian continent which are making this first journey or ours together possible.’

We then approached our destination. But it was not North India. It was the south. And there the hotel was no longer a hotel but a ship anchored in some sort of port. Yet all the characteristics of my friend’s hotel were transferred to this liner. It too was in a thoroughly dilapidated condition and required remaking, but its essential structure and materials and craftsmanship were unparalleled. It was that inherited hotel the symbol of which had been transformed into a liner.

Clearly the most important part of the dream was what then took place. I oversaw the complete remaking of the liner-hotel. I saw the workmen setting about their task. I directed them, organised the work. It was like a vast seeing-eye in the dream, watching the entire process. To this day I clearly remember the feeling I had when I passed my hands over the re-fashioned wood which was a part of the original materials, so fine, so precious in quality. I realised in the dream that something so superb could not be found today. And as the liner’s transformation neared completion, I witnessed the arrival of countless people from all parts of the world. They came to see this marvel, the transformed liner-hotel. And they were profuse in their praises for this grand accomplishment.

Thus I awoke from this dream with the satisfaction one experiences when a dream is complete. The Mother was disturbed by her abrupt awakening from her dream, leaving a sense of incompletion. But already in 1967, the time of my experience, certain essential things had happened which made it possible to complete the seeing. One was the numerous breakthroughs in the Mother’s yoga; another was the rise to power of Indira Gandhi as the third prime minister of India, for she was my ‘friend’ in the dream.

But in 1967 I made no such connection, nor had I any desire at all to travel to India. I was not even following current world affairs because at that time the focus of my quest lay exclusively on the individual transformation. Thus I hardly read a newspaper during the years I lived in Rome, considering that the imperative need of the times was to first establish a new consciousness within oneself before attempting to influence the world in any way or alter the course of things in the international arena. Yet the remarkable aspect to all this is that my friend in real life, the central figure of my dream, bore a most striking resemblance to Indira Gandhi. This was confirmed later, but at the time of my dream the only sense I could make of the North Indian element was that my friend had indeed ‘inherited’ her charge of Krishnamurti, through her parents long-time association with him. However, their rapport was then undergoing a certain change, because of which she was adopting a new stance and distancing herself from the affairs of his organisations. Thus I considered that this was the inheritance that had to be remodelled.

However, there were some clear aspects of the dream which did not tally with this interpretation; and these left me wondering. The question of North India, for example. In my consciousness Krishnamurti had no connection with the north of India. If anything at all it was the south, where he was born. But even this was not prominent in my association with him. His Indianness played no part in my involvement with his thought at all, since he can hardly be considered an exponent of traditional Indian paths. What then did this mean?

Four years later the pieces of the puzzle began to fit into place when I actually found myself travelling to India to take up my work; and by 1974 all was in order. My consciousness used an image of my known world, my Italian friend, to prophesy certain extremely important details of my future work which would involve Indira Gandhi, the double of my friend.

My dream was related to the Mother’s of 1957 in a rather obvious manner. Though I was seeing a situation beyond my knowledge at the time, within a brief few years of this dream its true meaning began to materialise. At that point the remarkable coherency of the vision became evident – above all, the shift to the south from the north of India, for it is in the south that the Solar Line has been carrying on its transformative work. This provided me with an important clue, a confirmation in fact, but which in 1971 I was not in a position to appreciate. However, gradually thereafter as all the elements of the Solar Line became unveiled, as well as the minute details of the Lunar Line, with Indira Gandhi in the third position, it became evident that the work of ‘reconstruction’ was to be done in essence by the Solar Line, and this explained the geographical shift.

The original hotel of my dream was of course India, the India Indira had ‘inherited’ as the third member of the Lunar Line. Being the third her position also corresponded to the Daughter Principle. Indeed, she was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the second member of the Line, who bequeathed her the colossal inheritance that is India. The hotel I saw in my dream was an accurate symbol of India with its ancient, grand, rich heritage. But I saw how badly a refashioning of this original substance was required. And Indira Gandhi, (my Italian friend in the dream) was also aware of the work that had to be done and for which she felt inadequate, given the magnitude of the task.

But the vision provided the key. It foretold the link-up at the third level between the Solar and Lunar Lines, which in fact did come to pass. Equally interesting is that Indira Gandhi had numerous meetings with Krishnamurti in the last years of her life. But, above all, the vision located the act of reconstruction in the south and it was there that I saw its completion, not in the north. In 1967/68 none of this made any real sense to me; now its meaning is unmistakable, as well as its relation to the Mother’s dream of 1957. But even the Mother’s own important association with Indira Gandhi did not become consolidated until late 1969. It grew thereafter to a profound bond during the remaining years of the Mother’s life, while my own began in 1975.

Through this analysis the student may observe the manner in which one’s creative consciousness expresses itself through the symbolic language of dreams in a most accurate fashion, even when describing events and people unknown to the dreamer at the time. But in this case the striking feature is the wholeness of the process, which in the vision is reflected in the completed action, an aspect which was withheld in 1957.

There was a specific reason for this: the Mother was called upon to do a certain work thereafter, precisely concerning that ‘self-important matron with much authority’ of her dream. The daughter’s action did not fall within her role. It fell to the third of the Line. The Mother had the especially laborious, tedious, onerous task of breaking down the fixed, closed, settled and smug ways of Mother Nature, particularly the patterns she has so carefully and meticulously cemented in the cells of a body fashioned superbly to house the mental human consciousness. The Mother had to break down the body consciousness of the old species, a work I shall discuss in detail in the second part of this article in the next issue of VISHAAL.

It was not a creative work as such. It was very much like the Mother described in the analysis of her dream the day after it took place: it was a tearing down almost exclusively. At the same time she was fully aware of the need for a ‘new power’, the element the daughter provided in the vision. But not being the one destined to see that phase through, the Mother was abruptly awakened from her dream just at the limit of what she was meant to fulfil: the erasing of the stamp of Mind in the cellular composition. This was a cosmic, evolutionary work. She was not meant to go beyond that and to introduce the next new element, or to bring this down to the level of the individual. But the signal that she had completed her work was the plan of the inner chamber of her Temple. Though the Mother herself was not aware of the significance of the plan she gave, it was the heritage she left ‘the daughter’, the key to the new creative process for the restructuring of the consciousness of the species around a superior axis, the outcome of a perfect centering. Indeed, in the true ‘centre’ lay the crux of the matter.

Hers was a formidable task and demanded great powers of endurance and patience. There was no glamour in it. She laboured within the confines of the old creation, bearing all its limitations and battling indefatigably with the ignorant, destructive conditions that Nature has solidified over the millennia to secure the continuity of the species. What the Mother battled with was the old structure housing the highest principle the world has known: the Mind, and by consequence she faced almost daily a confrontation with the great Negator. The Mother’s task was to break down the old pattern, undo the current mould, clean the slate so to speak, in order that something else could be introduced. Seeing in its most accurate details the nature of that ‘new power’, describing it with a meticulous exactitude which only an incarnation of her calibre could do, she was yet so faithful to the truth of her destiny and contribution that she halted her vision to her seeing Eye at the point where that contribution would end.


On countless occasions I have tried to help followers of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to understand her contribution in its true terms; but there is a perplexing resistance to the truth of the matter. I am stating that the Mother succeeded brilliantly in her mission, yet no one in her entourage cares to accept this fact. Disciples take either one of two stances concerning this issue of such crucial importance for a real and conscious involvement in Sri Aurobindo’s mission. Either they prefer to believe that the Mother ‘failed to transform her body’, since this is the apparent conclusion which must be drawn from an assessment of everything that transpired in her last decade of life, and in particular her last months of existence, during which time she seemed abandoned, entirely at the mercy of the great Negator; or else they weave sentimental, fabulous tales and schemes and previsions of a fictitious return of the Mother ‘to complete the work’ she so obviously left undone. In both cases disciples refuse to look at what is, and above all, to accept the terms and conditions the Supermind has created for its affirmation, – namely, the arrangement of a ‘succession in time’, as the Mother very accurately described in a talk to disciples in 1962. (See Appendix 2) She saw that ‘one individual’, one Avatar would be insufficient to complete the work. A line in time was the probable method, she came to realise. Yet in spite of such precise statements from her in the course of her life and yoga, as well as her many visions and dreams and experiences such as the one we are presently analysing – or more specifically the Temple vision which is her most complete revelation of her victorious achievement – Diti’s spell holds defiantly firm. Her entourage refuses to see, quite simply. Indeed, when the architects of the Matrimandir refuted her vision of the Chamber in early 1970, she exclaimed poignantly, ‘Who is there who sees…there is not one who sees.’

Nonetheless the work is being done. In 1967-68 I ‘saw’ the full process. I witnessed the complete transformation in the symbol-form of a ship which contained the ancient heritage of India made new. I ‘saw’ the shift that was required: the static hotel became the dynamic liner; and it was at that point that the transformation of the old to the new became possible.

This dynamism might appear to be a simple matter of little importance. Yet it holds the key to the process of transformation in a very profound sense. Apart from indicating a forward movement, a progress – which is the interpretation a superficial assessment of both the Mother’s dream and mine would provide – there is the hidden meaning of just what dynamism means in the supramental yoga. For it is in this sphere that certain hitherto recalcitrant elements enter into the Yoga, that have consistently defied transformation. Consequently these dynamic elements, which in part can be classified under the regency of material Nature, have been cut out of the process entirely, making the establishment of a life divine upon Earth an impossibility until now. The new dynamism incorporates and harmonises the periphery, in the language of the New Way. In the terminology Sri Aurobindo uses for the Supermind, it entails a harmony of the One and the Many, or the Unity and the Multiplicity. This then brings us to the question of a collective yoga, that peripheral multiplicity and its relevance in the Work, precisely the subject of the Mother’s dream.

However, before commencing a discussion of this aspect of the Mother’s vision, I would like to demonstrate the validity of her dream in relation to the work on material Nature by furnishing a further proof, and that this experience was the first revelation of the precise work the Mother was to do involving that ‘old matron’. The proof I shall furnish will also reveal the exquisite coherency of her Yoga, if one makes the effort to study carefully the record of it which she left.

Thus four months after her hotel dream the Mother had another experience regarding material Nature. Its value lies in the fact that though in her dream the Mother did not receive any indication that the work done would be successful, this later experience seemed to have come exclusively for the purpose of providing her with that unmistakable assurance which was lacking in the former vision. Even though she had not embarked upon the actual process which was revealed in her dream, its central importance was already evident, to such an extent that ‘the collaboration of Nature’ became the subject of her message on the New Year immediately following her experience. A surface view does not allow one to discern the connection between these dreams and experiences and messages, and this is why so little has been really understood of the Mother’s formidable yoga for the world, notwithstanding the fact that she was most explicit in what she gave out to disciples regarding her occult work. Therefore, on 1 January 1958, six months after her hotel dream, the Mother spoke to her entourage about the message she had given them for 1958:

‘O Nature, material Mother,

Thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate

and there is no limit

to the splendour of this collaboration.’

When a disciple questioned her as to what it meant, she replied:

‘It is already written! The explanation has already been written, it is ready for the ‘Bulletin’ of February 21. [Included at the end of this dialogue]

‘There is nothing to explain. It is an experience, something that happened, and when it happened I noted it down, and as it turned out, it occurred just at the moment when I remembered that I had to write something for the year – which was next year at the time, that is, the year which begins today. When I remembered that I had to write something – not because of that, but simultaneously – this experience came, and when I noted it down, I realised it was…it was the message for this year!

 

(Silence)

 

‘I will tell you only one thing: you should not misinterpret the meaning of this experience and imagine that from now on everything is going to take place without any difficulties and always in a manner that favours our personal desires. It is not on this plane. It does not mean that when we do not want it to rain, it will not rain! that when we want something to happen in the world, it will happen immediately; that all difficulties will be done away with and everything will be as it is in fairy tales. It is not that. It is something much deeper: Nature, in her play of forces, has accepted the new Force which has manifested and included it in her movements. And as always, the movements of Nature are on a scale which is infinitely beyond the human scale and not visible to an ordinary human consciousness. It is an inner, psychological possibility which has come into the world rather than a spectacular change in earthly events.

‘I am saying this because you might be tempted to believe that fairy-tales were going to be realised on earth. It is not yet time for that.

 

(Silence)

 

‘One must have much patience and a very wide and very complex vision to understand how things happen.

 

(Silence)

 

‘The miracles which take place are not what could be called story-book miracles, in the sense that they don’t happen as in stories. They are visible only to a very deep vision of things – very deep, very comprehensive, very vast.

 

(Silence)

 

‘One must already be capable of following the methods and ways of the Grace in order to recognise its action. One must already be capable of not being blinded by appearances in order to see the deeper truth of things.

‘We could usefully, this evening, just take this resolution: to try throughout the year to do our best, so that the time may not pass in vain.’

And here is her explanation of the experience which was published in the 21 February 1958 ‘Bulletin’:

 ‘In the course of one of our classes [30 October, 1957] I spoke of the limitless abundance of Nature, the inexhaustible creatrix who takes the multitude of forms and mixes them together, separates them again and remoulds them, unmakes and destroys them, to move on to ever new combinations. It is a huge cauldron, I said: she stirs things inside and brings out something: it’s no good, she throws it in again and takes something else…. One or two forms or a hundred have no importance for her, there are thousands and thousands of forms, and then as for years, a hundred years, a thousand, millions of years, it is of no importance, you have eternity before you! It is quite obvious that Nature enjoys all this and that she is not in a hurry. If she is told to rush rapidly through and finish this or that part of her work quickly, the reply is always the same: “But why should I do so, why? Doesn’t it amuse you?”

‘The evening I told you about these things, I identified myself totally with Nature, I joined her game. And this movement of identification provoked a response, a sort of new intimacy between Nature and myself, a long movement of a growing closeness which culminated in an experience which came on the eighth of November.

‘Suddenly Nature understood. She understood that this new Consciousness which has just been born does not seek to reject her but wants to embrace her entirely, she understood that this new spirituality does not turn away from life, does not recoil in fear before the formidable amplitude of her movement, but wants on the contrary to integrate all its facets. She understood that the supramental consciousness is here not to diminish but to complete her.

‘Then from the supreme Reality came this order, “Awake, O Nature, to the joy of collaboration.” And the whole of Nature suddenly rushed forward in a great surge of joy, saying, “I accept, I shall collaborate.” And at the same time there came a calm, an absolute tranquillity so that the bodily vessel could receive and contain, without breaking, without losing anything, the mighty flood of this Joy of Nature which rushed forward as in a movement of gratitude. She accepted, she saw with all eternity before her that this supramental consciousness was going to fulfil her more perfectly, give a still greater strength to her movement, a greater amplitude, more possibilities to her play.

‘And suddenly I heard, as if they came from all the corners of the earth, those great notes one sometimes hears in the subtle physical, a little like those of Beethoven’s Concerto in D-major, which come in moments of great progress, as though fifty orchestras had burst forth all in unison, without a single false note, to express the joy of this new communion between Nature and Spirit, the meeting of old friends who come together again after having been separated for so long.

‘Then these words came, “O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate and there is no limit to the splendour of this collaboration.”

‘And the radiant felicity of this splendour was sensed in perfect peace.

‘That is how the message for the new year was born.’

(The Mother’s Centenary Edition, Vol. 9, pp. 245-248.)

The Mother was then embarking upon the major work of her lifetime: the transformation of matter. But this has never been understood in its proper terms, the lack of which has provided her critics with potent material for declaring Sri Aurobindo’s ‘utopian vision’ a failure. This is rendered possible when one fails to follow the guidelines which have been laid down for the Supramental Manifestation and to perceive by that means the exact nature of the work the Mother was destined to accomplish. For there are limits, boundaries set up and which cannot be transgressed given the complexity of the process and, I would add, its dangerous character. We stand on the brink of either creation or destruction, in the most physically conclusive terms imaginable. In this process we have reached a great moment which the Mother’s successful Yoga has allowed us to experience.

Her vision of the supramental world in the form of a large boat provides us with another accurate clue by which we can understand the work that had to be accomplished. For the striking aspect of her experience on 3 February 1958 was that though the image of a ship incorporated the dynamism which is so essential to the supramental transformation, her experience was yet ‘up there’, not of the Earth. That is, true to the position of the work at the time, the Mother described a world that had not yet manifested. Indeed, the object of her subsequent Yoga of the 1960s would be to begin construction of a bridge between that world and our material dimension here on Earth.

The Mother worked on the cosmic play of forces in a dimension that was a step removed from the most material strata. But nothing can manifest of that supramental world ‘here below’ unless the work in cosmic dimensions is successfully accomplished. And this was the task laid out for the Mother to complete. For this reason she received a specialised occult training before coming to India, since this work required a precise knowledge of occultism which would permit her to carry out a detailed and prolonged process of transformation involving the cosmic power in the subtle regions.

In early 1958 she began divulging details of certain key experiences which provide us now with the means to reconstruct her Yoga. And on this basis there can be no doubt as to what exactly she was meant to deal with in this question of the ‘transformation of matter’. Her task was to begin construction of that Bridge that would permit the supramental world she had seen in 1958 to ‘descend’ on Earth. But it was a conjunct labour, as her hotel dream displayed. The portion of the bridge she was to construct lay in the upper reaches of the Earth’s subtle atmosphere where the cosmic forces rule and make connections here below, so to speak, to implement the vast design that constitutes the destiny of this planet. In contrast, we have my dream of a decade later with specific connections made to the Earth and above all to India. The process of defining had begun, a significant portion of the bridge had by then been built. At that point it was an action ‘from below’ that was required. And this corresponds to the third level of the Supramental Descent. Once this connection is made the threshold is reached marking the clear and definite delineation between the old and the new. It is at this point that the supramental yoga enters the scheme of things, as an extension of the Integral, and by consequence the conditions emerge which are required for a ‘field’ wherein the indispensable ingredient for the Supramental Yoga can evolve: the collective endeavour. Without this field and the collectivity it houses, the next stages of the Yoga cannot come into being.

I propose in the following portions of this article to demonstrate just what the Mother accomplished by her ‘body transformation’, what this entailed, which instruments in her entourage played significant roles, mainly as negators, and what the position is at present concerning the new creation for which she opened the gates in the cosmic dimensions of the Earth’s being.


(To be continued)


‘Skambha’,

6 January, 1988

 


Appendix 1


THE MOTHER’S EXPERIENCE OF

THE SUPRAMENTAL WORLD:  3 February 1958

 

‘…Only when the link of consciousness is established shall we see it [the supramental world] – and even then only a part of our being which has undergone transformation in this way will be able to see it as it is – otherwise the two worlds would remain apart like the animal and human worlds.

‘The experience I had on the third of February is a proof of this. Before that I had had an individual subjective contact with the supramental world, whereas on the third of February I moved in it concretely, as concretely as I once used to walk in Paris, in a world that exists in itself, outside all subjectivity.

‘It is like a bridge being thrown between the two worlds. Here is the experience as I dictated it immediately afterwards:

(Silence)

‘The supramental world exists permanently and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had the proof of this even today when my earth-consciousness went there and remained there consciously between two and three o’clock in the afternoon. Now, I know that what is lacking for the two worlds to unite in a constant and conscious relation, is an intermediate zone between the physical world as it is and the supramental world as it is. This zone remains to be built, both in the individual consciousness and the objective world, and it is being built. When I used to speak of the new world which is being created, it was of this intermediary zone that I was speaking. And similarly, when I am on this side, that is, in the field of the physical consciousness, and I see the supramental power, the supramental light and substance constantly penetrating matter, it is the construction of this zone which I see and in which I participate.

‘I was on a huge boat which was a symbolic representation of the place where this work is going on. This boat, as large as a city, is fully organised, and it had certainly already been functioning for some time, for its organisation was complete. It is the place where people who are destined for the supramental life are trained. These people – or at least a part of their being – had already undergone a supramental transformation, for the boat itself and everything on board was neither material nor subtle-physical nor vital nor mental – it was a supramental substance. This substance was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance which is closest to the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a mixture of gold and red, forming a uniform substance of a luminous orange. Everything was like that – the light was like that, the people were like that – everything had that colour, although with various shades which make it possible to distinguish things from each other. The general impression was of a world without shadows; there were shades but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything went on regularly and in silence. And at the same time one could see all the details of an education, a training in all fields, by which people on board were being prepared.

‘This immense ship had just reached the shore of the supramental world and a first group of people who were destined to become the future inhabitants of this supramental world were to disembark. Everything had been arranged for this first landing. At the wharf several very tall beings were posted. They were not human beings, they had never been men before. Nor were they the permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of the whole thing from the beginning and all the time. I had prepared all the groups myself. I stood on the boat at the head of the gangway, calling the groups one by one and sending them down to the shore. The tall beings who were posted there were inspecting, so to say, those who were landing, authorising those who were ready and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training on board the ship. While I was there looking at everybody, the part of my consciousness which came from here became extremely interested; it wanted to see and recognise all the people, see how they had changed and check which ones were taken immediately and which ones had to remain to continue their training. After a while, as I stood there observing, I began to feel that I was being pulled back so that my body might wake up – a consciousness or a person here – and in my consciousness I protested, “No, no, not yet! I want to see the people!” I was seeing and noting everything with intense interest…. Things continued in this way until suddenly the clock here began to strike three, and this brought me back violently. There was a sensation of suddenly falling into my body. I came back with a shock because I had been called back very suddenly, but with all my memory. I remained quiet, without moving, until I could recollect the whole experience and keep it.

‘On the boat the nature of the objects was not the one we know on earth; for instance, clothes were not made of cloth and what looked like cloth was not manufactured: it formed a part of the body, it was made of the same substance which took different forms. It had a kind of plasticity. When a change had to be made, it took place, not by any artificial external means but by an inner operation, an operation of consciousness which gave form or appearance to the substance. Life created its own forms. There was one single substance in everything; it changed the quality of its vibration according to need and use.

‘Those who were sent back for fresh training were not of a uniform colour, it was as if their body had greyish, opaque patches of a substance resembling earthly substance; they were dull, as if they had not been entirely permeated with light, not transformed. They were not like that everywhere, only in places.

‘The tall beings on the shore were not of the same colour, at least they did not have that orange tint; they were paler, more transparent. Except for one part of their body, one could only see the outline of their form. They were very tall, they seemed not to have any bones and could take any form according to their need. Only from the waist down had they a permanent density, which was not perceptible in the rest of their body. Their colour was much lighter, with very little red, it was more golden or even white. The parts of whitish light were translucent; they were not positively transparent but less dense, more subtle than the orange substance.

‘When I was called back and while I was saying, “Not yet”, each time I had a brief glimpse of myself, that is, of my form in the supramental world. I was a mixture of the tall beings and the beings aboard the ship. My upper part, particularly the head, was only a silhouette whose contents were white with an orange fringe. Going down towards the feet, the colour became more like that of the people on the boat, that is, orange; going upwards, it was more translucent and white and the red grew less. The head was only a silhouette with a sun shining within it; rays of light came from it which were the action of the will.

‘As for the people I saw on board the ship, I recognised them all. Some were from here, from the Ashram, some came from elsewhere, but I know them too. I saw everybody, but as I knew that I would not remember them all when I returned, I decided not to give any names. Besides, it is not necessary. Three or four faces were very clearly visible, and when I saw them I understood the feeling I had here on earth when looking into their eyes: there was such an extraordinary joy…. People were mostly young, there were very few children and they were about fourteen or fifteen, certainly not below ten or twelve – I did not remain long enough to see all the details. There weren’t any very old people, apart from a few exceptions. Most of the people who went ashore were middle-aged, except a few. Already, before this experience, some individual cases had been examined several times at a place where people capable of being supramentalised were examined; I had a few surprises and noted them; I even told some people about it. But the ones whom I put ashore today, I saw very distinctly; they were middle-aged, neither young children nor old people, apart from a few rare exceptions, and that corresponded fairly well with what I expected. I decided not to say anything, not to give any names. As I did not remain until the end, it was not possible for me to get an exact picture; the picture was not absolutely clear or complete. I do not want to say things to some and not to others.

‘What I can say is that the point of view, the judgement, was based exclusively on the substance of which the people were made, that is, whether they belonged completely to the supramental world, whether they were made of that special substance. The standpoint taken is neither moral or psychological. It is probable that the substance of their bodies were made of was the result of an inner law or inner movement which at that time was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.

‘When I came back, simultaneously with the recollection of the experience I knew that the supramental world is permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link was necessary for the connection to be made in the consciousness and the substance, and it is this link which is now being forged. I had the impression – an impression which remained for quite a long time, almost a whole day – of an extreme relativity – no, not exactly that: the impression that the relation between this world and the other completely changed the standpoint from which things should be evaluated or appraised. This standpoint had nothing mental about it and it gave a strange inner feeling that lots of things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear everything depended on the capacity of things, on their aptitude in expressing the supramental world or being in relation with it. It was so completely different, sometimes even altogether contrary to our ordinary appraisal. I recollect one little thing which we usually consider to be bad; how strange it was to see that in truth it was something excellent! And other things we consider to be important have in fact absolutely no importance at all: whether a thing is like this or like that is not at all important. What is very obvious is that our appraisal of what is divine or undivine is not right. I even laughed to see certain things…. Our usual feeling of what is anti-divine seem artificial, seems based on something that’s not true, not living – besides, what we call life here did not seem living to me compared with that world – anyway, this feeling should be founded on our relation between the two worlds and how things make the relation between them easier or more difficult. This would make a great difference in our appraisal of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what separates us from Him. In people too I saw that what helps them to become supramental or hinders them from it, is very different from what our usual moral notions imagine. I felt how…ridiculous we are.’


(End of the February 3 experience)


(The Mother speaks to the children:) ‘There is a continuation of this, a kind of consequence in my consciousness of the experience of third February, but it seemed a little premature to read it now. It will appear later in the April issue [of the ‘Bulletin’], following this.

‘One thing – I must insist on this – seems to me at the moment to be the most essential difference between our world and the supramental world – and it is only after having gone there consciously, with the consciousness which normally operates here, that this difference has become apparent to me in all its enormity, so to say – everything here, except what goes on within, very deep within, seemed to me absolutely artificial. None of the values of the ordinary physical life are based on truth. And just as to clothe ourselves we have to obtain some cloth and sew clothes to put on when we want to wear them, so too to feed ourselves we need to take things from outside and put them inside our bodies in order to be nourished. In everything our life is artificial.

‘A true, sincere, spontaneous life like the one in the supramental world, is a springing forth of things from the action of the conscious will, a power over substance which make it harmonise with what we decide should be. And one who has the power and the knowledge can obtain what he wants, whereas one who does not have them has no artificial means of getting what he desires.

‘In ordinary life everything is artificial. According to the chance of birth or circumstance, you have a higher or lower position or a more or less comfortable life, not because it is the spontaneous, natural, sincere expression of your way of being and your inner need, but because chance circumstances in life have brought you in contact with these things. An absolutely worthless man may be in a very high position and a man with a marvellous ability to create and organise may find himself toiling in an absolutely limited and inferior situation, whereas he would be a completely useful person if the world were sincere.

‘This artificiality, this insincerity, this complete lack of truth became so shockingly apparent to me that…one wonders how, in so false a world, we can have any true evaluations.

‘But instead of making you sad, morose, rebellious, dissatisfied, there is rather the feeling of what I was saying at the end. Of something so laughably ridiculous that for several days I was seized with uncontrollable laughter when I saw things and people! – an uncontrollable laughter, absolutely inexplicable except to myself, at the ridiculousness of things.

‘When I invited you to a journey into the unknown, a journey of adventure, I did not know I was so close to the truth, and I can promise those who are ready to attempt the adventure that they will make very interesting discoveries.’

The Mother’s Centenary Edition, Vol. 9, pp. 271-278.


Appendix 2

 

THE MOTHER’S TALK ON THE AVATARS, THE COLLECTIVITY,

AND THE THIRD ELEMENT:  24 May 1962

 

‘It is that something that we are searching for. Perhaps not merely searching for, but building.

‘We are being used so that we may participate in the manifestation of that which is as yet inconceivable for everyone, because it is not yet there. It is an expression that is yet to come.

‘That is all that I can say.

(Silence)

‘It is truly the state of consciousness in which I live at this moment. It is as if I were in the presence of this eternal problem, but…FROM ANOTHER POSITION.

‘…these positions, the spiritual and the “materialist”, if one may call it so, that are believed to be exclusive (exclusive and unique, so that one denies the value of the other, from the viewpoint of Truth), are insufficient, not only because they do not admit each other, but because even admitting the two, and uniting the two does not suffice to solve the problems. There is something else – a third thing which is not the result of these two, but something that is yet to be discovered, which will probably open the door to the total Knowledge.

‘This is where I am.

‘More I cannot say because I am there.’


One can ask, practically, how to participate in this…


‘This discovery?

‘That…after all, it is always the same thing. It is always the same: realise one’s own being, enter into conscious rapport with the supreme Truth of one’s own being, under NO MATTER what form, NO MATTER, what path – this is unimportant – it is only the means. Each one of us carries within a truth, and it is with this truth that one must unite, this truth that must be lived; and in this way the path that he will have to follow in order to unite with and realise this truth is the path that will take him CLOSEST to the Knowledge. That is to say, the two are totally united: the personal realisation, and the Knowledge.

‘Who knows, perhaps it is even this multiplicity of approaches that will provide the Secret – the Secret that will open the door.

‘…I do not think that a single individual (on earth as it is now), however great he is, however eternal his consciousness, and origin, can alone by himself change and realise, – change the world, change the creation as it is and realise the Higher Truth that will be a new world, a world more true, if not absolutely true. It seems a certain number of individuals (till now it appears to be rather in time, as a succession, but it may be also in space, a collectivity) is indispensable so that this Truth may concretise and realise itself.

‘I am practically sure of it.

‘That is to say, however great, however conscious, however powerful ONE Avatar may be, he cannot, alone realise the supramental life on earth. It is either a group in time, arranged in a file in time or a group spread over a space – perhaps both – that are indispensable for this realisation. I am convinced of it.

‘The individual can give the impetus, indicate the way, walk himself on the path, that is to say show the way by realising it himself – but not accomplish it. The accomplishment obeys the collective laws which are the expression of a certain aspect of the Eternal and the Infinite – naturally. It is all the same Being; it is not some different individuals or some different personalities; it is the same Being. But it is the same Being that expresses itself in a certain way which, for us, translates itself by an ensemble, a group, a collectivity.’

(Extracted from the ‘Bulletin’, August 1962, pp. 69-76
and L’Agenda de Mere, Vol. 3, 1962)