March 25, 1961
(On the previous day, Satprem had written a letter to Mother complaining of never having any concrete experiences. [[This letter has disappeared. ]] After a meditation together, this is what Mother replied.)
It’s not that you don’t have experiences! You even have access to regions where people very rarely go; you are capable of receiving light, intuitions, revelations – but this is probably so normal for you that you don’t notice it! I came to meditate with you especially to see what was preventing you from being conscious…. And on your right side, I saw a sort of crystallization … somewhat as though you were inside a statue.
It seemed made of transparent alabaster – hard, harder than stone. It was the result of an individualization – that was my impression – an individualization that has become very … hardened. It has tried to become entirely transparent but has no tangible contact with things – things enter only through the higher regions, through intellectual perceptions (not intellectual, a sort of mental vision). And I began to bang on it!
It was mainly on your right side – I banged on it. But strangely enough, it didn’t break … it became supple, but then it lost its beauty. (It was so beautiful, as though sculptured!) I tried to pass through it, but to do so (this is what I found interesting), instead of
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passing through at this level (the chest), the psychic plane – the level of the soul’s vibration – I had to climb up above and then descend; and finally, without even realizing it, I found myself inside – I had entered through sheer force of concentration. There, at the vital level, the emotional vital (solar plexus), I put two flowers: one very large Endurance in the Most Material Vital [zinnia] and another flower like the one X just gave me [cosmos] but bigger and pure white (it concerns sexual movements, light in sexual movements). But curiously enough, I passed inside through a trance; I was quite busy trying to make it more fluid when all at once, poof! I found myself inside. But since I entered through a trance it became completely objective: no more thought, nothing. And I saw I had put these two flowers there (at the levels of the abdomen and chest), one more active, a very large, dark purple Endurance flower, and another much smaller, pure white, slightly lower down. While I was watching this I think the clock must have struck – something pulled me and it all faded away.
And I found it interesting that when I received your letter yesterday evening I concentrated for a moment, almost out of curiosity: ‘Why doesn’t he ever feel he has an experience? Why doesn’t he feel anything?’ I wanted to know precisely what type of experience would give you the feeling of having an experience!
If I could receive the Light: if I could SEE this Light; if I could see the vastness opening before my eyes….
Then it’s in the realm of visions, of conscious perception.
Yes, conscious perception, vision – otherwise, nothing ever happens!
I understand! But yesterday when I was concentrating, I seemed to be sitting right in front of you again; and in the same way, with my left side, I was banging, banging on that absolutely rigid thing on your right. I was astonished: ‘Why am I banging?’ (I had no intention of banging!) It was strange. The left side isn’t like that, it’s the right.
But now I have done some damage!
(silence)
Strangely enough, I’ve received the same complaint from S. He says, ‘I don’t have any experiences.’ ‘What kind of experience do
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you have?’ I asked. He replied, ‘I sit in meditation and what comes is peace, peace, peace … it’s always the same thing!’ (Some people would be very happy with that, but him …. ) I asked him, ‘What experience do you want?’ ‘To be conscious,’ he told me, ‘to be conscious of the Divine, conscious of the divine Presence!’ And I always answer him, ‘It’s because your mind is barricaded.’ (Mother forms a geometrical figure) He is so convinced that he knows! He tells me, ‘No! It’s not that.’ He doesn’t believe me!
At any rate, I have had no results with him, nor with X.
Several times in my life I have met with the particular phenomenon of having an absolutely exceptional and unique experience and at the same time feeling that a part of my being was unaware of it! I would tell myself, ‘if I hadn’t been both here and there at the same moment (Mother indicates two different levels in her consciousness), I might have had all these experiences and never known it!’ And this happened not just once but many times. Some were utterly unique, like certain ancient Vedic experiences – utterly unique. When I recounted them to Sri Aurobindo, he told me, ‘Oh, it’s extremely rare! Some people try all their lives to attain that.’ And it happened to me not just once but often: the experience took place there (gesture above) and something up there knew, and yet there was something down here that would never have known if the other hadn’t (same gesture). Nevertheless … the total experience was there.
It’s very difficult to explain, it’s extremely subtle.
But it made me think that something like this must be happening with people here. Because, not to boast, but I do give you people experiences!
Of course, all of you would be perfectly justified in replying, ‘What good does that do if we’re not aware of it!’ But it must be a phenomenon like the one I described. I am looking for the reason … something … which refuses the knowledge. A part of the being is refusing – although not consciously – to become aware of the experience.
Can I do something practical about it?
It’s rather…. It may be something more in the line of childlike candor, childlike simplicity and candor – where there is now a very intellectualized consciousness.
It is something very much on its guard, that doesn’t want to be duped or be a victim of imagination.
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A sort of childlike candor is lacking somewhere.
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