Sri Aurobindo’s Home in the Subtle-Physical

A Letter To The Mother, With The Mother’s Reply

The Letter

27.2.1963

Last night Amal told me that you had spoken of “a permanent home of Sri Aurobindo in the subtle-physical”. At once my mind went back to a dream in last September. This is how it ran:

I enter the Ashram and see that there is some difference in the building. I say, “Well, something has changed.” And I see a staircase and climb. I pass through a corridor upstairs towards a room at the end of it. In this room there are cupboards very high, reaching near to the ceiling. All the walls are lined with such cupboards which have moon-silver panels and glass doors. On top of the cupboards there are lovely vases of various colours and designs — vases such as we never find on earth. I am standing at the door of the room. On the floor I see a carpet one-foot thick, adorned with beautiful designs and I say to myself, “This room with book cupboards is not Mother’s room. It belongs to Sri Aurobindo. All these books are written by him.”

Then I look for another room, thinking Mother might be there. I see a room and go to its door. But I find something quite different from what I was expecting. It is not Mother’s room. The whole room is made as if of moon-silver. And the furniture consists of two beds, two cupboards, two dressing-tables — everything two. All the furniture is carved out of moon-silver. And the arrangement of things draws from me the exclamation, “How beautiful!” Then I say to myself again, “Some day in the future, Mother and Sri Aurobindo will come and stay here.”

So again I search for another room where I may see Mother. I find a third room. This room is not of moon-silver. It is a little golden in colour. The carpet is also as if of gold stuff — very soft, with a flower-design in red. And I see on the carpet four or five low small Japanese tables, all carved in gold. On the tables there are plates with fruits that we never see on earth. And there are some tiny toys on the carpet — rabbits and deer and other animals — as if they were decorations. Then I just kneel down and stretch my hand to touch and pick up one of the toys. Suddenly the toy becomes alive and runs away. All the others also start moving to form a new pattern. Then I know that all these animals are real ones. I say to myself, “Oh, this is the dining room. But where can I see Mother?”

While I am wondering, I hear a voice saying, “Mother is with Sri Aurobindo and very busy. So you won’t see her today.” I turn back to go away and say, “My God, so much wealth is here — more than the wealth of the whole world, and why is Mother always telling me I must bring wealth to her?” Then I go down the stairs and — wake up.

Mother, what do you think of my dream? Have I seen something really there? Is it Sri Aurobindo’s permanent home?

I may add that the whole dream — everything in it — was bathed in an atmosphere and a light of moon-silver.

When I told Amal about it, he quoted to me four lines from Sri Aurobindo’s poem, A God’s Labour:

A little more and the new life’s doors
Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
In a great world bare and bright.

SEHRA

The Mother’s Reply

It is certainly part of His permanent home in the subtle-physical — a part of it only. Once, surely, you will meet Him there.

Mother India, February 21, 1976.