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At the Feet of The Mother

Heavy Pressure on the Head

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo

 

I sit up to the end of the Pranam ceremony in the Meditation Hall. A strong pressure is felt just when I stand up. It is like a heavy load pressing me down to the floor.

It must be the pressure of the Force present there which you feel at that moment because of some shifting of the consciousness at the moment of preparing to go.

There is a certain state of consciousness while sitting there [in the Meditation Hall] in which one is under the Force but does not feel it as a pressure because there is a sufficient assimilation of the Force. When one rises there is a change of consciousness and the Force is felt as a pressure. As soon as the transition to the ordinary consciousness is complete, the pressure is no longer there.

During this period in the Hall, the higher things or experiences are felt either above or in the body. My mind and vital seem to be kept aside!

That is because it is in the physical that they have to be established.

Is such a state of consciousness always there in the Hall? Does everybody there always come under that Force?

No — there are plenty who are not in that state. The same person may be in one day and not be in another day.

While meditating in my room, I feel a tremendous heaviness on the head — a mighty pressure. Whenever I get up from the chair, it is disturbed because it gets shaken. This affects the whole being.

It is probably a weight of the higher consciousness or its force there. I don’t know why it gets shaken by getting up. If its presence were dependent on the concentration and stillness in the body, that would be quite understandable, but you say it is there all the time.

This heaviness on the head and forehead is constant, while other pressures of different kinds knock there only at times. The heaviness is not passive even when I am not working. It seems rather powerfully active. Even my teeth feel as if they have something like a dynamic force in them! Is such writing of small details necessary for your work?

Yes, it is better to write them.

What was the reason for the higher consciousness remaining in the form of a heavy pressure on the head? Could not something of it come down?

It depends on what is pressing and also it may depend on the condition of the consciousness.

By the descent we usually mean something that comes down up to the physical consciousness, otherwise it would not be a full descent.

Descent means into the centres and their field — the descent would therefore be registered in the body, but that would not necessarily mean that it had come down in the physical consciousness. When the descent is in the head that means that it is in the mind — not in the physical consciousness.

When does the full descent take place?

It comes down when things have been made ready for it.

If a higher descent is not felt or if it is stopped on its way, could it still be called descent?

If a descent is not felt, one cannot know that there was a descent, so no question about it can arise — unless one knows that there has been an unfelt descent by the results it leaves behind. Also its descending only up to the mental or other level and no farther does not make it a non-descent.

The previous descent came down only up to the mind centre.

I suppose so.

If so, I wonder what was new in it. We know that there had already been a descent into the mind centre long ago.

I don’t know what was new in it — but the descent is not always of the same things, it may bring or try to bring new things that were not there before or it may bring more of the force or peace or anything else that was descending or had come in the former descents.

The higher pressures are becoming sharp and powerful. They have occupied not only the Brahmic centre but the whole head and forehead.

Good.

If I were to judge the higher working by the quality of subtle sounds, I would say it is increasing all the time. What do you say?

The working is all the time for its increase.

Sometimes the higher Power presses my head so much that it is extremely difficult to use my hand for writing. In such a condition, could I stop my correspondence for the time being?

No, it is better to write.

When there is a good opening to the higher things, sometimes the Force descends like an armour down to my navel centre.

When you say like an armour, do you mean that you feel it outside you and surrounding you, but not within the body?

At times it is hard to distinguish a pressure of the Force from the Force itself.

The pressure is of the Force, it is not the Force itself. The Force is felt as a Power and not merely a pressure.

I did not admit that Rama was a blind Avatar, but offered you two alternatives of which the latter represents my real view founded on the impression made on me by the Ramayana...