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At the Feet of The Mother

Process of Bringing Down the Higher Force

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo

 

When there is a spiritual emptiness I call down or draw the Mother’s Force in order to fill it. Do you have any objection to this process?

No. It is all right.

Whenever possible should I draw down the Mother’s Force?

Yes, you can do so.

When I make an attempt at drawing down the Force, I experience it as much in my body as above the head. It seems to be a very dense and powerful Force.

Very good.

Drawing the Force has a good effect on my lower nature which feels it as a pressure for change. Shall I continue it?

Yes — it is better than being always passive.

Yesterday’s experience of drawing down the Mother’s Force was rather unusual. It did not come down when I used my personal efforts but only afterwards, when I had forgotten all about it! However, when it did descend, some concentration was needed to sustain it. I do not know how my body will stand this process; please tell me if I am to continue it.

You can do so and see what the result is — whether the physical accommodates itself, etc.

When the peace descends, especially in the evening, should I try to draw down the Mother’s Force with it by active means? Is there any fear of the descending peace getting disturbed by that?

If it is done in the wrong way it may — i.e. if it is not done quietly.

One must be able to keep as well as pull.

Usually absence of an active sadhana means for me the prominence of inertia. But today I noticed rajas in full action supported by the inertia. The vital was restless, agitated and wanted activity, like talking etc. The inner being was feeling void since it could not supply as much energy as the vital being needed. Could you kindly explain such a reaction?

It may be because you have been bringing down Force. So the vital got a reaction, “Let me be forceful and active too.” Or it may be that some force reached the subconscient and got deposited and the vital took it and turned it into talking etc. Or it may be — well, a hundred other things.

You said, “It means that you are evidently not able to remain there and until you can, it is not possible to send down things from there.” At present I cannot remain in the higher consciousness all the time. But as long as I can, is it not possible to send down the higher things without my accompanying them?

If you are not able to stay a sufficiently long time that means you have not a secure seat there, so if you send down things you are likely to come down too with them. But that would perhaps not matter if you kept the thing with which you came down!

Sometimes the higher action is too strong to let me write or even read your letters. I wonder why it takes my consciousness away even from mental activities.

That is quite natural. The higher action is not mental so it brings something else than the mental. When the mind is transformed, then it will be different.

To my question why the higher action does not take place at times even when my state seems to be quite good, you replied, “Cannot say. These things, as I have told you, depend on the general state of consciousness and the mind cannot always determine that for this or for that it happened or did not happen. One has to go on till it does happen.” Could you clarify what you mean by the general “condition”. Does it not mean the surface state of our consciousness?

The general “condition” does not mean, in my sentence, the surface condition as known to you. It contains many things in it unknown to you. What comes from above can come when one is in a clear mind or when the vital is disturbed, when one is meditating or when one is moving about, when one is working or when one is doing nothing. Most often it comes in a clear concentrated state, but it may not; there is no absolute rule. Moreover the pull or call may produce no immediate effect and yet there may be an effect when one is no longer actually pulling or calling. All these mental reasons alleged for its coming or going are too rigid — sometimes they apply, very often they don’t apply. One has to have faith, confidence, aspiration, but one cannot bind down the Force as to when, how and why it will act.

I asked you if it was possible to change the mechanical mind by a direct higher action. Your reply was, “It is possible if you can bring the direct higher action into this part of the consciousness or else let the Force pass there.” Well, I have often concentrated the higher Force there, but there is no change whatever.

It is a question not merely of concentrating but of bringing the Force into that part and keeping it there long enough to bring light and silence. If the Force does not pass there, it means that something obstructs and does not let it pass.

The whole of my human nature was under a blaze of suggestions and attacks not only from the vital but also from the subconscient. The resulting depression was stronger than ever before. For about twenty minutes I was almost unconscious. When I came back to awareness, I found that a strong process was already taking place — as if the Mother had come to my rescue. She was bringing down force after force into my lower nature. She looked as if in wrath that the powers of falsehood should trouble her child so constantly! I remained in my chair to allow the Mother’s forces to work. This process continued for about two hours. Is my above description correct?

It seems to be correct.

Anything to say about my cooperation with the Mother’s process of bringing down the forces?

It was all right.

Should I busy myself with such processes? If so, how often?

You might do it once at first. We will see afterwards.

After the withdrawal of the process, there surged up a new and a greater resistance.

That is quite normal. The lower movements, especially after holding the field so long, are bound to resist.

Even after the process did its work, I still feel the lower resistance.

You cannot expect to get rid of it in a single day. Persistence is needed.

There is an attempt to keep a part of my human consciousness on the higher plane, so that at least half of myself stays exclusively in the Mother’s Consciousness and so that her Force can work freely through this part into my whole nature.

Yes, that would be very good.

After receiving the Mother’s touch at the Pranam I found myself in the higher consciousness. I was there from morning till 1 p.m. Today I felt that the movement of sending down the Force was a little different than before — I had not to take active part in it. I simply watched how the Mother’s Force was moving from above downwards, as if in calm waves. Once it was experienced as an armour shielding my body from head to foot. It remained thus for about half an hour. Can it be called a process? I am not able to understand the movement of the descending Force.

Of course it can be called a process. But it is the natural and right movement of the descent of Force. I do not see what there is that is not understandable. The Silence or the Force or whatever comes down is at first felt above and then in the mind also, but it must descend afterwards into the heart and vital and physical and everywhere else within and around, if it is to do its work.

In spite of that process, how is it my vital and physical mind do not yet turn away from the lower nature?

What I said was, it could not be done at once — e.g. by a single descent. Whatever the process or movement the lower nature takes time to receive. What is first necessary is to get down the higher consciousness into all the inner being down to the inner physical and live in that, so that anything lower should be quite superficial and unable to invade or trouble.

You wrote, “But it was the natural and right movement of the descent of Force. I don’t see what is there that is not understandable.” I felt the Force like a whole armour at a standstill, whereas the action of the Force the other day was quite different. At that time I felt the forces descending one by one and meeting the lower resistance. Therefore I could not understand what this armour-like stillness was — whether it was only remaining still or passing into processes.

If there was stillness like an armour, a Force merely at a standstill and like a whole armour — what ground has the mind for speculating whether it is passing into processes? The experience must be taken as it is — the mind ought not to speculate whether it is not something quite different from what the observation sees it to be. Because the Force descends one day as an active and aggressive force, it does not follow that it cannot descend another day as a static and defensive one.

But you have still not explained what was the “natural and right movement” of the Force.

You do not seem to notice what you yourself have written. You said that it came without pulling — and I replied that was quite a natural and right process. You said nothing till afterwards about one descent being active, the other still. A descent is a process whatever the result. But a “passing to processes” in the sense of being active and aggressive against the lower nature movements is quite a different thing, and you wrote about that afterwards only. I never said anything in my first letter about passing to processes.

Even if the Force which descended was at an absolute standstill, it must have, been doing something — not in a human but in an inner or mystic sense. When something descends in us, it is not merely to be motionless in us.

There was no necessity of its doing anything. It came to fill the stillness with force and itself became still though with a forceful stillness.

Between the age of eighteen and twenty I had attained a conscious and constant union with the divine Presence and that I had done it all alone.