Before the Mother came all were living in the mind with only some mental realisations and experiences. The vital and everything else were unregenerated and the psychic behind the veil. I am not aware that anyone of them at that time entered the cosmic consciousness. At that time I was still seeking my way for the transformation and the passage to the supramental (all the part of the Yoga that goes beyond the ordinary Vedanta) and acted very much on a principle of laissez faire with the few sadhaks who were there. X is one of those who have never ceased regretting that laissez faire—he regrets the vital liberty and absence of discipline they then had.
CWSA 35: 269
For the little group of humanity that was beginning to form around the aura of Sri Aurobindo, this coming meant initially a call for change in their way of life. They would have surely felt the transforming pressure of her Presence that reaches out to the darkest corners, exposes our weaknesses, often glorified under specious names and built a pressure that none was yet ready to bear. No wonder, She initiated a few activities as a concrete way to prepare humanity for the coming Age and then withdrew for a while until man is ready. Notable among these was the monthly publication of ‘The Arya’ as a powerful way to sow the seeds of Light in the human mind and the inner being of man. On the other hand, She created a small representative group to reflect upon the new things that were preparing to descend into man. She named it ‘The New Idea’.
What descended however in the world of men were the terrible fumes of war. It was as if the ancient story of the ‘Ocean churning’ was being lived and acted out again. The poison must come out before the nectar of immortality can emerge. The Mother had to return making her very body the altar of sacrifice. Stationing Herself in the midst of the anguish She consumed the poison fumes absorbing it day and night until She stood at the very door-steps of Death. But The Supreme watching over His own Shakti, now cast as a sacrifice in the midst of the purifying Fire, appeared and changed the course of the world’s destiny and hers. The Mother described this experience much later:
I came here…. But something in me wanted to meet Sri Aurobindo all alone the first time. R. went to him in the morning and I had an appointment for the afternoon. He was living in the house that’s now part of the second dormitory, the old Guest House. I climbed up the stairway and he was standing there, waiting for me at the top of the stairs…. EXACTLY my vision! Dressed the same way, in the same position, in profile, his head held high. He turned his head towards me … and I saw in his eyes that it was He. The two things clicked (gesture of instantaneous shock), the inner experience immediately became one with the outer experience and there was a fusion – the decisive shock.
But this was merely the beginning of my vision. Only after a series of experiences – a ten months’ sojourn in Pondicherry, five years of separation, then the return to Pondicherry and the meeting in the same house and in the same way – did the END of the vision occur…. I was standing just beside him. My head wasn’t exactly on his shoulder, but where his shoulder was (I don’t know how to explain it – physically there was hardly any contact). We were standing side by side like that, gazing out through the open window, and then TOGETHER, at exactly the same moment, we felt, ‘Now the Realization will be accomplished.’ That the seal was set and the Realization would be accomplished. I felt the Thing descending massively within me, with the same certainty I had felt in my vision. From that moment on there was nothing to say – no words, nothing. We knew it was THAT.
But between these two meetings he participated in a whole series of experiences, experiences of gradually growing awareness. This is partly noted in Prayers and Meditations (I have cut out all the personal segments). But there was one experience I didn’t speak of there (that is, I didn’t describe it, I put only the conclusion) – the experience where I say ‘Since the man refused I was offering participation in the universal work and the new creation and the man didn’t want it, he refused, and so I now offer it to God ….I don’t know, I’m putting it poorly, but this experience was concrete to the point of being physical. It happened in a Japanese country-house where we were living, near a lake. There was a whole series of circumstances, events, all kinds of things – a long, long story, like a novel. But one day I was alone in meditation (I have never had very profound meditations, only concentrations of consciousness – Mother makes an abrupt gesture showing a sudden ingathering of the entire being); and I was seeing…. You know that I had taken on the conversion of the Lord of Falsehood: I tried to do it through an emanation incarnated in a physical being, and the greatest effort was made during those four years in Japan. The four years were coming to an end with an absolute inner certainty that there was nothing to be done – that it was impossible, impossible to do it this way. There was nothing to be done. And I was intensely concentrated, asking the Lord, ‘Well, I made You a vow to do this, I had said, “Even if it’s necessary to descend into hell, I will descend into hell to do it….” Now tell me, what must I do?…’The Power was plainly there: suddenly everything in me became still; the whole external being was completely immobilized and I had a vision of the Supreme … more beautiful than that of the Gita. A vision of the Supreme. And this vision literally gathered me into its arms; it turned towards the West, towards India, and offered me – and there at the other end I saw Sri Aurobindo. It was … I felt it physically. I saw, saw – my eyes were closed but I saw (twice I have had this vision of the Supreme – once here, much later – but this was the first time) … ineffable. It was as if this Immensity had reduced itself to a rather gigantic Being who lifted me up like a wisp of straw and offered me. Not a word, nothing else, only that.
December 20, 1961
