Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
I enclose Barada Babu’s postcard – whom you may remember. He is a remarkable yogi – very sincere, intelligent with stunning powers (he stunned me anyway as I related), can meditate for ten or twelve hours at a stretch, a great bhakta of yours. But to him I was indebted as he prophesied I would be accepted by you1, etc. I had told you all that. He was dubious of Mother formerly, but now he speaks of “Mother Mira”, you will see, and that with reverence. Formerly he wrote to me that Mother he does not see in his meditations, but you he does – often.
I wonder if he truly sees Mother or sees some form whom he so styles or identifies with her. Can one see someone whom one has never seen? I mean, do you know it from experience which you verified later on – for the stories to that effect are galore of course. However his letters are very interesting illustrating his difficulty re. surrender. But he is humble as he wants to keep in touch with you, etc. He is very sincere as all who know him say. I suppose that is why he has had experiences of Mother too at long last.
He of course makes a mental mistake by attributing parts of my novel to Supramental inspiration, confusing it with psychic, as psychic it undoubtedly is which moved so many – I mean by psychic a deep emotion in the heart which is a delight to the heart even in sorrow. But doubtless of supramental he has a mental conception which is therefore wrong....
Yes, of course, I remember about Barada Babu – I can’t say I remember him because I never saw him, at least in the flesh. What he probably means by the Supramental is the Above Mind – what I now call Illumined Mind – Intuition-Overmind. I used to make that confusion myself at the beginning.
There is not enough to go upon to say whether he really 
sees the Mother or an image of her as reflected in his own mind. But there is nothing extraordinary, much less improbable in seeing one whom one has never seen – you are thinking as if the inner mind and sense, the inner vision, were limited by the outer mind and sense, the outer vision, or were a mere reflection of that. There would be not much use in an inner mind and sense and vision if they were only that and nothing more. This faculty is one of the elementary powers of the inner sense and inner seeing, and not only Yogins have it, but the ordinary clairvoyants, crystal-gazers, etc. The latter can see people they never [knew?], saw or heard of before, doing certain precise things in certain very precise surroundings, and every detail of the vision is confirmed by the people seen afterwards – there are many striking and indubitable cases of that kind. The Mother is always seeing people whom she does not know; some afterwards come here or their photographs come here. I myself have had these visions, only I don’t usually try to remember or verify them. But there were two curious instances which were among the first of this kind and which therefore [I?] remember. Once I was trying to see a recently elected deputy here and saw someone quite different from him, someone who afterwards came here as Governor. I ought never to have met him in the ordinary course, but a curious mistake happened and as a result I went and saw him in his bureau and at once recognised him. The other was a certain V. Ramaswamy whom I had to see, but I saw him not as he was when he actually came, but as he became after a year’s residence in my house. He became the very image of that vision, a face close-cropped, rough, rude, energetic, the very opposite of the dreamy smooth-faced enthusiastic Vaishanava who came to me. So that was the vision of a man I had never seen, but as he was to be in the future – a prophetic vision.