{"id":3882,"date":"2013-07-13T01:51:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3882"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:51:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:51:57","slug":"26-6-july-1955-vol-07-questions-and-answers-volume-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/01-cwmce\/07-questions-and-answers-volume-07\/26-6-july-1955-vol-07-questions-and-answers-volume-07","title":{"rendered":"-26_6 July 1955.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n6 July 1955<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b> <\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, \u201cPlanes and
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

Parts of the Being\u201d. <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, here it is written: \u201cFinally the soul or psychic being
\nretires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close.\u201d Then,
\nMother, what happens to the central being afterwards? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

This depends absolutely on the different
\ninstances. We said that the central being and the psychic being are the same
\nthing but the part which stays and is in the Divine stays and is in the Divine.
\nThe psychic is the delegate of this Divine in the earth life, for the growth on
\nearth. But the part of the central being which is identified with the Divine
\nremains identified with the Divine and does not change. Even during life it is
\nidentified with the Divine, and after death it remains what it was in life, for
\nit this makes no difference. It is the psychic being which has alternations of
\nexperience and assimilation, experience and assimilation. But the Jivatman is
\nin the Divine and remains in the Divine, and doesn’t move from there; and it is
\nnot progressive. It is in the Divine, it is identified with the Divine, it
\nremains identified with the Divine, not separated. It makes no difference to
\nit, whether there is an earthly body or not. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then, Sweet Mother, is everyone’s central being the same?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

No, for we are told that it is identified
\nin multiplicity. It is the eternal truth of each being. From one point of view
\nthey are identical, from another they are multiple; because the truth of each
\nbeing is an individual truth, but it is identified with the Divine. It is
\noutside the manifestation but it is the origin of the <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 227<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

manifestation. It is a unity which is not
\na uniformity.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It is indeed the same thing that I was
\nexplaining last time; each one is different and yet each one is identical. If
\nyou approach the Divine from various angles, He seems to you different, because
\nof the angle from which you approach Him. It is the same thing for the Manifested.
\nBut in this angle it is all the same, if I may say so, the complete unity of
\nthe Divine which one attains. It is the meeting point which is different but
\nbeyond the meeting point it is a single totality.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It is very difficult to put it in words.
\nBut it is an experience which one can have. It is as though there were
\ninnumerable doors or paths by which one could reach the Divine. So when one
\napproaches he does so from a certain angle, he enters by a certain door, but as
\nsoon as he has gone right in, he realises that it is a single oneness, it is
\nonly the path leading to it or the particular approach which is different. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, \u201cthe Jivatman … the moment it presides over the dynamics
\nof the manifestation, knows itself as one centre of the multiple Divine, not as
\nthe Parameshwara.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

That’s exactly what I have just said. I am
\nnot going to begin all over again.  <\/span><\/p>\n

What? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, when Sri Aurobindo was in Alipore, Vivekananda came for
\nfifteen days and explained something special to him. What part of Vivekananda
\nwas it, the psychic being or the atman? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

It could very well be his mind. It could
\nvery well be the mind<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 <\/font> <\/span>Sri Aurobindo was arrested for sedition on
\n<\/font> <\/span>the 1st of May,
\n 1908<\/span><\/font> and detained in
\nAlipore jail for a year. The British Government, taking its stand on his
\narticles and the reports of his speeches, held him in fact responsible for the
\nentire revolutionary movement.<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 228<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

because he had unified his mind around his
\npsychic being. Therefore his mind could continue to exist indefinitely. It
\npartakes of the immortality of the psychic being. It could very well be his
\nmind. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Mother, can one enter into communion with his Jivatman without the ego
\nbeing dissolved? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

That’s what Sri Aurobindo says. He says
\nthat the ego survives the physical life, the bodily life; this is perfectly
\ncorrect. There is a vital ego and a mental ego which can continue to exist for
\nquite a long time. But one can have experiences without the ego being dissolved.
\nOtherwise who would have experiences? How many people are there who have
\ndissolved their ego? There can’t be very many, I think.  <\/span><\/p>\n

When one has an experience it is as though
\none went through his ego to have his experience, and one can, if he continues,
\nend up by diminishing the hardness \u2013 the obscurity and hardness \u2013 of the ego,
\nmaking it more and more plastic and permeable by multiplying the experiences.
\nThat’s something one feels very clearly, that one passes through something like
\na hard shell which prevents him from having the experience; one passes through,
\nhas the experience, and when he comes back, he again has the impression of
\ngoing through a shell which shuts him in, imprisons him for a long time. That’s
\nhow it is. But those who have succeeded in entering consciously into contact
\nwith their psychic being can keep this contact…  <\/span><\/p>\n

To pass completely to the other side of
\nthe ego so that it no longer intervenes, a fairly long time is needed, it
\ndoesn’t happen at all immediately. And then you feel that thing which, seen
\nfrom within, suffocates you; and seen from outside it has an insignificant
\nconsistency, but it prevents the being from feeling integrally the intensity of
\nthe experience; it is like a layer which diminishes the intensity of the
\nvibrations and the intensity of the consciousness, and you feel that. You feel
\nit as some- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 229<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

thing very fixed and very opaque. Many
\npeople certainly have experiences but they don’t remember them; that’s because
\nwhen they pass through this layer of the ego, they forget everything, they lose
\neverything, lose the memory of their experience. But when one has formed the
\nhabit, perhaps the memory is a little dimmed, hasn’t the intensity and
\nexactness, but it remains.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Is that all? Nothing else? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Mother, the other day you said that when one thinks of someone or
\nsomething, one part of this thought goes there at once. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

For example, I think of someone who is in <\/span><\/i>Calcutta<\/span><\/i>, then if my
\nthought goes there, I ought to have the knowledge of… <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Thought is only conscious of thought in
\nthe mental world. So you can become very conscious of the mental atmosphere of <\/span>
\nCalcutta<\/span>, of the thought of the person to whom you
\ngo, but of nothing else, absolutely nothing that has to do with the vital and
\nphysical.  <\/span><\/p>\n

To be conscious of the vital you must go
\nthere in the vital, and this is already an exteriorisation which leaves the
\nbody at least more than three-fourths in trance. And if you want to see things
\nphysically, you must go out in your most material subtle physical and then here
\nyou leave your body in a cataleptic state; and these things are not to be done
\nwithout someone being with you who understands them and can guard you.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But the mental exteriorisation occurs
\nconstantly. It puts you in contact only with the mental world. Perhaps if you
\nare very conscious and the person you go to see is very conscious, and if at
\nthat moment he has formed opinions or ideas about something happening in <\/span>
\nCalcutta<\/span>, then you can become conscious of  <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 230<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the ideas of this person on what is
\nhappening \u2013 indirectly \u2013 but you are not directly conscious of the thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Mother, when one imagines something, does it not exist? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

When you imagine something, it means that
\nyou make a mental formation which may be close to the truth or far from the
\ntruth \u2013 it also depends upon the quality of your formation. You make a mental
\nformation and there are people who have such a power of formation that they
\nsucceed in making what they imagine real. There are not many of these but there
\nare some. They imagine something and their formation is so well made and so
\npowerful that it succeeds in being realised. These are creators; there are not
\nmany of them but there are some. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

If one thinks of someone who doesn’t exist or who is dead? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Ah! What do you mean? What have you just
\nsaid? Someone who doesn’t exist or someone who is dead? These are two
\nabsolutely different things. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I mean someone who is dead<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Someone who is dead!  <\/span><\/p>\n

If this person has remained in the mental
\ndomain, you can find him immediately. Naturally if he is no longer in the
\nmental domain, if he is in the psychic domain, to think of him is not enough.
\nYou must know how to go into the psychic domain to find him. But if he has
\nremained in the mental domain and you think of him, you can find him
\nimmediately, and not only that, but you can have a mental contact with him and
\na kind of mental vision of his existence. <\/span><\/p>\n

The mind has a capacity of vision of its
\nown and it is not <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 231<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the same vision as with these eyes, but it
\nis a vision, it is a perception in forms. But this is not imagination. It has
\nnothing to do with imagination.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Imagination, for instance, is when you
\nbegin to picture to yourself an ideal being to whom you apply all your
\nconceptions, and when you tell yourself, \u201cWhy, it should be like this, like
\nthat, its form should be like this, its thought like that, its character like
\nthat,\u201d when you see all the details and build up the being. Now, writers do
\nthis all the time because when they write a novel, they imagine. There are
\nthose who take things from life but there are those who are imaginative,
\ncreators; they create a character, a personage and then put him in their book
\nlater. This is to imagine. To imagine, for example, a whole concurrence of
\ncircumstances, a set of events, this is what I call telling a story to oneself.
\nBut it can be put down on paper, and then one becomes a novelist. There are
\nvery different kinds of writers. Some imagine everything, some gather all sorts
\nof observations from life and construct their book with them. There are a
\nhundred ways of writing a book. But indeed some writers imagine everything from
\nbeginning to end. It all comes out of their head and they construct even their
\nwhole story without any support in things physically observed. This truly is
\nimagination. But as I say, if they are very powerful and have a considerable
\ncapacity for creation, it is possible that one day or other there will be a
\nphysical human being who realises their creation. This too is true. <\/span><\/p>\n

What do you suppose imagination is, eh?
\nHave you never imagined anything, you? <\/span><\/p>\n

 And what happens? <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

All that one imagines. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

You mean that you imagine something and it
\nhappens like that, eh? Or it is in a dream…  <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 232<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

What is the function, the use of the imagination? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

If one knows how to use it, as I said, one
\ncan create for oneself his own inner and outer life; one can build his own
\nexistence with his imagination, if one knows how to use it and has a power. In
\nfact it is an elementary way of creating, of forming things in the world. I
\nhave always felt that if one didn’t have the capacity of imagination he would
\nnot make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of your life. When
\nyou think of yourself, usually you imagine what you want to be, don’t you, and
\nthis goes ahead, then you follow, then it continues to go ahead and you follow.
\nImagination opens for you the path of realisation. People who are not
\nimaginative \u2013 it is very difficult to make them move; they see just what is
\nthere before their nose, they feel just what they are moment by moment and they
\ncannot go forward because they are clamped by the immediate thing. It depends a
\ngood deal on what one calls imagination. However… <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Men of science must be having imagination! <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

A lot. Otherwise they would never discover
\nanything. In fact, what is called imagination is a capacity to project oneself
\noutside realised things and towards things realisable, and then to draw them by
\nthe projection. One can obviously have progressive and regressive imaginations.
\nThere are people who always imagine all the catastrophes possible, and
\nunfortunately they also have the power of making them come. It’s like the
\nantennae going into a world that’s not yet realised, catching something there
\nand drawing it here. Then naturally it is an addition to the earth atmosphere
\nand these things tend towards manifestation. It is an instrument which can be
\ndisciplined, can be used at will; one can discipline it, direct it, orientate
\nit. It is one of the faculties one can develop in himself and render
\nserviceable, that is, use it for definite purposes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 233<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Sweet Mother, can one imagine the Divine and have the contact? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly if you succeed in imagining the
\nDivine you have the contact, and you can have the contact with what you
\nimagine, in any case. In fact it is absolutely impossible to imagine something
\nwhich doesn’t exist somewhere. You cannot imagine anything at all which doesn’t
\nexist somewhere. It is possible that it doesn’t exist on the earth, it is
\npossible that it’s elsewhere, but it is impossible for you to imagine something
\nwhich is not already contained in principle in the universe; otherwise it could
\nnot occur.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Then, Sweet Mother, this means that in the created universe nothing new
\nis added? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In the created universe? Yes. The universe
\nis progressive; we said that constantly things manifest, more and more. But for
\nyour imagination to be able to go and seek beyond the manifestation something
\nwhich will be manifested, well, it may happen, in fact it does \u2013 I was going to
\ntell you that it is in this way that some beings can cause considerable
\nprogress to be made in the world, because they have the capacity of imagining
\nsomething that’s not yet manifested. But there are not many. One must first be
\ncapable of going beyond the manifested universe to be able to imagine something
\nwhich is not there. There are already many things which can be imagined. <\/span><\/p>\n

What is our terrestrial world in the
\nuniverse? A very small thing. Simply to have the capacity of imagining
\nsomething which does not exist in the terrestrial manifestation is already very
\ndifficult, very difficult. For how many billions of years hasn’t it existed,
\nthis little earth? And there have been no two identical things. That’s much. It
\nis very difficult to go out from the earth atmosphere with one’s mind; one can,
\nbut it is very difficult. And then if one wants to go out, not only from the
\nearth <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 234<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

atmosphere but from the universal life!  <\/span><\/p>\n

To be able simply to enter into contact
\nwith the life of the earth in its totality from the formation of the earth
\nuntil now, what can this mean? And then to go beyond this and enter into
\ncontact with universal life from its beginnings up to now… and then again to
\nbe able to bring something new into the universe, one must go still farther
\nbeyond.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Not easy!  <\/span><\/p>\n

That’s all?  <\/span><\/p>\n

(To
\nthe child<\/i>) Convinced?  <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 235<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 July 1955 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, \u201cPlanes and Parts of the Being\u201d.   Sweet Mother, here it is written: \u201cFinally the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-07-questions-and-answers-volume-07","wpcat-112-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}