Chapter 64The Mother in Visions, Dreams and Experiences · Experiences of the Mother and Her Powers

Here and in the next it is obviously the Mother here. The staircase is a very usual symbol seen by many and it meant the acceptance and call to the ascent.

A third experience I had when I came here for the first time. One night I heard something descending with a revolving motion above my head. No sooner did I hear the sound than I saw a smaller image of the above white Lady entering into me from above and stopping somewhere in the heart region. Who is this Power and Personality? How is she related to the second, the second to the first and all the three to you? How can I be true to her and to you?

By self-opening and an increasing self-giving to the Divine. All these are visions of the Mother and it agrees with what she felt when she first saw you.

22 March 1938

* Yesterday night in a dream I was in a garden — it was night perhaps; there was not much light. I was there with some other sadhaks and we were there to meditate with the Mother. I could not see Mother but I knew she was there, high up, waiting to give us meditation. But some of the sadhaks were careless, some were yawning, some were lying down. I was trying to meditate and I felt Mother’s hand come down and touch my forehead for about a minute. Then I felt something in me being drawn up through my whole body as she slowly drew her hand back, and I felt something being taken away. But when I woke up, I did not know if it was a good or bad thing Mother took away. What was it?

It was certainly a true dream of the lower vital or perhaps subtle physical plane, where the laziness, indifference, frivolity of the sadhaks is a fact and the chief obstacle to the supramental sincere and aspiring, the Mother’s blessing came upon you and removed something there that was in the way. There is no indication in the dream as to what it was, but something in the lower vital or physical connected with this general defect.

Mother said she would try to make you see her because it is not always easy for people to see her even when she is near them. It is also easier to see with eyes shut than with eyes open — though this too is possible — because it is a sight within you that has to open in order to see her. It is not necessary to call her for any fixed number of hours. It is enough if you love her always, remember her often, sit every day a little time before her photograph and call her. You must never doubt that Mother loves you and you need never weep for that, for her feelings towards you cannot and will not change. Of course you can take the photographs given to you by the Mother and keep them with you there.

7 May 1935

* It is not that because the Mother loves you she can show herself to your physical eyes at a distance. The physical eyes of men are not made so as to see in that way. It becomes possible only after long sadhana. First one sees with the eyes closed, because that is easier. When one is accustomed to see with the eyes closed, then afterwards it becomes more possible to see with the eyes open. So you should not be too eager to see at once in the more difficult way. It will come in the end, if you want it, but it does not come at once. Don’t mind if it takes time. You must grow first more and more able to feel the Mother near you; that you can do by thinking of her and calling her often. Then seeing will be more easy.

8 May 1935

* Do not mind about the time that it will take — one can’t fix the time of these things beforehand. When you feel the Mother’s presence more and more, when you begin to see her with the inner sight, then it can come. It is better not to speak of the Mother to your friends — they do not know her, therefore they can take no interest in her.

The more you live close to the Mother in yourself, the less you will need to speak of her to others.

9 May 1935

* To see you must be more quiet within — then after a little the sight begins to come. An inner sight opens, one begins to see what the outward senses cannot see — and it is then possible to see the Mother there.

In the morning I was feeling that the mind is quite empty. In the afternoon I saw an intense compact golden light there in front, at some distance outside the mind.

The golden light is the promise of the higher knowledge. For the coming of that knowledge the silence of the frontal exterior mind is necessary.

Today I felt that a part of the mind is or can be always open to the higher light, but realisation has to depend on what comes from below and accordingly change in its character and intensity. Remaining for some time in this condition is like seeing the Divine, now apparent in so many things and movements. I understood how it is to be done, but a long time is necessary in order to be established in this consciousness which has no end. Rising higher also becomes a part of this movement. I feel that all will be done, only time is needed for fixing the new consciousness.

Very good. All that you write on this page is entirely sound and accurate; it shows that you are getting the true knowledge. Most in fact of the day’s experiences are signs of the true consciousness light, the white light in the vital, the golden light in the silence of the outer mind, the change in the vital, the quiet and natural trust and confidence are all signs and circumstances of this opening to the true consciousness. As you say, there must be established the fixing of this consciousness. The constant openness of part of the mind to the higher light will bring the silence of the whole mind and it is in the silent mind that the true knowledge will come — and indeed it has begun already to come. The change you note in the vital must also continue.

26 March 1930

* I remember that formerly at night I became conscious of the mind rising upward and then I saw many points all around rising up with aspiration, as if each point was aspiring in a different light that was guided by the Mother. Nowadays I think that if there is one aspiration, there will be constant contact.

Yes — one aspiration to live in the Mother’s light and force which bring the true knowledge and the true power. If that the other lights can be contained in the Divine Light.

17 February 1931

* Today in meditation my entire body opened and spread out infinitely. I felt a slight uneasiness at first, but I could feel the Mother’s force. It carried me deeper and deeper into dense darkness through immense worlds of disgust and depression. Though I felt no peace and joy on this long journey, I continued to walk steadily and swiftly. Someone seemed to say, “Do not be depressed. Walk on, proceed. You have to cross through still darker worlds of disgust and depression, but keep on going.” Along with this experience, I felt a great force. My heart opened wide; peace and profound contentment descended into it and I saw white light playing everywhere. Crossing another dark world, I saw a vibrant golden light. How powerful and beautiful that golden light was! My body, mind and heart were satisfied. I felt a sense of fearlessness. A sadhak’s life is like the life of a warrior. However long the struggle, whatever the obstacles, we will ascend to the Supreme Truth. Is this the right way to observe my problems and difficulties?

Yes, that is the attitude you have to keep. If it is kept, then there will be no disturbance or only a superficial unease. The experience itself was that of the descent of the Mother’s light of Divine Consciousness into domains of being which are ignorant into these domains and moved through them to bring light there.

10 September 1933

* This morning during my meditation before the Mother, a very tender feeling rose from within me. She was sitting before us with an ocean of compassion and love which she wants to give away unconditionally and without reserve. But we cannot receive it; and instead of reproaching ourselves for our inability, we put the blame on the Mother, pouring our venom on her which she swallows and offers back to us as Amrita in return.

This experience brought me a mixed feeling of peaceful silence, self-reproach and a touch of sadness. It has remained with me all day, but now I apprehend a reaction; for usually my experiences recede, leaving me with depression or emptiness.

What you felt was an opening of the psychic being in your heart and the perceptions that came to you were perfectly true. The reaction you speak of does often come after an experience. But if the depression can be avoided, emptiness does not matter. Up to a certain stage the nature needs after an experience a quiescent period to assimilate experience. One has then not to be depressed but to remain quiet waiting and aspiring for more experience, more opening, a more continuous flow of the truth.

5 September 1934

* Yesterday the whole day I felt an opening far above the head and there the individual Mother became wide and active. I felt the play of various ideas and forces and I felt her assurance that she would manifest in me. But also the intensity led to nervous disturbances. The pressure in my head-nerves was almost unbearable, and even today some disturbance in the physical is there. Is it due to some mistake I have made?

it is the Mother’s consciousness, the higher consciousness with the light, strength that has to come down in each sadhak, with there must have been an attempt at surrender or an initial answer in the lower vital, but as a reaction the nervous disturbance came back — the old lower vital nature not being ready to give up possession reasserted its disturbances which were about to abate.

6 November 1934

* Sometimes when I sit in meditation, I find that instead of myself, the Mother is sitting. Even my body seems to be that. Pray let me know what it means.

Probably you became aware of some part of your being which feels united with the Mother.

24 August 1935

* From the morning I was feeling an intense aspiration to get lost in the Mother’s consciousness. Then I felt my consciousness frequently rising and stationing itself above. Before Pranam I felt as if even the parts near the navel and below were being drawn upwards. After Pranam I experienced for some time a different kind of atmosphere almost concretely around me, so I imagined that the Mother may have put a strong spiritual influence on my subconscient and environmental consciousness.

It is very good. You are right about the subconscient and environmental, — for it is there that the influence must fall so that the consciousness may go upward and spread itself out widely in a free peace, light and joy connecting them down to the sub-conscient with the higher consciousness. It is then that the loss of the ego in the Mother’s consciousness becomes possible.

25 September 1935

* Over my head I see a plane of infinite and eternal Peace. The Mother is the Queen of this plane. From there I feel a ceaseless flow coming down towards me. It first touches the higher being and then the lower parts. When they are prepared, the Peace or silence descends like a current of water which passes through the Brahmic hole.

That is quite correct. In many however it descends in a mass through the whole head and not in a current through the Brahmic hole.

13 February 1936

* The experience of a concrete presence of the Mother in the photograph and the immediate effect on the health are things of the subtle physical acting on the physical mind and body — such things can happen only when the physical consciousness has begun to open — that is why I said it was a sign. Of course the full effects of the spiritual experiences can only come when the whole consciousness is entirely open and receives and responds to them. The presence of the Mother in all can be felt when one begins to have the widening of the consciousness in which it is not shut up in the personal self and the body but is extended everywhere. That comes usually with the descent of the higher consciousness from above. But one can also feel a beginning of it through the opening of the psychic. Then of course anger and jealousy do not remain — they fall away from the sense of spiritual oneness.

3 May 1936

* X told me that she was in constant touch with the Divine Mother long before she came to Pondicherry. She saw her not only in meditation or vision but before her wide-awake eyes, in a concrete form. She often conversed with her; especially when some difficulty arose, the Mother would come and tell her what to do. If what she says is correct, she must be a very advanced sadhika. How much truth do you find in her experiences and visions?

She has not related them to us. But there is nothing improbable in it. It means simply that she externalised her inner vision and experience so as to see through the physical eyes also, but it was