Chapter 15March 7, 1960

twinkled mischievously, as if to say, ‘I will be there, you see, and there’ll be no room for you.’

When I came down that evening for distribution,171 at first I was annoyed. I had said that I didn’t want anybody in the hall, precisely because I wanted to establish an atmosphere of concentration, the immobility of the Spirit – but there were at least thirty people in there, those who had decorated the hall, thirty of them stirring, stirring about, a mass of little vibrations. And before I could even say ‘scat’ – I had hardly taken my seat – someone put the tray of medals on my lap and they started filing past.

But what is surprising is that in a flash, no one was there any longer. No one, you understand – I was gone. Perhaps I was everywhere (but in fact I am always everywhere, I am always conscious of being everywhere at the same time), though normally there is the sense of the body, a physical center, but that evening there was no more center! Nothing, no one, not even the sense that there was no one – nothing. I was gone. There was indeed something handing out the medals which felt the joy of giving the medal, the joy of receiving it, the joy of mutually looking at each other. It was simply the joy of the action taking place, the joy of looking, this joy everywhere, but me? – Nothing, no one, gone. Only later, afterwards, did I see what had happened, for everything had disappeared, even the higher mind that understands and organizes things (by ‘understand’ I mean contain, which ‘contains’ things). That also was gone. And this lasted the entire distribution. Only when that [the body] had gone back upstairs to the room did the consciousness of what is me return.

There is a line by Sri Aurobindo in Savitri which expresses this very well: to annul oneself so that only the Supreme Lord may be.

And there are many, many experiences like this. It is only a small, a very small beginning. This one in particular came to mark the new stage: four years have elapsed, and now four years to come. Because everything has focused on this body to prepare it, everything has concentrated on it – Nature, the Master of the Yoga, the Supreme, everything ... So only when it’s over, not before, will it really be interesting to speak of all this. But maybe it will never be over, after all. It’s a small beginning, very small.

(Letter to Mother from Satprem)

Pondicherry, March 7, 1960 170The Darshan on February 29, 1960, the first anniversary of the Supramental Manifestation.

171On this first anniversary of the Supramental Manifestation, Mother distributed medals commemorating the occasion