Chapter 6July 26, 1969

(The following example, among many others, was deliberately chosen as innocuous, so as to make the intention behind these cuts better understood. The censored passage is italicized.)

“As you say, it is the failure of the right attitude that comes in the way of passing through ordeals to a change of nature. The pressure is becoming greater now for this change of character even more than for decisive Yoga experience – for if the experience comes, it fails to be decisive because of the want of the requisite change of nature. The mind, for instance, gets the experience of the One in all, but the vital cannot follow, because it is dominated by ego-reaction and ego-motive or the habits of the outer nature keep up a way of thinking, feeling, acting, living which is quite out of harmony with the experience. Or the psychic and part of the mind and emotional being feel frequently the closeness of the Mother, but the rest of the nature is unoffered and goes its own way prolonging the division from her nearness, creating distance. It is because the Sadhaks have never even tried to have the Yogic attitude in all things, they have been contented with the common ideas, common view of things, common motives of life, only varied by inner experiences and transferred to the framework of the Asram instead of that of the world outside. It is not enough and there is great need that this should change.”124

Sri Aurobindo

9 September 1936 (Mother wants to revise with Satprem a few passages of her translation of ‘Savitri.’)

But now I’ve come to notice that they cut these quotations, they leave out two lines in the middle – suddenly I’ll say to myself, “But it doesn’t hang together!” I’ll ask, and F. tells me, “Yes, they left out one line, two lines....” So what’s to be done?

It’s absurd.

Here, all this is ready. I don’t need to see it again: it’s for you to see it. It’s my translation.

What should I do?

(Laughing) See if my translation is good!

No, because some things might be put in a better way.

Yes, but I’m wary. You know, I have learned that what’s thought to be “better” according to literary knowledge isn’t necessarily better from the standpoint of the true force.

I quite agree with that.

Listen, basically what you should do is to see (you can see it right away) if you find something you think isn’t too good. I’ve done it “like that”; I can’t say I am attached to my translation, not at all, but if you could suggest something to me... (Satprem starts reading out a passage).

As you said, the French might be a bit awkward, but it may be the only way to translate precisely. Sometimes I did it purposely.

Admitted

through

a

curtain

of

bright

mind That hangs

between

our

thought

and

absolute

sight, He found

the

occult

cave,

the

mystic

door Near

to

the

well

of

vision

in

the

soul And

entered

where

the

Wings

of

Glory

brood In the sunlit space where all is for ever known.

(I.V.74)

“Brood”?...

It’s the image of a hen brooding on its eggs! “The Wings of Glory” brood on things so they may be realized.

There

in

a

hidden

chamber

closed

and

mute Are kept

the

record

graphs

of

the

cosmic

scribe, And

there

the

tables

of

the

sacred

Law.... The

symbol

powers

of

number

and

of

form, And the

secret

code

of

the

history

of

the

world And

Nature’s

correspondence

with

the

soul Are

written

in

the

mystic

heart

of

life. In the

glow

of

the

Spirit’s

room

of

memories He

could

recover

the

luminous

marginal

notes Dotting with light the crabbed ambiguous scroll...

(ibid.)

(Mother laughs) “The crabbed ambiguous scroll”!...

Is that all?

He saw

the

unshaped

thought

in

soulless

forms, Knew

Matter

pregnant

with

spiritual

sense,

(I. V. 76)

A Will,

a

hope

immense

now

seized

his

heart, And

to

discern

the

superhuman’s

form He raised

his

eyes

to

unseen

spiritual

heights, Aspiring to bring down a greater world.

(ibid.)

(silence)

Yesterday, I read another part of Savitri which tells how the king is transformed125 – those are ALL the experiences my body is now going through! I knew nothing about it (I don’t remember that at all), and I seemed to be reading all the experiences my body is now going through.... It’s interesting.

And to be able to describe those experiences like that, he must have had them.

(silence)

The mystery is always why he left.

Yes.

I remember quite clearly and precisely (I still see the whole setting, in his room) a conversation I once had with him-in what connection, I don’t know.... It was... (I forget what preceded, you understand), he told me, “We can’t both remain upon earth, one must go.” Then I said to him, “I am ready, I’ll go.” Then he told me, “No, you can’t go, your body is better than mine, you can undergo the transformation better than I can do.”

And the strange thing is that... It took place just before all his physical difficulties. But I didn’t attach too much importance [to that conversation]; it’s only when he left that it suddenly came back, and I thought, “So there, he knew!...” It was... I don’t know. It was almost like a speculation, you understand, which he was just mentioning. It was at the time of our moving from the other house to this one,126 because it took place one day in that room, here [downstairs], and it was before his accident, before he broke his leg.127 In what connection, I forget. That’s gone. But I remember clearly, so clearly, I still see the room and everything, how he was, how he told me, “We can’t both remain upon earth.” That’s all.

But why can’t “both” remain?

125The World-Soul, II.XIV.

126In February, 1927.

Why?

But when he said it to me, I found it so obvious that I didn’t even ask him. So it must have followed something, and that something is gone.

Because I remember, I told him, “I am absolutely ready, I’ll go.” Then he looked at me, and he said, “No, no, your body is better than mine, it can undergo...”

Why?... How many times since then I have asked myself that question.

Yes, one would be tempted to think that with two, one can better support each other...

(after a silence)

These last few days it came once again; once again I looked and looked, and... (Mother opens her hands, in a gesture expressing that she does not know).

It depended on something, but what? I don’t know.

(silence)

I remember another thing, but then much more recent. After he left, long ago, years and years ago (it was not very long after he left, maybe a year or two), I was downstairs, in the bathroom downstairs, and in that bathroom, early in the morning I was taking my breakfast on the corner of a table, like that. Then, while I was beginning to eat, he came and stood there (gesture beside Mother), and he was so concrete that I felt as if... it would take VERY LITTLE for him to become material again. So I said to him, “Oh, you are coming back!” Like that. And then... he answered me, “I’ll be with you, but I can’t come back materially – I MUST NOT come back materially.”

It was so material that I suddenly felt, “Oh, nothing, a mere nothing would be enough... [for him to materialize].”

But doesn’t it mean that Your presence here could help him, on day, to materialize in another body?

Yes, yes.... That he said clearly (I asked him), he clearly said, “I’ll come back only in a supramental body.”

That was before what I have just told you.

So it would be you who would help him to materialize?

Yes, yes.

But there’s the big question of that supramental body, I don’t know.

Yes, but if it materializes, that’s different. It’s not the same thing as creating it.

Yes.

In a living body, but made of another substance than the physical substance.

Yes, but that’s what I said: that substance, when, how, what?...

But on a much lower level, lasting materializations have been made – like those stones that were thrown in the Guest House, for instance.128 Yes.

So why couldn’t this substance of light materialize in the same way?

(long silence)

The beings who do those materializations (all those mediums) always have a very fat body, and it’s a special substance. Those materializations aren’t permanent.

That of the stones was – those stones that were thrown.129

(silence)

Oh, that reminds me of something: you know that long-haired S.B.?... Dr. S. has just gone to see him – he came back with a ring. I always thought it was some conjuring trick or other, but the Doctor seems to say... he says, “He made a gesture (like a sleight of hand), and he put this in my hand.”

It may be a materialization.

Yes, but he does that sort of materialization – he does it a lot, that man – but he uses the lowest entities of the vital world; he is a man who has disgusting dealings with lower entities.130 Oh?

Yes, whereas this [supramental materialization] is another kind of materialization.... He uses the lowest entities.

At any rate, when the Doctor came back, I SAW: it takes place exclusively in the vital. I am sure of that.

But he does materialize.

128In 1920.

129Some disciples (Amrita for instance) kept them for several years.

130In this connection, the reader will read with interest (when they are published) Pavitra’s records of evening talks with