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At the Feet of The Mother

Agni and the Psychic Fire

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo

 

During the evening meditation, when concentrated above, I felt the Agni [Fire] of the Higher Consciousness coming down and uniting below with the psychic fire. Their oneness was experienced deep down in the heart centre. I have never heard of such a unity of the two fires.

If the development of a higher consciousness did not bring things that were not before heard of by the mind, it would not be good for much. The unification of the psychic and the higher consciousness forces and activities is indispensable for the sadhana at one time or another.

What about the dynamic descent we have been discussing of late? Are my peace and silence not enough to keep up the descent? It seems that such a descent is absolutely necessary at present; it will help me to bring active sadhana into the work also.

As for the dynamic descent, you say that the Force has descended to your forehead (inner mind) centre. It seems to be very slow in coming through. It has to come down to the heart centre and below before it can begin to be fully effective. Probably there must be something either in the physical mental (throat) [or] the emotional vital that obstructs the descent. That may be the reason of the union of the upper Agni and the psychic fire and the push in the psychic centre — something is trying to remove the difficulty.

When I become conscious of the Fire or of Mother’s Force, my heart feels a great fire deep in itself. Though the centre of the fire is in the human heart, it is not confined to my being. It is experienced as a vast and limitless fire stretching out everywhere.

It is so that all that belongs to the spiritual consciousness is experienced. One’s own self and consciousness is felt like that, something vast and limitless and stretched out everywhere, — so too the force and everything else. It is in that universality that all special action in one’s own mind and body or in others takes place.

I awoke at 4 a.m. with powerful pressures on the head. The body felt weak, sluggish and unusually warm. In short, its condition was no better than that of one suffering from a high fever. Such higher pressures I have never had before. It seemed like burning coal pressing down! Was there really any descent that gave the material being a cause for such strong resistance?

It must have been if you felt it so. The feeling of fever, as of headache, can often be the body’s misinterpretation of the tapas heat and pressure and working, and this misinterpretation may develop some fever or headache. If the mind can convert the body feeling then it can pass away as a mere feeling of heaviness or of heat in the body.

Did the body make a fuss because the descent took place during the night?

I suppose so.

Is the heat felt in the body due to the fever I am having or to the Mother’s Force, which has put a tremendous pressure on the adhar?

That has still to be seen. It is most probably the tapas heat; the question is whether it is turned partially in the body into fever.

This morning some of my physical parts experienced much heat while other parts were cold. Was the heat from the Agni and the cold from the calm peace?

It is probably that.

A strong higher working has started between my thighs and the soles of the feet. The Peace, Force and stillness are there. At times there is a sense of Agni also in it. In another experience I felt the Mother’s working as a burning fountain in the arms and the feet.

Very good.

On the spiritual path there are few things that are really abnormal. It is rather the habit of our ego or ignorance to take any new step, pressure or experience as something rare and miraculous.

Obviously.

A certain exaltation of the being comes naturally with the stronger experiences and the sense of marvel or miracle may go with it, but there should be no egoistic feeling in the exaltation.

Did the descent of the new Force come before or after the Pranam ceremony? I saw some signs of it when I went for the Mother’s Blessings.

That you must know best. Yesterday [16-9-36] the Mother put the new Force that came down on everyone. Each had his own reaction.

At pranam my vital felt that the Mother was not so pleased with me.

That means that it felt the new Force that had come down and did not like it.

Nobody can prevent it [the new Force] from entering, if you accept it.

If the Force is not received completely, is there any chance of its being withdrawn?

It has not “withdrawn” — it is in the atmosphere permanently.

Between the age of eighteen and twenty I had attained a conscious and constant union with the divine Presence and that I had done it all alone.