There is a rattling cage of thought formations which perpetually surround our brain. It’s a chaotic mixture of golden rules, calcified beliefs and fervid anxieties which we have aggregated based on our life experience. We reinforce them every day by repeatedly applying them and talking about them with others. This cluster of thoughts is what the Mother referred to as a “mental construction“.
When the Mother first visited Sri Aurobindo in 1914, she too had crystallised a “mental construction” of what spiritual life ought to be. One day, as she sat near Sri Aurobindo, she suddenly found that her mind had fallen completely silent. With a flourish of his hand, he had tranquilized her thought process and totally demolished all the sublime philosophies and wisdom teachings that she had assiduously absorbed over the years (Agenda Sept 20, 1960;)
I was seated at his feet, very small, with the table just in front of me—it came to my forehead, which gave me a little protection … I didn’t say anything, I didn’t think anything, try anything, want anything—I merely sat near him. When I stood up half an hour later, he had put silence in my head, that’s all, without my even having asked him—perhaps even without his trying.
Oh, I had tried—for years I had tried to catch silence in my head … I never succeeded. I could detach myself from it, but it would keep on turning … But at that moment, all the mental constructions, all the mental, speculative structures … none of it remained—a big hole.
And such a peaceful, such a luminous hole!
[…] Later on, I heard Sri Aurobindo saying that there were two people here to whom he had done this and as soon as there was silence, they panicked: ‘My God, I’ve gone stupid!!’ And they threw it all overboard by starting to think again.
(Mother’s Agenda, Sep 20, 1960)
The disorientation and exhilarating freedom that she experienced after attaining this mental stillness is captured in subsequent entries in her diary “Prayers and Meditations” seen below.
December 4, 1914 (Prayers and Meditations)
AFTER long days of silence, entirely occupied by outer work, it is at last given to me to resume these pages and continue with Thee, Lord, this conversation which is so sweet to me. . . .
But Thou hast broken all my habits, for Thou wouldst prepare me for liberation from every mental form. Certain mental forms, more particularly powerful or adapted to the temperament, are sure guides to supreme experiences. But once the experiences are over, Thou wouldst have them free in themselves from bondage to any mental form, however high or pure it may be, so as to be capable of expression in the new, most true form, that is, the one most suitable to the experience.
So Thou didst break all my forms of thought, and I found myself before Thee stripped of all mental constructions, as ignorant about this as a new-born child; and in the darkness of this void lay once again the sovereign peace of something which is not expressed in words but which IS. And I wait without impatience and without fear, for Thee to construct once again from the heart of the unfathomable depths the intellectual form which seems to Thee the most suitable for manifesting Thee in this instrument moulded out of surrender and ardent faith.
And before this immense night full of promise, I feel, more than I have ever felt before, free and vast, infinitely.
. . .
And in a supreme beatitude I offer Thee thanks, O Lord, for the marvellous favour Thou hast bestowed upon me: that of being before Thee like a new-born child.
December 10, 1914 (Prayers and Meditations)
LISTEN, O Lord . . . in the silence of deep meditation my prayer rises ardently to Thee.
Is it not a great folly to become identified with one form of thought, one mental construction, however vast and powerful it may be, to the point of making it the living centre of one’s being, one’s experience and activity?
Truth is eternally beyond all that we can think or say of it. To endeavour to find the most suitable expression, the one best adapted to this truth, is of course a useful task, even an indispensable one for the integrality of one’s own development and that of all humanity; but one must always feel free in front of this expression, have one’s centre of consciousness above it, in the reality which, despite the grandeur, the beauty, the perfection of a mental formula, always eludes every formula. The world is not what we think it to be. The importance of the idea we have of it lies in its effect on our attitude towards action; and this attitude may come from a much deeper, truer, more unchanging inspiration than that resulting from a mental construction, however powerful it may be. To feel in oneself the will to express for men the eternal Truth in a completer, higher, more exact form than all those which have preceded it, is good; but on condition that one does not identify one’s self with this work to the point of being its slave and losing before it all independence and self-control.
O Lord, my prayer is not formulated, but Thou hearest it.
It is just an activity and nothing more, whatever may be its importance from the earthly point of view; but it must not be forgotten that it is relative like all activities and that we should not allow it to disturb our deep peace and that immutable calm which alone lets the divine forces manifest through us without any deformation.
I found myself before Thee stripped of all mental constructions, as ignorant about this as a new-born child
Mother, Prayers and Meditations, Dec 4,1914
Jan 2 1915 (Prayers and Meditations)
EVERY idea, however powerful and profound it may be, repeated too often, expressed too constantly, becomes stale, insipid, worthless. . . . The highest concepts thus lose their freshness after a time and the intelligence which delighted in transcendental speculations suddenly feels an imperious need to abandon all reasonings and all its philosophy and contemplate life with the marvelling gaze of a child, so as no longer to remember anything of its past knowledge, were it even a sovereignly divine one. . . .
It is true to say that the divisions of time are purely arbitrary, that the date assigned to the renewal of the year varies according to the latitude, the climate, the customs, and that it is purely conventional. This is the mental attitude which smiles at the childishness of men and wants to let itself be guided by profounder truths. And then suddenly the mind itself feels its powerlessness to translate these truths precisely, and, renouncing all wisdom of this kind, it lets the song of the aspiring heart arise, the heart for which every circumstance is an opportunity for a deeper, vaster and more intense aspiration. . . . The year of the West renews itself: why not profit by it to will with renewed ardour that this symbol should become a reality and the deplorable things of the past give place to things which must exist in all glory?
Always we believe that we can define Thee, can shut Thee up in our mental formulas; but however vast, complex synthetic they may be, Thou wilt remain always the Inexpressible even for him who knows and lives Thee. . . .
For one can live Thee though one is unable to express Thee, can be Thy infinity and realise it though unable to define or explain Thee; always Thou wilt remain the eternal mystery, worthy of all our wonder; not only in Thy unthinkable and even unknowable Transcendence but in Thy universal manifestation, in all that we integrally are. And always forms of thought are succeeded by new forms, ever purer, higher and more comprehensive, but never will one of them be considered sufficient to give so much as an idea of what Thou art. And each new fact will be a new problem, more marvellous and mysterious than all that preceded it. Yet, faced with its own ignorance and incapacity, the mental being remains luminous, smiling and calm, even as though it possessed the supreme knowledge that of its being Thou, innumerably, invariably, infinitely, very simply Thou.
See Also
- Early mystic experiences of Sri Aurobindo
- Sri Ramakrishna’s occult contact with Sri Aurobindo
- An autobiographical short story by the Mother Mirra Alfassa
- The first meeting of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Mirra Alfassa
- Subhas Chandra Bose on Sri Aurobindo
- Anandamayi Ma as the Guru
- The Mother Mirra Alfassa as a Guru
- How an Egyptian discovered Sri Aurobindo
- Silviu Craciunas has a dream of Sri Aurobindo
- Xu Fancheng (徐梵澄) : a Chinese disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
- Emma Calvé’s interaction with Swami Vivekananda
- Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood
- Reminiscences of the Mother’s physician, Dr. Bisht
- The laissez-faire approach of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother 
Bless your heart, Sandeep. You would be astonished by the level to which this blogpost spoke to me this morning. As an American spinning round and round in what feels like a sea of lies, I have been reaffirming — to myself and everyone who will listen — the value of truth. But is my belief system — the one that I keep affirming over and over, that people must base their philosophy on something provable, not just conjecture — just my own mental construct? It was at this place that I ended my writing today, and now I read this.
welcome, and I hope you don’t succumb to the web of lies 🙂
That’s exactly what it is. This morning, in “Lights on Yoga,” I read this:
“If there is a refusal of the psychic new birth, a refusal to become the child new born from the Mother, owing to attachment to intellectual knowledge or mental ideas or to some vital desire, then there will be failure in the Sadhana.”
Is my adherence to what I perceive as the truth (aka not a conspiracy theory but the truth of the best that this country tries to stand for), is that an attachment to intellectual knowledge or mental ideas?
That’s a rhetorical question.
This essay quotes the Mother:
“EVERY idea, however powerful and profound it may be, repeated too often, expressed too constantly, becomes stale, insipid, worthless.”
Anyone practicing Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga will obviously have, in addition to a deeper sense within, mental beliefs and knowledge, such as he/she is in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga; that Sri Aurobindo is their guru; that they must aspire; that there is such a thing as a psychic being, etc. You know, all the mental beliefs and knowledge that come from reading Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Do these mental beliefs and ideas come under what the Mother describes as “mental constructions” in the above quote and essay? If so, do they all need to go when you practice Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga?
Appreciate your help.
As long as there is separation with the Divine, it is necessary for the mental and emotional being to absorb and practice the ideas outlined by Sri Aurobindo
Later, when the Divine Force starts descending and transforming the body, the “mental constructions” are automatically erased and no longer necessary
Appreciate your response.
Because of the Yoga (descending force) going on in me, I am experiencing intermittent detachments from my exterior personality, mainly from the mind (including thoughts, beliefs, opinions, speech, etc) and feelings (anger, fears, desires, pride, happiness, sorrow, etc). As part of this automatic detachment, I find it more and more difficult — sometimes even impossible — to hold onto any opinions or beliefs, or follow a stream of thought, no matter what it is.
That is, in a nutshell, I can not “think” much anymore. Increasingly, thoughts and feelings are not taken seriously, no matter what they are, because there is a “recognition” that I am not my thoughts and feelings; instead, I see myself as the “observer.”
I also noticed that sometimes while working, the sense of “me” completely disappears and I become one with my work.
I asked this question in the context of this ongoing experience.
I welcome any comments you or anybody else may have.
It is difficult to assess based on textual descriptions, but the moments of unbidden awareness are a good sign
If one reads the Letters on Yoga carefully, there are different stages described by Sri Aurobindo
these are not necessarily sequential. More like a spiral
Sample quote from Letters on Yoga
https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-detachment-and-the-witness-attitude
“Because of the Yoga (descending force)”
P, can you describe what this feels like.
https://auromere.wordpress.com/transformation/descent-experience/
Sandeep,
Thank you very much for your response.
Briefly, most of the time, I am experiencing a constant and automatic witnessing of thoughts, feelings, actions, etc. That is, no matter what I am doing externally, there is something within me that watches everything, every single movement, often with deep awareness. This awareness reveals hidden psychological movements, including motives, conflicting wills and opinions of various parts within me, fears, desires, and sometimes even the act of labelling by the mind.
This awareness also illuminates the movements watched, often detaching me from them. When this detachment is good — quite often these days — there is a “recognition,” an awareness, that thoughts, feelings, are not the true me, not the true observing Presence within me. Sometimes, this “recognition,” this awareness, goes even deeper, showing me that I am not my mind. With this knowing, this awareness, which is moment to moment and not intellectual, I can relax and watch these movements that arise with acceptance, detachment, joy, peace, and a smile.
For example, if I am reading an email that says nice things about me, the happiness, excitation, hidden fears, as well as all the associated thoughts that arise — such as “Wow, I feel really nice. I should surely thank her,” “No, wait, what if you have misunderstood what she said?,” “Hey, be careful, she might take advantage of you if you get too close,” “You are in Yoga, so don’t do anything, because if you do, you will be indulging in things, and it is very bad” — are watched with detachment and awareness. Usually, the experience is like as if I am standing on the bank of a river, watching it flow. These movements represent the ever-changing flow of the river.
On the 4 items you listed …
I do feel stiffness in the body sometimes, like I did today. Sometimes I find that the body very stiff and upright, like a stick, and it feels good. Other times, the body is so stiff that even doing Hatha Yoga is difficult, and I don’t feel very good. I am unsure if any of these really represent a descent.
Not sure on Emptiness. I long to find the true Presence within me, to live a life free of inner conflict, so I find engaging in mental discussions and worrying about the world more and more pointless. Also, I can’t find anything permanent or fulfilling in external life — everything seems to be a constant replay of the same old stuff. This growing dissatisfaction has come not from some opinion or belief or preferences, but from my own awareness of my inner movements. Almost all my time these days goes in Yoga, in this witnessing. That said, I still browse the news, worry about some things, but I rarely socialise.
I experience double consciousness, but it is still developing, and like you said, sort of spiral and nonlinear. Witnessing is going on almost all the time, but the separation between the 2 consciousness is not always obvious. But sometimes it emerges clearcut. For example, I was in an online meeting last Friday, and I, the external being, became aware that I am not paying attention to the discussions going on. A moment later, I found myself as the inner consciousness observing this inattentiveness of the outer. The experience lasted a few seconds.
Reversal of Consciousness — I am not sure if the dissolving of the “me” in work that I described earlier represents this or not. But as far as I know, I have not really experienced this reversal.
Finally, a few other things I want to mention …
The witnessing and awareness that I described above seems to deepen every day.
I experience thoughts in the heart area, in the throat, and in my head. Thoughts come in from outside, but these three areas are where I usually become aware of them. When my consciousness is in the heart or throat area, I find myself fully identified with the thoughts, and it is difficult to separate myself from them. But when my consciousness rises to the top of head, or to some space behind my head, I find myself “above,” and detached from, these thoughts.
When I look at the space from where awareness arises, I see nothing there — it seems to be a void. This is an initial impression, probably prone to error, but I thought I should mention it.
Also, I experience very brief moments of the disappearance of the sense of “me” while walking, or cleaning the house, or even when I am caught up in a mental/vital turmoil. The disappearance is not so intense as what I experience during concentrated work. In case of turmoil, immediately after the “me” reappears, I usually find myself at peace. Are these good signs as well?
I will respond to Mike’s question on descent soon.
I welcome any comments you or others may have.
Thanks very much.
Firstly, note that the Mother said its better to experience first and then read the explanations of that experience. So its better to not seek to understand your spiritual state unless you are experiencing difficulties or stuck somewhere.
That said,..
You might be interested in this note by Kireet Joshi (disciple of Sri Aurobindo) on Sakshi Bhava
https://auromere.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/how-to-cultivate-witness-consciousness-saksi-bhava/
also https://auromere.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/cultivating-witness-consciousness-saksi-bhava-part/
The stiffness I speak about happens during deep meditation. It is a sign that the consciousness is able to withdraw from the physical body and plunge into the inner being
Reversal of consciousness begins when you start experiencing the psychic touch in daily life as described
https://auromere.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/the-elusive-touch-of-the-psychic-being/
regarding the stiffness I mentioned, see another post as well
https://auromere.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/why-does-yoga-give-you-a-high/
Sandeep,
Thanks much. Your link comes as a just-in-time answer to a question I had asked myself about a recent experience I am having.
In an online course I am attending, the instructor asks everyone, as a warm-up exercise, to concentrate on the breath for a few minutes. I do not have any prior knowledge about breath’s relation to Yoga, but I noticed that when I concentrated on the breath, the breath quickly slowed down and came to a standstill — i.e., there was neither any exhalation nor any inhalation. After this had happened a few times, I wondered what it was all about (the instructor didn’t know anything about it either). Then I saw this piece in your post, which seems to explain it quite well.
“When the mind becomes steady, breathing stops and one experiences kumbhaka.”
This is the first time I am hearing about such things. I am not aware of Yogic literature, and I usually avoid reading spiritual stuff, because I have a hard time understanding anything. But when experiences come, and I wonder about them, usually answers come in the way your response has come, and in such cases, reading helps illuminate things.
Also, I had noticed the breath coming to a standstill a couple of years of back while doing Hatha Yoga asanas. But I didn’t know anything about this stuff then, so I never bothered about it.
If you find anything amiss, please feel free to comment.
Thanks much.
P, l asked the question about your descent experience because i like to confirm these things. l couldn’t find anything in sandeeps links but i was led to one description in SA’s ‘Leters’ which is confirmation that your experience sounds genuine.
“Yogic or spiritual) consciousness coming down into the body
from above the head. It is felt often like a current flowing through
the head into the whole body and the first thing it brings is a
descent of peace. One result of this descent is that one feels an
inner being in oneself which is detached from the outer action,
supports it from behind, but is not involved in it”
Mike,
Thanks much for your help. I experience a few other things that I can only attribute to a descent, but I am not sure if they are mentioned anywhere in SA’s literature. These include:
An ability to direct the consciousness directly to the sense organs (hearing, vision), bypassing the thinking mind. This happens at will as well as automatically. For example, I can listen to sounds by directing attention to my ears. Sounds, including far-off faint ones, are then heard without extraordinary clarity. To give you an idea, every morning, lying in my bed, I can hear the sounds of squirrels in far-off trees — an experience that astonished me the first time I had it. Likewise, I can look at things without thought intervention.
Colors appear extraordinarily sharp and vibrant. My vision has also become very sharp and granular. Because of these things, flowers, leaves, trees, etc, appear quite different from ordinary vision. When I look at a flower or a leaf, for example, I can see the fine details. In particular, nature appears extraordinarily beautiful, so I spend a lot of time in nature these days.
I can query my consciousness to understand what’s going on within me. This feature developed on its own, without any prior knowledge. Usually, I ask, “Hmm, I wonder if this stuff is true,” and leave it there. Then the answer usually comes from an illumination, or from Yogic literature, or from somebody.
I can also move my consciousness around different parts of my body at will, to my arms, legs, etc, and feel different parts and sensations. Even though I haven’t tried it yet — and I don’t think I want to — I have a strong feeling that I can, if I want to, move my consciousness through the body to the top of my head and out of the body.
Some of these things have been going on almost every day for more than a year now. I practice alone and do not interact much with anyone. Plus, I don’t have much of a background in Yoga or spirituality. Because of that combination, when experiences come, I have no idea what they are, or whether they are even real. That’s why I am posing questions here, just to make sure I am not deluding myself. Anyway, I later found, to my great surprise and relief, that Echart Tolle describes some of these experiences as genuine stuff.
Typos correction.
The following
“Sounds, including far-off faint ones, are then heard without extraordinary clarity. To give you an idea, every morning, lying in my bed, I can hear the sounds of squirrels in far-off trees — an experience that astonished me the first time I had it.”
should be read as
“Sounds, including far-off faint ones, are then heard WITH extraordinary clarity. To give you an idea, every morning, lying in my bed, I can hear the sounds of squirrels in distant trees WITH GREAT CLARITY — an experience that astonished me the first time it happened.”
P, thanks for replying.
“Usually, I ask, “Hmm, I wonder if this stuff is true,” and leave it there. Then the answer usually comes from an illumination, or from Yogic literature, or from somebody”
l know what you mean by that. l do the same thing and the answers are surprisingly accurate.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have spoken about these occult abilities [siddhi’s]. They come with the expansion of consciousness, no matter what path we follow, but Yogi’s have described them in detail [like patanjali’s 8 powers]. So, it’s quite a natural development.
Yes, it’s good you have the right discrimination. There are many out there who accept everything and anything, without question. Mostly religious types, l find.
lt was the same with me in the beginning. l was getting weird experiences that i couldn’t explain [before i knew anything about yoga etc]. One day Sri Aurobindo’s ‘letters on yoga’ more or less dropped in my lap and it explained a lot, but some things it didn’t. It was only years later after writing to a head disciple at the ashram that it was confirmed by him that i had a ‘Spiritual Opening’ [ which is what you have, i believe, only along a different line to me]. But, it leads to the same goal.
Anyway, good luck..
“Even though I haven’t tried it yet — and I don’t think I want to — I have a strong feeling that I can, if I want to, move my consciousness through the body to the top of my head and out of the body.”
Yes, i believe this would probably lead to exteriorisation – going out of body. ln this yoga i think it happens naturally when you concentrate at the top of the head – at least it has with me. lt’s also part of the Ascent experience [both Ascent and Descent take place in SA’s yoga]..
December 4, 1943 (Prayer and Meditation)
“So Thou didst break all my forms of thought, and I found myself before Thee stripped of all mental constructions, as ignorant about this as a new-born child; and in the darkness of this void lay once again the sovereign peace of something which is not expressed in words but which IS. And I wait without impatience and without fear, for Thee to construct once again from the heart of the unfathomable depths the intellectual form which seems to Thee the most suitable for manifesting Thee in this instrument moulded out of surrender and ardent faith.
“And before this immense night full of promise, I feel, more than I have ever felt before, free and vast, infinitely.”
Sounding so much like the Divine darkness of Pseudo Dionisius “Mystical Theology” and St John of the Cross Dark Night of soul and spirit.
I look for these common cross cultural spiritual threads.
Yes, SA descrbes this ‘dark night’ clearly in one of His letters:
“The passage1 in The Yoga and its Objects is written from the point of view of the spiritualised mind approaching the supreme Truth directly, without passing through the supermind or disappearing into it. The mind spiritualises itself by shedding all its own activities and formations and reducing everything to a pure Existence, sad-ātman, from which all things and activities proceed and which supports everything. When it wants to go still beyond, it negates yet further and arrives at an asat, which is the negation of all this existence and yet something inconceivable to mind, speech or defining experience. It is the silent Unknowable, the Turiya or featureless and relationless Absolute of the monistic Vedantins, the Shunyam of the nihilistic Buddhists, the Tao or omnipresent and transcendent Nihil of the Chinese, the indefinable and ineffable Permanent of the Mahayana. Many Christian mystics also speak of the necessity of a complete ignorance in order to get the supreme experience and speak too of the divine Darkness—they mean the shedding of all mental knowledge, making a blank of the mind and engulfing it in the Unmanifest, the param avyaktam. All this is the mind’s way of approaching the Supreme—for beyond the avyaktam, tamasaḥ parastāt, is the Supreme, the Purushottama of the Gita, the Para Purusha of the Upanishads. It is ādityavarṇa in contrast to the darkness of the Unmanifest; it is a metaphor, but not a mere metaphor, for it is a symbol also, a symbol visually seen by the sūkṣma dṛṣṭi, the subtle vision, and not merely a symbol, but, as one might say, a fact of spiritual experience. The sun in the yoga is the symbol of the supermind and the supermind is the first power of the Supreme which one meets across the border where the experience of spiritualised mind ceases and the unmodified divine Consciousness begins the domain of the supreme Nature, parā prakṛti. It is that Light of which the Vedic mystics got a glimpse and it is the opposite of the intervening darkness of the Christian mystics, for the supermind is all light and no darkness. To the mind the Supreme is avyaktāt param avyaktam but if we follow the line leading to the supermind, it is an increasing affirmation rather than an increasing negation through which we move”..