The transformation to which we aspire is too vast and complex to come at one stroke; it must be allowed to come by stages. The physical change is the last of these stages and is itself a progressive process. The inner transformation cannot be brought about by physical means either of a positive or a negative nature. On the contrary, the physical change itself can only be brought about by a descent of the greater supramental consciousness into the cells of the body. Till then at least the body and its supporting energies have to be maintained in part by the ordinary means, food, sleep, etc. Food has to be taken in the right spirit, with the right consciousness; sleep has to be gradually transformed into the yogic repose. A premature and excessive physical austerity, Tapasya, may endanger the process of the sadhana by establishing a disturbance and abnormality of the forces in the different parts of the system. A great energy may pour into the mental and vital parts but the nerves and the body may be overstrained and lose the strength to support the play of these higher energies. This is the reason why an extreme physical austerity is not included here as a substantive part of the sadhana. There is no harm in fasting from time to time for a day or two or in reducing the food taken to a small but sufficient modicum; but entire abstinence for a long period is not advisable.

(Letters on Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 24, p. 1473)

The Mother:

Q. My dear mother,

Have I done something that has displeased you? My head hurts. I feel tired.

The Mother: You are quite mistaken, I am not at all displeased with you. Only I am worried because you always have a headache and because you are tired.

I want all that to go away and I want you to be perfectly healthy. For that, you must follow a physical discipline: sleep regularly, eat regularly, exercise regularly, etc., etc. And unfortunately you refuse all discipline. This makes my task very difficult.

With all my love. 11 September 1934

Need of Food and Sleep Will Vanish in Supramental Era

This question of food. The body consciousness is already conscious of a world which is no longer subjected to the same laws

This Consciousness has a faraway indifference for these three “awesome” things in human life: death, food and money. To it, the three are passing inventions which derive from a wholly transitory state that doesn’t correspond to anything very deep. And then, it teaches the body to be otherwise.

The body is taught to be otherwise. A tremendous perfection of organisation. God grows up on earth.

There is this need of food which naturally brings back an old difficulty every time. Every time, you swallow a new difficulty. Can we conceive of something that works in another way yet without deteriorating? Would the body as it is capable of being transformed by the Force? …We’ll know when it’s done and not before!

—

Many other things will disappear, as for example the need to eat and perhaps also the need to sleep in the way we sleep now. But the most conscious impulse in a superior humanity, which has continued as a source of… bliss is a big word, but joy, delight — is certainly the sexual activity, and that will have absolutely no reason for existence in the functions of Nature when the need to create in that way will no longer exist. Therefore, the capacity of entering into relation with the joy of life will rise by one step or will be oriented differently.

It is the same with regard to food. It will be the same thing. When animality will drop off, the absolute necessity of food also will drop off. And there will probably be a transition where one will have less and less purely material food. For example, when you smell flowers it is nourishing. I have seen it, you nourish yourself in a more subtle way.

Only, the body is not ready. The body is not ready and it deteriorates, that is to say, it eats itself. This proves that the time has not come, that it is only an experience — an experience that teaches you something, teaches you that it will not be a brutal

refusal to come into contact with the corresponding Matter and an isolation (one cannot isolate oneself, it is impossible), but a communion on a higher or deeper plane. 27 November 1965

Role of Food

Does food have an important place in our life?

Q. People often say that our food does not contain enough vitamins and protein. The doctors claim that this is why we have so much physical and bodily suffering. Is it really the cause? Does food have such an important place in life?

The Mother: For those whose consciousness is centred in the body, who live for the body, its desires and satisfactions, those for whom the truth begins and ends with the body, it is evident that food is of capital importance since they live to eat.

If one wants to see the truth of the problem, it is this: only an enlightened body, balanced and free from all vital desire and mental preconception, is capable of knowing what it needs in regard to quantity and kind of food — and it is so exceptional to find such a body that we need not speak of it.

- 12 August 1964

How did the taste for food develop?

Q. Sweet Mother, from the beginning man ate because he needed food in order to live. Then why did taste for food develop? One eats what one likes to, and doesn’t eat what one doesn’t like!

The Mother:

I think primitive man was very close to the animal and lived more by instinct than by intelligence, you see. He ate when he was hungry, without any rule of any kind. Perhaps he had his tastes and preferences too, we know nothing much about it, but he lived much more materially, much less mentally and vitally than now.

Surely primitive man was very material, very near the animal. And as the centuries pass, man becomes more mental and more vital; and as he becomes more vital and mental, naturally refinement is possible, intelligence grows, but also the possibility of perversion and distortion. You see, there is a difference between educating one’s senses to the point of being able to bring in all kinds of refinements, developments, knowledge, all the possibilities of appreciation, taste, and all that — there is a difference between this, which is truly a development and progress of consciousness, and attachment or greediness.

One can, for example, very well make a very deep study of taste and have a very detailed knowledge of the different tastes of things, of the association between ideas and taste, in order to acquire a full development — not positively vital, but a development of the senses. There is a great difference between this and those who eat through greediness, who think all the time about food. You see, for them eating is the most important thing; all their thoughts are concentrated on it, and they eat not because they need to eat but through desire and greed and gluttony.

In fact people who work in order to develop their taste, to refine it, are rarely very much attached to food. It is not through attachment to food that they do it. It is for the cultivation of their senses, which is a very different thing. It is like the artist, you know, who trains his eyes to appreciate forms and colours, lines, the composition of things, the harmony found in physical nature; it is not at all through desire that he does this, it is through taste, culture, the development of the sense of sight and the appreciation of beauty. And usually artists who are real artists and love their art and live in the sense of beauty, seeking beauty, are people who don’t have many desires. They live in the sense of a growth not only visual, but of the appreciation of beauty. There is a great difference between this and people who live by their impulses and desires. That’s altogether something else.

Usually all education, all culture, all refinement of the senses and the being is one of the best ways of curing instincts, desires, passions. To eliminate these things does not cure them; to cultivate, intellectualise, refine them, this is the surest means of curing. To give the greatest possible development for progress and growth, to acquire a certain sense of harmony and exactness of perception, this is a part of the culture of the being, of the education of the being. It is like the people who cultivate their intelligence, who learn, read, think, compare, study. These people’s minds widen and they are much vaster and more understanding than those who live without mental education, with a few petty ideas which sometimes are even contradictory in their consciousness and govern them totally because these are the only ones they have and they think these are unique ideas which should guide their life; these people are altogether narrow and limited whereas those who are trained and have studied — this at least widens their minds and they can see, compare ideas and see that all possible ideas are there in the world and that it is a pettiness, an absurdity to be attached to a limited number of ideas and consider them the exclusive expression of truth.

Education is certainly one of the best means of preparing the consciousness for a higher development. There are people with very crude and very simple natures, who can have great aspiration and attain a certain spiritual development, but the base will always be of an inferior quality, and as soon as they return to their ordinary consciousness they will find obstacles in it, because the stuff is too thin, there are not enough elements in their vital and material consciousness to enable them to bear the descent of a higher force.

To eat through greediness and a passion for food is something completely different from studying the different tastes and knowing how to compare them, combine them and appreciate them. — — 23 February 1955

Why physical prefers to have certain food?

The Mother: And then, finally, habits!… There is a charming phrase here — I appreciated it fully — in which Sri Aurobindo is asked, “What is meant by the physical adhering to its own habits’?” What are the habits which the physical must throw off? It is this terrible, frightful preference for the food you were used to when you were very young, the food you ate in the country where you were born and about which you feel when you no longer get it that you have not anything at all to eat, that you are miserable. — The Mother — 9 June 1954

Effect of Eating Various Types of Food

Effect of eating Sattwic Food

Sri Aurobindo: I think the importance of sattwic food from the spiritual point of view has been exaggerated. Food is rather a question of hygiene and many of the sanctions and prohibitions laid down in ancient religions had more a hygienic than a spiritual motive. The Gita’s definitions seem to point in the same direction — tamasic food, it seems to say, is what is stale or rotten with the virtue gone out of it, rajasic food is that which is too acrid, pungent etc., heats the blood and spoils the health, sattwic food is what is pleasing, healthy etc. It may well be that different kinds of food nourish the action of the different gunas and so indirectly are helpful or harmful apart from their physical action. But that is as far as we can confidently go. What particular eatables are or are not sattwic is another question and more difficult to determine. Spiritually, I should say that the effect of food depends more on the occult atmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself. Vegetarianism is another question altogether; it stands, as you say, on a will not to do harm to the more conscious forms of life for the satisfaction of the belly.

Sri Aurobindo : As to the question of practising to take all kinds of food with equal rasa, it is not necessary to practise nor does it really come by practice. One has to acquire equality within in the consciousness and as this equality grows one can extend it or apply it to the various fields of the activity of the consciousness.

Those who are ready to give up animal food, should certainly do so. The others can do it when they are ready.

It is rather certain kinds of food that are supposed to increase it [sexual desire] — e.g. meat, onions, chillis etc.

There is no sin at all in eating these things [onions, potatoes, etc.]. The only objection to eating much onions is that it is supposed to stimulate not tamoguna but rajas, but there are other foods not forbidden that do that.

I think onions can be described as rajaso-tamasic in their character. They are heavy and material and at the same time excitant of certain strong material-vital forces. It is obvious that if one wants to conquer the physical passions and is still very much subject to the body nature and the things that affect it, free indulgence in onions is not advisable. It is only for those who have risen above the body consciousness and mastered it and are not affected by these things that it does not at all matter; for them the use of this or that food or its disuse makes no difference. At the same time I must say that the abstinence from rajasic or tamasic foods does not of itself assure freedom from the things they help to stimulate. Vegetarians, for instance, can be as sensual and excitable as meat-eaters; a man may abstain from onions and yet be in these respects no better than before. It is a change of consciousness that is effective and this kind of abstention helps that only in so far as it tends to create a less heavy and more refined and plastic physical consciousness for the higher will to act upon. That is something, but it is not all; the change of consciousness can come even in spite of non-abstinence.

Onions are allowed here because the palate of the sadhaks demands something to give a taste to the food. We do not insist on these details, or make an absolutely strict rule, as the stress here is more on the inward change, the outward coming as its result. Only so much is insisted on as is essential for organisation and inner and outer discipline and to point the way to an indispensable self-control. It is pressed on all that the greed of the palate has to be conquered, but it has to be done in the last resort from within, as also the other passions and desires of the lower nature.

Effect of eating spicy food?

Mother, A personal question. You have now allowed the use of tamarind. But some 20 years back you gave me a very good scolding because I prepared a tamarind drink for someone. You told me that it was bad for health and it was one of the things responsible for the lethargy of Indians. It was almost the same thing that our ancient sages have said. Now I want to know whether the values have changed or whether you are giving a concession to human desires.

The Mother: I have heard so many contradictory reports on the effects of food, spices, etc., that logically I have come to the conclusion that it must be — like all the rest — a personal affair and consequently no general rule can be made and, still less, enforced. This is the cause of my leniency.

Sri Aurobindo: It is better to be careful in these matters of food etc., as in the stage through which your sadhana is passing there is a considerable sensitiveness in the vital physical part of the being and it may be easily disturbed by a wrong impact or a wrong movement like overfeeding.

When the physical consciousness has been sensitivised, too rich or heavy food becomes offensive to it.

Effect of Tamasic Food?

When the physical is tamasic, unless one eats spices and highly flavoured food, one does not feel nourished. And yet these are poisons. They act exactly like poison on the nerves. They do not nourish. But it is because people are tamasic, because they do not have sufficient consciousness in their body. Well, mentally it is the same thing, vitally the same thing. If they are tamasic, they always need new excitements, dramas, murders, suicides, etc. to feel anything at all, otherwise…. And there is nothing, nothing that makes one more wicked and cruel than tamas. For it is this need of excitement which shakes you up a little, makes you come out of yourself. And one must also learn, there, to distinguish between those who are exclusively tamasic and those who are mixed, and those who are struggling within themselves with their different parts. One can, one must know in what proportion their nature is constituted, so as to be able to insist at need on one thing or another.

- The Mother 30 December 1953

How to Eat Food?

Physically, we depend upon food to live — unfortunately. For with food, we daily and constantly take in a formidable amount of inconscience, of tamas, heaviness, stupidity. One can’t do otherwise — unless constantly, without a break, we remain completely aware and, as soon as an element is introduced into our body, we immediately work upon it to extract from it only the light and reject all that may darken our consciousness. This is the origin and rational explanation of the religious practice of consecrating one’s food to God before taking it. When eating one aspires that this food may not be taken for the little human ego but as an offering to the divine consciousness within oneself. In all yogas, all religions, this is encouraged. This is the origin of that practice, of contacting the consciousness behind, precisely to diminish as much as possible the absorption of an inconscience which increases daily, constantly, without one’s being aware of it.
— The Mother — 19 April, 1951

When we eat, we should be conscious that we are giving our food to that Presence in us…

When I try to take this attitude, the food tastes better and the atmosphere becomes quieter.

What does Mother mean by the sentence: “When you eat, you must feel that it is the Divine who is eating through you”?

A.: It means an offering of the food not to the ego or desire but to the Divine, who is behind all action.

Sri Aurobindo: Do not trouble your mind about food. Take it in the right quantity (neither too much nor too little), without greed or repulsion, as the means given you by the Mother for the maintenance of the body, in the right spirit, offering it to the Divine in you; then it need not create tamas.

How much food should one consume?

Q. Is taking very little food helpful in controlling the senses?

The Mother: No, it simply exasperates them — to take a moderate amount is best. People who fast easily get exalted and may lose their balance.

Sri Aurobindo: Not to eat as the method of getting rid of the greed of food is the ascetic way. Ours is equanimity and non-attachment.

To suppress hunger like that is not good, it very often creates disorders. I doubt whether fatness or thinness of a healthy kind depends on the amount of food taken — there are people who eat well and remain thin and others who take only one meal a day and remain fat. By underfeeding (taking less than the body really needs) one may get emaciated, but that is not a healthy state. The doctors say it depends mostly on the working of certain glands. Anyhow the important thing is now to get the nervous strength back.

As for the liver also eating little does not help, very often it makes the liver sluggish so that it works less well. What is recommended for liver trouble is to avoid greasy food and much eating of sweets and that is also one way of avoiding fat. But to eat too little is not good — it may be necessary in some stomach or intestinal illness, but not for the ordinary liver trouble.

This feeling of not being able to eat and of eating being unnecessary is a sort of suggestion that is coming to several people. It should be rejected and cleared out of the system as it may lead to weakening of the body by taking insufficient food. Often one does not feel weak at first, a vital energy comes which supports the body, but later on the body weakens. This feeling may sometimes come when one is going much inside and there is no insistence on the bodily needs; but it should not be accepted. If it is rejected, it is likely to disappear.

What is necessary is to take enough food and think no more about it, taking it as a means for the maintenance of the physical instrument only. But just as one should not overeat, so one should not diminish unduly — it produces a reaction which defeats the object — for the object is not to allow either the greed for food or the heavy tamas of the physical which is the result of excessive eating to interfere with the concentration on the spiritual experience and progress. If the body is left insufficiently nourished, it will think of food more than otherwise.

Too much eating makes the body material and heavy, eating too little makes it weak and nervous — one has to find the true harmony and balance between the body’s need and the food taken.

It depends on what you can digest. If you can digest, there is no harm in taking more since you feel hungry. All these things depend upon what is the true need of the body and that may differ in different cases according to the constitution of the body, the amount of work done or exercise taken. It is possible that you have reduced your food too much — so you can try taking more.

But it is quite natural. Exercise is always supposed to increase the appetite as the body needs more food to restore the extra expense of energy put out. Normally the more physical work the body has to do the more food it needs. On the other hand mental work requires no increase of food — that has been ascertained scientifically by experiment. Hunger may increase by other causes, but when it coincides with the taking up of play or physical exercise of a strenuous character, that is sufficient to explain it.

If the [stomach] pains are strong, you can abstain from work for a day or two till they have subsided. Of course if you feel that you suffer from anything else but liquid food, that settles the question — you can take liquid food only and if you take liquid food only then you will not be strong enough to work. But usually the thought takes a big part in determining these things — the mind has the impression that any solid food will hurt and the body follows — so naturally as a result any solid food does begin to hurt.

Sri Aurobindo:

The first thing I tell people when they want not to eat or sleep is that no Yoga can be done without sufficient food and sleep (see the Gita on this point). This is not Gandhi’s asram or a miracle-shop. Fasting and sleeplessness make the nerves morbid and excited and weaken the brain and lead to delusions and fantasies. The Gita says Yoga is not for one who eats too much or sleeps too much, neither is it for one who does not eat or does not sleep, but if one eats and sleeps suitably — yuktāhārī yuktanidraḥ — then one can do it best. It is the same with everything else. How often have I said that excessive retirement was suspect to me and that to do nothing but meditate was a lopsided and therefore unsound sadhana.

I must ask you to remember what I told you about sadhana. If you want to do the sadhana here, you must sleep well and eat well. If you try to stop sleeping or eating or unduly diminish sleep and food, you will weaken the body and excite the vital and wrong and excited and exaggerated movements will come into you. Remember this in future.

There are stories told of people living without sleep or food — living without sleep has happened, but it came by an abnormal condition in the person which cannot be brought at will. There is no instance of anyone living without food, — none that is to say which is beyond doubt — but that also may be possible — but here also it must depend on some abnormal condition which cannot be brought at will.
It is the want of sleep itself that brings the symptoms of uneasiness. The action of the Sadhana cannot of itself bring this kind of reaction, it is only if the body gets strained by want of sleep, insufficient food, overwork or nervous excitement that there are these things. It is probably because the nerves are strung in the daytime and you do not relax into ease that it is difficult to sleep.

The normal allowance of sleep is said to be 7 to 8 hours except in advanced age when it is said to be less. If one takes less (5 to 6 for instance) the body accommodates itself somehow, but if the control is taken off it immediately wants to make up for its lost arrears of the normal 8 hours. So often when one has tried to live on too little food, if one relaxes, the body becomes enormously rapacious for food until it has set right the credit and loss account. At least it often happens like that.

Sleep cannot be replaced, but it can be changed; for you can become conscious in sleep. If you are thus conscious, then the night can be utilised for a higher working — provided the body gets its due rest; for the object of sleep is the body’s rest and the renewal of the vital-physical force. It is a mistake to deny to the body food and sleep, as some from an ascetic idea or impulse want to do — that only wears out the physical support and, although either the Yogic or the vital energy can long keep at work an overstrained or declining physical system, a time comes when this drawing is no longer so easy nor perhaps possible. The body should be given what it needs for its own efficient working. Moderate but sufficient food (without greed or desire), sufficient sleep, but not of the heavy tamasic kind, this should be the rule.

How can you digest your food properly?

And then you must try and must persevere, continue trying. What I have just told you is a very good means. Yet there are others also. You sit quietly, to begin with; and then, instead of thinking of fifty things, you begin saying to yourself, “Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, calm, peace!” You imagine peace and calm. You aspire, ask that it may come: “Peace, peace, calm.” And then, when something comes and touches you and acts, say quietly, like this, “Peace, peace, peace.” Do not look at the thoughts, do not listen to the thoughts, you understand. You must not pay attention to everything that comes. You know, when someone bothers you a great deal and you want to get rid of him, you don’t listen to him, do you? Good! You turn your head away (gesture) and think of something else. Well, you must do that: when thoughts come, you must not look at them, must not listen to them, must not pay any attention at all, you must behave as though they did not exist, you see! And then, repeat all the time like a kind of — how shall I put it? — as an idiot does, who repeats the same thing always. Well, you must do the same thing; you must repeat, “Peace, peace, peace.” So you try this for a few minutes and then do what you have to do; and then, another time, you begin again; sit down again and then try. Do this on getting up in the morning, do this in the evening when going to bed. You can do this… look, if you want to digest your food properly, you can do this for a few minutes before eating. You can’t imagine how much this helps your digestion! Before beginning to eat you sit quietly for a while and say, “Peace, peace, peace!” and everything becomes calm. It seems as though all the noises were going far, far, far away (Mother stretches out her arms on both sides) and then you must continue; and there comes a time when you no longer need to sit down, and no matter what you are doing, no matter what you are saying, it is always “Peace, peace, peace.” Everything remain here, like this, it does not enter (gesture in front of the forehead), it remain like this. And then one is always in a perfect peace… after some years.

8 September 1954

What is the Right Attitude to take food?

What is the right spirit and right consciousness to take food?

Q. Sweet Mother, what is the right spirit and the right consciousness in which one should take food?

The Mother: It is the spirit of consecration and…

Q. What is the other one you said?

The Mother: The right consciousness.

Yes, it is the same thing. It is the consciousness that’s turned exclusively to the Divine, and wants the divine realisation and nothing else; and the right spirit is the spirit of consecration to the Divine which wants only the transformation and nothing else, that is, something which does not try to seek its own satisfaction in the fulfilment of the aspiration.

There is always, as soon as there’s an aspiration… it may be very sincere and spontaneous but immediately the mind and vital are there, watching like robbers behind the door; and if a force answers they rush upon it for their own satisfaction. So there one must take very, very, very great care, because though the aspiration might be sincere, the call absolutely spontaneous and sincere and very pure, as soon as the answer comes the two brigands are there, trying to take possession of what comes for their own satisfaction. And what comes is very good but they immediately pervert it, they use it for personal ends, for the satisfaction of their desires or ambitions, and they spoil everything. And naturally, not only do they spoil everything but they stop the experience. So unless one takes good care, one is stuck there, and cannot move forward. If some Grace is above you, when the Grace sees this it automatically gives you a terrible blow to recall you to the reality, to your senses; it gives you a good knock on the head or in the stomach or the heart or anywhere else so that all of a sudden you say, “Oh, that won’t do any more.”

Sri Aurobindo:

In this Yoga the aim is not only the union with the higher consciousness but the transformation (by its power) of the lower including the physical nature.

It is not necessary to have desire or greed of food in order to eat. The Yogi eats not out of desire, but to maintain the body. That [disgust for eating] is rather an excessive feeling. One should eat for maintenance of the body without attaching any other importance, but without repulsion.

The vital of most people is of this kind [too weak to restrain its desires for pleasure], except in a few who are indifferent to sex or to food desire or to both, by temperament and nature. There is always something in the lower vital which is recalcitrant and takes a pleasure in following its own way and disregarding the higher dictate, and there are always external forces hostile to the Yoga which try to take advantage of its obscurities, revolts and weaknesses. Neither neglect this turn of the nature (food desire) nor make too much of it; it has to be dealt with, purified and mastered but without giving it too much importance. There are two ways of conquering it — one of detachment, learning to regard food as only a physical necessity and the vital satisfaction of the stomach and the palate as a thing of little or no importance; the other is to be able to take without insistence or seeking any food given and to find in it (whether pronounced good or bad by others) the equal rasa, not of the food for its own sake, but of the universal Ananda. But the latter comes usually only when one can live in the cosmic consciousness or rise into the Overmind — and for this you are not yet ready. So the first way is the one you should keep in view.

— — — — — — -

Your new attitude towards food and outward things is the true attitude, the psychic attitude and shows that the psychic is already controlling the vital physical as well as the other parts of the vital nature.

As for the heart, the movement of longing for the Divine, weeping, sorrowing, yearning is not essential in this Yoga. A strong aspiration there must be, an intense longing there may very well be, an ardent love and will for union; but there need be no sorrow or disturbance. The quiet and silence you feel in your heart is the result of the pressure of the higher consciousness to come down. That always brings a quietude in mind and heart and as it descends a great peace and silence. In the silent heart and mind, there must be the true attitude and thus you have the feeling that you are the Mother’s child, the faith and the will to be united with her. Along with that there may be an aspiration or silent expectation of what is to come. That also you seem to have. All therefore is well.

When and How to Choose the Right Food?

The Mother: This is to tell you that perhaps now it is time to change one’s food and go over to something a little less bestial! It depends absolutely on each one’s state of consciousness. For an ordinary man, living an ordinary life, having ordinary activities, not thinking at all of anything else except earning his living, of keeping himself fit and perhaps taking care of his family, it is good to eat meat, it is all right for him to eat anything at all, whatever agrees with him, whatever does him good.

But if one wishes to pass from this ordinary life to a higher one, the problem begins to become interesting; and if, after having come to a higher life, one tries to prepare oneself for the transformations, then it becomes very important. For there certainly are foods which help the body to become subtle and others which keep it in a state of animality. But it is only at that particular time that this becomes very important, not before; and before reaching that moment, there are many other things to do. Certainly it is better to purify one’s mind and purify one’s vital before thinking of purifying one’s body. For even if you take all possible precautions and live physically taking care not to absorb anything except what will help to subtilise your body, if your mind and vital remain in a state of desire, Inconscience, darkness, passion and all the rest, that won’t be of any use at all. Only, your body will become weak, dislocated from the inner life and one fine day it will fall ill.

One must begin from inside, I have already told you this once. One must begin from above, first purify the higher and then purify the lower. I am not saying that one must indulge in all sorts of degrading things in the body. That’s not what I am telling you. Don’t take it as an advice not to exercise control over your desires! It isn’t that at all. But what I mean is, do not try to be an angel in the body if you are not already just a little of an angel in your mind and vital; for that would dislocate you in a different way from the usual one, but not one that is better. We said the other day that what is most important is to keep the equilibrium. Well, to keep the equilibrium everything must progress at the same time. You must not leave one part of your being in darkness and try to bring the other into light. You must take great care not to leave any corner dark. There you are.

What are the Advantage of Detachment from food?

The Mother: It is not by abstaining from food that you can make a spiritual progress. It is by being free, not only from all attachment and all desire and preoccupation with food, but even from all need for it; by being in the state in which all these things are so foreign to your consciousness that they have no place there. Only then, as a spontaneous, natural result, can one usefully stop eating. It could be said that the essential condition is to forget to eat — forget, because all the energies of the being and all its concentration are turned towards a more total, more true inner realisation, towards this constant, imperative preoccupation with the union of the whole being, including the bodily cells, with the vibration of the divine forces, with the supramental force which is manifesting, so that this may be the true life: not only the purpose of life, but the essence of life, not only an imperative need of life, but all its joy and all its raison d’être. — — 12 June 1957

How to Control Our Desire/Greed for Food?

How to conquer the Greed for food?

The Mother:

The ordinary life is a round of various desires and greeds. As long as one is preoccupied with them, there can be no lasting progress. A way out of the round must be discovered. Take, as an instance, that commonest preoccupation of ordinary life — the constant thinking by people of what they will eat and when they will eat and whether they are eating enough. To conquer the greed for food an equanimity in the being must be developed such that you are perfectly indifferent towards food. If food is given you, you eat it; if not, it does not worry you in the least; above all, you do not keep thinking about food. And the thinking must not be negative, either. To be absorbed in devising methods and means of abstinence as the sannyasis do is to be almost as preoccupied with food as to be absorbed in dreaming of it greedily. Have an attitude of indifference towards it: that is the main thing. Get the idea of food out of your consciousness, do not attach the slightest importance to it.

You must learn to unite what you call your individual self with your true psychic individuality. Your present individuality is a very mixed thing, a series of changes which yet preserves a certain continuity, a certain sameness or identity of vibration in the midst of all flux. It is almost like a river which is never the same and yet has a certain definiteness and persistence of its own. Your normal self is merely a shadow of your true individuality which you will realise only when this normal individual which is differently poised at different times, now in the mental, then in the vital, at other times in the physical, gets into contact with the psychic and feels it as its real being. Then you will be one, nothing will shake or disturb you, you will make steady and lasting progress and be above such petty things as greed for food.

Sri Aurobindo: About food, tea etc. the aim of Yoga is to have no hankerings, no slavery either to the stomach or the palate. How to get to that point is another matter — it depends often on the individual. With a thing like tea, the strongest and easiest way is to stop it. As to food the best way usually is to take the food given you, practise non-attachment and follow no fancies. That would mean giving up the Sunday indulgence. The rest must be done by an inner change of consciousness and not by external means.

Sri Aurobindo: The attachment to good food must be given up as also the personal attachment to position and service; but it is not indispensably necessary for that purpose to take to an ascetic diet or to give up all means of action such as money and service. The Yogin has to become niḥsva in this sense that he feels that nothing belongs to him but all to the Divine and he must be ready at any time to give up all to the Divine. But there is no meaning in throwing away everything in order to be externally niḥsva without any imperative cause.

The first thing to be attained about eating, is to get rid of the greed of food, the attachment and desire, — to take it only as a need of the body, to think little of it and not to allow it to occupy a big place in the life; also to be satisfied with what you get, not to hanker. At the same time sufficient food should be taken, avoiding either deficiency or excess; an excessive coercion or nigraha in this respect (as opposed to reasonable control) often brings a reaction. One should go steadily, but not try to get too much done at once.

How to come out of attachment from food?

The Mother: Suppose that you want to make a progress regarding attachment to food, for example; well, almost constantly there will come to you thoughts particularly interested in food, about what should be taken, what should not be taken, how it should be taken, how it should not be taken; and these ideas will come to you, they will seem quite natural to you. And the more you say within yourself, “Oh! how I would like to be free from all that, what a hindrance to my progress are all these preoccupations”, the more will they come, quietly, until the progress is truly made within and you have risen to a level of consciousness where you can see all these things from above and put them in their place―which is not a very big place in the universe! And so on, for all things. Therefore, your occupations and affinities are going to put you almost contradictorily into contact not only with ideas having an affinity and relation with your way of being, but with the opposite. And if you don’t take care from the beginning to keep an attitude of discernment, you will be turned into a mental battlefield.

Sri Aurobindo: As for Sannyasis and food, Sannyasis put a compulsion on their desires in this and other matters — they take ascetic food as a principle; but this does not necessarily kill the greed for food, it remains compressed and, if the compulsion or principle is removed, it can come up again stronger than before — for compression without removal often increases the force of these things instead of destroying them.

Sri Aurobindo: As regards the progress you have made, I do not think you have given us an exaggerated impression of it; it seems to be quite real. It is no part of this Yoga to suppress taste, rasa altogether; so, if you found the ice-cream pleasant, that does not by itself invalidate the completeness of your progress. What is to be got rid of is vital desire and attachment, the greed of food, being overjoyed at getting the food you like, sorry and discontented when you do not have it, giving an undue importance to it, etc. If one wants to be a Yogin, it will not do to be like the ordinary man to whom food, sex and gain are nine-tenths of life or even to keep in any of these things the reactions to which vital human nature is prone. Equality is here the test as in so many other matters. If you can take the Ashram food with satisfaction or at least without dissatisfaction, that is already a sign that attachment and predilection are losing their old place in the nature.

It is possible to get rid of taste like Chaitanya, for it is something that depends on the consciousness and so inhibition is possible. In hypnotic experiments it is found that suggestion can make sugar taste bitter or bitter things sweet. Berkeley and physiology are both right. There is a certain usually fixed relation between the consciousness in the palate and the guṇa of the food, but the consciousness can alter the relation if it wants or inhibit it altogether. There are Yogis who make themselves insensitive to pain also and that too can be done by hypnosis.

How to stop thinking about Food?

This is the surest result: if one doesn’t eat one grows thin; so if one is too fat and wants to grow thin, it is a good means. But on condition that one doesn’t pass the day thinking of food, because then, as soon as one stops his fast, he dashes for it and eats so much that he gets back all that he has lost. In fact, the best thing is not to think about it but to regulate one’s life automatically enough not to need to think of eating. You eat at fixed hours, eat reasonably, you don’t even need to think of the food when you are taking it; you must eat calmly, that’s all, quietly, with concentration, and when you do not eat you must never think about it. You must not eat too much, because then you will have to think about your digestion, and it will be very unpleasant for you and will make you waste much time. You must eat just… you must put an end to all desire, all attraction, all movements of the vital, because when you eat simply because the body needs to eat, the body will tell you absolutely precisely and exactly when it has had enough; you see, when one is not moved by a vital desire or mental ideas, one grasps this with surety. “Now it is enough,” says the body, “I don’t want any more.” So one stops. As soon as one has ideas or else desires in the vital, and there is, for instance, something that you like particularly, because you like it particularly you eat three times too much of it… In fact, this may cure you to a certain extent, because if you don’t have a very strong stomach, you get indigestion, and then after that you have a disgust for the thing which has given you indigestion. Still, these are rather drastic means. One can make progress without having recourse to such means. The best is not to think about it.

Of course there are people who prepare food for themselves and for others, and who are obliged to think about it, but just a very little. One can prepare food while thinking about more interesting things. But in any case, the less one thinks about it the better; and when one is not concerned with it, either mentally or vitally, the body becomes a very good indicator. When it is hungry it will tell you, when it needs to take in something, it will tell you; when it has finished, when it doesn’t need any more, it will tell you; and when it doesn’t need food, it doesn’t think about it, it thinks of something else. It is only the head which creates all the trouble. In fact it is always the head which creates the trouble, because one doesn’t know how to use it. If one knew how to use it, it could also create harmony. But it is something very strange that people always use their imagination for something bad, and it is very very rarely that they use their imagination for the good. Instead of thinking of happy things which would help to keep them in balance and harmony, they always think of all the possible catastrophes, and so naturally they disturb the balance of their being, and into the bargain, if they are unfortunate enough to be afraid, they attract the catastrophes they fear.

Sri Aurobindo: To be always thinking about food and troubling the mind is quite the wrong way of getting rid of the food-desire. Put the food element in the right place in the life, in a small corner, and don’t concentrate on it but on other things.

How to control the desire for food?

It is very difficult to find the borderland between a true need and a desire (the yogic ideal, of course, is never to have any need, and therefore not to want anything), but this essay is written for all men of goodwill who try to know themselves and control themselves. And there we really face a problem which compels an extraordinary sincerity, for the very first way in which the vital meets life is through desire — and yet, there are necessities. But how to know if things are really necessary, not desired?…For that you must observe yourself very, very attentively, and if there is anything in you which produces something like a small intense vibration, then you may be sure that there lies a desire. For example, you say, “This food is necessary for me” — you believe, you imagine, you think that you need such and such a thing and you find the necessary means to obtain the thing. To know if it is a need or a desire, you must look at yourself very closely and ask yourself, “What will happen if I cannot get the thing?” Then if the immediate answer is, “Oh, it will be very bad”, you may be sure that it is a matter of desire. It is the same for everything. For every problem you draw back, look at yourself and ask, “Let us see, am I going to have the thing?” If at that moment something in you jumps up with joy, you may be certain there is a desire. On the other hand, if something tells you, “Oh, I am not going to get it”, and you feel very depressed, then again it is a desire.

When you have a desire you are governed by the thing you desire, it takes possession of your mind and your life, and you become a slave. If you have greed for food you are no more the master of food, it is the food that masters you.

It is an inner attitude of freedom from attachment and from greed for food and desire of the palate that is needed, not undue diminution of the quantity taken or any self-starvation. One must take sufficient food for the maintenance of the body and its strength and health, but without attachment or desire.

It would be a hundred times more effective to never waste food than to cut down one meal as a show and to eat more before and after.

Sri Aurobindo: These things [persistent desires] still rise in you because they have been for so long prominent difficulties and, as far as the first is concerned, because you gave it much justification from the mind at one time. But if the inner consciousness is growing like that they are sure to go. Only if they rise, don’t give them harbourage. Perhaps with regard to the greed for food, your attitude has not been quite correct. Greed for food has to be overcome, but it has not to be given too much thought. The proper attitude to food is a certain equality. Food is for the maintenance of the body and one should take enough for that — what the body needs; if one gives less the body feels the need and hankers; if you give more, then that is indulging the vital. As for particular foods the palate likes, the attitude of the mind and vital should be, “If I get, I take; if I don’t get, I shall not mind.” One should not think too much of food either to indulge or unduly to repress — that is the best.

One does not need to get a hatred for food in order to get rid of the greed for food. On the other hand, to develop dislike for certain things may help to reject them — but that too is not always the cure, for they may remain in spite of the dislike.

It is true that the greed of food, the desire of the palate are very strong in a great many if not most of the sadhaks; this is one of the things that they take as natural and seem not at all anxious to get it out of them. I do not think it is active in you; what you felt must have come in from the others, — for very often one feels the things that are in the atmosphere and one must be careful to distinguish that from one’s own feeling.

As to taking tea or food there [at a friend’s place], you must always remember that to be governed by these desires is not at all an ideal condition. But if you have the impulse and are not able easily and naturally to reject it, you can take on condition you scrupulously inform the Mother both of the act and of the movement and state of mind accompanying it. Also often the desire may not be yours, but may come on you from outside, imposed on you silently or otherwise by suggestion by the others; you must learn to see when it is like that and then you must reject it. Your aspiration must be for an inner change so that there will be no longer any need to indulge the desires, because they will no longer have a hold on you.

Of course — the vital is insatiable. There are only two things that interfere with it [greed for food] — the limitations of the body and the disapprobation of the mind — but the latter is not always there. There is also of course the possibility of the psychic interfering, but to that the vital becomes pervious only at a certain stage. It is therefore the body that is the only check for most people.

Sri Aurobindo: If these [practices of self-control] are done as moral virtues, they need not bring a spiritual state. It is only when they are observed as a spiritual discipline that they help — most of them, at least. A man may eat little and have no spirituality — but if he practises it as a means of self-mastery to get rid of the greed of food, then it helps.

Q.: What is to be done to reduce (if not eliminate) the desire for food? (2) What is to be done to reduce (if not eliminate) the desire for sex?

The Mother: One answer to both: busy yourself with something more interesting — otherwise there are hundreds of ways from the most material to the most spiritual.

Blessings.

Sri Aurobindo: It is the attachment to food, the greed and eagerness for it, making it an unduly important thing in the life, that is contrary to the spirit of Yoga. To be aware that something is pleasant to the palate is not wrong; only one must have no desire nor hankering for it, no exultation in getting it, no displeasure or regret at not getting it. One must be calm and equal, not getting upset or dissatisfied when the food is not tasty or not in abundance — eating the fixed amount that is necessary, not less or more. There should be neither eagerness nor repugnance.

Ways to diminish one’s abject dependence on ordinary food?

Q. Kindly suggest some simple way by which one can slowly diminish one’s abject dependence on ordinary material food and open oneself more and more to the universal vital energy.

The Mother: There is no easy way to get over physical animality and vital greed. It is only an obstinate perseverance that can succeed.

When will the food be not necessary?

Q. Beloved Mother, do You grant that it is possible to do without food?

The Mother: For food to be no longer necessary, the body would have to be completely transformed and no longer subject to any of the laws governing it at present.

I don’t see why people should feel guilty because they are hungry. If food is prepared, it is for eating.
Evidently, this creates an atmosphere in which food predominates; this is not very conducive to spiritual life.

How to eat food with what attitude and approach?

Whatever you do, never forget the goal which you have set before you. There is nothing great or small once you have set out on this great discovery; all things are equally important and can either hasten or delay its success. Thus before you eat, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the food you are about to eat may bring your body the substance it needs to serve as a solid basis for your effort towards the great discovery, and give it the energy for persistence and perseverance in the effort.

We were speaking of the kinds of consciousness absorbed with food, but there is also the Inconscience that’s absorbed with food — quite a deal of it. And that is why in many yogas there was the advice to offer to the Divine what one was going to eat before eating it (Mother makes a gesture of offering, hands joined, palms open). It consists in calling the Divine down into the food before eating it. One offers it to Him — that is, one puts it in contact with the Divine, so that it may be under the divine influence when one eats it. It is very useful, it is very good. If one knows how to do it, it is very useful, it considerably reduces the work of inner transformations which has to be done. But, you see, in the world as it is, we are all interdependent. You cannot take in the air without taking in the vibrations, the countless vibrations produced by all kinds of movements and all kinds of people, and you must — if you want to remain intact — you must constantly act like a filter, as I was saying. That is to say, nothing that is undesirable should be allowed to enter, as when one goes to infected areas, one wears a mask over the face so that the air may be purified before one breathes it in. Well, something similar has to be done. One must have around oneself so intense an atmosphere in a total surrender to the Divine, so intensified around oneself that everything that passes through is automatically filtered. Anyhow, it is very useful in life, for there are — we spoke about this too — there are bad thoughts, bad wills, people who wish you ill, who make formations. There are all kinds of absolutely undesirable things in the atmosphere. And so, if one must always be on the watch, looking around on all sides, one would think only of one thing, how to protect oneself. First of all, it is tiresome, and then, you see, it makes you waste much time. If you are well enveloped in this way, with this light, the light of a perfectly glad, totally sincere surrender, when you are enveloped with that, it serves you as a marvellous filter. Nothing that is altogether undesirable, nothing that has ill-will can pass through. So, automatically, these things return where they came from. If there is a conscious ill-will against you, it comes, but cannot pass; the door is closed, for it is open only to divine things, it is not open to anything else. So it returns very quietly to the source from where it came. 7 July 1954

Now, as you know, from the physical point of view human beings live in frightful ignorance. They cannot even say exactly… For instance, would you be able to tell exactly, at every meal, the amount of food and the kind of food your body needs? — simply that, nothing more than that: how much should be taken and when it should be taken…. You know nothing about it, there’s just a vague idea of it, a sort of imagination or guesswork or deduction or… all sorts of things which have nothing to do with knowledge. But that exact knowledge: “This is what I must eat, I must eat this much” — and then it is finished. “This is what my body needs.” Well, that can be done. There’s a time when one knows it very well. But it asks for years of labour, and above all years of work almost without any mental control, just with a consciousness that’s subtle enough to establish a connection with the elements of transformation and progress. And to know also how to determine for one’s body, exactly, the amount of physical effort, of material activity, of expenditure and recuperation of energy, the proportion between what is received and what is given, the utilisation of energies to re-establish a state of equilibrium which has been broken, to make the cells which are lagging behind progress, to build conditions for the possibility of higher progress, etc… it is a formidable task. And yet, it is that which must be done if one hopes to transform one’s body. First it must be put completely in harmony with the inner consciousness. And to do that, it is a work in each cell, so to say, in each little activity, in every movement of the organs. With this alone one could be busy day and night without having to do anything else…. One does not keep up the effort and, above all, the concentration, nor the inner vision.

There are some scrupulous people who set problems to themselves and find it very difficult to solve them, because they state the problem wrongly. I knew a young woman who was a theosophist and was trying to practise; she told me, “We are taught that the divine Will must prevail in all that we do, but in the morning when I have my breakfast, how can I know whether God wants me to put two lumps of sugar in my coffee or only one?”… And it was quite touching, you know, and I had some trouble explaining to her that the spirit in which she drank her coffee, the attitude she had towards her food, was much more important than the number of lumps of sugar she put into it.1

It is the same with all the little things one does at every moment. The divine Consciousness does not work in the human way, It does not decide how many lumps of sugar you will put in your coffee. It gradually puts you in the right attitude towards actions, things — an attitude of consecration, suppleness, assent, aspiration, goodwill, plasticity, effort for progress — and this is what counts, much more than the small decision you take at every second. One may try to find out what is the truest thing to do, but it is not by a mental discussion or a mental problem that these things can be resolved. It is in fact by an inner attitude which creates an atmosphere of harmony — progressive harmony — in which all one does will necessarily be the best thing that could be done in those particular circumstances. And the ideal would be an attitude complete enough for the action to be spontaneous, dictated by something other than an outer reason. But that is an ideal — for which one must aspire and which one can realise after some time. Till then, to take care always to keep the true attitude, the true aspiration, is much more important than to decide whether one will do gymnastic-marching or not and whether one will go to a certain class or not. Because these things have no real importance in themselves, they have only an altogether relative importance, the only important thing is just to keep the true orientation in one’s aspiration and a living will for progress.

The all-absorbing interest which nearly all human beings, even the most intellectual, have in food, its preparation and its consumption, should be replaced by an almost chemical knowledge of the needs of the body and a very scientific austerity in satisfying them. Another austerity must be added to that of food, the austerity of sleep. It does not consist in going without sleep but in knowing how to sleep. Sleep must not be a fall into unconsciousness which makes the body heavy instead of refreshing it. Eating with moderation and abstaining from all excess greatly reduces the need to spend many hours in sleep; however, the quality of sleep is much more important than its quantity. In order to have a truly effective rest and relaxation during sleep, it is good as a rule to drink something before going to bed, a cup of milk or soup or fruit-juice, for instance. Light food brings a quiet sleep. One should, however, abstain from all copious meals, for then the sleep becomes agitated and is disturbed by nightmares, or else is dense, heavy and dulling. But the most important thing of all is to make the mind clear, to quieten the emotions and calm the effervescence of desires and the preoccupations which accompany them. If before retiring to bed one has talked a lot or had a lively discussion, if one has read an exciting or intensely interesting book, one should rest a little without sleeping in order to quieten the mental activity, so that the brain does not engage in disorderly movements while the other parts of the body alone are asleep. Those who practise meditation will do well to concentrate for a few minutes on a lofty and restful idea, in an aspiration towards a higher and vaster consciousness. Their sleep will benefit greatly from this and they will largely be spared the risk of falling into unconsciousness while they sleep.

This body has neither the uncontested authority of a god nor the imperturbable calm of the sage. It is yet only an apprentice in supermanhood.

O my sweet Lord, supreme Truth, I aspire that the food I take may infuse into all the cells of my body Thy all-knowledge, Thy all-power, Thy all-goodness.

21 September 1951

14 September 1936

I don’t know why, but I am unable to eat as much as I need. If I eat a lot, I get a heavy stomach.

You are probably eating too quickly — you must be swallowing without chewing. You must chew the food thoroughly and eat calmly. Then one can eat more and the stomach does not get heavy.

Impact of Fasting or Reduction in Intake of Food

The Mother:

It is because usually the vital being is very closely concentrated on the body and when the body is well fed it takes its strength from the food, its energy from the food, and it is one way… it is obviously almost the only way; not the only one, but the most important in the present conditions of life… but it is a very tamasic way of absorbing energy.

If you think about it, you see, it is the vital energy which is in either plants or animals, that is, logically it is of an inferior quality to the vital energy which should be in man, who is a slightly higher being in the gradation of the species. So if you draw from below you draw at the same time the inconscience that is below. It is impossible to eat without absorbing a considerable amount of inconscience; this makes you heavy, coarsens you; and then if you eat much, a large amount of your consciousness is absorbed in digesting and assimilating what you have eaten. So already, if you don’t take food, you don’t have all this inconscience to assimilate and transform inside you; it sets free the energies. And then, as there is an instinct in the being to recuperate the energies spent, if you don’t take them from food, that is, from below, you instinctively make an effort to take them through union with the universal vital forces which are free, and if one knows how to assimilate them one does so directly and then there is no limit.

It is not like your stomach which can digest only a certain amount of food, and therefore you can’t take in more than that; and even the food you take liberates only a little bit, a very small quantity of vital energy. And so what can remain with you after all the work of swallowing, digesting, etc.? Not much, you see. But if you learn… and this indeed is a kind of instinct, one learns instinctively to draw towards himself the universal energies which move freely in the universe and are unlimited in quantity… as much of these as you are capable of drawing towards you, you can absorb — so instinctively when there is no support from below which comes from food, you make the necessary movement to recuperate the energies from outside, and absorb as much of them as you are capable of doing, and sometimes more. So this puts you in a kind of state of excitement, and if your body is very strong and can bear being without food for a certain length of time, then you keep your balance and can use these energies for all kinds of things, as for example, to progress, to become more conscious and transform your nature. But if your physical body doesn’t have much in reserve and grows considerably weak from not eating, then this creates an imbalance between the intensity of the energies you absorb and the capacity of the body to hold them, and then this causes disturbances. You lose your balance, and all the balance of forces is destroyed, and anything at all may happen to you. In any case, you lose much control over yourself and become usually very excited, and you take this excitement for a higher state. But often it is simply an inner imbalance, nothing more. It sharpens the receptivity very much. For example, precisely when one fasts and no longer takes the energies from below, well, if you breathe in the odour of a flower it nourishes you, the perfume nourishes you, it gives you a great deal of energy; but otherwise you do not notice it.

There are certain faculties which get intensified, and so one takes that for a spiritual effect. It has very little to do with the spiritual life except that there are people who eat much, think much about their food, are very deeply absorbed in it, and then when they have eaten well — and as I say, they must digest it, and so all their energies are concentrated on their digestion — these people are dull in mind, and this pulls them down very much towards matter; so if they stop eating and stop thinking about food — because there is one thing, that if one fasts and thinks all the time that he is hungry and would like to eat, then it is ten times worse than eating — and can truly fast because they think of something else and are occupied with something else and are not interested in food — then that can help one to climb to a slightly higher degree of consciousness, to free himself from the slavery to material needs. But fasting is above all good for those who believe in it — as everything. When you have the faith that this will make you progress, is going to purify you, it does you good. If you don’t believe in it, it doesn’t do much, except that it makes you thin.

Sri Aurobindo: I have myself fasted first for 10 days and then 23 days just to see what it was like and how far one could live without food, and certain things like that. I found that it was no good. To take with equanimity whatever comes (or does not come) seemed to me more the thing than any violent exercises like that.

I think it is not safe to admit any suggestion of not eating — sometimes it opens the door for the non-eating force to take hold of the mind and there is trouble. That comes easily because the inner being of course does not need any food and this non-need is attempted to be thrown by some forces on the body also which is not under the same happy law. It is better to allow the condition [of peaceful concentration] to grow in intensity until it can last even through the meal and after. I suppose it is not really the meal that disturbs but the coming out into the outer consciousness which is a little difficult to avoid when one goes to eat; but that can be overcome in time.

You must not let that movement [of reducing food] go too far. It is one of the dangers of the sadhana, because of the ascetic turn of Yoga in the past that as experiences come the suggestion comes that food or sleep etc. are not necessary and also there may come an inclination in the body not to eat or not to sleep. But if that is accepted the results are often disastrous. It is no more to be accepted than the inertia itself.

To make your sadhana depend upon not eating is to make a great mistake. When people fast like that, they get into an abnormal condition and can easily mistake imaginations and delusions for true experiences. Much fasting in the end weakens the nervous system. So you must drop this habit of not eating for days together. For Yoga it is a mistake to eat too much but a mistake also to eat nothing or too little. If you eat too much, you become heavy and tamasic; if you fast or eat too little, you excite the vital energies and finally overexcite them, but at the same time you weaken the body and the nerves; both are bad for sadhana. You should eat regularly a moderate but sufficient amount of food; it is only if there is illness or disturbance of digestion that a low diet or not eating sometimes becomes necessary, but fasting even for the purpose of resting the stomach should not last more than a day.

The idea of giving up food is a wrong inspiration. You can go on with a small quantity of food, but not without food altogether, except for a comparatively short time. Remember what the Gita says, “Yoga is not for one who eats in excess nor for one who abstains from eating altogether.” Vital energy is one thing — of that one can draw a great amount without food and often it increases with fasting; but physical substance, without which life loses its support, is of a different order. If at any time it became possible to renew the body without food and that proved necessary for the Yoga, the Mother and I would be the first to do it. So keep to your established diet and do not get impatient with Nature.

There is no harm in fasting from time to time for a day or two or in reducing the food taken to a small but sufficient modicum; but entire abstinence for a long period is not advisable.

Miscellaneous

How to cook food, keep kitchen, atmosphere inside the kitchen?

The Mother: I have heard so many contradictory reports on the effects of food, spices, etc. that logically I have come to the conclusion that it must be — like all the rest — a personal affair and consequently no general rule can be made and, still less, enforced. This is the cause of my leniency.

The Mother: You know that I am not enthusiastic about servants handling the food — but many people seem to like it, through laziness I suppose!!

Nothing was told to me about the aluminum vessels of which I do not approve because aluminium is not good for cooking. I am speaking of my own experience.

In the kitchen, cleanliness is the most indispensable thing.

To avoid hair falling in the cooking, it is better to cover the head while cooking.

Special care must be taken to prevent insects from falling into the pans.

If you do not like the atmosphere created by taking food with others I do not see why you should do it.

13 September 1940

All quarrels in the place where food is prepared make food indigestible. The cooking must be done in silence and harmony.

A childish question: Do animals and birds get the taste of food as we do?

The Mother: Yes, but they do not think about it as we do.

How to avoid uneasiness due to smell of food?

Sri Aurobindo: This [reaction of uneasiness after smelling food] is due to an acute consciousness and sensitiveness of the physical being, especially the vital physical. The sense of being fed by smell has become thereby very acute — the feeding by smell is a well known thing, and there is the Sanskrit proverb, ghrāṇam ardhabhojanam, “smell is a half eating”. But this by itself would not produce the uneasiness, which must be due to an acute physical sensitiveness to the mass of ordinary human reactions concentrated about the food, greed etc. which fill the atmosphere. It does not look as if more than a very few of the sadhaks were free (even they mainly, not wholly) from these reactions; most seem to accept them as quite normal and proper in a life of Yoga!!

Can Veg. Food control our senses?

Q. If one takes only vegetarian food, does it help in controlling the senses?

The Mother: It avoids some of the difficulties which the meat-eaters have, but it is not sufficient by itself.”

Can I refuse someone’s invitation for food?

Q. Sweet Mother, I have again received an invitation for dinner. One cannot refuse if one is invited, can one?

The Mother: No, unless there are serious reasons for doing so. I am not speaking of the outward act — whether one eats here or there comes to the same thing — I am speaking of the inner attitude, of the excessive importance one gives to food, and of greediness.

Should we donate food to the poor?

Give food to the poor? — You can feed millions of them. That will not be a solution, this problem will remain the same. Give new and better living conditions to men? — The Divine is in them, how is it that things don’t change? The Divine must know better than you the condition of humanity. What are you? You represent only a little bit of consciousness and a little bit of matter, it is that you call “myself”. If you want to help humanity, the world or the universe, the only thing to do is to give that little bit entirely to the Divine. Why is the world not divine?… It is evident that the world is not in order. So the only solution to the problem is to give what belongs to you. Give it totally, entirely to the Divine; not only for yourself but for humanity, for the universe. There is no better solution. How do you want to help humanity? You don’t even know what it needs. Perhaps you know still less what power you are serving. How can you change anything without indeed having changed yourself? — The Mother — 8 April 1953

How to feed the children?

The body in its normal state, that is to say, when there is no intervention of mental notions or vital impulses, also knows very well what is good and necessary for it; but for this to be effective in practice, one must educate the child with care and teach him to distinguish his desires from his needs. He should be helped to develop a taste for food that is simple and healthy, substantial and appetising, but free from any useless complications. In his daily food, all that merely stuffs and causes heaviness should be avoided; and above all, he must be taught to eat according to his hunger, neither more nor less, and not to make his meals an occasion to satisfy his greed or gluttony. From one’s very childhood, one should know that one eats in order to give strength and health to the body and not to enjoy the pleasures of the palate. Children should be given food that suits their temperament, prepared in a way that ensures hygiene and cleanliness, that is pleasant to the taste and yet very simple. This food should be chosen and apportioned according to the age of the child and his regular activities. It should contain all the chemical and dynamic elements that are necessary for his development and the balanced growth of every part of his body.

Since the child will be given only the food that helps to keep him healthy and provide him with the energy he needs, one must be very careful not to use food as a means of coercion and punishment. The practice of telling a child, “You have not been a good boy, you won’t get any dessert,” etc., is most harmful. In this way you create in his little consciousness the impression that food is given to him chiefly to satisfy his greed and not because it is indispensable for the proper functioning of his body.

Why wasting food is worse than eating not at all?

Q.: The Prime Minister has asked the country to have dinnerless Mondays. The hotels etc. are being asked to cooperate. Are we expected to do something in this connection?

It would be a hundred times more effective to never waste food than to cut down one meal as a show and to eat more before and after. A strong, ardent, sincere campaign against the waste of food is essential and full-heartedly I approve of it.

Let the inmates of the Ashram show their goodwill and collaboration in never eating more than they can digest and never asking for more than they can eat.

It would be a hundred times more effective to never waste food than to cut down one meal as a show and to eat more before and after. A strong, ardent, sincere campaign against the waste of food is essential and full-heartedly I approve of it. 3 November 1965

Role of Sleep

From Savitri:

The Inconscient is the Superconscient’s sleep.

Yogic Reason for sleep is to put the consciousness back into contact with Sat-Chit-Ananda. — Sri Aurobindo

Sadhana can go on in the dream or sleep state as well as in the waking.

Once one is in full sadhana, sleep becomes as much a part of it as waking.

Sri Aurobindo on Sleep

Sri Aurobindo:

“…no yoga can be done without sufficient food and sleep,

“Fasting or sleeplessness make the nerves morbid and excited…. It is the same with everything else…

A long unbroken sleep is necessary because there are just ten minutes of the whole into which one enters into a true rest — a sort of Sachchidananda immobility of consciousness — and that it is which really restores the system. The rest of the time is spent first in travelling through various states of consciousness towards that and then coming out of it back towards the waking state. This fact of the ten minutes true rest as been noted by medical men, but of course they know nothing about Sachchidananda!

As Sri Aurobindo says, “sleep changes into an inner mode of consciousness in which the sadhana can continue as much as in the waking state, and at the same time one is able to enter into other planes of consciousness than the physical and command an immense range of informative and utilisable experience.”

Question by a Sadhak:

Q: During the afternoon sleep I seem to come often into contact with the Mother. Is it the Mother who sends her emanation ?

A: Yes, or rather something of her is always with you. 14–12–1933

If the sleep becomes conscious even for a time, then experience and sadhana of itself can go on in the sleep state and not only in the waking condition.

It is usually only if there is much activity of sadhana in the day that it extends also into the sleep state.

There is no reason at all why intensity of sadhana should bring insufficient sleep.

If you feel the need of sleep you ought to sleep. The pressure of sadhana should not be allowed to become excessive.

It [sleepiness during the day] may possibly be due to the attempt of the higher consciousness to descend then. It sometimes produces this effect of sleepiness on the body, for the physical attempts to go inside to meet the descending consciousness and if it is not accustomed to enter into one of the higher samadhis on such occasions, the going inside translates itself to the physical as sleep. The exercise may have contributed, of course, by its reaction on the body.

The Mother on Sleep

The Mother: “You can become conscious of your nights and your sleep just as you are conscious of your days. It is a matter of inner development and discipline of consciousness.

The Mother says “”Sleep can be a very active means of concentration and inner knowledge. Sleep is the school one has to go through, if one knows how to learn his lesson there, so that the inner being may be independent of the physical form, conscious of itself and master of its own life. There are entire parts of the being which need this immobility and semi-consciousness of the outer being, of the body, in order to live their own life, independently.”

You need not worry about that [the body’s tendency to sleep]. When there is a

strong inward tendency, the body not being yet conscious enough to share the

experience in a waking state tries to assimilate the descending forces through sleep.

This is a common experience. When it has assimilated enough, it will be more

ready.

Sunday, 17 October 1926

(Conversation with the Mother)

I think I have understood what you meant. Since yesterday I have changed everything in my meditation. Instead of doing things myself as though I were

directing the Force, I simply open myself and remain passive. Almost the whole

day, I was able to keep contact with the Force and open myself to its action.

The Mother: I FELT you very close the whole day.

But this puts me to sleep.

The Mother: There is nothing wrong with that. During sleep, in you as in many others, there is no resistance left. Everything opens and the working is perfect. If you feel inclined to sleep, don’t resist it.

Mother’s Agenda

June 4, 1960

(The disciple complains of his bad nights)

If you wake up tired in the morning, it is due to tamas, nothing else — a dreadful mass of tamas. I became aware of this when I started doing the yoga of the body. And it’s inevitable as long as the body is not transformed.

Myself, I go to bed very early, at eight o’clock. It’s still quite noisy everywhere, but I don’t mind; at least I’m sure of no longer being disturbed. First you must stretch out flat and relax all your muscles, all your nerves — you can learn this easily — become like a ‘dishrag’ on the bed, as I call it; there should be nothing left. And if you can also do that with the mind, you get rid of a lot of idiotic dreams that make you more tired when you wake up than when you went to bed; they are the result of the cellular activity of the brain going on uncontrollably, which is very tiring. Therefore, relax fully, bring everything to a complete, tensionless calm in which everything has stopped. But this is only the beginning.

Once I’m relaxed, I have developed the habit of repeating my mantra. But it’s very strange with these mantras — I don’t know how it is for others; I’m speaking of my own mantra, the one I myself found — it came spontaneously. Depending on the occasion, the time, depending on what I might call the purpose for repeating it, it has quite different results. For example, I use it to establish the contact while walking back and forth in my room — my mantra is a mantra of evocation; I evoke the Supreme and establish the contact with the body.

This is the main reason for my japa. There’s a power in the sound itself, and by forcing the body to repeat the sound, you force it to receive the vibration at the same time. But I’ve noticed that if something in the body’s working gets disturbed (a pain or disorder, the onset of some illness) and I repeat my mantra in a certain way — still the same words, the same mantra, but said with a certain purpose and above all in a movement of surrender, surrender of the pain, the disorder, and a call, like an opening — it has a marvelous effect. The mantra acts in just the right way, in this way and in no other. And after a while everything is put back in order. And simultaneously, of course, the precise knowledge of what lies behind the disorder and what I must do to set it right comes to me.

But quite apart from this, the mantra acts directly upon the pain itself.

I also use my mantra to go into trance. After relaxing on the bed and making as total a selfoffering as possible of everything, from top to bottom, and after removing as fully as possible all resistance of the ego, I start repeating the mantra. After repeating it two or three times, I am in trance (at the beginning it took longer). And from this trance I pass into sleep; the trance lasts as long as necessary and, quite naturally, spontaneously, I pass into sleep. And when I come back, I remember everything. The sleep was like a continuation of the trance. And essentially, the only reason for sleep is to allow the body to assimilate the results of the trance, then to allow these results to be accepted throughout and to let the body do its natural night’s work of eliminating toxins.

My periods of sleep practically don’t exist — sometimes they are as short as half an hour or 15 minutes. But in the beginning, I had long periods of sleep, one or even two hours in succession.

And when I woke up, I did not feel this residue of heaviness which comes from sleep — the effects of the trance continued. It is even good for people who’ve never been in trance to repeat a mantra (or a word, a prayer) before going to sleep. But the words must have a life of their own — by this I don’t mean an intellectual meaning, nothing of the kind, but rather a vibration. And this has an extraordinary effect on the body, it starts vibrating, vibrating, vibrating … and so calm, you let yourself go, like falling off to sleep. And the body vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and you drift off.

Such is the cure for tamas.

It’s tamas that gives you a bad sleep. There are two kinds of bad sleep — that which makes you heavy and leaden, as if the result of all your effort the day before were wasted, and that which exhausts you, as if you had spent the whole time fighting. And I’ve observed that if you cut your sleep up into sections (it becomes a habit), the nights get better. In other words, you must be able to come back to your normal consciousness and your normal aspiration at certain intervals, come back to the call of your consciousness … But you must not use an alarm clock. When in trance, it’s not good to be jolted.

Just as you are drifting off, you can make a formation and say, ‘I shall wake up at such-and-such time’ (children do it very easily).

You should count on at least three hours for the first part of your sleep; for the last part, one hour is enough. But the first should be a minimum of three hours. In fact, it is best to remain in bed for at least seven hours; with six, you don’t have the time to do much (of course, I’m speaking from the standpoint of sadhana, to make the nights useful).

But for years together I only slept 2 1/2 hours a night in all. I mean that my night consisted of 2 1/2 hours. And I went straight to Sat-Chit-Ananda and then came back: 2 1/2 hours were spent like that. But the body was tired. That lasted more than five or six years while Sri Aurobindo was still in his body. And during the day, I was all the time going into trance for the least thing (it was trance, not sleep — I was conscious). But I clearly saw that the body was affected, for it had no time to burn its toxins.

… There would be many interesting things to tell about sleep, because it’s one of the things I’ve studied the most — to speak of how I became conscious of my nights, for instance. (I learned this with Theon, and now that I know all these things of India, I realize that he knew a GREAT deal.)

But it bothers me a lot to say ‘I’ — I this, I that. I’d rather speak of these things in the form of a treatise or an essay on sleep, for example. Sri Aurobindo always spoke of his experiences but rarely did he say’ I’ — it always sounds like boasting.

Sri Aurobindo said that the true or yogic reason for sleep is to put the consciousness back into contact with Sat-Chit-Ananda (I used to do this without knowing it). For some people the contact is established immediately, while for others it takes eight, nine, ten hours to do it. But really, normally you should not wake up till the contact has been established, and that’s why it’s very bad to wake up in an artificial way (with an alarm clock, for example), because then the night is wasted.

As for me, my night is now organized. I go to bed at 8 o’clock and get up at 4, which makes for a very long night, and it’s sliced into three parts. And I get up punctually at 4 in the morning. But I’m always awake ten or fifteen minutes beforehand, and I review all that has happened during the night, the dreams, the various activities, etc., so that when I get up, I am fully active.

To make use of your nights is an excellent thing, for it has a double effect: a negative effect, in that it keeps you from falling backwards, from losing what you’ve gained (that is really painful); and a positive effect, in that you progress, you continue progressing. You make use of your nights, so there’s no more residue of fatigue.

There are two things to avoid: falling into a stupor of unconsciousness, with all those things coming up from the subconscious and the unconscious that invade and penetrate you, and a vital and mental hyperactivity in which you pass your time literally fighting — terrible battles. People come out of that black and blue, as if they had been beaten — and they have been, it is not ‘as if’! And I see only one way out — to change the nature of sleep.

Other Sadhaks on Their Interaction with The Mother About Sleep

Is it not possible to get rid of as much sleep and inertia as possible, so that the body and mind can work more for you? Sleep and inertia are bondage. When will you get rid of them in me?

Sleep need not be inertia. It is only tamasic sleep that is inertia.

31 March 1933

—

There was not sufficient sleep last night, as I awoke frequently. During one of these waking periods there was a physical sex-effect quite in unconsciousness.

It often comes as a result of strain or tamas — the nerves under the strain of bad sleep may be the cause.

Several faint images of past places, happenings, relatives and dreams passed by,

but I did not take notice of them.

That is the best thing — not to take notice.

28 March 1933

For two or three days I have got a little less sleep. This does not particularly trouble me, but then there is this thought: during inner purification there may be some physical disturbance; the inner purification may precipitate itself on the material in the form of a disease.

It is better not to diminish the sleep. Rest full and undisturbed is most necessary for the body under the pressure of the Yoga.

13 February 1933

Pramila Devi

“The Mother has said that all of you should repeat the Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s name in your minds before going to sleep. These names will be your shield of protection. Because of this incident of theft you have received from the Mother a new courage, and inner strength and much more.”

To the Ashram School children

Sujata Nahar

Mother was telling all this to the flower of the Ashram’s youth. “How many years have you been here . . . half asleep?” Some had been there almost since their babyhood; now their ages ranged from late teens to late twenties. “I am even surprised that you don’t feel this intense need: how to know your inner self?”

But Mirra was not even a quarter asleep, oh no! Her need to know was intense and she dived into the inner quest. “Between eighteen and twenty,” Mother said again, “I had obtained a conscious and constant union with the Divine Presence.” And she told those sitting before her, “And you!

Everything has been explained to you, half the work has been done for you, you have been helped not only with words but in every possible manner, you have been put on the road to this inner discovery . . . and then you let yourselves live ‘just like that’: it will come when it will come…. If you think of it at all!”

Mirra was made of another stuff. This constant union with the inner Divine Presence “I did it ALL ALONE, I had ABSOLUTELY NOBODY to help me, not even books.”

But just after receiving the hint from the devotee of the Gita, Mirra came across a book. “When I had in my hands (a little bit later) Vivekananda’s Raja-Yoga, it seemed such a marvellous thing to me, no, that somebody could explain something to me!” But she never met Vivekananda.

“This made me gain in a few months what otherwise I might have taken years to do.”

It was beyond Mother to understand how “knowing that you have a divine consciousness within you, you can still go on sleeping night after night and playing day after day . . . and not be . . .not be in a state of ACUTE enthusiasm and will to come into contact with you! — with you, yes, with yourself, there, inside (Mother indicates the middle of the chest). That, that is beyond me!”

Mirra did not waste a second. No, never. “And when, as I said, a book or a man crossed my path, just to give me a small indication, to tell me: ‘Here, if you do like this, the way will open up before you,’ why, I rushed headlong like a . . . like a cyclone.”

Like a cyclone.

“And nothing could have stopped me.”

Mirra was one of those who cannot stop until they have found the Fountain from which springs the Water of Life.

Nagin Doshi

His Interaction with Sri Aurobindo

I am quite unconscious of my nights. I do not remember any dreams even

though there is a recollection of having seen something.

It does not matter much. The sleep consciousness can be effectively dealt with

only when the waking mind has made a certain amount of progress.

In the book. Words of the Mother, I came across this passage: “In sleep

many people fall into the grip of those subconscient regions and they open and

swallow all that they have laboriously built up in their waking hours.” If the

subconscient swallows up all the achievements of our waking life, done with so

much labour, is it not imperative to be conscious of our nights as much as of our

days?

At night when one sinks into the subconscient after being in a good state of

consciousness we find that state gone and we have to labour to get it back again.

On the other hand, if the sleep is of the better kind one may wake up in a good

condition. Of course, it is better to be conscious in sleep, if one can.

How is it I get dreams even during my noon sleep?

All sleep is full of dreams. Why should night or day make any difference?

Yesterday I had quite a long sleep; and yet when I got up this morning I felt

so tired, heavy and tamasic. It almost seemed as if I had not slept. Could it be

due to my having read a novel before going to bed?

What is actually the connection between the reading and the sleep?

Obviously — it threw you into a tamasic consciousness and consequently the

sleep was heavy in a gross subconsciousness and the fatigue was the result.

Simply it lowered your consciousness — and as you slept with a lowered

consciousness, you went into the subconscient.

How to prevent or set right the loss of a good state which one suffers by a

dull kind of sleep? Does the consciousness set it right automatically?

No — one has to concentrate a little till one gets it back.

Upon what is one to concentrate?

To concentrate the consciousness in itself simply, — as you tighten a belt. It has

got relaxed and diffused, so you have lost what you gained. Or if you have not the

habit of doing that concentrate in the memory of the Mother till the undiffused

state comes back.

In what condition should one go to bed in order to prevent at least the outer

influences caught during the day from entering into sleep?

In a state of concentration. But sleep is long and one goes through many

changes and passes from one condition to another — so it is not sure. Still it gives

the best chance for a conscious sleep.

Does one lose one’s gains in every dream or in some particular ones only?

Dreams have nothing to do with it. It is the sleep that lowers the consciousness

— if it is an ordinary sleep.

The absence of sleep does not always have its effect immediately — but it

accumulates and the physical subconsciently feels the strain and the full effect appears afterwards.

Formerly I could sleep for eight to nine hours, but now hardly for five!

Five hours is too little. Sometimes some tension in the consciousness comes

which diminishes sleep, but it should not go too far.

Why does the tension come?

It comes because the physical is not able to meet the intensity of the

concentration of force without tension.

How is it that the physical meets the intensity of the concentration by

tension?

Tension is its way of realising the intensity — it stiffens and strains itself for the

purpose.

At present my body demands a long sleep — eight hours at night and two in

the afternoon! Should it be allowed? Is it not a kind of tamas?

It is a little too long, but perhaps the body needs it for a short time so as to

recoup some past strain.

Eight hours at night is all right, the additional two hours is probably

necessitated by the bad sleep you were having before. The body recoups itself in

this way. That is why it is a mistake to take too little sleep — the body gets

strained and has to recoup itself by abnormal sleep afterwards.

The body needs rest, if it is given the needed rest it can be taught to recover

quietly — if forced it becomes tamasic.

To take some rest is necessary but then it would be for the sake of the Divine

that one rests and not for the satisfaction of one’s ego.

Also because of the need of the body — because the body must be kept in good

condition as an instrument, — for the sake of the Divine.

One can assimilate in sleep also. Remaining awake like that is not good, as in

the end it strains the nerves and the system receives wrongly in an excited way or

else gets too tired to receive.

If the body does not get rest sadhana is not possible.

During the state of quietude lots of subconscient impressions, thoughts etc.

come up. Sometimes the mind considers them as foreign, sometimes it indulges

them. Is there any reason for their rising up particularly when I am in

quietness?

It very often happens when there is quietude but not the silence — they have to

be rejected as foreign and so cleared out. If they are indulged, they get a new

license.

It is not the impressions but the mechanical subconscient activity that has to

cease. The subconscient has (with all the rest of the being) to become luminous and conscious.

In sleep one easily loses the consciousness of the day, because of the lapse of

the physical being into the subconscient. You have to get the power to reestablish it when you wake.

Sometimes the sadhana continues during the sleep with experiences and visions, while sometimes there are only vital and subconscient dreams. In such a case how to make the sleep-state conscious and prolong the sadhana to the night also?

It can only be by degrees that the sleep consciousness will entirely throw off

the lower forms [of dreams].

If the sleep becomes conscious even for a time, the experiences and sadhana

itself can go on in the sleep-state and not only in the waking condition.

During a recent night I thought there were no dreams. But today I remember

to have had a dream that night about Harin and another about a rose. This

proves that dreams were playing on and I was unconscious of their existence!

There are perhaps only a few minutes of sleep in the night without dreams.

You recently wrote to me apropos of incoherent dreams: “It depends on your

attitude and consciousness; it is by bringing light down into the subcon-scient

that these things can go.” What exactly did you mean by “attitude” and by

“consciousness”?

Your aspiration to a less downward consciousness in sleep.

It is the condition of your consciouness I spoke of — the more conscious you

become, the more you will be able to have dreams worth having.

From where does what we ordinarily see in our dreams come?

It is more often the impressions of the waking state that come up in this

(subconscient) type of dreams.

How to understand our dreams?

Observe them — if they are of importance or of a dynamic character, the

meaning is not so difficult to find.

Is it helpful to study one’s own dreams, unravel them and find out their

meaning?

Unless they are really significant dreams it is a waste of time.

I don’t think it is necessary to make the effort to remember unless you feel that

there has been some-thing of special importance.

In what way can our dreams prove useful?

They show what the subconscient contains.

For the last three nights I have been absolutely unconscious in sleep and

don’t remember even my being’s participation in any dreams. What happens at

night to the being in these cases? Where does the subconscient go?

The subconscient remains in the body. The being really goes out into different

planes of consciousness, but its experiences are not kept in the memory, because

the recording consciousness is too submerged to carry the record to the waging

mind.

Are the forms, seen in dreams, of subtle beings those beings themselves or

formations created by them?

They are rather formations created from the subconscient. It is a hotchpotch of

subconscient impressions thrown out on the vital plane.

I am told by S that the people we see in our dreams are sometimes parts of

our own being, and that the mind gives them the forms of men or women, with

whom we are acquainted on the physical plane. Is it true?

It is not parts of our own real “being” usually. It is different forces and forms of

nature — whether of general nature or of our own nature, also ideas, impulses etc., the formations of our outer personality, or mind, vital etc.

These dreams on the vital plane are often very mixed owing to the intrusion of

figures and details from the subconscient.

These are dreams on the vital plane or excursions into the vital world of which

the happenings are rendered in terms familiar to the physical mind — e.g.

shopkeeper, police etc. though arranged in a different way from the physical. I

cannot say they are clear and precise in significance as the mental dreams are.

The dream is a seeing of things that have their truth on the vital plane.

You do not know that you live on other planes as well as on the physical and

that what happens there need not be the same as what happens on the physical. If

you meet the Mother on the vital and certain things happen they can have their

truth on the vital plane but it does not mean that they happened here in the physical world.

Things do happen on the vital plane — but they are not more important than

what happens here because it is here we have to realise and what happens on the

vital is only a help.

Subconscient dreams and lower vital dreams are usually incoherent. Higher

vital dreams are usually and mental dreams are always coherent.

It was a sexual formation probably rising from the subconscient vital. Instead

of allowing yourself to be disturbed by it, you should dismiss it from your mind

altogether.

In our dreams, why sometimes do the figures take the form of a particular

woman?

They take often the form of one who has some power of vital attraction in her

so as to support their effort.

When I once asked you whether a certain dream was an attack by a vital

force, you said “Yes”. And you added: “There are other dreams that are

formations put in by the vital forces, but this is not one of them.” Please

elucidate the difference.

I said this dream was an actual happening on the vital plane, not a formation. If

somebody attacks you in the street, that is not a formation. But if somebody

hypnotises you and suggests that you are ill — that suggestion is a formation put in

by the hypnotiser.

It depends on the dream. It is sometimes a fact on the supraphysical plane,

sometimes a representation in the mind of something that happened otherwise —

sometimes only a formation.

Last night I saw in a dream a train passing at full speed and a horse which

was very faithful to me. What does the dream mean?

The horse is a force acting for progress. The railway train at full speed means

rapid progress.

What should we try to understand about dreams?

Simply to make precise where you are in the dream state.

In a dream I saw X who had my time-piece. First he went straight to Arjava

and then told me, “Now I will repair your time-piece.” Does not this dream

differ from the previous ones of memory? For I never asked him to do anything

for me.

But you have seen X and Arjava and know that X repairs time-pieces for the

sadhaks. When all that comes up from the subconscient it arranges itself not as it is in life but in a confused and incoherent way because the coordinating mind is not at work — everything combines together in a haphazard way.

During the afternoon sleep I seem to come often into contact with the

Mother. Is it the Mother who sends her emanation?

Yes, or rather something of her is always with you.

A dream; The time was hushed with twilight. I was entering the Ashram

when I saw that the Mother had already come down. When she saw me, such a

gracious and blissful smile escaped her lovely lips! There were many sadhaks

about her.

Then she began to conduct music with a small and beautiful stick. There

were three girls around her; one of them was playing on a harmonium and the

other two on tamburas. While directing the music the Mother was also singing,

but mostly in a trance.

Am I right in taking those three girls as the Mother’s presiding Shaktis?

Yes.

Was it a mere dream or a real experience within?

It was an experience on the vital plane.

What does such a spiritual music signify?

There is such music on the supraphysical planes.

…You entered some part of the higher vital world and had the experience.

In a dream I saw the dawn of the 15th of August: a great storm arose,

something like a cyclone. My mind considered it as a final revolt of the material

nature against the higher Powers that were brought down by you on the occasion of your birthday. Very soon all the resistance vanished and instead of

the obscurity, created by the storm, I found a bright sunlight! What does this

event signify?

It is not an event. It is simply a symbolic dream in the vital indicating a

tendency or possibility.

There was another dream: I felt as if two parts of the being — one turned

towards light and the other towards ignorance — came out of the body. They

fought a duel. It was not clear who won, but I afterwards experienced a sort of

release in the consciousness.

It was probably not a dream, but an experience within.

I dreamt that a few Christians were jeering at you. Then you made a

statement by which the court could fine them.

It is a purely vital dream. Of course one can take the Christians as forces of the

vital physical nature, which can be converted.

In a dream I saw the Mother walking with some of us. She asked me, “What

is this tree?” I replied, “Peace in the vital.” Amongst us there were many

newcomers. One of them prostrated herself before the Mother. Sobbing, she

prayed, “O Mother, how wretched I am that I am not able to stay here. I am

already married,” etc. In the dream itself my mind thought that it was her soul

that had expressed itself.

That is more coherent than many of your vital dreams and was probably an

actual fact of experience in the vital plane.

In last night’s dream I saw a monkey. What does a monkey stand for?

The monkey may have been of the Hanuman type. Hanuman is a symbol of

Bhakti and devotion.

THE MENTAL AND PSYCHIC DREAMS

In mental dreams can things, men and movements figure as in vital dreams?

They can, but the happenings there have a different less fanciful character with

a clear meaning.

Last night I saw two dreams:

1) A warrior sends to his son a flower (signifying “Psychic Centre”) and

informs him thus: “There is a sword with just the shape of this flower on a

certain mountain, go and get it.” The sword was exactly like that.

2) A very beautiful maiden was perceived on a vast sea, raising her head out

of the water. Only her head could be seen. She did not appear to be a vital kind

of woman. My being looked at her with a great reverence.

The first dream seems to be mental and the meaning, as in all mental dreams, is

plain enough in the dream itself. The other is probably from the higher vital

representing come part of it with its presiding Shakti.

I went to X, during my afternoon nap, for some flowers to send to the

Mother. He was seated with his usual group of people, telling them, “Z has been

permitted to stay here (in the Ashram) for 30 years.” Anyone could see that he

was much excited with a vital joy. In the dream itself I could feel that he had

pressed the Mother for keeping Z here. Then we all entered his room, where he

began to pour some tea in his cup. As for my business, he said, “See, there are

no flowers, my basin is empty.”

It is of the mental vital expressing X’s vital mind in these matters — so busy

with vital things like his desire about Z that he has neglected to foster the psychic.

During sleep does the inner being stop the sadhana because of the

commonplace dreams?

No. It can go on behind the surface.

In a dream I saw that it was night and I was sleeping on the mosquitocurtained

cot. I found beside my cot some women of exquisite beauty playing.

I could not make out if they were angels or goddesses. Their bodies were

filled with superhuman light. It seemed they had some rapport with the Divine

Mother. They respected me and talked with me, I forget what, but probably it was about my sadhana and the Mother. A bright light was burning amidst them.

Although they were not young they appeared as innocent as children.

Probably the dream represented something from the psychic realm.

Here is a dream I had during my noon sleep. I came across a lake. In its

centre there was an island with a small but very beautiful garden. There stood a

fountain in the middle from which water was springing out. I watched it from the brink of the lake.

It is probably a rendering in physical terms of some experience on the psychicvital

plane.

This time the dream was about the Mother’s music. All the while I was seated

apart from the throng of people and yet in such a place that I could see

everything.

After some time the Mother opened her magic eyes. She turned her head

towards me and threw only one glance on me for a few seconds — I could not

bear it longer, so I bent my head down. I felt a glow all over my body — up to the material layer! It was something more than the touch of a fiat. This time my

physical consciousness experienced being taken more inside than above. It was

no more bound by the ignorant nature.

It is obviously an experience. It is not symbolic, so you can’t ask what it

signifies — it was a thing that happened, just as on the physical plane Mother might put something on you.

In today’s dream I went to the Ashram Dining Room ( Aroume). Casually I

paid a visit to Y. As I was approaching him I felt as if stepping towards a psychic

being!

His psychic is very prominent.

A dream: I went to the seashore where I heard a great noise. Then I noticed

a big steamer. The noise was due to the taking off of three aeroplanes from the

steamer, which was on fire. Perhaps they separated from it in order to save it.

Strange to say, afterwards the steamer seemed to be all right and already sailing away!

Has the dream anything to do with the psychic fire?

It cannot have been the psychic fire because then there would have been no

need to save the steamer.

You wrote the other day: “The subconscient is there, so long as it is not

enlightened these dreams are bound to come.” I had asked you the question

from the viewpoint of Harin’s lines:

Even in sleep-depths I am wide awake.

Thy sweet presence is always there.

That does happen, but usually only when the psychic is in full activity.

From Letters on Yoga Vol. IV

Mental Dreams

There are many kinds of mental dreams, but the main difference [between mental and vital dreams] is that the mental are quite clear and coherent, their symbols are well-connected and easily intelligible and the forms also are clear cut and distinct in their significance. The vital are full of a pell mell of scenes, forms and

incidents; the significance if any is fluid and depends upon a vital symbolism which it is not always easy for the mind to follow — everything is nearer to ordinary life and its confusions but still more chaotic.

SOME DREAMS OF THE HIGHER PLANES

A dream: There was a small dog that wanted to take revenge on me, I don’t

know why. I had to run away from it in order to save myself. But it always

pursued me, no matter where I fled and how. At last I escaped to a place which

seemed like a highest room, and heaved a sigh of relief that the dog would never

attempt to follow me here. But alas! After a while it did appear before me. But

what a wonder! I perceived that all its anger had vanished! it simply bowed

down before me.

This dream may be perhaps interesting.

It may be symbolic.

The dog is here something of the physical, adverse or injurious until one rises

up to the highest part of the being when it gets transformed and becomes friendly

and helpful.

Romen, Shanti, Jyoti and myself climbed to a high hill. There was a beautiful

bungalow and garden on the summit. We were enjoying the place. Within a short time, Jyoti became impatient and insisted on going down immediately. In spite of our unwillingness we had to lead her down. Any meaning in this?

Probably that she cannot remain long on a high experience but comes down

into the ordinary consciousness.

In a dream of mine, the Mother told Shanti, Romen and myself to go to her

abode. It was at some distance. The Mother had shown us a particular passage

which alone could be used. But it was full of dangers. There was a long and

slippery slope. At the centre lay a narrow and crooked path of not more than

nine inches breadth! A slight wrong step from the centre and there was water

below to swallow us up! However, by the Mother’s grace we three crossed all that and arrived at a certain safe place. And yet we had not reached the destination (somehow in the dream itself we had thought: “How can we hope to attain the goal so easily?”). Afterwards the Mother appeared and told us, “Why did you not journey forward? My abode was just a few steps farther. You ought not to be so discouraged once on the way.” What meaning does this dream have?

It is indicated in the dream itself.

A dream during my noon nap: I saw an earthen pot of just an ordinary kind.

But it was beautifully decorated. The pot was so manufactured that its upper half

could be taken up without disturbing the lower half. The upper lid consisted of

eight parts, and each one could be separated. This whole vision appeared as

clearly as a cinema film. Later some writing surged up, which was deciphered

as: “Those eight parts are the openings of eight Goddesses. Each part of the lid

will open and a woman will emerge from it.” Does the dream mean anything?

It may — the pot may be the symbol of the being, with its upper and lower

parts and the eight divisions (physical, vital, psychic, mental, Supermind and Sach-chidananda parts — or else more probably higher mental, intuitive, overmind and supramental). Each has its own Shakti to manifest.

A dream of last night: I was going towards the sea with some people. When

we reached the shore we saw several boats just started on a voyage. Almost all

the boats were new and very beautiful. They seemed to be constructed in quite a different design than what we find in this world. I felt as if not only the travellers were very gay and cheerful but also that even the boats themselves were manifesting joy and felicity! I could not quite make out the exact meaning of the happy and cheerful boats and the voyagers.

A happy movement of the sadhana without depressions and obstacles.

Some time after seeing the above dream, a voice was not only heard but felt

as an experience, “A Light is dawning on the lower vital (for transformation)

and we can sleep no longer.” The voice awoke me at once and I felt profoundly

that most of my lower vital difficulties had been ended by the Mother during the

night — and then I felt myself free and full of delight and as if a thing like the

lower vital existed no longer in my being!

It was at about 2.30 a.m. that I was roused from sleep. And yet I was so full

of joy that more sleep was not necessary. The pure Atman consciousness which I

had experienced before during fragmentary periods and only if I had first

entered into a pure blankness, became now as spontaneous as peace!

Doubtless, all that shows a sudden and marvellous change in my being and

also that the Mother has done it very consciously and precisely during the sleep.

It is a very good experience, especially as coming in a dream such experiences

have power on the subconscient.

From where did that voice come?

Such voices come usually either from within oneself or from some higher

plane.

(Meaning of “sleep no longer”): “Be tamasic and negligent about sadhana no

longer.”

Trance and Waking State

Nagin Doshi’s Detailed Interaction with Sri Aurobindo

A waking state cannot be called trance, as the word trance refers specially to a condition in which the outer waking state disappears and the consciousness goes entirely inside.

X told me that if one leaves the physical consciousness one can easily have the experience of the Brahman everywhere and in all things.

If he means by leaving the physical consciousness going into samadhi that is not much use — it is the waking consciousness of the Brahman everywhere that is needed — and for that the physical consciousness must be there.

During today’s experience, even my body consciousness was so much submerged in peace and silence that had it not been for the last vestiges of my sense of the mind, it would have been a complete trance.

Trance would be not sufficient — the waking consciousness must be the same.

Why is trance not sufficient? Is it not my present need?

It is not a trance but a new consciousness that is wanted.

During the noon nap I sometimes enter into a vaster and more solid peace than during the waking state.

That is why people used to seek it most in the samadhi. But for us it must be there both in sleep and waking.

For the last two days there has been a strong urge to sleep at noon. Does the higher action on the body need this noon sleep? Normally I don’t sleep at that time.

Sometimes the pressure brings a tendency to go inside which takes the form of sleep.

Can I not turn this push for sleep into something better than a mere unconscious sleep?

It can only be either thrown off in favour of waking concentration or turned into some form of insideness (usually called samadhi).

But how can this be when the pressure brings only slumber — an unconscious sleep?

The slumber can change into insideness.

Why does this pressure for sleep come?

Such pressure only comes

(1) when the body needs sleep, not having had enough or because enough rest is not given,

(2)when it wants to recuperate after illness or strong fatigue,

(3) when there is a pressure from above which the physical consciousness or part of it replies to by trying to go inside.

How can the slumber be changed into insideness?

There is no device for it. It comes with the growth of the inner consciousness.

Is our normal sleep such that the physical consciousness can go inside and reply to the higher pressure?

No. But when the pressure gives a tendency to insideness (samadhi), the physical being, not being accustomed to go inside except in the way of sleep, translates this into a sense of sleepiness.

I thought our sleep brought us down into the depths of the subconscient and inertia.

That is the ordinary sleep, but under pressure of Yogic force sleep often gets a tendency to change into the Yogic Swapna-samadhi.

To enter the trance I always have to pass through a sleep-state. But the mind felt as if the outer being disappeared even without needing to pass through a sleep-state, as was the normal process.

Do you mean by the sleep state a state of dreaming sleep or swapna samadhi or what? It is not usual to go through ordinary sleep into trance, but one often enters into a state of swapna samadhi which can be mistaken for sleep.

In our Yoga is not trance necessary? Does it not help in working out certain things?

Yes; but it is not so important or indispensable as in other Yogas. But plenty of people have the easier forms of samadhi here.

What are these easier forms of samadhi?

The forms of swapna samadhi in which they go inside and are conscious and have visions and experiences within, but are unconscious of outer things.

Why do some people get this kind of samadhi and not others?

There is no fixed reason for these things. It depends on the turn of the nature,

I seem to be passing through a strange phase. The sadhana stops and the pressure for noon-slumber starts. Would it be better to take half-an-hour’s nap just after the pranam?

Yes, especially if it turns out to be as pleasant as the noon sleep.

Yesterday when I slept at noon, I found myself floating effortlessly in some other world where I had a fine experience. It was not a dream or a dream-vision.

This pressure for the noon-slumber is sweet, pleasant, deep and high. It lulls the entire nature except for the submind.

Then why object? That is much better than submind and inertia.

Until noon, the higher pressure was too strong. There was something in its nature by which I could neither attend to it nor study.

Possibly the pressure was trying to put you into some kind of trance.

But is not our work much more important than any number of trances or experiences?

Trances and experiences have their value. There is no question of less or more important — each thing has its place.

You asked me what I mean by a “waking state”. I meant not quite an ordinary state but the one called swapna awastha where one is aware of what happens inwardly, but is unconscious of the outer condition.

That is not waking state; it is swapna samadhi.

Today I was almost spellbound by the higher pressure and its calming effect. So I retired to my bed. I don’t know if it was sleep or trance into which I fell. The only thing I remember is that I was conscious of myself all the time but quite unaware of the surroundings. It lasted for one and a half hours.

It was not sleep evidently.

These days there is a descent of the Force which lasts from 10 a.m. until 2.30 p.m. When this movement does not take place due to depression or inertia, I feel a strong impulse to sleep at noon. But the sleep is not ordinary; it is spiritual and positive. What kind of sleep is this and why does it happen only under these circumstances?

That is quite natural. The usual movement does not take place, but there is still a pressure habitual at the time under which the consciousness goes inside not into sleep but into some kind of samadhi in which a working takes place in the inner consciousness. As yet you have not developed the power of being conscious in this state nor the power of remembering what took place.

Why does the tendency for sleep at noon come under these circumstances only?

The tendency for sleep under such circumstances is always the same thing, the tendency of the physical consciousness to go inside under the pressure from above.

Does the samadhi during the afternoon nap come to bring a greater emptiness or voidness than at other times?

If you mean that after this kind of samadhi, you feel a greater emptiness or voidness, it is quite natural. To void the being of the old consciousness and its movements and to fill the mind from above are the two main processes now by the Force from above.

Why do I have samadhi only during the noon sleep and not during the night sleep?

Because at night the body needs and is accustomed to sleep as rest, not to sleep-samadhi.

During the noon sleep, dreams come sometimes just as in the night sleep. Can it still be called a swapna-samadhi?

It may pass into only a dream sometimes, — that often happens; there is a fluctuation between the two states. During yesterday’s swapna-samadhi it became a little clearer why I am unable to record all that happens in the trance. When the consciousness rises, my mental Purusha can follow it only up to a certain distance on the higher planes, after which the consciousness flies away, leaving the mental Purusha behind. That is quite natural. The higher planes are not planes on which man is naturally conscious and he is even not open to their direct influence — only to some indirect influence from those nearest to the human mind. He can reach them only in a deep inner condition or trance and the higher he goes the less easy is it for him to be conscious of them even in trance. If you are not conscious of your inner being, then it is more difficult to be conscious in trance.

Is it not possible for me to respond to the spiritual pressure without passing through a sleep in which I enter into samadhi?

Samadhi is not a thing to be shunned — only it has to be made more and more conscious.

While coming out of samadhi, my body was conscious for the first time that it had not been sleeping, but had passed into a certain inner state.

That is a progress — the next step is to be conscious in the samadhi.

The body also felt a new kind of energy, with a strength and intensity which I can only call spiritual.

Good.

Ordinarily it is said that samadhi does not bring any change in the outer being. But I think it is not so in the samadhi of our Yoga.

There is no reason why samadhi should have no effect on the waking being.

But why are some experiences received more easily in samadhi? I think one reason is that in samadhi our central consciousness gets separated from the mind no less than from the body.

In samadhi it is the inner mental, vital, physical which are separated from the outer, no longer covered by it — therefore they can freely have inner experiences. The outer mind is either quiescent or in some way reflects or shares the experience. As for the central consciousness being separated from all mind that would mean a complete trance without any recorded experiences.

Why are certain things of the sadhana better worked out in samadhi than in the waking state?

It is easier to do it in samadhi so long as the waking consciousness is not governed consciously by the inner being.

In that case samadhi is a useful state even for our Yoga. But some time ago you wrote to me, “It is not the samadhi that is needed but a new consciousness.” Certainly, samadhi is not barred from this Yoga. The fact that the Mother was always entering into it is proof enough of that. What I said then was not a general statement that samadhi is never needed and never helpful, but referred to your then need. Particular statements must not be converted by the mind into exclusive and absolute laws.

How does a samadhi differ from a trance?

Trance in English is usually used only for the deeper kinds of samadhi; but, as there is no other word, we have to use it for all kinds.

Is it really too early for me to change the dream or sleep consciousness into a swapna-samadhi, or into a conscious and waking sadhana?

All dream or sleep consciousness cannot be converted at once into conscious sadhana. That has to be done progressively. But your power of conscious samadhi must increase before this can be done.

In samadhi the physical consciousness goes inside due to the pressure from above. What does it do after going in?

It remains quiet within and supports by its quiescence the experiences of the other parts of the being or, if it is conscious, shares them. Or it sleeps and has dreams or else is quiet in sleep and by its quiescence supports the dream experiences of the mind and vital.

The other day you asked me to be conscious in trance; I tried hard and this is the result: In trance I saw a Holy Woman entering a place where a few sadhakas were assembled for her darshan. She went into a closed room where we were to go one by one. I noticed that everyone was allowed one or two minutes, as is done on our Darshan days. My turn was last.

In the centre of the room the Holy Woman was seated dressed in simple clothes. Without looking at her face I put my head on her lap. She placed her hands on my head and caressed me softly, meanwhile murmuring as if to herself: “Let him have…”; the last word of the sentence I caught quite distinctly then, but cannot recall now. It was the name of some spiritual power. No sooner had she said this than I felt a sudden rush of that power entering through my head.

After a few seconds she uttered the name of another power. This power struck me with a tremendous force — it was shattering in its intensity.

After a while I raised my head and looked at the Holy Woman for the first time. Her face appeared like the Mother’s. Then I said to her, “May I ask you a question?” She did not seem to like this, but as she had not refused, I repeated the question. This time she said, “I don’t like questions.” (I wanted to inquire

about the two gifts of different powers she had conferred on me.) Then I don’t remember what I said. After a long time we both came back to consciousness, for we had both entered into a trance together. We knew it only when we asked the door-keeper how much time we had spent together. Afterwards I told her, “You must have entered into a trance and I simply followed you.” This whole phenomenon is beyond my understanding.

(1) Who was the Holy Woman?

(2) Why did she grant me the gifts of higher powers?

(3) Trance within trance! This is something new.

Sri Aurobindo: Obviously the Holy Woman was the Mother herself in a supraphysical form. It was natural that she should not like questions — the Mother does not like mental questions very much at any time and least of all when she is giving meditation as she was doing in this experience. It is rather funny to ask “Why” (your eternal why) higher powers should be given. People do not question the gifts of the Shakti or demand reasons for her giving them, they are only too glad to get them. Trance within trance of course, since your sadhana was going on in the trance, according to the ways of trance. It is also in this way that it can go on in conscious sleep.

Today the inner process of the sadhana began at 10.15 a.m. At 1 p.m. it turned first into samadhi and then trance. At 2.30 p.m. it came back again to samadhi and remained till 3.30. Then some parts of my being were in trance while others were in the higher consciousness. The deep intoxication of the samadhi is still there everywhere.

This time my consciousness went too deep into trance to be able to record anything, but I was quite aware of the sadhana which was going on during the samadhi, as much as one is aware of it out of samadhi. Is this distinction between samadhi and trance correct?

Trance also is samadhi but deep samadhi.

Whatever is experienced in the waking state leaves its effect upon the outer being; does the samadhi-experience act in the same way?

Not necessarily, but it helps to prepare the inner being.

The samadhi sometimes leaves a strong after-effect and sometimes nothing. For instance, yesterday the Mother brought down two kinds of Forces in my samadhi, and yet when all was over I did not feel anything in particular; while in today’s samadhi there seemed to be no descent, and yet the outward effect was powerful enough to continue not only during the waking state but even during the working hours.

It happens in both ways. When there is no outward effect, it means that it was something deep within meant for the preparation of the inner being.

Should the trance become a normal state of our consciousness?

No. It is the waking realisation of the inner consciousness separate from the outer that has to be the normal state. But it is the trance experience that is bringing this separateness.

Sometimes a strong pressure to go into sleep or samadhi is felt. It is so compelling that no physical or mental activity can be attended to; but when I lie down, I can’t sleep, nor do I go into samadhi.

It is probably because there is a pressure from above but a contrary reaction comes from the ordinary consciousness and stops the sleep or samadhi.

At night the working of the higher Force is rather strong; but just when a new and still higher pressure is felt on the head, the body feels an irresistible push to fall asleep.

It interprets the new pressure as something to be met by going inside, I suppose, and the inward movement is sleep. In such circumstances, is it better to sleep or meditate? It depends on the nature of the sleep.

The day before yesterday there was a prolonged tussle with the lower physical nature. I could not control the obscure forces which invaded, so I left the outer being. Then to my utter surprise I was pulled into an experience of stillness where I saw myself as a huge globe which was as wide as the universe. Its top was the sky and its bottom the earth. In that ball my being began to expand and tended to be as vast as the globe itself. This widening movement was recorded down to my inner physical.

That is a symbolic experience of the cosmic consciousness — it is that widening which is still lacking in your experience of peace.

Yesterday at 6 p.m. (which is not my usual time for trance) I felt very deeply some call from above and felt also that I must rise to it at once. Then my being fell into trance by itself. Kindly explain this experience.

What is there to be explained in it? There was a call or pull from above which was drawing you into a state of trance.

I think that what my inner being wants is complete separation from the outer being. But this is not possible at this stage during the waking meditation, so it takes refuge in trance. It must be difficult to have trance in a waking state.

How do you mean trance in a waking state? Trance is a going inside away from the waking state. What corresponds to trance in the waking state would be a complete concentration indifferent to outward movements or else a silence of the whole being in Brahman realisation, the samahita state of the Gita.

By “trance in a waking state” I meant that in order to enter the trance I have to pass through a state of sleep. But some people do not need this step — they simply sit and plunge into trance.

That does not explain the phrase. Many people pass through sleep to trance. During today’s noon sleep, intense waves of love were flowing out from me towards the Mother while she was giving me an interview. The Mother was holding me close to her. What was it — sleep or samadhi?

If it was sleep, you must have got into the vital plane or some supraphysical plane and met the Mother there.

During the samadhi states the Mother’s Force was quite solid. During the waking state, however, the action induced a certain emptiness or voidness in my being, right down to the body. I am unable to say whether it was in the subtle body or the outer that the density was felt.

It must be in the subtle body, for it is that one feels in trance or sleep — besides, if it were the physical body, the density would usually last for some time after waking.

For the last three days the trance comes at noon. After it is over the dense energy it brings lasts up to the night. What is this dense energy?

I don’t know what it should be other than a form of the Force.

For several days there was no trance. However, there was a continued sadhana.

If there was a continued sadhana, it does not matter about the samadhi. The sadhana took another form, that is all.

Now the pressure for the samadhi comes at the usual time, but there is no samadhi. If it is due to the rising of inertia, how is it that I can concentrate and live without effort in the higher consciousness but can’t withdraw into samadhi?

There is no answer to these hows and whys except that your consciousness has sufficiently developed the capacity to ascend into the higher consciousness so as to be able to do it at will, but has not to an equal extent developed the capacity of going into samadhi. But that is obvious and is simply the statement of the fact.

In one letter you have written that the Mother always sees things when she goes into trance. Is it not natural for one to see things in trance, even though in the waking state one does not have even a single vision?

Vision in trance is vision no less than vision in the waking state. It is only the condition of the recipient consciousness that varies -in one the waking consciousness shares in the vision, in the other it is excluded for the sake of greater facility and range in the inner experience. But in both it is the inner vision that sees.

Divine Mission is to Wake us up from our Deep Slumber

When the whole universe was not yet formed, when the Divine first thought of creation, of expressing himself, there was this intention and His Mission on Earth:

To evoke a Person in the impersonal Void,

With the Truth-Light strike earth’s massive roots of trance,

Wake a dumb self in the inconscient depths

And raise a lost Power from its python sleep

That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time

And the world manifest the unveiled Divine.

For this he left his white infinity

And laid on the spirit the burden of the flesh,

That Godhead’s seed might flower in mindless Space.

Benefits of Perfect Sleep

The benefits of Sushupti or perfect sleep are manifold.

Sri Aurobindo says, “The sleep-state ascends to a higher power of being, beyond thought into pure consciousness, beyond emotion into pure bliss, beyond will into pure mastery; it is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda out of which all the activities of the world are born.”

Losing the punctilio of its separate birth,

It leaves us one with Nature and with God.

From Savitri

Loss of Consciousness during Sleep

In sleep one easily loses the consciousness of the day, because of the lapse of the physical being into the subconscient. You have to get the power to reestablish it when you wake.

Sleep, because of its subconscient basis, usually brings a falling down to a lower level, unless it is a conscious sleep; to make it more and more conscious is the one permanent remedy: but also until that is done, one should always react against this sinking tendency when one wakes and not allow the effect of dull nights to accumulate. But these things need always a settled endeavour and discipline and must take time, sometimes a long time. It will not do to refrain from the effort because immediate results do not appear.

It often, even usually happens that after sleep — not the sleep of meditation, but the ordinary sleep — one finds one’s consciousness has gone down. It is no use getting distressed by that; one has to remain quiet and call back the higher consciousness.

The consciousness in the night almost always descends below the level of what one has gained by sadhana in the waking consciousness — unless there are special experiences of an uplifting character in the time of sleep or unless the Yogic consciousness acquired is so strong in the physical itself as to counteract the

pull of the subconscient inertia. In ordinary sleep the consciousness in the body is that of the subconscient physical, which is a diminished consciousness, not awake and alive like the rest of the being. The rest of the being stands back and part of its

consciousness goes out into other planes and regions and has experiences which are recorded in dreams such as that you have related. You say you go to very bad places and have experiences like the one you narrate; but that is not a sign, necessarily, of anything wrong in you. It merely means that you go into the

vital world, as everybody does, and the vital world is full of such places and such experiences. What you have to do is not so much to avoid at all going there, for it cannot be avoided altogether, but to go with full protection until you get mastery

in these regions of supraphysical Nature. That is one reason why you should remember us and open to the Force before sleeping; for the more you get that habit and can do it successfully, the more the protection will be with you.

The difficulty of keeping the consciousness at night happens to most — it is because the night is the time of sleep and relaxation and the subconscient comes up. The true consciousness comes at first in the waking state or in meditation, it takes

possession of the mental, the vital, the conscious physical, but the subconscious vital and physical remain obscure and this obscurity comes up when there is sleep or an inert relaxation.

When the subconscient is enlightened and penetrated by the true consciousness, this disparity disappears. The Pishachic woman that tried to enter [in a dream] is the false vital impure Shakti — and the voice that spoke was that of his psychic being. If he keeps his psychic being awake and in front, it will always protect him against these dark forces as it did this time.

The sleep you describe in which there is a luminous silence or else the sleep in which there is Ananda in the cells, these are obviously the best states. The other hours, those of which you are unconscious, may be spells of a deep slumber in which you have gone out of the physical into the mental, vital or other planes. You say you were unconscious, but it may simply be that you do not remember what happened; for in coming back there is a sort of turning over of the consciousness, a transition or reversal, in which everything experienced in sleep except perhaps the last happening of all or else one that was very impressive, recedes from the physical awareness and all becomes as if a blank. There is another blank state, a state of inertia, not truly blank, but heavy and unremembering; but that is when one goes deeply and crassly into the subconscient; this subterranean plunge is very undesirable, obscuring, lowering, often fatiguing rather than restful, the reverse of the luminous silence.

To get rid of the subconscient in sleep, the proper way is not to diminish sleep, for that only overstrains the body and helps the lower forces to trouble it. The right way is to change gradually (it cannot be done all of a sudden) the character of the sleep.

Conscious Sleep

At night when one sinks into the subconscient after being in a good state of consciousness, we find that state gone and we have to labour to get it back again. On the other hand, if the sleep is of the better kind, one may wake up in a good condition. Of course, it is better to be conscious in sleep, if one can.

It is better to go to sleep and make it a discipline to become conscious in your sleep. Sleep may be only a habit, but it is a necessary habit at present and the thing to do is not to suppress, but to transform it into a conscious inner state.

You must not try to avoid sleep at night — if you persist in doing that, the bad results may not appear immediately, but the body will get strained and there will be a breakdown which may destroy what you have gained in your sadhana.

If you want to remain conscious at night, train yourself to make your sleep conscious — not to eliminate sleep altogether, but to transform it.

Sleep cannot be replaced, but it can be changed; for you can become conscious in sleep. If you are thus conscious, then the night can be utilised for a higher working — provided the body gets its due rest; for the object of sleep is the body’s rest and the renewal of the vital-physical force. It is a mistake to deny to the body food and sleep, as some from an ascetic idea or impulse want to do — that only wears out the physical support and, although either the Yogic or the vital energy can long keep at work an overstrained or declining physical system, a time comes

when this drawing is no longer so easy nor perhaps possible. The body should be given what it needs for its own efficient working. Moderate but sufficient food (without greed or desire), sufficient sleep, but not of the heavy tamasic kind, this should be the rule.

To keep yourself awake is not permissible — it depresses the body in the end and excites the brain and leads to an unquiet and unbalanced consciousness. The body needs sufficient rest in order to be able to bear the pressure of sadhana.

You can pray or will before sleeping to be conscious in sleep, and you can get your waking mind full of the Mother. That is the best way. But you must not expect to be able to succeed all at once. First, the sleep-mind must become conscious of what it is doing in sleep; only afterwards can you determine what it is to do there.

In the sleep what holds the body is the subconscient — and the subconscient acts according to the already formed present habits or else the impressions left by past thoughts, feelings, memories, activities. If the thought of the Mother and her force and working are fixed in the conscious hours, then it will be easier to

bring it into the subconscient.

As for asserting one’s will in sleep it is simply a matter of accustoming the subconscient to obey the will laid upon it by the waking mind before sleeping. It very often happens for instance that if you fix upon the subconscient your will to wake up at a particular hour in the morning, the subconscient will obey and you wake up automatically at that hour. This can be extended to other matters. Many have found that by putting a will against sexual dreams or emission on the subconscient before sleeping, there comes after a time (it does not always succeed at the beginning) an automatic action causing one to awaken before the dream concludes or before it begins or in some way preventing the thing forbidden from happening. Also one can develop a more conscious sleep in which there is a sort of inner consciousness which can intervene.

This [unconsciousness in sleep] is quite usual. Consciousness in sleep can only be gradually established with the growth of the true consciousness in the waking state.

You cannot expect to be conscious at once in sleep: it takes a long time. If you can be always conscious in waking, then it will be easier to be conscious in sleep.

The sleep consciousness can be effectively dealt with only when the waking mind has made a certain amount of progress.

All dream or sleep consciousness cannot be converted at once into conscious sadhana. That has to be done progressively. But your power of conscious samadhi must increase before this can be done.

That is all right [if the activity of sadhana goes on at night]. It shows that the sadhana is becoming continuous and that you are becoming conscious and using a conscious will in sleep as well as in waking. This is a very important step forward in the sadhana.

You are more conscious in your sleep than in your waking condition. This is because of the physical consciousness which is not yet sufficiently open; it is only just beginning to open. In your sleep the inner being is active and the psychic there can influence more actively the mind and vital. When the physical consciousness is spiritually awake, you will no longer feel the trouble and obstruction you now have and will be as open in the waking consciousness as in sleep.

Concentration before and after Sleep

The gap made by the night and waking with the ordinary consciousness is the case with everybody almost (of course, the “ordinary” consciousness differs according to the progress); but it is no use waiting to be conscious in sleep; you have to get the habit of getting back the thread of the progress as soon as may be and for that there must be some concentration after rising.

At night, you have to pass into sleep in the concentration — you must be able to concentrate with the eyes closed, lying down and the concentration must deepen into sleep — that is to say, sleep must become a concentrated going inside away from the outer waking state. If you find it necessary to sit for a time you may do so, but afterwards lie down, keeping the concentration till this happens.

It [meditation before sleep] can certainly have an effect — though not perhaps through the whole sleep — for the sleep passes through many phases or planes and the effect is not likely to survive all these changes of consciousness and domain. It is possible however to get after a time a control and consciousness in the sleep itself. As for the subconscient, it can certainly have an effect, but most when there is a precise and positive will put upon the subconscient in the meditation.

You have to start [becoming conscious in sleep] by concentrating before you sleep always with a specific will or aspiration. The will or aspiration may take time to reach the subconscient, but if it is sincere, strong and steady, it does reach after a time — so that an automatic consciousness and will are established in the sleep itself which will do what is necessary.

You need not meditate at once [after waking in the morning] — but for a few minutes take a concentrated attitude calling the Mother’s presence for the day.

Hearing Music after Waking

The expression [of sweet melodious music] was of the psychic plane — and the music was of that domain. Very often coming out of a conscious sleep like that the inner consciousness (which heard the music) lasts for a few seconds even after waking, before it goes back and is entirely covered by the waking mind. In that case what was heard or seen in sleep would continue for those few seconds after waking.

The Waking Mind and Sleep

It is the waking mind which thinks and wills and controls more or less the life in the waking state. In the sleep that mind is not there and there is no control. It is not the thinking mind that sees dreams etc. and is conscious in a rather incoherent way in sleep. It is usually what is called the subconscient that comes up then. If the waking mind were active in the body, one would not be able to sleep.

You are mixing up different things altogether — that is why you cannot understand [the previous reply]. I was simply explaining the difference between the ordinary waking consciousness and the ordinary sleep consciousness as they work in men whether sadhaks or not sadhaks — and it has nothing to do with the true self or psychic being. Sleep and waking are determined not by the true self or psychic being, but by themind’swaking condition or activity or its cessation — when it ceases for a time, then it is the subconscious that is there on the surface and there is sleep.

Depression in Sleep

The depression coming on you in sleep must have been due to one of two causes. It might have been the trace left by an unpleasant experience in some disagreeable quarter of the vital world and there are places in plenty of that kind there. It can hardly have been an attack, for that would surely have left a more distinct impression of something having happened, even if there was no actual memory of it; but merely to enter into certain places or meet their inhabitants or enter into contact with their atmosphere can have, unless one is a born fighter and takes an aggressive pleasure in facing and conquering these ordeals, a depressing and exhausting effect. If that is the cause, then it is a question of either avoiding these places, which can be done by an effort of will, once one knows that it is this which

happens, or putting around you a special protection against the touch of that atmosphere. The other possible cause is a plunge into a too obscure and subconscient sleep — that has sometimes the effect you describe. In any case, do not allow yourself to be discouraged when these things happen; they are common

phenomena one cannot fail to meet with as soon as one begins to penetrate behind the veil and touch the occult causes of the psychological happenings within us. One has to learn the causes, note and face the difficulty and always react — never accept the depression thrown on one, but react as you did the first time. If there are always forces around which are concerned to depress and discourage, there are always forces above and around us which we can draw upon, — draw into ourselves to restore, to fill up again with strength and faith and joy and the power that perseveres and conquers. It is really a habit that one has to get of opening to these helpful forces and either passively receiving them or actively drawing upon them — for one can do either. It is easier if you have the conception of them above and around you and the faith and the will to receive them — for that brings the experience and concrete sense of them and the capacity to receive at need or at will. It is a question of habituating your consciousness to get into touch and keep in touch with these helpful forces — and for that you must accustom yourself to

reject the impressions forced on you by the others, depression, self-distrust, repining and all similar disturbance.

As for the actual mastery of a situation by occult powers, it can only come by use and experiment — as one develops strength by exercises or develops a process in the laboratory by finding out through the actual use of a power how it can and ought to be applied to the field in which it operates. It is of no use waiting for the strength before one tries; the strength will come with repeated trials. Neither must you fear failure or be discouraged by failure — for these things do not always succeed at once.

These are things one has to learn by personal experiences, how to get into touch with the cosmic forces, how to relate or equate our individual action with theirs, how to become an instrument of the Master Consciousness which we call the Divine. There is something a little too personal in your attitude — I mean the insistence on personal strength or weakness as the determining factor. After all, for the greatest as for the smallest of us our strength is not our own but given to us for the game that has to be played, the work that we have to do. The strength may be formed in us, but its present formation is not final, — neither formation of power nor formation of weakness. At any moment the formation may change — at any moment one sees, especially under the pressure of Yoga, weakness changing into

power, the incapable becoming capable, suddenly or slowly the instrumental consciousness rising to a new stature or developing its latent powers. Above us, within us, around us is the All-Strength and it is that that we have to rely on for our work, our development, our transforming change. If we proceed with the faith in the work, in our instrumentality for the work, in the Power that missions us, then in the very act of trial, of facing and surmounting difficulties and failures, the strength will come and we shall find our capacity to contain as much as we need of the All-Strength of which we grow more and more perfect vessels.

Dreams in Sleep

All Sleep Full of Dreams

Again, about the sleep, it is like that because the ordinary state of sleep is an unconscious condition. One has always dreams throughout the night, but the surface being is then unconscious and records only a few of them that come through and even these it records in an incoherent way. Really one is acting or

working on one plane or another throughout sleep except for a few minutes. When the inner consciousness grows, then one becomes more and more aware of what is going on, what one is doing and sleep is no longer quite the same thing — for it is more conscious.

They [people who speak of “sound and dreamless sleep”] simply mean that when they come back, they are not conscious of having dreamed. In the sleep the consciousness goes into other planes and has experiences there and when these are translated perfectly or imperfectly by the physical mind, they are called dreams. All the time of sleep such dreams take place, but sometimes one remembers and at other times does not at all remember. Sometimes also one goes low down into the subconscient and the dreams are there, but so deep down that when one comes up there is not even the consciousness that one had

dreamed.

All sleep is full of dreams. Why should night or day make any difference?

Descent and Experiences in the Inner Being

Your experiences seem to be sound. The first is that of the higher (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 — that is the second experience. The third about the sleep is also felt when one has confidence in the Mother and goes to sleep under her protection, as if in her lap, surrounded by her presence. As for the dream the legs indicate the physical consciousness which is still under a double pull, one upward to the higher consciousness so that the physical consciousness may unite itself with the spiritual, the other downward towards the lower consciousness. The looking towards me indicates the choice of the being for the upward movement.

Sleep And Rest

I was sleeping but woke up exactly when it was time to attend classes. Was it the Divine who woke me up?

Not necessarily. There is always a part of the subconscient which is awake, and it is sufficient to have the will to wake up at a certain hour to make this part awaken you.

3 March 1933

I would like to know why I had such a disturbed night.

Obviously you did not quiet your thoughts before going to sleep. At the time of lying down one should always begin by quieting one’s thoughts.

28 January 1935

I can never sleep on the night before Darshan. People say it is a lack of balance. But on the contrary I feel it is because of Your awakening presence. I do not feel any disturbance. I think it is all right. Isn’t this true?

To pass a sleepless night once in a while, every three or four months, does not matter much, provided that the rest of the time you sleep well

I advise you to sleep well and to take enough rest. This is indispensable in order to be able to keep doing the work regularly and well.

131

My blessings are always with you

Sleep is the school one must pass through if one knows how to learn one’s lesson there, so that the inner being may become independent of the physical form, conscious in its own right and master of its own life. There are entire parts of the being that need this immobility and semi-consciousness of the outer being, of the body, in order to be able to lead their own life independently.

It is another school for another result, but it is still a school. If one wants to achieve the maximum possible progress, one must know how to make use of one’s nights just as one makes use of one’s days. Only, people usually have no idea how to go about it; they try to stay awake and all they achieve is a physical and vital imbalance, and sometimes a mental one too

Sleep is indispensable in the present state of the body. It is by a progressive control over the subconscient that the sleep can become more and more conscious.

25 January 1938

I know by experience that it is not by lessening the food that sleep becomes conscious; the body becomes restless but this in no way increases the consciousness. It is in good, sound and quiet sleep that one can get in contact with a deeper part of oneself.

4 August 1937

I hope that soon you will completely recover and that you will not feel tired any more. But are you eating enough? Sometimes it is hunger that keeps one from sleeping.

132

My blessings are always with you

Proper rest is a very important thing for the sadhana.

2 March 1942

You must rest — but a rest of concentrated force, not of diluted non-resistance to the adverse forces. A rest that is a power, not the rest of weakness

To Rest Before Sleeping

There is no end to the discoveries that you can make in dreams. But one thing is very important: never go to sleep when you are very tired, for if you do, you fall into a sort of unconsciousness and dreams do with you whatever they like, without your being able to exercise the least control. Just as you should always rest before eating, I would advise you all to rest before going to sleep. But then you must know how to rest.

There are many ways of doing it. Here is one: first of all, put your body at ease, comfortably stretched out on a bed or in an easy-chair. Then try to relax your nerves, all together or one by one, till you have obtained complete relaxation. This done, and while your body lies limp like a rag on the bed, make your brain silent and immobile, till it is no longer conscious of itself. Then slowly, imperceptibly, pass from this state into sleep. When you wake up the next morning, you will be full of energy. On the contrary, if you go to bed completely tired and without relaxing yourself, you will fall into a heavy, dull and unconscious sleep in which the vital will lose all its energies.

It is possible that you may not obtain an immediate result, but persevere

133

For some time I have had trouble sleeping due to inner and outer turmoil. I pray to You to help me.

Before trying to sleep, when you lie down to sleep, begin by relaxing yourself physically (I call this becoming a rag on the bed).

Then with all the sincerity at your disposal, offer yourself to the Divine in a complete relaxation, and… that’s all.

Keep trying until you succeed and you will see.

Blessings.

March 1969

DREAMS

Usually I give no “meaning” to dreams, because each one has his own symbolism which has a meaning only for himself

I will speak of certain details in this connection, next time we meet. Until then I shall keep the papers with me. (Sri Aurobindo and myself alone will see them.)

In the first dream we can take the theatre as the symbol of this world where all is a play — the appearance of something and not the thing itself. Here the kings and queens are not such because of an inner and divine right but as a result of the confusion of circumstances and birth.

I suppose the obstacles which were standing in the way of your joining me represent the difficulties (inner and outer) which are to be overcome in order to realise the union with the true consciousness.

The second dream seems to be an embodiment of old impressions left in the subconscient of social surroundings and your reactions to them.

134

In the third the train is, as always, an image of the way and the journey towards the goal. The sets of people are the various groups (secret societies etc.) that have been formed for this purpose. The one you were supposed to join was the society to which you became attached — composed of the boys who were with you at your first “school”; the image is clear, but an association which you did not feel to be definitive

Both of these dreams (are they only dreams?) are of a quality far superior to the former ones.

The first seems to be one of those symbolic transcriptions of the inner condition and action which one so often gets in sleep. What appears to me most clear is how pointedly this dream shows the lack of any true ground for the apprehension you felt while swimming (the fear of not being able to reach the goal). For the protection showered from the shore to be reached brings you there even when in appearance conditions or circumstances seem to be driving you away from it.

To say exactly what the motor launches stand for is difficult in the absence of details.

The second is certainly not a dream but a reality, a very charming expression of the reality of the constant presence of Sri Aurobindo and of his help given through an intimate and true relation, even though veiled to the outer consciousness. This is a precious experience worth being kept in the most sacred corner of the remembrance

The six couches: the seats, basis of the powers of creation (6). One still occupied by the titanic forces (the last, most material one).

The servant: who showed us the way through the “labyrinth”, gave us some food and even a smoky light (torch, very poor) to find our way in the dark, the lower nature; she asked 135to be paid for her services, saying that the “other gentleman” (titan) was always paying her.

The place: some vital layer in the physical consciousness.

20 February 1932

It was Darshan day. You were there with Sri Aurobindo. I ran into Sri Aurobindo’s arms. He caressed me with much joy, saying that he had come to raise me up. I was on his lap. You also caressed me gently, saying one of the prayers I sent you.

This dream is the result of a psychic impression which rose to the surface during sleep.

19 March 1936

Generally I try to remember you at least once at the time of sleep. I wonder why such foul dreams visit me then, when I should have dreamed of you. Any guidance from you to avert the evil will be welcome if you would graciously grant me sufficient will and power to follow it.

Keep constantly and sincerely in you the will to conquer.

Blessings.

20 July 1947

One can learn much by controlling one’s dreams.

Attitude before Going to Sleep and after Waking up

One thing you can do in all security is, before going to sleep, to concentrate, relax all tension in the physical being, try… that is, in the body try so that the body lies like a soft rag on the bed, that it is no longer something with twitchings and cramps; to relax it completely as though it were a kind of thing like the rag. And then, the vital: to calm it, calm it as much as you can, make it as quiet, as peaceful as possible. And then the mind also — the mind, try to keep it like that, without any activity. You must put upon the brain the force of great peace, great quietitude, of silence if possible, and not follow ideas actively, not make any effort, nothing, nothing; you must relax all movement there too, but relax it in a kind of silence and quietitude as great as possible. Once you have done all this, you may add either a prayer or on aspiration in accordance with your nature to ask for the consciousness and peace and to be protected against all the adverse forces throughout the sleep, to be in a concentration of quiet aspiration and in the protection; ask the Grace to watch over your sleep; and then go to sleep. This is to sleep in the best possible conditions. What happens afterwards depends on your inner impulses, but if you do this persistently, night after night, night after night, after some time it will have its effect.

-THE MOTHER

( Vol.7, p. 66)

After Waking up and Before Going to sleep

The Mother: When coming out of sleep you must keep quiet for a few moments and consecrate the coming day to the Divine, praying to remember Him always and in all circumstances.

Before going to sleep you must concentrate for a few minutes, look into the day that has passed, remember when and where you have forgotten the Divine, and pray that such forgettings should not happen again.

31 August 1953

Sri Aurobindo:

In the night as in the day be always with me.

In sleep as in waking let me feel in me always the reality of your presence.

Let it sustain and make to grow in me Truth, consciousness and bliss constantly and at all times.

The Necessity of Sleep

…Sleep is necessary for the body just as food is. Sufficient
sleep must be taken, but no excessive sleep. What sufficient sleep is
depends on the need of the body. (SABCL, vol. 24: p 1476)

It is a great mistake not to take sufficient sleep. Seven hours is
the minimum needed. When one has a very strong nervous system one can
reduce it to six, sometimes even five — but it is rare and ought not to be
attempted without necessity. (SABCL, vol. 24: p 1477)

It is not a right method to try to keep awake at night; the
suppression of the needed sleep makes the body tamasic and unfit for the
necessary concentration during the waking hours. The right way is to
transform the sleep and not to suppress it, especially to learn how to
become more and more conscious in sleep itself. If that is done, sleep
changes into an inner mode of consciousness in which the sadhana can
continue as much as in the waking state, and at the same time one is
able to enter into other planes of consciousness than the physical and
command an immense range of informative and utilisable experience.
(SABCL, vol. 24: p 1479)

What Happens During Sleep

ccording to a recent medical theory one passes in sleep through many
phases until one arrives at a state in which there is absolute rest
and silence — it lasts only for ten minutes, the rest of the time is
taken up by traveling to that and traveling back again to the waking
state. I suppose the ten minutes sleep can be called susupti in the
Brahman or Brahmaloka, the rest is svapna or passage through other
worlds (planes or states of conscious existence). It is these ten
minutes that restore the energies of the being, and without it sleep is
not refreshing.

According to the Mother’s experience and knowledge one passes from
waking through a succession of states of sleep consciousness which are in
fact an entry and passage into so many worlds and arrives at pure
Sachchidananda state of complete rest, light and silence, — afterwards
one retraces one’s way till one reaches the waking physical state. It is
this Sachchidananda period that gives sleep all its restorative value.
These two accounts, the scientific and the occult-spiritual, are
practically identical with each other. But the former is only a
recent discovery of what the occult-spiritual knowledge knew long ago.
People’s ideas of sound sleep are absolutely erroneous. What they call
sound sleep is merely a plunge of the outer consciousness into a
complete subconscience. They call that a dreamless sleep; but it is only
a state in which the surface sleep consciousness which is a subtle
prolongation of the outer still left active in sleep itself is unable to
record the dreams and transmit them to the physical mind. As a matter of
fact the whole of sleep is full of dreams. It is only during the brief
time in which one is in Brahmaloka that the dreams cease.
(SABCL, vol: 24: p 1484)

How to Sleep

The rule should be to call the Mother before sleeping, to
concentrate on her and try to feel the Mother’s protection around and go
with that into sleep. In the dream itself a habit of calling the
Mother when in difficulty or peril should be formed; many sadhaks do it.
Not to allow the invasion, any invasion of any power or being, whether in
dream, meditation or otherwise — no force except the Divine Force, means
to reject it, never to give assent, whether through attention or through
weakness… (SABCL, vol. 24: p 1501)

f one is physically very tired, it is better not to go to sleep
immediately, otherwise one falls into the inconscient. If one is
very tired, one must stretch out on the bed, relax, loosen all the nerves
one after the another until one becomes like a rumpled cloth in one’s
bed, as though one had neither bones nor muscles. When one has done that,
the same thing must be done in the mind. Relax, do not concentrate on any
idea or try to solve a problem or ruminate on impressions, sensations or
emotions you had during the day. All that must be allowed to drop off
quietly: one gives oneself up, one is indeed like a rag. When you have
succeeded in doing this, there is always a little flame, there — that
flame never goes out and you become conscious of it when you have
managed this relaxation. And all of a sudden this little flame rises
slowly into an aspiration for the divine life, the truth, the
consciousness of the Divine, the union with the inner being, it goes
higher and higher, it rises, rises, like that, very gently. Then
everything gathers there, and if at that moment you fall asleep, you
have the best sleep you could possibly have. I guarantee that if you do
this carefully, you are sure to sleep,and also sure that instead of falling
into a dark hole you will sleep in light, and when you get up in the
morning you will be fresh, fit, content, happy and full of energy for the
day. (CWM, vol. 04: pp 352–53)

Even for those who have never been in trance, it is good to repeat a
mantra, a word, a prayer before going into sleep. But there must be a
life in the words; I do not mean an intellectual significance, nothing of
that kind, but a vibration. And its effect on the body is
extraordinary: it begins to vibrate, vibrate, vibrate… and quietly
you let yourself go, as though you wanted to go to sleep. The body
vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and away you go.
That is the cure for tamas.

It is tamas which causes bad sleep. There are two kinds of bad sleep:
the sleep that makes you heavy, dull as if you lost all the
effect of the effort you put in during the preceding day; and the sleep
that exhausts you as if you had passed your time in fighting. I
have noticed if you cut your sleep into slices (it is a habit one can
form), the nights become better. That is to say, you must be able to
come back to your normal consciousness and normal aspiration at fixed
intervals — come back at the call of consciousness. But for that you must
not use and alarm clock! When you are in trance, it is not good to be
shaken out of it.

When you are about to go to sleep, you can make a formation; say: “I shall
wake up at such an hour” (you do that very well when you are a child). For
the first stretch of sleep count at least three hours; for the last, one
hour is sufficient. But the first one must be three hours at the
minimum. On the whole, you have to remain in bed at least seven hours;
in six hours you do not have time to do much (naturally I am looking at
it from the point of view of sadhana) to make the nights useful.
Two things you must eliminate: falling into the stupor of
inconscience, with all the things of the subconscient and
inconscient that rise up, invade you, enter you; and a vital and mental
superactivity where you pass your time in fighting, literally,
terrible battles. People come out of that state bruised, as if they
had received blows. And they did receive them — it is not “as if”! And I
see the only way out: TO CHANGE THE NATURE OF SLEEP.
(CWM, vol. 15: pp400–01)

Collected Works of the Mother

Source: https://www.collaboration.org/97/summer/text/8_sleep.html

Role of Food and Sleep in Our Sadhana

Role of Food and Sleep in Our Sadhana

Need of Food and Sleep Will Vanish in Supramental Era

Role of Food

How did the taste for food develop?

Effect of Eating Various Types of Food

Effect of eating Sattwic Food

Effect of eating spicy food?

Effect of Tamasic Food?

How to Eat Food?

How much food should one consume?

How can you digest your food properly?

What is the Right Attitude to take food?

When and How to Choose the Right Food?

What are the Advantage of Detachment from food?

How to Control Our Desire/Greed for Food?

How to come out of attachment from food?

How to stop thinking about Food?

How to control the desire for food?

Ways to diminish one’s abject dependence on ordinary food?

When will the food be not necessary?

Impact of Fasting or Reduction in Intake of Food

Miscellaneous

How to cook food, keep kitchen, atmosphere inside the kitchen?

How to avoid uneasiness due to smell of food?

Can Veg. Food control our senses?

Can I refuse someone’s invitation for food?

Should we donate food to the poor?

How to feed the children?

Why wasting food is worse than eating not at all?

Role of Sleep

Sri Aurobindo on Sleep

The Mother on Sleep

Other Sadhaks on Their Interaction with The Mother About Sleep

Pramila Devi

Sujata Nahar

Nagin Doshi

THE MENTAL AND PSYCHIC DREAMS

SOME DREAMS OF THE HIGHER PLANES

Trance and Waking State

Divine Mission is to Wake us up from our Deep Slumber

Benefits of Perfect Sleep

Loss of Consciousness during Sleep

Conscious Sleep

Concentration before and after Sleep

Hearing Music after Waking

The Waking Mind and Sleep

Depression in Sleep

Dreams in Sleep

Descent and Experiences in the Inner Being

Sleep And Rest

Attitude before Going to Sleep and after Waking up

What Happens During Sleep

How to Sleep

Written by Sanjeev Patra

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