But then what is this consciousness we feel like a force
inside us? For instance, sometimes in meditation it rises, then
descends; it's not fixed anywhere. What is this consciousness?
The Shakti!
Some receive it from above; for others, it rises from below (gesture to the base of the spine). As
I once told you, the old system always proceeds from below upwards,
while Sri Aurobindo pulls from above downwards. This becomes very clear
in meditation (well, in yoga, in yogic experience): for those who follow
the old system, it's invariably the kundalini at the base [of the spine] rising from center to center, center to center, until the lotus (in an ironic tone) bursts open here {gesture at the crown of the head). With Sri Aurobindo, it comes like this (gesture of descending Force) and then settles here (above the head); it
enters, and from there it comes down, down, down, everywhere, to the
very bottom, and even below the feet - the subconscient - and lower
still, the inconscient.
It's the Shakti. He said, you know (I am still translating it),
that the shakti drawn up from below (this is what happens in the
individual process) is already what could be called a "veiled" shakti
(it has power, but it is veiled). While the Shakti drawn down from above
is a PURE Shakti;
and if it can be brought down carefully and slowly enough so that it
isn't (how
shall I put it?) polluted or, in any case, obscured as it enters matter,
then
the result is immediately much better. As he has explained, if you start
out
with this feeling of a great power in yourself (because it's always a
great
power no matter where it awakens), there's inevitably a danger of the
ego
meddling in. But if it comes pure and you are very careful to keep it pure, not to rush the movement but let it purify as it descends, then half the work is done.
page 281-82, Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 25th July 1962.
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That must be why I can't distinguish between the Force coming from above and the Force coming from within.
A time comes when you don't make this distinction any more. [[Of
course! We can dip into it with our head or with the tips of our toes,
but everything bathes in this same river of Force (except what's shut up
within the walls of our minds). At certain moments, or in certain
places, we are less hardened and it naturally "enters" there. And so we
call it the Shakti "From above" or the Shakti "from below" or "from
within." But when the walls tumble down, there is neither high nor low -
we are drenched in it. ]]
page 284, Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 25th July 1962.
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