"It is certainly a mistake to bring down the light by force - to pull it down. The Supramental cannot be taken by storm. When the time is ready it will open of itself - but first there is a great deal to be done and that must be done patiently and without haste."

Sri Aurobindo

That's good for sensible people. They will say, "There, he doesn't promise any miracles."

Why? Are there lots of people who tend to "pull"?
People are in a hurry, they want to see results right away.

So then, they think they are pulling the Supramental down - and they pull some little vital entity that leads them on and afterwards plays nasty tricks on them. That's what happens most often, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

A little individuality, a vital entity that puts on a big show and creates dramatic effects, lighting effects; so the poor devil who has pulled is bedazzled, he says, "Here's the Supramental!" and he falls into a hole.

It's only when you have touched, seen somehow or other, and had a contact with the true Light that you can discern the Vital, and you realize that it's absolutely like lighting effects on a theater stage: theatrical effects, an artificial light. But otherwise people are bedazzled - it's dazzling, it's "magnificent," and so they are misled. It's only when you have SEEN and had a contact with the Truth ... "Ah!" then it makes you smile.

It's showing off, but you have to know the truth in order to discern the showing off.

Basically, it's the same for everything. The Vital is a sort of super-theater giving performances - very alluring, dazzling, deceptive performances - and it's only when you know the True Thing that immediately, instinctively, without reasoning, you discern and say, "No, I don't want that."

And for everything, you know. The one point in human life where it has assumed cardinal importance is love. Vital passions and attractions have almost in every case taken the place of the true feeling, which is tranquil, while that makes you bubble with excitement, it gives you the feeling of something "living".... It's very deceptive. And you can know this, feel it, perceive it clearly only when you know the True Thing; if you have touched true love through the psychic and through divine union, then it [vital love] appears hollow, thin, empty: an appearance and a drama - more often a tragedy than a comedy.

All that you can say about it, all that you can explain about it is perfectly useless, because the one who has been caught will instantly say, "Oh, it's not like with others" - what happens to you is never like what happens to others (!) What's needed is the "Thing," the true experience ... then the whole Vital is seen as a masquerade - not an alluring one.

And when people pull down, oh, it's much more than ninety-nine times out of a hundred - it's one case in a million in which the True Thing happens to be pulled down; which proves the person was ready. Otherwise, what's pulled down is always the Vital: the appearance, the dramatic representation of the Thing, not the Thing itself.

Pulling down is always an egoistic movement. It's a distortion of aspiration. True aspiration involves a giving - a self-giving - while pulling down is wanting for oneself. Even if you have in your thought a vaster aspiration - the earth, the universe - it makes no difference, those are mental activities.


page 301-02 , Mother's Agenda , volume 6 , 23rd Nov - 1965

But I've noticed that when I do material things - small things - there seems to be a tremendous vital force flowing into the

work, and in the end I find myself exhausted through having

done nothing at all! How come all that vital energy goes away?


It's because all the vital force is used to keep the body's balance in the phase of transformation. That's what I have called "the change of government," it's the phase of transformation. And during that change, well, all the vital force is there just to keep your balance so you don't topple over. Because it's difficult.

One must remain very calm and do what is indispensable, nothing more.

In ordinary life, when one doesn't know, with people who don't know, there is a tremendous wastage of vital forces, for no reason. Well, we no longer have the right to do that because all that vital force is there, as I said, concentrated to keep the body's balance.


page 117-18 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 22nd May - 1966

Someone has just brought, from two sides at the same time (gesture to the right and to the left), a plate with grapes and a second plate with grapes, like that. One was for you and one for me.

For two or three days some beings from the vital have been eager to manifest their goodwill, and this was like the expression of their goodwill. In the vital, food is very often grapes, very frequently. Grapes of incomparable beauty, besides. And grapes are the fruit of life. So I suppose that's why. There were two bunches: one was bigger, the other not so big; I don't know whom the bigger was for and whom the other for: they came from both sides, they were presented like this (gesture to the right and to the left of Mother). One was on a plate, the other on a square of white paper. I presumed the one on the square of white paper was for me!

Lovely, beautiful bunches! Grapes turning golden, you know - transparent and golden as when they're ripe. Each grape was this big (gesture: about two inches).

(silence)

I tried to express what happened this morning, and what kept coming to me was: "But the experiences aren't literary, they can't be expressed."

(silence)

Some beings of the vital said to me, "There was a time when you used us and we were very happy. Why aren't you using us anymore now?" So I replied to them, "If you want to do work, I'm certainly not going to stop you!"


page 71 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 4th March - 1967