Integral Yoga Literature - By the Mother

Selections from the Collected Works of the Mother

From Volume 10, On Thoughts and Aphorisms


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The contents of this document are copyright 1976, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, India. You may make a digital copy or printout of this text for your personal, non-commercial use under the condition that you copy this document without modifications and in its entirety, including this copyright notice.

p.159-162, from Jnana 84-87


84 -- The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that man's ascent is not yet finished.
85 -- It is rationality and prudence to distrust the supernatural; but to believe in it is also a sort of wisdom.
86 -- Great saints have performed miracles; greater saints have railed at them; the greatest have both railed at them and performed them. br> 87 -- Open thy eyes and see what the world really is and what God; have done with vain and pleasant imaginations.

Why didn't you or Sri Aurobindo make a greater use of miracles as a means of overcoming resistance in the external human consciousness? Why this kind of self-effacement where outer things are concerned, this non-intervention or discretion?

As for Sri Aurobindo, I only know what he told me several times. People give the name of "miracle" only to interventions in the material or the vital world. And these interventions are always mixed with ignorant and arbitrary movements.

But the number of miracles that Sri Aurobindo performed in the mind is incalculable; but naturally you could only see it if you had a very straight, very sincere, very pure vision -- a few people did see it. But he refused -- this I knew -- he refused to perform any vital or material miracles, because of this mixture.

My experience is that in the present state of the world, a direct miracle, material or vital, must necessarily take into account a great many elements of falsehood that are unacceptable -- they are necessarily miracles of falsehood. And they are unaccept able. I have seen what people call miracles; I saw many of them at one period, but this gave a right of existence to many things which to me are not acceptable.

What men call "miracles" nowadays are almost always performed by vital beings or by men who are in contact with vital beings, and this is a mixture -- it accepts the reality of certain things, the truth of certain things that are not true. And this is th e basis on which it works. So that is unacceptable.

I did not quite understand what you meant by saying that Sri Aurobindo performed miracles in the mind.

I mean that he used to introduce the supramental force into the mental consciousness. Into the mental consciousness, the mental consciousness that governs all material movements, he would introduce a supramental formation or power or force which immediat ely changed the organisation. This produces immediate effects which seem illogical because they do not follow the normal course of movements according to mental logic.

He himself used to say that when he was in possession of the supramental power, when he could use it at will and focus it on a specific point with a definite purpose, it was irrevocable, inevitable: the effect was absolute. That can be called a miracle.

For example, take someone who was sick or in pain; when Sri Aurobindo was in possession of the supramental power -- there was a time when he said that it was completely under his control, that is, he could do what he wanted with it, he could apply it wher e he liked -- then he would apply this Will, for example, to some disorder, either physical or vital or, of course, mental -- he would apply this force of greater harmony, of greater order, this supramental force, and focus it there, and it would act imme diately. And it was an order: it created an order, a harmony greater than the natural harmony. That is, if it was a case of healing, for example, the healing would be more perfect and more complete than any obtained by ordinary physical and mental metho ds.

There were a great many of them. But people are so blind, so embedded in their ordinary consciousness that they always give "explanations", they can always give an explanation. Only those who have faith and aspiration and something very pure in themselv es, that is, who truly want to know, they were able to perceive it.

When the Power was there, he even used to say that it was effortless; all he had to do was to apply this supramental power of order and harmony and instantly the desired result was achieved.

What is a miracle? Because Sri Aurobindo often said that there are not miracles and, at the same time he says in Savitri, for example, "All's miracle here and can by miracle change." (Savitri, Cent. Vol 18, p.85)

That depends on how you look at it, from this side or that.

You give the name of miracle only to things which cannot be clearly explained or for which you have no mental explanation. From this point of view you can say that countless things that happen are miracles, because you cannot explain the how or the why of them.

What would be a true miracle?

I can't see what a true miracle can be because, after all, what is a miracle? A true miracle... Only the mind has the notion of miracles; because the mind decides, by its own logic, that given this and that, another thing can or cannot be. But this repr esents all the limitations of the mind. Because, from the point of view of the Lord, how can there be a miracle? Everything is Himself which He objectifies.

6 March 1963


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Last modified on Aug 11, 1995