Pavitra's departure
(Mother:) “Between the 15th and 16th [May 1969], at night, after 9 (I didn’t look at the time, so I don’t know precisely, but I was on my bed), Pavitra’s whole individualized consciousness (but not in a form), his conscious, fully awakened consciousness, down to all that can come out of the cells, began to come and enter into me according to the ancient, the very old yogic practice of merging into the Supreme in that way that practice. It came while I was lying on my bed; it began, and it was so material that there was a very strong friction in all the cells, everywhere. It went on for three hours. After three hours, it became … not exactly still, but no longer active. Then, the next morning, [...] A. told me that just as he was about to come here, Pavitra opened his eyes and looked at him … So I told him, “I don’t know, but with a yogic knowledge of the process, quite an extraordinary knowledge” (he had never boasted of having it), “his conscious being melted last night and entered my body, this body …” I told him, “We’ll see.” But half an hour later, they told me that just as I was talking with A., the doctor declared he had left.
[…]
I can’t say he has remained separate [from Mother], not at all, but now and then, for one thing there’s his way of reacting; it’s quite interesting. And he has brought with him an extraordinary sense of satisfaction! As if, “Ah, at last …” Like that. It’s constant, night and day. I wanted to see last night whether something of him would still come [out of his body and into Mother], but it was all over, there was nothing more …. It was done as a super-yogi might do it! He’d never boasted about it, I don’t even know whether he actively knew it. He did it wonderfully. You know, the stories that are told of those who would have themselves shut in a cave and who would leave like that – that’s it.
[…]
There was nothing in a form, nothing. And some time after I’d lain down, it started coming, but then with an extraordinary SCIENCE of the process! And for THREE hours without stop, continuously, in the most steady manner, like that: an action. After three hours, it was as it is now; I felt as if he said, “Now it’s over.” Only, you never know, of course: there might be some consciousness lingering in the body … I thought it was better to wait till this afternoon, not to shut him up with something in his body.
It has brought to the body consciousness a sort of sense of satisfaction: the appeasement that satisfaction gives. That’s there quite concretely.
Did he know it from a previous life, or …? I don’t know. Or else, he just didn’t talk about it. Because the way he spoke, he didn’t seem to know the secrets of yogic processes. It was done with a rare perfection …. Three hours without stop, without flagging – three hours – continuous, continuous. Naturally, I was lying on my bed ….
(silence)
When Sri Aurobindo left, I was standing near his bed (later on, when he was alone, when there was no one left), and all the supramental force he had concentrated in his body (what was left in his body), he passed on to me. I stood near his bed; he had been declared ‘dead’, but all that supramental consciousness which was there came out of his body, slowly, and directly entered mine. It was so material that I felt the friction of the force everywhere, all over. But it was slightly luminous. That was something different than with Pavitra.”[1]
“It’s the entire conscious being which gave up … (how can I put it?) its limits, the personal limit and form, so as to identify totally – he entered like that, like a stream of consciousness and force, but very material, very material: it produced a friction, I felt a friction, and for three hours. I had never seen that before, it was the first time – I had heard about it very often (it’s often mentioned), that knowledge the great yogis had: they would go like that deliberately.
And it has ADDED something to the body consciousness. In the body’s spontaneous attitude, its way of being, I have noticed a slight change; it has added a sort of … stability in the body: a satisfied stability, like that. It’s not like something that comes and might go, it’s not that: it’s here [in Mother]. It has been really quite interesting – and unexpected.
I wanted to be sure that there was nothing left that could make the body suffer, but now I think it’s over.
- Does it mean that his individuality has been dissolved?
Those notions of individuality, you know … for me, they’ve changed a lot, quite a lot. This whole morning again … But for a long time, at least for a month, it has become something else.
When people speak of individuality, there’s always a sort of at least a background of separation, that is, something that exists independently and has its own destiny Now, as the body consciousness knows it, it’s almost like a pulsation of “something” which MOMENTARILY has a separate action, but which, deeply, essentially, is always ONE. Like something projected like this (gesture of expansion), momentarily with a form, and then … (gesture of contraction) it can cancel that form at will. It’s very hard to explain, but at any rate, the sense of the permanence of separation has completely disappeared, completely The universe is an exteriorization (same gesture of pulsation) of the Supreme Consciousness; it’s our incapacity of total vision that enables us to have that sense of fixity: there is none, it’s something like pulsations or … really a play of forms – there is only ONE being. There is only one being. There’s only one, only one Consciousness, only one Being.”[2]
“I can say (and it was almost like a surprise, I mean I didn’t know it), I can say that the consciousness that came out of Pavitra’s body was a consciousness without ego – without ego. Without SENSE of ego. There was a clear will to merge, a will with an intensity of aspiration, it was fantastic! Fantastic.”[3]
“What’s going to happen? I don’t know.
Because it [this merging of Pavitra] is very clearly part of the work: there are no accidents, nothing, nothing of the sort (all that has vanished), everything very clearly happened exactly as it had to happen. It seems to mean that ‘one’ is attempting something (Mother touches her body). But what? I don’t know …. The body isn’t at all worried, it’s like this (Mother opens her hands); always this: “What You will, Lord, what You will ….” ”[4]
“I am wondering whether the consciousness [of Pavitra] has been especially preserved intact because it entered here [into Mother], or whether it’s always like that? … Where does someone conscious go? Does he remain here? […]
I have seen cases of people who took interest and continued to take interest in what goes on [here], but then they have an independent form. While with Pavitra, it’s something else.
It struck me because it was strong, like this (same gesture to the heart).
All these last few weeks, there has been a sort of constant … I can’t call it ‘preoccupation’, but a sort of need to know: to what extent and how do those who have left remain conscious of the things they used to do, for instance, take interest in them, look after them (supposing they have the means to do so)?
A case such as Sri Aurobindo’s is quite different: it’s as if he had been multiplied. He has a constant presence in the subtle physical: he goes about, visits a number of people, and he is conscious of a lot of things, he intervenes in a lot of things, but a considerable number – it has multiplied his action. But that’s exceptional.”[5]
“But Pavitra’s case, I really believe it’s exceptional. It’s the first time it has happened to me – with nobody, nobody else before. I told you, when Sri Aurobindo left, for hours he passed on to me the whole supramental force and consciousness he had concentrated in his body. It was immediately after he left. I felt he had called me; I stood there, near his bed, looking at him, and … I saw it, you understand: he passed on to me the force, the whole supramental force he had concentrated in his body, and I felt him everywhere enter like that, with a friction. It lasted for hours. But that’s quite an exceptional case, as I told you. But what took place with Pavitra is really … it’s really … It’s not the same thing: he simply came out of his body deliberately (and not his psychic being: it was as material as he could), and I felt him, felt it enter and enter everywhere, all over my body … And now, if I look within, I can’t say I see a form, but … it’s not completely fused. And for certain things – certain things that have to do with people, or the School – there’s a very clear personal reaction. And then, those photos … I think that’s quite exceptional.
I felt something in the brain. You know that since Sri Aurobindo gave me mental silence, it has been absolutely still; it never started up again as before, and the consciousness has been there (gesture above Mother), working from there. But then after Pavitra came here, something (gesture to the forehead) impelled me to ask (I asked what’s here, within), “Could I get the mathematical knowledge you had?” I asked him that. And his answer was, “Of course, it would be easy if you set this in motion again!” But that I don’t want to do. Anyway …
Anyway, that’s how it is, as if I were talking to someone within! How happy he was! I think he loved you [Satprem] very much. He never spoke a word about all that. It has pleased him a lot.”[6]
See also