WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Psychic influence

9 February 1955

Sweet Mother, when the psychic being will be able to manifest itself perfectly, will it have any need of the mind?

It will not be able to manifest perfectly unless all the parts of the being collaborate. But I don't think that the mind was fashioned with the intention of making it disappear. It is a part of the general structure.

Your body, you see, if it were without a mind it would be quite at a loss. It would perhaps be more like a plant than a [new p. 44]body. There is nothing that you do from morning to evening in which the mind does not have its action. [old p. 44]

But if the psychic guided it?

Well, if the psychic guides the mind, the mind will act in a psychic way. Then it will be a remarkable mind, absolutely harmonious and doing the right thing in the right way.

But the vital--it is the same thing, exactly the same phenomenon for the vital. The vital as it is at present is said to be the cause of all the troubles and all the difficulties, the seat of the desires, passions, impulses, revolts, etc., etc. But if the vital is entirely surrendered to the psychic, it becomes a wonderful instrument, full of enthusiasm, power, force of realisation, impetus, courage.

And then there remains the poor physical... The poor physical being has been accused of all the misdeeds. In the days of old it was always said that it was impossible, one could do nothing with something so inert, so obscure, so little receptive. But if it too was surrendered to the psychic it also would do the right thing in the right way, and then it would have a stability, a quietude, an exactness in its movements which the other parts of the being don't have, a precision in the execution which one can't have without a body. You have only to see when the body is just a little out of order, when it is ill, how many things you can no longer do, even with a strong will, a great concentration of the vital and the mind. Even when one has the precise knowledge of what ought to be done, if the body is out of order one can no longer do it. Even... I mean, even an activity which is not purely physical, as for instance, writing something.