Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3. 1936-37

Fragment ID: 18223

1936-37

Yesterday not only my consciousness but the body also felt horizontally wide and vertically huge. And then I experienced that 1 was the Self. When the physical began to widen out still more, I was afraid of a possibility of ego aggrandisement, though the whole experience was taking place in an impersonal aspect¹. So I called at once for the Personal and put my widened self on the Mother’s lap². Was my fear a true one?

The feeling of the body enlarging and widening itself is of course an indication of widening out of the physical (body) consciousness and is a subtle material rendering in the body of the self-realisation. One has not to be afraid of it, but to keep the idea of the ego out of it, for it is not the personality that is in question but the realisation of the self, one in all.

¹ If it was an impersonal experience, how does the ego come in? Self (Atman) is one thing, ego is another. (Sri Aurobindo’s comment in margin)

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² That is all right. (Sri Aurobindo)

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