The Mother

Agenda

Volume 2

February 14, 1961

Sri Aurobindo speaks here of the “higher soul.”¹ Yet we can't translate it by “âme supérieure,” as if there were an “inferior soul,” can we?

Sri Aurobindo wants to make the distinction between the progressive soul (the soul which has experiences and progresses from life to life), what can be called the “lower soul,” and the higher soul, that is, the eternal, immutable and divine soul – essentially divine.

He wrote this when he was in contact with certain Theosophical writings, before I introduced Théon's vocabulary to him. For Théon, there is the “divine center” which is the eternal soul, and the “psychic being”; similarly, to avoid using the same word in both cases, Sri Aurobindo speaks in later writings of the “psychic being” and of the divine center or “central being” – the essential soul.

What if we translate it “la partie supérieure de l'âme,” [the higher part of the soul], rather than “âme supérieure?”

Then the soul would appear to be divided!

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(After the work, when it is time to leave, Mother makes the following remark.)

Later on there will be a lot to say.

(silence)

Ah, if we can hold out – or to put it in a better way, after we have held out – there will indeed be some interesting things to say....

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, Cent. Ed., Vol. XX, p. 303.

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