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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

15 December 1954

I don't understand this: "The disadvantage [of trance or samadhi] is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it remains imperfect." "Waking consciousness is not solved"?

And naturally! Because if in order to have a meditation or a relation with the inner world, you are obliged to enter into samadhi, your waking consciousness always remains what it is, without ever changing. That's what I said in other words, you see, when I said that people have a higher consciousness only in very deep meditation. When they come out of their meditation they are no [new p. 428]better than they were before. All their defects [old p. 428]are there which come back as soon as they come back into their waking consciousness; and they never make any progress because they do not establish a relation between their deeper consciousness, the truth of their being, and their outer being. You see, they take off their outer being as though they were taking off a cloak, and they put it in a corner: "Come now, don't trouble me, keep quiet. You are a nuisance." And then they enter into contemplation, their meditation, into their deep experience; and then they come back, put on the cloak which of course has not changed--which perhaps is dirtier still than before--and they remain exactly as they were without any meditation.

If you want the outer being to change, it is while remaining conscious of it that you should have the other experiences; and you must not lose contact with your ordinary outer consciousness if you want it to profit by the experience. There are many people... I knew people like that, who used to meditate for hours, almost all the time... they spent their time meditating, and then if by chance... if someone disturbed them in their meditation, if they had to do something, they flew into a rage, a fury, they abused everybody, they became more intolerable than if they had never meditated, than any ordinary person. This happened because they neglected making their outer being participate in their deeper life. They cut themselves into two, so there is a portion inside which progresses and a portion outside which becomes worse and worse, because it is completely neglected.