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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

21 April 1929

What was the nature of Jeanne d'Arc's vision?

Jeanne d'Arc was evidently in relation with some entities belonging [old p. 18]to what we call the world of the Gods (or as the Catholics [new p. 18]say, the world of the Saints, though it is not quite the same). The beings she saw she called archangels. These beings belong to the intermediate world between the higher mind and the supramental, the world that Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind. It is the world of the creators, the "Formateurs".

The two beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne d'Arc would, if seen by an Indian, have a quite different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of one's mind. To what you see you give the form of that which you expect to see. If the same being appeared simultaneously in a group where there were Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Shintoists, it would be named by absolutely different names. Each would say, in reference to the appearance of the being, that he was like this or like that, all differing and yet it would be one and the same manifestation. You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother, the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, and others would give other names. It is the same Force, the same Power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths.