WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Knowing things at a distance

6 July 1955

Mother, the other day you said that when one thinks of someone or something, one part of this thought goes there at once.

Yes.

For example, I think of someone who is in Calcutta, then if my thought goes there, I ought to have the knowledge of...

Thought is only conscious of thought in the mental world. So you can become very conscious of the mental atmosphere of Calcutta, of the thought of the person to whom you go, but of nothing else, absolutely nothing that has to do with the vital and physical.

To be conscious of the vital you must go there in the vital, and this is already an exteriorisation which leaves the body at least more than three-fourths in trance. And if you want to see things physically, you must go out in your most material subtle physical and then here you leave your body in a cataleptic state; and these things are not to be done without someone being with you who understands them and can guard you.

But the mental exteriorisation occurs constantly. It puts you in contact only with the mental world. Perhaps if you are very conscious and the person you go to see is very conscious, and if at that moment he has formed opinions or ideas about something [new p. 227]happening in Calcutta, then you can become conscious of [old p. 231]the ideas of this person on what is happening--indirectly--but you are not directly conscious of the thing.