SACCS-logo
SACCS-logo


WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Sweet Mother,

What is meant by "a subtle physical prolongation of the superficial form of the mental envelope"? [Note: Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine.]

It means that the ghost one sees and wrongly takes for the departed being itself, is only an image of it, an imprint (like a photographic imprint) left in the subtle physical by the superficial mental form, an image that can become visible under certain conditions. These images can move about (like cinema images), but they have no substantial reality. It is the fear or emotion of those who see these images that sometimes gives them the appearance of a power or an action they do not possess in themselves. Hence the necessity of never being afraid and of recognising them for what they are--a deceptive appearance.

14 September 1959

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 16, p. 225