WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

The Psychic Memory

Sweet Mother,

It is said that the vibrations of the being develop from one life to another, become richer and form the psychic personality behind the surface personality. But then how does the psychic, weighed down by these vibrations and memories, remain free?

But why does he say "weighed down"?

No, the psychic decants--that is exactly what happens. The psychic does not retain things in their totality--it decants, it gradually decants the vibrations.

The psychic memory is a decanted memory of events. For example, in past lives there have been moments when, for some reason or other, the psychic was present and participated; in that case it retains the memory of the circumstance. But the memory it retains is that of the psychic life of that moment; so even if it retains the memory of the image, it is a simplified image such as it is translated in the psychic consciousness and according to the psychic vibration of all the people present.

He would not ask such a question if he had ever had a psychic memory, because when one has one, it is quite evident.

Before knowing these things, I had had psychic memories and always they struck me by their special character. It was as if one had, one cannot exactly say an emotion, but a certain emotional vibration of a circumstance; and that is what is solid, what remains, what lasts. And so with that, one has a perception--a little vague, a little blurred--of the people who were there, of the circumstances, of the events, and that makes a psychic memory; it is rarely the events that mentally are considered as the most memorable or most important in a lifetime, but the moments when the psychic has participated--consciously participated--in the event. And that is what remains.

15 July 1967