The Winds of Wonder

The Mother about Paul Richard — Six

Sri Aurobindo saw more clearly. He said—it was even the first thing he told the boys around him when I came in 1914 (he had only seen me once)—he told them that I, Mirra (he immediately called me by my first name), ‘was born free.’

And it’s true, I know it, I knew it then. In other words, all this work that usually has to be done to become free was done beforehand, long ago—quite convenient!

He saw me the next day for half an hour. I sat down—it was on the verandah of the ‘Guest House’, I was sitting there on the verandah. There was a table in front of him, and Richard was on the other side facing him. They began talking. Myself, I was seated at his feet, very small, with the table just in front of me—it came to my forehead, which gave me a little protection … I didn’t say anything, I didn’t think anything, try anything, want anything—I merely sat near him. When I stood up half an hour later, he had put silence in my head, that’s all, without my even having asked him—perhaps even without his trying.

Oh, I had tried—for years I had tried to catch silence in my head … I never succeeded. I could detach myself from it, but it would keep on turning … But at that moment, all the mental constructions, all the mental, speculative structures … none of it remained—a big hole.

And such a peaceful, such a luminous hole!

Afterwards, I kept very still so as not to disturb it. I didn’t speak, above all I refrained from thinking and held it, held it tight against me—I said to myself, ‘make it last, make it last, make it last …’

Later on, I heard Sri Aurobindo saying that there were two people here to whom he had done this and as soon as there was silence, they panicked: ‘My God, I’ve gone stupid!!’ And they threw it all overboard by starting to think again.

Once it was done, it was done. It was well-rooted.

The featured image and the following are photographs taken by Debashis Chowdhury

A luminous hole