The Psychic Being and the State of Childhood

An incident was related by an individual about his experience at the time of the passing of the Mother, November 17, 1973, and the following several days while Her physical body laid in state in the meditation hall at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.. He happened to be residing at Sri Aurobindo Ashram at the time and thus, was able to relate his actual experience. He indicated he was in something of a deep inward state, almost a walking trance state, and was somehow abstracted from everything going on around him, as people came from all over India and the world, with visible grief and tears. The older sadhaks were sitting around the Samadhi at one point in a poise of deep meditation. The energy was palpable. The children from the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education were called to form lines through which the visitors would pass in order to have the final Darshan of the Mother in the meditation hall. What happened was extraordinary according to the report of our observer. The children held hands and formed two lines and people passed between the two lines. As the people entered the lines at the entrance, they came in with tears and visible disturbance in their emotions. The children however were RADIANT. They were quiet, as betokened the situation, they were however beaming with such an energy that as people passed along the lines back to the meditation hall, their grief melted away from them, and they returned calm and at peace. These were children who interacted with the Mother regularly, who loved and were extremely devoted. Yet their inner experience, their inner connection to the Mother, was one that streamed forth in their eyes and faces and comforted everyone who passed by. Our observer joined the children and felt a strong energy flowing between them as they held hands. Clearly a spiritual opening had taken over and the psychic openness and receptivity of the children made this sequence of events possible.

Obviously not every child is destined to grow under the direct influence of the Mother, so we can see they were especially open and receptive. In the rest of the world, as we observe, there is a mixed energy at work, influences from parents, family, friends, teachers, and the social media that begins, from early on, to distort, hide and reduce the visible influence of the psychic being. Many children begin with an innocence and receptivity that allows the psychic being to come forward, although this too is not universal.

A disciple asks: “In children the psychic is always in the front, isn’t it?”

The Mother responds: “Not always. The psychic is more ‘in front’ than later when they grow up and the mind develops, but it can’t be said that in all children the psychic may be felt. And one cannot judge from what we have here, for the condition of admission I make when children are brought to me is this: if I see the psychic on the surface I take them, but if they are already veiled by all sorts of deformed activities, I don’t take them. So, those whom we have here are an exception. It is the cream. It is a choice.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 6 More Lights on the Psychic Being, pg. 167