It is perhaps not very wrong to say that the process of the last decisive physical transformation in Sri Aurobindo’s yoga-tapasya began sometime in the mid-thirties. The siddhi or realisation of the Overmind consciousness working in the physical was already obtained by him in 1926; it set off a certain globality of operation for its functioning at the material level. Since then his entire yogic effort was organised towards getting the higher, the supramental siddhi in the substance of the body itself. This was a totally new situation in the context of the evolutionary earth; but it was also a situation fraught with dangers, it yet holding in it all the glorious possibilities opening themselves in the direction towards which a secret hand had already started guiding the process.

This transformation of the death-afflicted physical was certainly a most difficult endeavour whose parallel could perhaps be seen only in a remote way in ancient times, more specifically in the Vedic tapasya of Rishi Agastya. But his body could not withstand the effect of "the triple poison" and he had to finally give up the golden attempt. The body was not ready to hold the charge of luminous immortality in it. It did not possess the necessary spiritual merit for this purpose: it was still unbaked, atapta tanu, and another kind of tapasya was needed to overcome the difficulty. The cells of the body had not awakened yet to the reality that is seated deep within them. The groundwork of the Overmind consciousness in the sequel of evolution, working in the collective, had also not yet been prepared and kept ready. This happened much later, only after the coming of its Avatar, towards the end of Dwapar Yuga, at the time of the Mahabharata war.

After these long and tentative centuries of preparation the pioneering task of Rishi Agastya was taken up again by Sri Aurobindo who brought to it a decisive completeness. Granting that such a moment in the evolutionary history of the earth had arrived, and that there was the necessary sanction of the Supreme for it, the problem of the inconscient nature had yet long remained untackled. Sri Aurobindo’s concern was chiefly this. It was a twofold effort, of invoking and bringing down the dynamism of the supreme Truth on the earthly plane and preparing the unregenerate inconscient nature to receive it for its unhampered action. The spiritual and occult-yogic tapasya carried out together by him and the Mother saw that this was done. That opened new doors, bright doors of the physical, for the entry of the Infinite's dimensions in the earth-play. Presently it has made its manifestation an accomplished fact, here in the physical’s subtle.

It will be perhaps quite enlightening to know the broad stages through which this yoga-tapasya of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had proceeded. We do get a certain glimpse of it in some of their writings of the period, particularly Sri Aurobindo’s poetic compositions which have at times unmistakable autobiographical suggestions in them. Thus in a letter to Dilip Kumar Roy, written in 1933, he speaks of the functioning of the Truth-dynamism as follows:

What the Supramental will do, the mind cannot foresee or lay down. The mind is Ignorance seeking for the Truth, the Supramental by its very definition is the Truth-Consciousness: Truth in possession of itself and fulfilling itself by its own power. In a Supramental world imperfection and disharmony are bound to disappear. But what we propose just now is not to make earth a Supramental world but to bring down the Supramental as a Power and established consciousness in the midst of the rest—to let it work there and fulfil itself as Mind descended into life and matter has worked as a Power there to fulfil itself in the midst of the rest. This will be enough to change the world and to change Nature by breaking down her present limits. But what, how, by what degrees it will do it is a thing that ought not to be said now—when the Light is there, the Light itself will do its work—when the Supramental Will stands on earth, that Will will decide.[1]

But prior to that he had his work to do; he had to do “dredging, dredging, dredging the mire of the subconscious”.[2] Of this dredging—of what he wrote elsewhere not “soaring and soaring”[3] but “digging and digging”—we might get some idea from a stanza of the then unpublished poem of his, A God’s Labour; this was before 1935. Here is the stanza he had sent to Dilip Roy:

He who would bring the heavens here

     Must descend himself into clay

And the burden of earthly nature bear

     And tread the dolorous way.[4]

So this is what Sri Aurobindo was busy with at that time: he wanted to build a rainbow bridge between earth and heaven, and in that process he coerced the godhead to accept the travail of birth and death, the misery and suffering of the dark and sordid conditions prevailing here. Which God would willingly come down and accept this challenge, consent to pass through the portals of the death? Only the Divine himself—as an Avatar.

But we have to also remember that perhaps this wearisome digging and dredging might not have been absolutely that necessary, and that there could have been a smoother sailing towards the goal; there was in fact a perfectly reasonable possibility of the victory coming into closer sight. In 1935 Sri Aurobindo had written something to this effect to Nirodbaran:

It [the supramental Light] was coming down before November 1934, but afterwards all the damned mud arose and it stopped. But there are red crimson lights. One is supramental Divine Love. The other is the supramental physical Force.[5]

Naturally, therefore, his preoccupation shifted towards the problems of this “damned mud”. The concern was not with the beatitudes of heaven but with the malignancy that is present in this ignorant world down below in this mud. He became more busy with this Hellish Opposition than persuading the Empyrean, that its red-crimson seeds might sprout and flower in this damned mud. But then, consequently, with the pressure from above the revolt of the subconscient from below also became more fierce. And there was the real danger that if the Godhead should awake too soon, that awakening might lead to total destruction, the support, ādhāra, not being there ready. The action of the “supramental physical Force” stirred the dark reaction in depths of the inconscient matter. Surely, this had to be met with and conquered. The reality of the falsehood in its operational aspects and in its details had to be fully cognized, admitted in pragmatism of the entire spiritual endeavour. The yogic tapasya therefore took another turn.

Sri Aurobindo gives a hint of this deep-rooted struggle with the darkness of the terrestrial creation in his short poem entitled A God’s Labour, as we have just noted, in July 1935. Without  any doubt, this is a very clear autobiographical account, indicating what at that time he was attempting and trying to achieve. Not that we should not look at this poem as a piece of excellent creative activity; but quite often the yogic-spiritual bearings get left out. If to Dilip Roy this piece is “beautiful if somewhat sad”[6], to Amal Kiran it is a “most moving mystical”[7] poem with the psychic authenticity describing an overhead vision, and to Srinivasa Iyengar a poem that has written itself out in terms of “ordained inevitability”,[8] it expressing Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga of man’s and earth’s transformation. These are entirely valid statements, of poetic appreciation, but fundamentally what is more important is to realise that the poem deals with an occult action in the context of the “dredging”-operation. We should not think that Sri Aurobindo, who was always a poet first, was in the midst of this “severe and painful” task simply lending himself to the enchanting lyricism of the Muse; nor was he just presenting a self-account or making a diary-note in the language of poetry, recording his spiritual experiences of the period.

But what is more likely is that Sri Aurobindo, in a certain sense, felt it necessary to give a definite form of concreteness to the entire situation, give formed definiteness in order to deal with it as a tangible  objectified opposition to his godly work. The revolt of the subconscient had to be seen to as an aspect of the yoga-tapasya for “man’s and earth’s transformation”. Throughout the dull and infructuous toiling centuries of the known or unknown history man has always remained man and the sorrowful earth remained burdened ever with crueler and direr sorrows. There were from time to time many Divine descents, and prophets had appeared who to some extent tried to redeem the lot, and there were the Avatars who had come one after the other in the declining ages of righteousness. Fresher lights had filled the skies, and their presence had brought succour to the ailing race. But nothing much had changed, nothing in a radical manner. In the thickness of the inconscient night’s opacity these lights proved inadequate. This had to be looked into.

In order to probe this opaque night, Sri Aurobindo the Yogi went where none had gone and there he wooed her dark and dangerous heart. He started digging deeper and deeper yet, and knocked at the keyless gate, and reached the grim and grisly foundation-stone. There he

 ... saw that a falsehood was planted

At the very root of things

Where the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleep

On the Dragon’s outspread wings.[9]

He looked into the eyes of the naked night with his spirit’s fire and spoke to her with the tongue of orange-and-gold flame. Of course, during this entire Journey into the terrifying Darkness his one constant and unfailing companion was the Light of the Supreme with whom he had become integrally united. All the veils were torn; even as the transcendental Gleam increasingly remained with the explorer, it gave him the conviction of the final victory:

I have been digging deep and long

Mid a horror of filth and mire

A bed for the golden river’s song,

A home for the deathless fire.

I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s night

To bring the fire to man;

But the hate of hell and human spite

Are my meed since the world began...

My gaping wounds are a thousand and one

And the Titan kings assail,

But I cannot rest till my task is done

And wrought the eternal will...

On a desperate stair my feet have trod

Armoured with boundless peace,

Bringing the fires of the splendour of God

Into the human abyss...

Heaven’s fire is lit in the breast of the earth

And the undying suns here burn;

Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth

The incarnate spirits yearn.

Like flames to the kingdom of Truth and Bliss:

Down a gold-red stair-way wend

The radiant children of Paradise

Clarioning darkness’s end.

A little more and the new life’s doors

Shall be carved in silver light

With its aureate roof and mosaic floors

In a great world bare and bright.[10]

Thus a great step had been taken and prospects of the living truth enshrining itself on the earth brought closer. In the filth and mire a fire has been kindled, a fire which has no smoky flames but which turns itself into an ever-growing splendour, into undying glory of the heavenly sun. The gain may not be visible, but its occult print is already there for the eye of the finer vision to see.

This definite gain is consolidated by giving to it a subtle-luminous body of the expressive Word; This is something wonderful because the body of the Word is not only indestructible but is also a radiant centre from which spread dynamic contents it holds. It becomes an ever-permanent force of action, writing the future history of the spirit in terms of the truths of the spirit. The compelling lyricism of the poem, in fact an impeccable and flawless paean-song, of triumph, asserts this unprecedented victory; it paves the path towards the ultimate objective. Here a unique thing has happened in the annals of spiritual time. It is now expected that, one day, this shall bring the “divine whole” to the transformed earth. The gift that was promised shall be granted:

Hill after hill was climbed and now,

Behold, the last tremendous brow

And the great rock that none has trod:

A step, and all is sky and God.[11]

This was in 1938-39. But during the intervening period, of a couple of years, a lot of yoga-tapasya had already been done. In this entire endeavour, Sri Aurobindo’s concern was specifically in the terrestrial context. Indeed, he was attempting to establish the supermind in his physical body not at all for his personal, for the individual's benefit; it was for sake of the earth, for the collective’s progress. He needed it not for himself, and the focus was on the universal nature.

In a letter dated 25 November 1935 to Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo writes:

The tail of the supermind is descending, descending, descending. It is only the tail at present, but where the tail can pass, the rest will follow... The attempt to bring a great general descent having only produced a great ascent of subconscient mud, I had given up that as I already told you. At present I am only busy with transformation of overmind (down to the subconscient) into supermind; when that is over, I shall see if I can beat everyone with the tail of the supermind or not. At present I am only trying to prevent people from making hysterical, subconscient asses of themselves, so that I may not be too much disturbed in my operation—not yet with too much success.[12]

Not too long before this, during “the brightest period in the history of the Ashram”[13], the Mother was continuously bringing down great powers into her physical being; but she was doing this through the Overmind which was already established in it. But then she had to stop even that,-- because the human vital and physical were not ready. Understandably, therefore, the bringing down of the supramental powers in their splendour was just out of the question. Understandably also the attention was focused on the difficulties of the path, the antagonism of the unregenerate agencies standing in the way and obstructing, if not opposing, the manifestation.

But as their yoga-tapasya got intensified towards this objective, a greater descent also became possible. This can be inferred from the letter Sri Aurobindo wrote on 14 September 1934:

The supramental Force is descending, but it has not yet taken possession of the body or of matter—there is still much resistance to that. It is the supramentalised Overmind Force that has already touched, and this may at any time change into or give place to the supramental in its own native power.[14]

We can perhaps witness such a thing happening after the God’s Labour put in by him in July 1935, as the events certainly took an upward turn about this time. The physical came directly under the spotlight of the spirit’s gaze, and it seemed that only one more step had to be taken towards the “divine whole”. In fact by August 1935 Sri Aurobindo had started mentioning that he was “very near” to take “complete possession of the supramental.”[15]

This definitely marked a landmark stage in his yoga-tapasya, though on his part it was an admission in a “human” way,—if we are to put it so. Sri Aurobindo’s invocation to the Bride of Fire, dated 11 November 1935, shows his confident readiness to measure up to the demands of her clasp. This fiery power could now enter into his being and fill his heart with her ecstatic radiances. The sun-bright Ganges in her impetuosity could course through his entire being:

Bride of the Fire, clasp me now close,—

Bride of the Fire!

I have shed the bloom of the earthly rose,

I have slain desire.

Beauty of the Light, surround my life,—

Beauty of the Light!

I have sacrificed longing and parted from grief,

I can bear thy delight.

Image of ecstasy, thrill and enlace,—

Image of bliss!

I would see only thy marvellous face,

Feel only thy kiss.

Voice of Infinity, sound in my heart,—

Call of the One!

Stamp there thy radiance, never to part,

O living Sun.[16]

And by October 1939 we get the following picture after his sailing the vast golden ocean:

The Light that was still around me

When I came back to earth

Bringing the Immortal’s knowledge

Into man’s cave of birth.[17]

Did anyone ever bring back to this transient and sorrowful life, to “man’s cave of birth”, to the thick waters of this murky existence, anything after having sailed to the heavenward-ascending sea of golden effulgence? To the Buddhist all life is pain and suffering and distress, primarily because of man’s ignorant cravings and a thousand wants in the pursuit of the futile. For him the only way out of this duhkha-filled mortality is to follow the Eightfold Path because, pragmatically, there is no way by which all that is here can be redeemed. The Large Boat can ferry to the shore of the Void or the indefinable Shunya, but what it brings back is just its calm iconic image. This is a solution no doubt, to escape from harshness of the day or from grim suffocation of the night. However, it has only a one-way validity and hence cannot be integrally satisfying or fulfilling. In it the life-urges remain unattended; perhaps neither can anyone rest peacefully in the blank of the Self. In contrast to this, for the Adwaitin of the Illusionist brand there is no question of bringing back anything when, with the appearance of knowledge, this illusory world itself,—which is after all a product of the ignorance of the Self,—disappears. For the ecstatic Vaishnava this whole creation is nothing but God’s unceasing Play or līlā and indeed there is no issue to bother us. In the case of the Shakta, all is the will and working of the supreme Shakti herself and the aim of his practices is to live in identification of that will and working of hers. By himself becoming that divinity does he worship the divinity of his adoration. The Upanishadic seer yearned to cross the Gates of the Sun and attain immortality in its triple splendour, or else he desired to merge in the supreme Being. The entire I-ness is dissolved, the name and the form,—as does a river flowing into the vastness of the ocean loses its distinctness. Even if we are to go to the World of pure Idea, whose bright projections we could here be, there is no mechanism by which its warm breathing realities in their pristine truthfulness and glory could be brought down upon the earth. The Vedic Rishi invoked the Immortal in the mortal, and asked for children and cattle and horses, and spiritual abundances, and by his tapasya won them also; for the performance of his truth-bearing sacrifices he longed to live for a hundred autumns, jīvém śaradah śatam, and we may even say that demandingly he longed to live in its joyous culmination, in fruitful felicity, prajāvata saubhagam, as his  rightful reward. But

O soul, it is too early to rejoice!

Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the Self,

Thou hast leaped into a glad divine abyss;

But where hast thou thrown self’s mission and self’s power?

On what dead bank on the Eternal’s road?

One was within thee who was self and world,

What hast thou done for his purpose in the stars?

Escape brings not the victory and the crown!

Something thou cam’st to do from the Unknown,

But nothing is finished and the world goes on,

Because only half God’s cosmic work is done.

Only the everlasting No has neared...[18]

In the entire chronicle of the spiritual achievements and spiritual triumphs what is accomplished is only “half God’s cosmic work”. Sri Aurobindo wrote these lines in around 1942 and saw that “man’s cave of birth” had, all through, remained unlit. At the best, what was occasionally seen projected on its wall were only bright shadows of the far-glimpsed Beyond. But when the Master-Yogi comes back with the Light of that Beyond with him, bringing it to the very physical, then it is for the first time that we witness the possibility of this cave becoming a place of habitation for that Light itself. We begin to see a new beginning. He has brought for the first time to this cave the “Immortal’s knowledge”[19] which alone can usher in the divinity in its splendour, unattenuated even by the thick material darkness. The Vedic Immortal in the mortal has transformed that mortality into its own kind, not in the far-glimpsed Beyond but here, in the depths of the earthly night. His yoga-tapasya of twenty-five years in this “cave of tapasya” has borne “fruitful felicity”.

We may then say that, Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga of Physical Transformation proper got on to its first start in 1935 with the God, who He is, labouring ceaselessly, day and night.

The Mother in her talk dated 10 October 1956 speaks of the élite of humanity and tells about the descent of Supermind in Sri Aurobindo, the descent that took place “long ago". It is as follows:

What Sri Aurobindo promised and what naturally interests us… is that the time has come when some beings among the élite of humanity, who fulfil the conditions necessary for spirtualisation, will be able to transform their bodies with the help of the supramental Force, Consciousness and Light, so as no longer to be animal-men but become supermen. This promise Sri Aurobindo had made and he based it on the knowledge he had that the supramental Force was on the point of manifesting on the earth. In fact it had descended in him long ago, he knew it and knew what its effects were.[20]

When a pointed question was put to the Mother in 1954 about that “long ago”, her reply was immediate, immediate with the least hesitation in it, leaving no room for divers interpretations:

Even in 1938 I used to see the Supermind descending into Sri Aurobindo. What he could not do at that time was to fix it here.[21]

Fixing it here would have meant a totally different course of yoga-tapasya, it moving swiftly and unhampered by the slothful contingencies of the terrestrial nature. Indeed, that would have meant neither the accident to the thigh of his right leg at the early hour on 24 November 1938, nor his passing away on 5 December 1950. But these did happen. Which only means that the problem of a decisive transformation of the body had yet to be fully weighed up, examined. More specifically speaking, the descending supermind had yet to be fixed in him, in his physical. "The Supermind was established in Sri Aurobindo, but it had not transformed his body… The supramental Force was there up to the subtle-physical…"[22] As regards the descent of Supermind in the physical, the Mother tells the following: "The supermind had descended long ago—very long ago—into the mind and even into the vital: it was working in the physical also but through those intermediaries. The question was about the direct action of the Supermind in the physical. Sri Aurobindo said it could be possible only if the physical mind received the supramental light: the physical mind was the instrument for direct action upon the most material. This physical mind receiving the supramental light Sri Aurobindo called the Mind of Light."[23] This was on 29 June  1953. Interestingly, in this revelation the Mother also gives the definition of the Mind of Light.

About the coming of the supermind and its entering into the terrestrial scheme of operations, in 1938, before the accident, there is a corroboration from Sri Aurobindo himself. It was believed at that time that the supermind would soon descend and take charge of things here. Amal Kiran who had moved to Bombay had written to that effect to Sri Aurobindo, towards the end of July, and had received from him a reply, dated 1 August 1938. Apropos of the specific query regarding a universal descent, Sri Aurobindo clarified the position as follows: "A general descent of the kind you speak of is not in view at the moment.”[24] There has to be, continues Sri Aurobindo, the “right openness” in us to receive it when it should come. From this important stipulation we can safely infer that the early descent that was taking place in him was not actually for himself, but was meant for a fuller manifestation on earth. It was certainly meant to be, eventually, of the nature of a “general descent”. The condition of the “right openness” in us was mentioned again in the context of the “dredging”-operation, in the fierce context of the opposition to its descent from the subconscient. The problem lay in the non-receptivity, in the unpreparedness of the unregenerate collectivity, lay rather deep in the slumbering physical substance, unconscious of its possibilities.

The sine qua non for a complete transformation to take place is that, at first, the supermind must manifest itself in the body-mind. This body-mind or the mind of the living matter, the very cells of the body must receive the supermind in them, in the body, and fix it in it. In fact, after the intended passing away of Sri Aurobindo this was exactly what was going on in the physical of the Mother. But the prior condition for the supermind’s descent to become permanent in the physical is that, the physical’s mental must get fully psychisised. It is actually the psychic quality, the psychic stuff, which gives immortality to things in the evolutionary world and therefore the psychic transformation of the physical has to precede any further progress towards the completer transformation. Going one step further, unless physicalisation of the psychic occurs, unless this groundwork is kept fully ready, there is no question of the higher supramental transformation occurring. That would be metaphysically as well as occult-spiritually wrong. Sri Aurobindo, rather the Mother, had called the physical mind receiving the supermind as the Mind of Light. Establishing the Mind of Light is therefore the prerequisite for the work of transformation proper to commence. Without this prerequisite the attempt would be a failure.

Did Sri Aurobindo fulfil this condition, of establishing the Mind of Light first in him? This may sound a strange question, but we can definitely assert that in the late thirties, in the wake of the God’s Labour, it started getting fulfilled.

On 30 January 1972 the Mother spoke the following: "Sri Aurobindo… embodied… in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it."[25] But let us see how it had proceeded.

In July 1938 the Yogi-Poet had an assignation with the primordial Night, the Night of Creation. He went to meet her, carrying “God’s deathless light”[26] in his breast. He was aware that this was going to be a very bold and dangerous rendezvous; it was going to be an exceptional and most decisive affair, fraught with possibilities. His fate and hence the fate of the world remained locked in them, in the possibility leading towards earthly deathlessness. So, he the pilgrim-soul made an assignation with the Night. But what was the outcome of that bold and dangerous rendezvous? What had actually transpired in the course of the meeting? But apart from dropping some broad hints, no communiqué was issued. If at all, it seemed that the way was lost and that there was no end to the “weary journeying”[27]. Yet there was hope, there was conviction and certitude that the outcome was going to be a path leading towards immortality. There was the inalienable freedom, and the Yogi-Poet lived in the Spirit’s calm, and was in possession of the vast immobile bliss of the Being. Soon his rooms would get lit up with an endless Light, and rapture would be coursing through his nerves, and through every cell of his body. In a mute blaze of ecstasy, and preserving the “living sense of the Imperishable”[28], even in the bodily existence, he would proceed towards his goal. That was great indeed, marvellous. If the bodily existence was set ablaze in this way, it meant that there was the wonderful realisation or the siddhi of the Mind of Light in him, that the physical had started receiving the supramental. Sri Aurobindo had definitely moved towards it, a remarkable event, a landmark event in the evolutionary sequence. It is said that Pythagoras had a thigh of gold, and that Vamadeva, after crossing the hundredth year, lived in a golden body for sixteen full years. Something golden had happened in that far past, but now the Mind of Light has made the body its permanent base, permanent home.

In his sonnet The Golden Light we have a very clear statement of this most extraordinary siddhi of the Mind of Light achieved by Sri Aurobindo.[29] It is in that that he worked for the last dozen years or so, pursuing the immortal lines of Infinity, compelling it to take earthward turn.

The sonnet was first written on 8 August 1938,—just one week after his explicatory letter to Amal Kiran mentioned above, regarding the “general descent” which was not in view at that instant of time. The sonnet was later revised on 3 March 1944. The revisions are of a few minor verbal type but for our purpose, as far as the essential substance is concerned, it has remained intact.

A collection of forty-eight poems mainly consisting of sonnets, among the very last ones written by Sri Aurobindo, was brought out in 1952 under the title Last Poems.[30] The happy cherished and beautiful merit of this collection is that we have also on parallel pages the facsimile-reproductions of the originals. The Golden Light has both the dates on it and is therefore the revised version in this collection; there is unfortunately a misreading in the second line of the printed transcription,—“rooms” has been read as “worms”! But this collection is most valuable, in the sense that it makes an excellent Record of Yoga for the period 1937-1944. About his spiritual realisations of the time the hints Sri Aurobindo the Yogi has given, this is the only documented source available to us and is therefore exceptionally precious. As far as his autobiographical work with all the luminous light of the sun in it is concerned, we have his magnum opus Savitri,—the epic which embraces all the siddhis achieved by him, achieved up to 15 November 1950 when around that time he had formally stopped working on it: Savitri is the most complete Record of Yoga of his yoga-tapasya—and also of the Mother's up to that point—done by him here for the physical transformation of the world. But the explicit statement in The Golden Light has another expressiveness in the depths of its direct revelation made by him:

Thy golden Light came down into my brain

And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became

A bright reply to Wisdom’s occult plane,

A calm illumination and a flame.

Thy golden Light came down into my throat,

And all my speech is now a tune divine,

A paean song of thee my single note;

My words are drunk with the Immortal’s wine.

Thy golden Light came down into my heart

Smiting my life with Thy eternity;

Now has it grown a temple where Thou art

And all its passions point towards only Thee.

Thy golden Light came down into my feet:

My earth is now thy playfield and thy seat.[31]

The last line of the earlier draft was

The earth is now thy playfield, O my sweet

in which the significant change from “The earth” of 1938 to “My earth” of 1944 bears the specificity of achievement in his physical body. If the golden Light of the one whom he had earlier apotheosised as “O my sweet” in the first draft has come down into his brain and throat and heart and feet, illustratively representing “my earth”, then we can surely recognise the body-mind opening to the supramental: here is the most definite statement of the experience of the Mind of Light Sri Aurobindo had, about which the Mother spoke later that the supramental had descended in him “long ago”[32].

This must be considered as the first beginning of the process of physical transformation which he had received as a birthday gift a week in advance, before 15 August in 1938. He has now offered his entire physical being to the invading deity and made it a temple for her permanent residence. Supramental Light and Consciousness and Force of that deity, breathing and living and luminous, have appeared dynamically and giftedly and splendidly upon the earth’s playfield.

References