Preparing for the Miraculous

182 eleven talkshad descended long ago – very long ago – into the mind andeven into the vital; it was working in the physical also butindirectly through those intermediaries. The question wasabout the direct action of the Supermind in the physical.Sri Aurobindo said it could be possible only if the physicalmind received the supramental light: the physical mindwas the instrument for direct action upon the most material.The physical mind receiving the supramental light SriAurobindo called the Mind of Light.” 18Sri Aurobindo’s leaving the body meant a traumaticchange for the Mother in ways we cannot even try to imagine.Which human can have an idea of the relationshipbetween the embodied Ishwara and Shakti? “There are nowords which can describe the collapse that has been for it,”said the Mother later, and by “it” she meant her body. It hadbeen un coup de massue, a sledgehammer blow ... “When SriAurobindo had left, I saw that I had to cut the connectionwith the psychic being, otherwise I would have gone withhim. And as I had promised him that I would stay on anddo the work, I had to do that: I literally closed the door onthe psychic.” 19 It would take almost two decades beforeshe could venture, in 1969, to open that door again.18 K.D. Sethna: The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo, p. 105.Here again we have a glimpse of the formation of what the Motherhas called the “overman”. The supramental transformation of the physicalmind, although enormously important in itself, was still far from thetotal transformation of the body, but it was a considerable first step inthe formation of the overman, the intermediary between the human andthe supramental being. This highlights the significance of the Mother’swords spoken in 1958: “When leaving his body and entering into minehe said: ‘You will continue. You will go to the end of the work.’ ... ThenI have told my body: ‘You will realize that intermediary “more-thanhumanity”[surhumanité] between man and the supramental being’, inother words what I call the surhomme [overman]. And this is what I havebeen doing for the last eight years.” (Mother’s Agenda, vol. I, p. 160)19 Id., p. 162.