Miracles

Report No.: Y25

December 21, 1976

Existence on earth is on many planes. Men, as he is, knows only the natural, vital and mental planes. The existence of subtle physical, subtle vital, subtle mental planes is not disputed by those who seek the spirit, though their existence is beside the point for spiritual pursuit. Seekers become aware of these subtle planes because the pressure of spirit that opens up the surface life of man to the inner spirit, makes it incidentally possible.

All actions first from themselves in the subtle planes and gradually precipitate in the physical plane exactly following the rules of life and evolution. Occasionally under conditions of stress possible during periods of transition, this gradualness is replaced by an abruptness with respect to a given act. This is felt as miracle by man who is not aware of the rules of the subtle world.

Knowledge can be developed to tap these planes and mastery acquired over their functioning. That is occultism. It is well developed in parts of Asia. Those who have this mastery can initiate can perform miracles. One such from is materialization and dematerialisation. These acts are generally resorted to by men who have active access to subtle vital planes of life.

Man, having overgrown the plane of vitality, will degenerate if he is now resorting to life on the vital plane. It is a movement of regression. It may be asked, "The powers revealed are striking". Powers of the divine in the lower planes will, of course, be striking to the ordinary members in the higher plane. It can be likened either to the wealth of the smuggler or the instinct of the bee. Both are superior to the purse of the civilized man and his mental functioning. But he is superior to the bee.

Performing a miracle is a capacity. It is mostly incidental to the spiritual life which Mother and Sri Aurobindo endorse.

Performing a miracle is a capacity. It is mostly incidental to the spiritual seeker. His unregenerate vital is highly attracted by the power inherent in it. Resorting to it is fall from spirit.

It is miraculous because the capacity of one plane is seen in another plane. In its own plane it becomes common place.

There is an injunction against resorting to it in all spiritual life which Mother and Sri Aurobindo endorse. Put in common language it is like abuse of power by an official or seeking stolen pleasure for the dutiful householder. Exercise of such powers has an inherent nature that craves for repetition. That is why it is said, once in it, one is lost. Miracle mongering is the higher version of which the lower version is Black Magic.

So far for the initiate or the novice. For the realised soul there is no injunction because his soul is freed of all bondage. For his too, depending on the level of his realisation, exercise of acquired powers requires a discretion. For such soul it is left to their choice. They can perform it or not; speak against it or not; perform it as well as speak against it. Performing a miracle will offend against one's realisation only when it is done for the gratification of the yet unresolved ego. Once ego is dead there is nothing to be guarded against. Miracles may occur through his personality when earth's evolution needs it. Such occurrences are the choice from Above.

Binding oneself by the dharma of the plane of his highest realisation is the basis of all discipline. One can safely violate the dharmas of the planes he has risen above when he is called upon to do so. Performance of miracles that belong to this category is neutral. Performance of the same for gratification of any ego remainder is a violation of spiritual discipline.

Mother has performed some ‘miracles'. A few of them are unrecorded. Rest are lost. She has never countenanced miracle-worship in her children.

Some quotations are enclosed. There is no serious writing on it by them.

"The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained to do not yet know, or the names of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracle is the sign that man's account is not yet finished". - Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God (Centenary Edition, Vol.17, p.88).

"Great saints have performed miracles; greater saints have railed at them; the greatest have both railed at them and performed them". - Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God, (Cont. Vol. 17), p.88.

"A prayer, a master act, a king idea

Can link man's strength to a transcendent Force.

Then miracle is made the common rule". - Savitri, Book I, Canto II

"This is a temptation that every teacher meets at each step, for the very simple reason that ordinary humanity, in a general way, not being in personal contact with the divine powers, understands nothing of what an illumined consciousness may be and asks for material proofs. It is on this demand that most religions are established and, for reasons which I may very frankly call "potential"; they have put at the origin of their religion a more or less considerable number of miracles as having been performed by the founders, and they have thus more or less crudely encouraged among ignorant people the taste, the necessity of seeking what they call "miracles" in order to believe in the divine power of a person. This is an extraordinary ignorance, because it is not at all necessary to have a divine power or consciousness to perform miracles. It is infinitely more easy to perform miracles with the help of small entities of the vital world who are material enough to be in touch with the physical world and act upon it, than to live in the consciousness of the higher regions of and to work upon nature only through the intermediary of all the other domains. It has been repeated over and over again to all human intellects that the proof of a being's divinity is that he can raise the dead, cure maladies, and do many other things of the same kind. Well, I guarantee that this is not a proof; it proves only one thing, that these ‘Masters' are in contact with the powers of the vital world and that with the help of those beings they can perform these miracles that's all. If one relies upon that to recognize the superiority of a man, one would make a glaring mistake. Naturally, there are other religions which are established on revelations made to their founders. These revelations are more or less happy mental transcription of the knowledge they received. This is already of a higher order but it is not yet a proof. And I would finally say, the human demand for proofs is not at all favourable to one's development. Because the true divine power has organised the world according to a certain plane and in this plan there was no question of things happening in an illogical way; otherwise from the very beginning the world would have been illogical and it is nor so. Men imagine for the most part of one of two things, either that there is a material world to which they belong, that all comes from there, all returns there and all ends there - these are the unbelievers - or, the believers, most of them, that there is something which they call "God" and then the physical world, and that this physical world is the creation of that God who knows what he is doing or does what he wants; and the confusion lies in saying that everything happens by a kind of arbitrariness, natural or supernatural. There are very few people who know that there exists in the universe an infinite number of gradations and that each one of these gradations has its own reality, its own life, its own law, its own determinism, and that the creation did not come about "like that", by an arbitrary will, in an arbitrary way but is a deploying of consciousness and each thing has evolved as a logical result of the preceding one. I am telling you all this as simply as I can, you know, it is a very incomplete expression, but if I wanted to tell you the story exactly as it is, it would be a little difficult to make you understand. Only in conclusion I would like you to know.... It is this: each one of these numberless regions has its own very logical determinism everything proceeds from cause to effect, but these worlds, although differentiated, are not separate from each other an, by numerous processes which we may study, the inner or higher worlds are in constant contact with the lower or external words and act upon these, so that the determinism of one changes the determinism of the other. If you take the purely material domain, for instance, and if you notice that the material laws, the purely material laws are altered by something all of a sudden, you ought to say that it was a "miracle", because there is a repute of the determinism of one plane through the intervention of another, but usually we do not call this a miracle. For example, when the human will intervenes and changes something, that seems to you quite natural, because you have been accustomed to it from your childhood; you remember, don't you the example I gave you the other day: a stone falls according to the law of its own determinism, but you wish to interrupt its fall and you stretch out your hand and catch it; well you ought to call this a "miracle" but you don't because you are used to it. And note that it is the same for what people call a "miracle"; they speak of a "miracle" because they are absolutely ignorant, unaware of the gradation between the will which ants to express itself and the plane on which it express itself. When they have a mental or a vital will, the thing seems quite natural to them, but when it is a question of the will of a higher world- the world of the gods or of a higher entity - which all of a sudden upsets all your little organisation, that seems to you a miracle. But it is a miracle simply because you are unable to follow the gradations by which the phenomena took place. Therefore, the Supreme Will, that which comes from the very highest region, if you saw it in its logical action, if you were aware of it continually, it would seem to you altogether natural. You can express this in two ways: either say, "It is quite natural, it is the Divine Will, it is like this that things must happen", or, each time you see on the material plane on intervention coming from another plane, you ought to say, "It is miraculous". So I may say with certainly that people who want to see miracles are people who cherish their ignorance. You understand my logic, don't you? These people love their ignorance, they insist upon seeing miracles and being astounded. And that is why people who have done yoga seriously, consider it altogether fatal to encourage this tendency: hence it is forbidden.

"....If you use power to show that you possess it, becomes so full of falsehood and untruth that finally it disappears. But it is not always thus, because, as I said in the beginning, when it concerns a power like the power of healing or the power of changing an altogether external thing - of making an unfavourable circumstance, of finding lost objects, all these countless little "miracle" which are found in all religions - it is much more easy and even more effective to do these "miracles" with the help of the entities of the vital world which are not always recommendable, far from it; and then these beings make fun of you. This begins very well, very brilliantly, and usually finishes very badly!"

The Mother, Questions and Answers, 1950-51, p.73-76