Let us learn to be silent so that the Lord may make use of us. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/19-december-1971#p1,p2</ref></centre>
=References=
=Experiences Through Stillness=
==Experience of the Divine Shakti==
As the mind progresses in purity, capacity of stillness or freedom from absorption in its own limited action, it becomes aware of and is able to reflect, bring into itself or enter into the conscious presence of the Self, the supreme and universal Spirit, and it becomes aware too of grades and powers of the spirit higher than its own highest ranges. It becomes aware of an infinite of the consciousness of being, an infinite ocean of all the power and energy of illimitable consciousness, an infinite ocean of Ananda, of the self-moved delight of existence.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-divine-shakti#p10</ref>
==What is it in the Psychic?==
But if even for five minutes the body falls into the state of inertia—stillness without aspiration—it's woken up by an anguish as if it were about to die! To that point, you understand. For it, stillness is... Yes, it feels that the highest vibration, the vibration of the true Consciousness, is SO INTENSE that it's... it's the equivalent of the inertia of stillness—with an intensity that's not perceptible (for us). That intensity is so great that, for us, it's the equivalent of inertia. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/october-18-1969#p72</ref>
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By itself the psychic being at a certain stage might be content to create a formation of truth, good and beauty and make that its station; at a farther stage it might become passively subject to the world-self, a mirror of the universal existence, consciousness, power, delight, but not their full participant or possessor.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-double-soul-in-man#p11</ref>
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...the psychic being came into Nature from the Self, the Divine, and it can turn back from Nature to the silent Divine through the silence of the Self and a supreme spiritual immobility.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-double-soul-in-man#p11</ref>
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The two main members of its physical discipline, to which the others are mere accessories, are āsana, the habituating of the body to certain attitudes of immobility, and ''prāṇāyāma'', the regulated direction and arrestation by exercises of breathing of the vital currents of energy in the body. The physical being is the instrument; but the physical being is made up of two elements, the physical and the vital, the body which is the apparent instrument and the basis, and the life energy, ''prāṇa'', which is the power and the real instrument. Both of these instruments are now our masters.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/hathayoga#p5</ref>
==What is it at a Universal Level?==
The passive consciousness of Brahman and its active consciousness are not two different, conflicting and incompatible things; they are the same consciousness, the same energy, at one end in a state of self-reservation, at the other cast into a motion of self-giving and self-deploying, like the stillness of a reservoir and the coursing of the channels which flow from it. In fact, behind every activity there is and must be a passive power of being from which it arises, by which it is supported, which even, we see in the end, governs it from behind without being totally identified with it
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-origin-of-the-ignorance#p8</ref>
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After perfect stillness, there is the movement of inner aspiration (…), the surrender, that is to say, the SPONTANEOUS AND TOTAL acceptance of the supreme Will (…). Does the total Will want things to go this way or that way, that is, towards the disintegration of certain elements or towards...? And then again, there are endless nuances: there is the passage from one height to another (…), I mean that you have a certain inner equilibrium, an equilibrium of movement, of life, and it's understood that in order to go from one movement to a higher movement, there is almost always a descent, then a new ascent—there is a transition. So does the shock received impel you to go down in order to climb up again, or does it impel you do go down in order to abandon old movements? Because there are cellular ways of being that have to disappear in order to give way to others; there are others that climb down in order to climb up again with a higher harmony and organization. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/march-24-1965#p38</ref>
==The Ascent==
That's what it has managed to get: a complete stillness and an INTENSE aspiration. And it's when stillness is left without aspiration that it falls into a dreadful anguish which instantly wakes it up. That's it, you understand: an INTENSE aspiration. And it's absolutely still, still within, as if all the cells grew still.... That must be it: what we call intense aspiration must be the supramental vibration. It must be the divine Vibration, the true divine vibration,
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/october-18-1969#p71</ref>
There are two movements that are necessary—one is the ascent through the increasing of peace and silence to its source above the mind,—that is indicated by the tendency of the consciousness to rise out of the body to the top of the head and above where it is easy to realise the Self in all its stillness and liberation and wideness and to open to the other powers of the Higher Consciousness
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/ascent-and-descent#p16</ref>
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It is the repeated and constant ascent of the lower consciousness that enables the mind, the vital, the physical to come into touch with the higher planes up to the supramental and get impregnated with their light and power and influence.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
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The movement of ascension has different results: it may liberate the consciousness so that one feels no longer in the body, but above it or else spread in wideness with the body either almost non-existent or only a point in one's free expanse. It may enable the being or some part of the being to go out from the body and move elsewhere, and this action is usually accompanied by some kind of partial ''samādhi'' or else a complete trance.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
==The Descent==
The other is the descent of the peace, silence, the spiritual freedom and wideness and the powers of the higher consciousness as they develop into the lower down to the most physical and even the subconscient.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/ascent-and-descent#p16</ref>
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This is indeed an ordinary process of the Yogic path of knowledge; but the same end can be brought about or automatically happen by other processes—
for instance, by the descent from above of a great spiritual stillness imposing silence on the mind and heart, on the life stimuli, on the physical reflexes. A sudden descent of this kind or a series of descents accumulative in force and efficacy is a well-known phenomenon of spiritual experience.
Or again one may start a mental process of one kind or another for the purpose which would normally mean a long labour and yet may pull down or be seized midway, or even at the outset, by an overmind influx, a rapid intervention or manifestation of the higher Silence, with an effect sudden, instantaneous, out of all proportion to the means used at the beginning.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/philosophical-thought-and-yoga#p15</ref>
===Feelings and Sensations in the Process of Descent===
...as often happens the Force is preparing its own reception and habituating the body to the descent. Having done that sufficiently it is coming down as a massive peace. The higher consciousness in its descent takes several fundamental forms—peace, power and strength, light, knowledge, Ananda. Usually it is the peace that descends first. This is not a mental, vital or physical peace of the ordinary kind, but something from above (spiritual), very firm, solid and concrete. It is its concreteness that makes you feel like a still massive block—a mass of the higher consciousness in place of the more tenuous substance of the ordinary nature
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/oneness#p6</ref>
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One must be careful not to confuse the two.The peace (''śama'') is the pure form, tamas is its degraded or perverted form—just as rajas is the degraded or perverse form of Tapas. When there is the transformation, tamas can be got rid of—but till then there is always a possibility of its mixing with the peace or stillness so long as that is not perfect and all-pervading.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-sankhya-yoga-system#p44</ref>
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The state now is such that when the body FEELS ITSELF (feels itself, that is to say, is aware of being a body), INSTANTLY there's a discomfort, whatever the condition. Even when it feels in a state of adoration or aspiration or... it's accompanied by discomfort. And only when there's no more awareness at all of its separate existence does it feel comfortable.
So then, the normal state is silence, stillness, but... (the image isn't correct—how can I explain?), you see, the Presence, it's not that it flows through, but when it radiates like this (''gesture''), radiates through an activity, then everything is fine and there's no more at all the sensation of "this [the body] through which": this through which the Divine flows—there isn't.
It's like this (''immutable gesture''), still and nonexistent, without any self-awareness, aware only of... the Divine Action, like that. Then everything is fine. And the minute there's even a slight impression of the Thing flowing "through," discomfort comes. You understand, it has become a very acute state.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/october-25-1969#p102</ref>
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And it is the repeated and constant descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force that is the means for the transformation of the whole being and the whole nature. Once this descent becomes habitual, the Divine Force, the Power of the Mother begins to work, no longer from above only or from behind the veil, but consciously in the Adhara itself, and deals with its difficulties and possibilities and carries on the Yoga.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
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So too at first soul in man does not appear as something quite distinct from mind and from mentalised life; its movements are involved in the mind movements, its operations seem to be mental and emotional activities; the mental human being is not aware of a soul in him standing back from the mind and life and body, detaching itself, seeing and controlling and moulding their action and formation: but, as the inner evolution proceeds, this is precisely what can, must and does happen,—it is the long-delayed but inevitable next step in our evolutionary destiny.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-evolution-of-the-spiritual-man#p6</ref>
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For supramental Love brings an active ecstasy that surpasses the void passive peace and stillness which is the heaven of the liberated Mind and does not betray the deeper greater calm which is the beginning of the supramental silence.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p15</ref>
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There can be a decisive emergence in which the being separates itself from thought and sees itself in an inner silence as the spirit in mind, or separates itself from the life movements, desires, sensations, kinetic impulses and is aware of itself as the spirit supporting life, or separates itself from the body sense and knows itself as a spirit ensouling Matter: this is the discovery of ourselves as the Purusha, a mental being or a life-soul or a subtle self supporting the body.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-evolution-of-the-spiritual-man#p6</ref>
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...with training one can arrive at a point when one remains outwardly conscious and yet lives in the inner being and has at will the indrawn or the out-poured condition; you can then have the same dense immobility and the same inpouring of a greater and purer consciousness in the waking state as in that which you erroneously call sleep. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/inner-experiences-in-the-state-of-samadhi#p29</ref>
==The Challenges one might Experience==
=== In Ascent ===
For the mystic's experience of mind, especially when it falls still, is not that of an abstract condition or impalpable activity of the consciousness; it is rather an experience of a substance—an extended subtle substance in which there can be and are waves, currents, vibrations not physically material but still as definite, as perceptible, as tangible and controllable by an inner sense as any movement of material energy or substance by the physical senses.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/philosophical-thought-and-yoga#p17</ref>
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There is a sense of going in or deep down, a feeling of the movement towards inner depths; there is often a stillness, a pleasant numbness, a stiffness of the limbs. This is the sign of the consciousness retiring from the body inwards under the pressure of a force from above,—that pressure stabilising the body into an immobile support of the inner life, in a kind of strong and still spontaneous āsana.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
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...a spontaneous uprush of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, Or it may result in empowering the consciousness, no longer limited by the body and the habits of the external nature, to go within, to enter the inner mental depths, the inner vital, the inner (subtle) physical, the psychic, to become aware of its inmost psychic self or its inner mental, vital and subtle physical being and, it may be, to move and live in the domains, the planes, the worlds that correspond to these parts of the nature.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
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A quietude and stillness is imposed on the body, on the active life-soul of desire and ego, on the external mind, while the satwic nature by stress of meditation, by an exclusive concentration of adoration, by a will turned inward to the Supreme, strives to merge itself in the spirit.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-liberation-of-the-nature#p6</ref>
===The Descent===
By the descent the inertia changes its character. It ceases to be a resistance of the physical and becomes only a physical condition to be transformed into the true basic immobility and rest.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/difficulties-experienced-in-the-process-of-descent#p28</ref>
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...the psychic transformation is one necessary condition of the total transformation of our existence, it is not all that is needed for the largest spiritual change.
the Force is preparing its own reception and habituating the body to the descent. Having done that sufficiently it is coming down as a massive peace.
The higher consciousness in its descent takes several fundamental forms—peace, power and strength, light, knowledge, Ananda.
Usually it is the peace that descends first. This is not a mental, vital or physical peace of the ordinary kind, but something from above (spiritual), very firm, solid and concrete. It is its concreteness that makes you feel like a still massive block—a mass of the higher consciousness in place of the more tenuous substance of the ordinary nature.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-descent-of-the-higher-consciousness-and-force#p16</ref>
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The descent whether of peace or force or light or knowledge or Ananda must the whole inner being down to the inner physical. Without that how is the outer to be transformed at all? It is an amazing idea to suppose that the outer can be changed while the inner is left to itself. What you had in the inner being was a static stillness which did not even entirely occupy the inner physical except at times—that was why the dynamic descent was necessary, but in the inner being or if possible the whole being, the inner outflowing into the outer, not in the outer being to the exclusion of the inner.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/ascent-and-descent#p12</ref>
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...descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body. This descent is felt as a pouring in of calm and peace, of force and power, of light, of joy and ecstasy, of wideness and freedom and knowledge, of a Divine Being or a Presence—sometimes one of these, sometimes several of them or all together. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
The descents that stiffen the body into a concentrated stillness the first touch of something at the end of which is the presence of the Divine. He is not impatient; he is rather careful not to disturb the evolution that is beginning. Certainly, some sadhaks have strong and decisive experiences at the beginning, but these are followed by a long labour in which there are many empty periods and many periods of struggle.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-value-of-experiences#p8</ref>
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The feeling of stoniness is very usually a first impression in the body of the stillness in the cells which comes with the downflow of the Peace.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/feelings-and-sensations-in-the-process-of-descent#p37</ref>
Quiet, quiet and more quiet, calm strength, calm gladness are what are needed in mind and nerves and body as a basis for the siddhi—precisely because the Force, the Light, the Ananda that come down are extremely intense and need a great stillness in the being to bear and support them.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-descent-of-the-higher-powers#p10</ref>
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The Force is preparing its own reception and habituating the body to the descent. Having done that sufficiently it is coming down as a massive peace. The higher consciousness in its descent takes several fundamental forms—peace, power and strength, light, knowledge, Ananda. Usually it is the peace that descends first. This is not a mental, vital or physical peace of the ordinary kind, but something from above (spiritual), very firm, solid and concrete. It is its concreteness that makes you feel like a still massive block—a mass of the higher consciousness in place of the more tenuous substance of the ordinary nature.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-descent-of-the-higher-consciousness-and-force#p16</ref>
==How The Mother Works in the Adhara?==
It is the repeated and constant descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force that is the means for the transformation of the whole being and the whole nature. Once this descent becomes habitual, the Divine Force, the Power of the Mother begins to work, no longer from above only or from behind the veil, but consciously in the Adhara itself, and deals with its difficulties and possibilities and carries on the Yoga.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
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In our Yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous uprush of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete
motion.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p14</ref>
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...the psychic bhakti, the true vital love are the real moving forces. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/divine-love-psychic-love-and-human-love#p34</ref>
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Bliss The gain of this culmination in a universal and equal rapture is the soul's delight and the opening gates of the Bliss that is infinite, the Joy that surpasses all understanding.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/equality-and-the-annihilation-of-ego#p10</ref>
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Always what your inner being has asked is Love, Bhakti, Ananda and whenever it comes to the surface it is, even if only in a first elementary form, the divine love which it brings with it. A basis of deep and intense calm and stillness, a great intensity of emotion and Bhakti, an inrush of Ananda, this is in these moments your repeated experience.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/divine-love-psychic-love-and-human-love#p34</ref>
=The Mother’s Own Experiences=