The answer is obviously yes, but recently after the pandemic episode, my inner life has been disrupted to some extent because of the amount of falsehood and the confusion in human society that has happened. I have had to reset everything and that is what I’m doing right now. 

I had gone through an awakening during my late college years in 1992 – 98 when my father passed away and during that time, I wrote a lot of things which I later compiled into the book called Something Divine which is my document of my own connection with my psychic being. At that time of course I didn’t know what is the psychic being and so on, but during a particular phase of the awakening process, I definitely felt that Sri Aurobindo or the ninth avatar or the Vibhuti of Lord Krishna (because that is all that Sri Aurobindo represents) had taken over my consciousness completely and I was writing from a different dimension. So there are some poems in the book which will hopefully guide the reader to experience that feeling because I wrote it in that state of mind. 

Over the years I think my psychic connection happened very strongly and then it did not withdraw completely but it stays in a certain place, but it is not exactly a place because it is also depends on a certain time. For example right now in the early morning time I meditate, I have my practice, and this is the time I feel very connected. Recently after the pandemic episode, one has been a little shaken but the interesting thing is when I put Sri Aurobindo, the mother and Thea’s writings all together, then I find this body of knowledge and this is so interesting that I find random things on the internet and suddenly the answer comes for everything, for whatever it represents. It is difficult to put it in words, to say what the connection with the psychic being really means, but here is one random sentence that I am quoting. Of course I know that the quoting cannot capture the entire process but that is how I perceive the psychic being. I don’t look at the form itself, it is the feeling, and it is the state of being in a certain way and once we are like that, we are connected, then the outer form whether it is a poem or a book or a movie or a person or an event simply happens and I cannot rationally explain how, it is just like automatic. The source of being cannot be conceived, only objects are conceived. While the subject remains finer than mist, stop searching for what cannot be found and instead realize that one’s inherent nature is that of the source itself. 

So when Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri, “In matter shall be lit the spirit’s glow”, I can easily say that in matter has already been lit the spirit’s glow. So there are many, many people who are experiencing things and the outer form can take anything, like there was a friend in Canada who had gone through an accident and he could understand, he related to me and I remember having that conversation and he said like suddenly time became slow, like everything was happening in slow motion. “I could see myself falling from the bike and then the shattered glass pieces slowly coming into my, hitting my eyes and then suddenly I was in the hospital.” and so on.

There are other instances when very close people suddenly went through something very traumatic, they lost consciousness, they suddenly had an experience which shatters the normal life but then that whole event and process happened because the psychic was coming into the front, because after the experience the person is saying, “Wow, I didn’t know that this was the reason why I had this experience”. Now the thing is that because it is happening randomly in people’s lives at different times, often in a traumatic fashion and we are dealing with this whole energy that is coming in waves of more and more intensity, it is going to be, it is only going to intensify. 

So we don’t want to have traumatic experiences, we want to understand this in a conscious way, we want to be able to, I won’t say control, but I will say guide people to, you know, to come to a place where if you are being put in touch with your psychic being, then you know, then we know the different stages of the process and there are beautiful ways in which we can find these answers. 

I found it in one of the web pages of Auroville itself, the nine stages of awakening, which is very beautiful, and I think it is very revealing, I would say. Nine stages, yes, nine will obviously be very interesting, but I would put the number at five to seven actually, the five step process is very interesting because I take the metaphor of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, so first you do not know and you do not know that you do not know, so you are completely ignorant, then you do not know but you know that you do not know, so you ask questions, so you go and read a book, so you go to a place, you go and meet someone, so you do certain things, but you know that you are searching and seeking and you know that if you persist, then you will find, then something happens, it is very interesting, that stage I would not describe the third stage because it is very, very interesting, it is something very personal also. The fourth stage is like we know and we know that we know, right, like it is obvious, like you just scratch the surface and you will find the clue and say, oh this person is saying something that makes sense, but there are a lot of people in today’s world, you know they are PhDs or some expert in any discipline then it goes to their head, like okay I am so powerful you know, and this is the challenge that is happening in the world, suddenly people make a lot of money, they have these amazing experiences, they say, I am the one who is fully in control, and we see human nature in such a dilemma that is happening on the internet and Google algorithms giving you minute by minute updates on what all these important people are doing, makes, it is like a comedy, more than, it is really like a comedy or a circus and these days I just stay away from all that, I don’t read, I don’t watch television, I don’t go on the internet, because it is mostly the reflection of the false human separate self and only when I am feeling like something, okay, I need to know something, then I make an effort and then beautiful things happen. 

So the knowing and knowing that one knows is a very interesting stage, you are, you seem to be a butterfly, you have wings, but are you really flying? I think this is a critical thing, there are a lot of butterflies, I mean, people who have a lot of skill, a lot of knowledge, a lot of many things, but they are not flying, they are still clinging to the tree. And I find so many of them, so joining Auroville is like clinging to another tree in a way, because once you have found the Matrimandir and the banyan tree, you are like, okay, this is the answer. And then we realise that no, even after that you can still have a lot of doubts and questions and so on, and so I think Aurovilians or Auroville itself, there should not be a doubt that you have the psychic connection, there should not be a doubt, absolutely no, and therefore, you know, if we go about describing those experiences without even taking the name of that person, because the outer form, okay, I am so and so, it disappears into a different consciousness. And then that’s what I did find in Auroville once, like when the atmosphere is definitely there, of course, I have not been there for quite some time, so obviously, I’m sure there are some changes, or maybe there is an intensity which is there now, which was not there before. But this is the reason why I said like to organize a small informal group, which we may have a weekly chat, you know, telegram or WhatsApp or whatever. And then to keep that connection, like outer world connecting with some Aurovilians, who are, this is what I would like to look forward. 

So not only am I in touch with my psychic being, but I would like to be in touch with the people who are also in touch with their psychic being, so we can collectively come to an understanding about how we can go to the next level and actually fly. Because when you have a butterfly who is clinging to a tree and claiming that he or she has wings and etc., etc., the only answer is to give that butterfly one kick in the butt. Now you fly, you fall, and in that falling you discover your wings, but by discovering the wings you actually find the wind, and then you learn how to navigate the wind. So on one hand the caterpillar is petrified and is totally scared of the wind, he says, ‘no, no, no, I don’t want to fly’. On the other hand, after the transformation we learn and we are completely secure, although to the outer world it seems like, ‘yeah, this guy is a butterfly, he doesn’t settle, he doesn’t do anything that doesn’t make sense’. And I think this is what is happening to people who have this psychic understanding, they don’t follow, they don’t seem to follow a predictable logic, we just do things out of the joy in our heart more than anything else, and then the answers come by themselves. 

So I hope I have been able to answer the question clearly. Thank you so much.

Zafar Satyavan, 18 July 2024 – Audio transcription from received recording