English Translation of “Matrimandir, Merveille des Merveilles”

I know, English-speaking visitors to this blog, this post “en Francais dans le texte” has been a bad surprise for you. But it came that way, and after all it is only fair that from time to time my French-speaking visitors get their turn too!…

But now here is a translation into English for those of you who cannot read French…

———————————-

‘MM’: ‘MATRIMANDIR, OR THE WONDER OF WONDERS’

A few days ago I have spoken of “Merveille’, but now I must speak also of  the “Merveille des Merveilles”: the Matrimandir. I am just coming from there, and I feel it is the right time to speak about it.

Coming back from the Town Hall at the end of the afternoon, for once I had the time of stopping at Matrimandir and, oh happiness, it was a  part of the day when it was open to the Aurovilians; so I left my scooter at the parking with the watchman, and in my haste to be there I practically ran all the way along the beautiful paths arranged around Matrimandir, purposely passing under the brotherly branches of the Banyan Tree, the precise centre of the city; I left my bag with the Aurovilian lady on duty at the foot of the Matrimandir, I climbed full speed the steps that take you into the vast sphere, majestic and imposing like a pyramid of Egypt, but a spherical one, that would overhang upon you from all its height; I sat down on the long wall seat provided for you to carefully put on the obligatory white socks, ready in their stands; then came the slow going up the spiraling  ramp, my feet appreciating the thick white rug covering it;  I pulled open the heavy white marble door, sneaked inside while softly closing the door behind me; under the vigilant eye of the Aurovilian whose silhouette is hardly visible, discretely and silently sitting at the entrance, I give a quick glance in the half-light to the cushions still free here or there upon the large white rug covering the floor;  a rapid choice, and here I am, nicely settled down, my back comfortably resting on the extra cushion propped up against the wall, my legs with their socked feet stretched out in front of me…

The temperature is cool, almost too cool, my throat reacts by an immediate little cough, but luckily it stops at once; and I dive…

I dive into the unbelievable beauty of this place unlike any other.

It is something like the space of the soul, but miraculously materialized into this terrestrial world, into this physicality usually so thick and so heavy, but here suddenly turned diaphanous; conversely, the peace, the silence, the beauty are so intense that they become almost tangible: they form part of the very air one breathes and in which, soft and welcoming, one feels enveloped.

In this circular space with twelve facets of high walls, one lives at the same time the vastness and the profound intimacy of the soul with the Divine, the essence of Whom she shares and expresses.

The marble of the walls, the polished surface of the twelve columns that soar towards the ceiling, all shines softly wherever one’s gaze goes; but it is from the center that the veritable light comes, and it is there, irresistibly,  that one’s gaze is attracted and lingers: there sits a big crystal sphere, on the support formed by four Sri Aurobindo symbols rising vertically from the symbol of Mother that lies flat on the floor at the center.

One is as if in a world apart from the external world and yet giving to it all its contents, meaning, potential of true Light and true Love. In that silence one finds oneself anew… one’s true self, infinite and eternal, that our outer existence makes us too often forget and betray without even being aware of it.

This extraordinary place, so precious by the help it can give us better even than any church, temple or other such religious place, precisely isn’t meant for any religion and any ceremony or collective ritual imposed by a religion. This place speaks directly to the spirit in each of us, and helps our outer consciousness to come in contact again with this Spirit that in truth each of us is, from all eternity, for all eternity, even while we deliberately forget about it so as to go fully through the experience of the great Game of Evolution that is being played out presently upon Earth.

lt is not compulsory nor indispensable to go to Matrimandir, and it is not because of a sense of any duty  that one goes there, but simply if and when one feels personally the need of it. It may happen of course that some other Aurovilians are there too at that same time, but each one’s experience remains every time an individual and personal one, a moment of meeting between self and Self.

What is the characteristic difference between  the inner attitude in the traditional Yogas and the inner attitude in this Yoga of Evolution is that it is not any more about rejecting the physical world and body but about progressively transforming them into the expressions of the Spirit they were always meant to become: it is the very Purpose of this whole immense evolutive process which now is nearing its apotheosis, literally: the ‘Life Divine’ that Sri Aurobindo has revealed is coming and has made possible.

And it is in Mother’s body itself that the conditions allowing the learning of this new way of functioning have been realized, the consciousness of the very cells awakening little by little to the need of the Divine and to their own secret divine nature.

In this Inner Room of Matrimandir, which Mother saw inwardly again and again, the crystal sphere at the center with the ray of solar light penetrating it from above, had a particularly important symbolic meaning:

‘The important thing is that, it is the play of the sunlight upon the centre. For that becomes the symbol – the symbol of the future realisation.”

For a long time I wondered what Mother meant by that, and the understanding came at last  to me by reading the other passages from ‘Mother’s Agenda’, Volume XI (1970), from which this quotation also comes: during the same period of time the cellular experience Mother was having was going more and more in the direction of an effort towards transparency, a more and more complete and perfect transparency to the Truth Light now at work upon Earth, so that nothing in ourselves, be it the minuscule cells of our body, may become an obstacle to that Light or may deform its transforming action at every level of our being. It is receptivity and total transparency to that Light that we must aspire to, and it is the realisation of thist, that the crystal symbolically represents in the Inner Chamber of Matrimandir.

The understanding of this, received years ago, enabled me to add one more dimension to what the Matrimandir already meant for me.

Since then, all the work accomplished to complete its construction in the slightest inner or outer details has realized such a degree of beauty in the creative inspiration, such a  perfection in Matter, that now every time I enter again that space, I feel again that truly it is the Wonder of Wonders…