The Material Image that the Body Is

Many of you who read my articles on this Research Blog have never met me physically, in Auroville or elsewhere, and couldn’t find here anything but one or two photos of me from quite a few years ago.

You may very well even not be, like me, ‘on Facebook’, where it is the normal thing to present oneself to others also through a photo, which one is supposed to renew from time to time. Not being an ace in technology, it has been quite an adventure for me to finally do it, hardly two days ago, and quite an astonishment to see the extraordinary number of persons who suddenly manifested themselves to express their joy at being presented with that very recent photo of me.

This prompted me to decide, this morning, to share it with you as well, the visitors to my Research Blog, for this seems something truly important for a somehow more real relationship between us.

So, here is this new photo:

Crédit Namah d’Auroville

It is my young friend of many years, Namah d’Auroville, my dear main colleague in the Research Team of the ‘Laboratory of Evolution – Centre for Human Unity’ (LOE-CHU) who, one evening, before going back to her home at the end of a visit to mine, has kindly accepted to take impromptu the new photo of me asked for by my family in France.

It hadn’t at all been planned between us to do that, so all in this photo is only owed to a kind of synchronicity bringing together, at the right time, the right clothing, the right place, and the right photographer…!

I have found it quite interesting, while reading ‘Mother’s Agenda’, to notice that Mother, just as also Sri Aurobindo while still in his physical body, was giving some importance to external means allowing one to verify for oneself the spiritual state experienced within. This is why, for example, she wanted that always be shown to her, after a Darshan Day or another, the photos taken of herself at her balcony while giving that Darshan to the crowd – turned suddenly silent – which down below had filled up the street for this precious occasion. She compared then her inner experience of that Darshan with what was visible of it, or not, through the photo, in this way very useful, she used to say, ‘for showing the objectivity of the inner state’.

At the much lesser degree of evolution where we, the more ordinary human beings, are for the present, photos can be very useful for becoming aware of passing inner movements, just passing perhaps, but nevertheless quite real, which may have happened inside us at the time when the photo was taken, without our being conscious of them. The photo then gives us the information often unpleasant, but necessary, of one more inner progress to be realized!…

In the case of this photo though, it has been comforting for me to see that the spontaneous expression on the face and body of this ‘Bhaga’ I was discovering on the photo, wasn’t one of those unpleasant surprises.

So much so that the photo not only did go, as intended, to my family, but it even became the encouraging factor which decided me to attempt at long last the dreaded technological feat that was for me the change of my ‘profile picture’, as they say on the ‘social media’…

And now on top of that, this first success has led me to this second fantastic victory: sharing also this photo with you all, my other friends, on this Blog!

Seriously, all this is becoming almost fun… Even my cells, in spite of all the difficulties they met, didn’t allow themselves to be frightened, and taking up the challenge, they did finally discover how to unlock all those technical apparent impossibilities. Now they exult in laughing pride! Which is, by the way, excellent for health.

As you can see, everything may help one to evolve, if one doesn’t forget to do it in the right inner attitude: that of a Game!…

This Divine Game upon Earth in which, at last, thanks to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, even Matter, in our bodies to start with, is beginning to have fun, and to experience the Delight of Being, plus the Delight of Becoming again divine…