A scent, widened until there is no edge, and back

1. Hold the fragrance close. Breathe it in until you know it. Touch.
2. Feel its scent filling the room. Touch.
3. The courtyard. Touch.
4. The village. Touch.
5. The whole earth, scented. Touch.
6. Wider, until there is no edge between the scent and the one who smells it. Stay in it.
7. When it is silence, hold, and stay.
8. When you are ready, hold again. Back through the earth, the village, the courtyard, the room. Touch as each comes back.
9. The flower in your hand. You are back.

• The way back is always one hold away, or the button at the top: it never leaves you in the middle.
• Eyes may stay open.
• If a scent brings something heavy with it, open your eyes, put it away, and choose another.
• No smoke or incense if your chest is weak or you cough. A flower, a leaf or a drop of attar is enough.
• If a scent makes you sneeze or gives you a headache, stop. Nothing is gained by pushing.

Sri Aurobindo, to someone afraid of the emptiness that came in concentration:

Consciousness is not dissolved; it is the limits of the consciousness that are dissolved.

Letters on Yoga III, CWSA 30, p. 276

This is the journey of Nādamaya with a scent instead of a sound, made at Jyotirgana from Arjun's own description. The old texts give smell no journey of its own: in them, smell is the image the sound practice reaches for. This form is ours.

It has not been tested. We claim no result from it.

the paper →

The Mother, on psychic education, writing for the Ashram's Bulletin in February 1952:

Then you decentralise, extend and widen yourself; you begin to live in all things and in all beings; the barriers separating individuals from each other break down.

On Education, CWM 12, p. 33

पुण्यो गन्धः पृथिव्यां च तेजश्चास्मि विभावसौ ।
जीवनं सर्वभूतेषु तपश्चास्मि तपस्विषु ॥

I am the pure fragrance in the earth and the brilliance in fire; the life in all beings, and the austerity in those who practise it.

Krishna speaks. The widening goes through the earth, where the fragrance is His.

मकरन्दं पिबन्भृङ्गो गन्धान्नापेक्षते तथा ।
नादासक्तं सदा चित्तं विषयं न हि काङ्क्षति ॥

As the bee drinking nectar does not care for the scent, so the mind ever held by the sound does not crave the objects of sense.

The scent is where the bee begins; the nectar is where it stays.

Bhagavad Gītā 7.9 and the Nāda Bindu Upaniṣad 42, in the text of sanskritdocuments.org. The translations are ours.