Choose one fragrance: a flower (mogra, a rose, a tulsī leaf), sandal, camphor, an attar, a lime leaf crushed in the hand, the earth after rain. Choose one that belongs to the life you are walking toward.
Held at the nose, then a hand away, at arm's length, set down a few steps away, until only a trace is in the air. Its absence held. Then brought back, step by step.
any length →खthe scent widening through the earthDūr · wideningThe flower. Its scent filling the room, the courtyard, the village, the whole earth. Then wider, until there is no edge to the one who smells it. Then back through the earth to the flower.
any length →गthe scent followed inwardBhītar · withinThe scent at the nostrils, in the throat, in the chest, in the heart. Then not a scent but a feeling, and in its depth, silence. Then back out.
any length →घaway, wide, home, within, homeYātrā · the whole journeyAway until only a trace is left, then wide until there is no edge, and silence. Back, closer and closer, to the scent at your nose. Then inward to the heart and its depth. Then back, to where you began.
a quiet hour →Where this comes from
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 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.