Choose one thing to touch: a cloth, a stone, a leaf, the rim of a cup. Or nothing but your own hand: a fingertip resting on your palm.
A firm touch, then lighter, then barely there, then not touching at all, and only its memory left. The silence of the skin held. Then back, until the touch is firm again.
any length →खthe touch widening through the airDūr · wideningThe fingertip on the cloth. The clothes on the body, the ground under you, the air on your skin, the air of the room, the wind over the land. Then no edge. Then back, to the fingertip.
any length →गthe touches inside the bodyBhītar · withinThe breath touching the nostrils, cool in, warm out. The throat. The chest rising under the clothes. The pulse, felt and not heard. Then a feeling, and in it, silence. Then back out.
any length →घlighter, wide, home, within, homeYātrā · the whole journeyLighter until only the memory of the touch is left, then wide through the air until there is no edge, and silence. Back, closer and closer, to the firm touch. Then inward to the pulse and its depth. Then back, to where you began.
a quiet hour →Where this comes from
This is the journey of Nādamaya with a touch instead of a sound, made at Jyotirgana from Arjun's own description. Its widening goes through the air, because that is where Sri Aurobindo places touch. This form is ours.
It has not been tested. We claim no result from it.
Sri Aurobindo, reading Gītā 7.8 and 9 in his Essays on the Gita:
“I am taste in the waters, sound in ether, scent in earth, energy of light in fire,” and, it may be added for more completeness, touch or contact in air.Essays on the Gita, CWSA 19, p. 272
Sri Aurobindo, in A System of National Education (1910), on how a teacher helps a child to know a flower:
His touch should assure itself of the texture and its peculiarities.Early Cultural Writings, CWSA 1, p. 404
sarvasrotonibandhena prāṇaśaktyordhvayā śanaiḥ |
pipīlasparśavelāyām prathate paramaṃ sukham || 67 ||
All the senses' streams held, the breath rising slowly: at the moment of a touch like creeping ants, the highest joy spreads.
In an old book of such practices, the smallest touch is a door.
Vijñāna Bhairava 67, in the text of GRETIL (Göttingen), in Roman letters as it is given there. The translation is ours.