Autobiographical Notes

Draft Letters to and about Kumud Bandhu Bagchi

[1]

There are certain things that it is absolutely necessary for Kumud to realise in a sincere and straight-forward spirit, without veils and self-justifications if his sadhana is not to turn about in a constant circle to the end or else fail and fall into pieces.

First, it is necessary for him to have a truer understanding of the Yoga than he seems to have had either in the past or now. This Yoga is not turned towards renunciation of the world or an outward asceticism, but neither is its aim Bhoga, nor what the Chandernagore people call "Life-realisation" which means nothing but the satisfaction of one's own magnified vital ego. The aim is an opening to a higher Divine Truth beyond mind, life or body and the transformation of these three things into its image. But that transformation cannot take place and the Truth itself cannot be known in its own unmistakable spirit, perfect light and real body until the whole of the adhara has been fundamentally and patiently purified, and made plastic and capable of receiving what is beyond the constructions of the mind, the desires of the body and the habits of the physical consciousness and physical being.

His most obvious obstacle, one of which he has not in the least got rid of up to now, is a strongly Rajasic vital ego for which his mind finds justifications and covers. There is nothing more congenial to the vital ego than to put on the cloak of Yoga and imagine itself free, divinised, spiritualised, siddha, and all the rest of it, or advancing towards that end, when it is really doing nothing of the kind, but [is] just its old self in new forms. If one does not look at oneself with a constant sincerity and an eye of severe self-criticism, it is impossible to get out of this circle.

Along with the exclusion of self-deceiving vital ego, there must go that which accompanies it usually in the mental parts, mental arrogance, a false sense of superiority and an ostentation of knowledge. All pretence and all pretensions must be given up, all pretence to oneself or others of being what one is not,

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of knowing what one does not know and all vain idea of being higher than one's own actual spiritual stature.

Over against the vital rajasic ego there is a great coarseness and heaviness of tamas in the physical being and an absence of psychic and spiritual refinement. That must be eliminated or else it will stand always in the way of a true and complete change in the vital being and the mind.

Unless these things are radically changed, merely having experiences or establishing a temporary and precarious calmness in the mental and vital parts will not help in the end. There will be no fundamental change; only a constant going from one state to another, sometimes a quieting and sometimes a return of the disturbances, and always the same defect persisting to the end of the chapter.

The one condition for getting rid of these things is an absolute central sincerity in all the parts of the being, and that means an absolute insistence on the Truth and nothing but the Truth. There will then be a readiness for unsparing self-criticism and vigilant openness to the Light, an uneasiness when falsehood comes in, which will finally purify the whole being.

The defects mentioned are more or less common in various degrees in almost every sadhaka, though there are some who are not touched by them. They can be got rid of if the requisite sincerity is there. But if they occupy the central parts of the being and vitiate the attitude, then the sadhaka will give a constant open or covert support to them, his mind will always be ready to give disguises and justifications and try to elude the search-light of the self-critical faculty and the protest of the psychic being. That means failure of the Yoga at least for this existence.

6 February 1926

[2]

When the psychic being awakens you grow conscious of your own soul; you know your Self. And you no longer commit the mistake of identifying yourself with the mental or with the vital being. You do not mistake them for the soul.

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When awakened, the psychic being gives true Bhakti for God or for the Guru. That Bhakti is quite different from mental or vital Bhakti.

In the mind one may have a strong admiration or appreciation for the intellectual or spiritual greatness of the Guru,—follow him and mentally accept his dictates. But if it is merely mental, that does not carry you very far. Of course, there is no harm in having that also. But by itself it does not open the whole of the inner being; it only establishes a mental contact.

The vital Bhakti demands and demands. It imposes its own conditions. It surrenders itself to God, but conditionally. It says to God, "You are so great," "I worship you,"—"and now you must satisfy this desire of mine or that ambition"; "make me great; make me a great sadhaka, a great yogin" etc.

The unillumined mind also surrenders to the Truth, but makes its own conditions. It says to the Truth, "Satisfy my judgment, and my opinion"; it demands the Truth to cast itself in the mind's own forms.

The vital being also insists on the Truth throwing itself into its own vital movement of force. The vital being pulls at the Higher Power and pulls and pulls at the vital being of the Guru.

Both of them (the mental and the vital) have got an arrière pensée (mental reservation) in their surrender.

Psychic Bhakti is not like that. Because it is in communication with the Divinity behind, it is capable of true Bhakti. Psychic Bhakti does not make any demand, it makes no reservations. It is satisfied with its own existence. The psychic being knows how to obey the Truth in the right way. It gives itself up truly to God or the Guru, and because it can give itself up truly, therefore it can also receive truly.

When the psychic being comes to the surface it feels sad if it sees that the mental or the vital being is making a fool of itself. That sadness is purity offended.

When the mind is playing its own game, or when the vital being is carried away by its impulses, it is the psychic being which says, "I don't want these things." "What am I here for after all?" "I am here for the Truth; I am not here for these things."

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The psychic sadness is a quite different thing from mental dissatisfaction or vital sadness or physical depression.

If the psychic being is strong, it makes itself felt on the mental or the vital being, and forces them to change. But if it is weak, the other parts take advantage of it and use the psychic for their own advantage.

In some cases it comes up to the surface and upsets the mental and the vital being and throws all their settled arrangements and habits into disorder, pressing for a new and divine order. But if the mind or the vital being is stronger than the psychic then it casts only an occasional influence and gradually retires behind. All its cry is in the wilderness; and the mental or the vital being goes on in its own round.

Lastly, the psychic being refuses to be deceived by appearances. It is not carried away by falsehood. It refuses to be oppressed by falsehood—nor does it exaggerate the Truth. For example, even if everything around says, "There is no God", the psychic being refuses to believe in it. It says,—"I know" and "I know because I feel."

And because it knows the thing behind, it is not deceived by appearances. It immediately feels the force.

Also, when the psychic being is awakened, it throws out all the dross from the emotional being and makes it free from sentimentalism or the lower play of emotionalism.

But it does not carry in it the dryness of the mind or the exaggeration of the vital feelings. It gives the just touch to each emotion.

23 March 1926

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