Sri Aurobindo's letters between 1927 and 1950 on his life, his path of yoga and the practice of yoga in his ashram.
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Sri Aurobindo's letters between 1927 and 1950 on his life, his path of yoga and the practice of yoga in his ashram. In these letters, Sri Aurobindo writes about his life as a student in England, a teacher in Baroda, a political leader in Bengal, and a writer and yogi in Pondicherry. He also comments on his formative spiritual experiences and the development of his yoga. In the latter part of the volume, he discusses the life and discipline followed in his ashram and offers advice to the disciples living and working in it. Sri Aurobindo wrote these letters between 1927 and 1950 - most of them in the 1930s.
THEME/S
I suppose all spiritual or inner experiences can be denounced as merely subjective and delusive. But to the spiritual seeker even the smallest inner experience is a thing of value. I stand for the Truth I hold in me and I would still stand for it even if it had no chance whatever of outward fulfilment in this life. I should go on with it even if all here abandoned and repudiated me and denounced it to the world as a delusion and a folly. I have never disguised from myself the difficulties of what I have undertaken, it is not difficulties or the threat of failure that can deter me.
7 April 1935
My inner condition is not quite a vacancy, but rather a sort of stillness, with some mechanical movement of thought.
That is to say, the Power is still working on the physical consciousness (the mechanical mind and the subconscient) to bring stillness there. Sometimes the stillness comes but not complete, sometimes the mechanical mind reasserts itself. This oscillation usually takes place in a movement of the kind. Even if there is a sudden or rapid transforming shock or downrush, there has to be some working out of this kind afterwards—that at least has always been my experience. For most, however, there comes, first, this slow preparatory process.
29 August 1934
The "failure" I speak of is a failure to respond in the right way when there is a particular pressure. This is a clear sign of unfitness. The very first thing you wrote about me was that I was not prepared or ready for the sadhana.
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I do not at all agree about the unfitness. When you came here first you were too raw still, but since then you have developed much and, whatever difficulties may remain, it cannot be said that the ground is not there! I do not quite understand what you mean by the pressure, but if you mean the pressure of the universal forces, sex, anger etc., it is always under that pressure that the recurrences occur. There is nothing new or peculiar in that which would justify a conclusion of individual unfitness. These things have also often a periodicity in them which helps them to recur and the up and down movement is characteristic of the course followed by the nature in the sadhana which I myself felt for many years together. It is only after one reaches a certain height that one gets rid of it or rather it changes into an oscillation the reason and utility of which one can understand. Until that happens one has to go on and the one thing one must avoid is this feeling of despondency and self-distrust. If one perseveres, the final success is sure.
24 October 1934
I hope that you will soon acquire the faith and patience for which you aspire and that the oscillations cease. For me the path of Yoga has always been a battle as well as a journey, a thing of ups and downs, of light followed by darkness followed by a greater light—but nobody is better pleased than myself when a disciple can arrive out of all that to the smooth and clear path which the human physical mind quite rightly yearns for.
24 December 1935
The worst thing for sadhana is to get into a morbid condition, always thinking of "lower forces, attacks etc." If the sadhana has stopped for a time, then let it stop, remain quiet, do ordinary things, rest when rest is needed—wait till the physical consciousness is ready. My own sadhana when it was far more advanced than yours used to stop for half a year together. I did not make a fuss about it, but remained quiet till the empty or
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dull period was over.
8 March 1935
The inertia, physical weakness, endless subconscient recurrences have covered up my sadhana again and made such a confusion that I don't know how to pull myself out of it.
By calling down the Descent, since the Ascent is impossible. At least that is how I dealt with the situation in my own case.
5 October 1935
I think the sadhana by itself does not refuse to go farther. It is some part of our being that determines the action of the sadhana.
If so then there is no need of any other force than the sadhak's own. My own experience is different, that the sadhana very often does refuse to go on except under certain conditions or until those conditions are realised. But yours may be different.
16 November 1935
No joy, no energy. Don't like to read or write—as if a dead man were walking about. Do you understand the position? Any personal experience?
I quite understand; often had it myself devastatingly. That's why I always advise people who have it to cheer up and buck up.
Since one has to pass the time somehow, what is one to do? To bear the Cross gloomily, hoping for a resurrection?
To cheer up, buck up and the rest if you can, saying "Rome was not built in a day"—if you can't, gloom it through till the sun rises and the little birds chirp and all is well.
Looks however as if you were going through a training in vairagya. Don't much care for vairagya myself—always avoided the beastly thing, but had to go through it partly, till I
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hit on samata as a better trick. But samata is difficult, vairagya is easy, only damnably gloomy and uncomfortable.
3 June 1936
Suddenly to drop without doing anything wrong—why such a setback?
Everybody drops. I have dropped myself thousands of times during the sadhana. What roseleaf-princess sadhaks you all are!
2 April 1937
How can one train oneself to have a direct intuition?
It can be done,—but I should have to write an essay on the Intuition to make any explanation intelligible.
I thought whatever is necessary will grow of itself through growth of consciousness or something else. Must one train oneself for things one after another? Why should they not open up like your painting vision?1
It can or it may not. Why did not everything open up in me like the painting vision and some other things? All did not. As I told you I had to plod in many things. Otherwise the affair would not have taken so many years (30). In this Yoga one can't always take a short cut in everything. I had to work on each problem and on each conscious plane to solve or to transform and in each I had to take the blessed conditions as they were and do honest work without resorting to miracles. Of course if the consciousness grows all of itself, it is all right, things will come with the growth, but not even then pell-mell in an easy gallop.
4 April 1935
You had Nirvana in three days. Still you say there was no spirituality in you!
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None, before I took up Yoga.
You said [in the preceding letter] that nothing comes at an "easy gallop", that one has to plod on and develop faculties.
No, I did not say nothing comes in an easy gallop. Some things do. But one can't count on that as a rule.
5 April 1935
I don't find it a noble voice at all, it is the voice of the usual defeatist suggester using any and every reasoning to instil weakness, flight and self-destruction. There is no strong reasoning, either, it is the usual round of sophistries always the same and repeated to every sadhak in turn. "Give up, give up, give up! run, run, run! die, die, say die, say die." That is always the substance of it, the rest is only skin and shell to give it a good presentation. I don't reason with the creature; you may reason like Socrates and be as convincing as the Buddha, but after a little it will soon come back and sing the same song over again. It pretends to reason, but doesn't care a damn for either truth or reason—I know too well the ways of the fellow—I have paid heavily to know. In my own sadhana I have heard his chant of death a million times and several hundreds of times from this or that sadhak. So I simply refuse to listen to him and I advise you to do the same.
February 1935
There is no reason to think that the movement of strength and purity was a make-believe. No, it was a real thing. But with these strong forward movements the vital enthusiasm often comes in with a triumphant "Now it is finished", which is not quite justified, for "Now it will soon be finished" would be nearer to it. It is at these moments that the thrice-damned Censor comes in with a jog, raises up a still shaky bit of the nature and produces a result that is out of all proportion to the size of the little bit, just to show that it is not finished. I have had any number of times that experience myself. All this comes from the complexity
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and slowness of our evolutionary nature which Yoga quickens but not as a whole at a stroke. But in fact, as I said, these crises are out of all proportion to their cause in the nature. One must therefore not be discouraged, but see the exaggeration in the adversary's successful negation as well as the exaggeration in our own idea of a complete and definitive victory already there.
24 August 1936
Fits of despair and darkness are a tradition in the path of sadhana—in all Yogas oriental and occidental they seem to have been the rule. I know all about them myself—but my experience has led me to the perception that they are an unnecessary tradition and could be dispensed with if one chose. That is why whenever they come in you or others I try to lift up before them the gospel of faith. If still they come, one has only to get through them as soon as possible and get back into the sun.
9 April 1930
The exacerbation of certain vital movements is a perfectly well-known phenomenon in Yoga and does not mean that one has degenerated, but only that one has come to close grips instead of to a pleasant nodding acquaintance with the basic instincts of the earthly vital nature. I have had myself the experience of this rising to a height, during a certain stage of the spiritual development, of things that before hardly existed and seemed quite absent in the pre-Yogic life. These things rise up like that because they are fighting for their existence—they are not really personal to you and the vehemence of their attack is not due to any "badness" in the personal nature. I dare say seven sadhaks out of ten have a similar experience. Afterwards when they cannot effect their object, which is to drive the sadhak out of his sadhana, the whole thing sinks and there is no longer any vehement trouble. I repeat that the only serious thing about it is the depression created in you and the idea of inability in the
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yoga that they take care to impress on the brain when they are at their work. If you can get rid of that, the violence of the vital attacks is only the phenomenon of a stage and does not in the end matter.
24 June 1932
God knows when I shall be above all this vital desire, sex, etc. I heave a sigh thinking of such retrogression.
There is nothing peculiar about retrogression. I was also noted in my earlier time before Yoga for the rareness of anger. At a certain period of the Yoga it rose in me like a volcano, and I had to take a long time eliminating it. As for sex—well. You are always thinking that the things that are happening to you are unique and nobody else ever had such trials or downfalls or misery before.
13 November 1936
You surprise me very much by this volcanic anger of yours. People say that they never heard a single harsh, rude, angry word from your mouth here in Pondicherry. But how is it that this "volcano" flared up in Yoga when you were noted for its rareness in pre-Yoga? Subconscient surge?
I was speaking of a past phase. I don't know about subconscient, must have come from universal Nature.
14 November 1936
I heard an interesting thing, that you gave X a big shout! Ah, I wish I had heard it! But I thought you had lost your capacity to shout?
The supramental (even its tail) does not take away any capacity, but rather sublimates all and gives those that were not there. So I gave a sublimated supramental shout. I freely admit that (apart from the public platform) I have shouted only four or five times in my life.
23 July 1938
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I cannot believe that the soul in you can be broken to pieces and, so long as that is there, it is always possible to recover. It must be something in the surface consciousness that is feeling like that. But from that it is perfectly possible to arise, even though it may seem difficult or impossible at the time. Nor can I see why there should be this devastating sense of humiliation because of an adverse movement that some of the greatest Yogis have passed through, not to speak of myself in my earlier days or some of the most forceful sadhaks here. One gets caught unawares and thrown down and feels broken—but after a time the shock passes and one gets up and pursues the Way—till one reaches the "straight and thornless path where there is no more wall or obstacle".
15 September 1934
What you are experiencing is the condition which comes when the whole consciousness has come down into the physical—with the object of bringing down the higher consciousness into the external nature. At first there seems to be the external nature only with a tendency to more peace and quiet than before, but no new positive experience. The first thing the physical consciousness is worked on to acquire is quiet, peace and equanimity as a basis for other things—but what comes is a tendency to neutral quiet which looks like inertia with occasional peace and silence. What is necessary is to bring down peace and silence and a strong equanimity within into the external nature and the very cells of the body. But the difficulty is that the physical nature has little tendency to aspiration, its habit is to wait for the higher forces to do their work and remain passive. I think it is this difficulty that you are feeling. I felt it myself very often and for long periods at that stage of the sadhana. A steady development of the habit of a very quiet but persistent tapasya in the form of a quiet concentration of will to progress could be very helpful at this stage.
1 July 1934
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Was there in me a continuous real sadhana in 1933? Was it not rather only a mental experience without any real solidity in it? Otherwise why should such a fall have come during these two years?
There was certainly a real sadhana then and a very persistent preparation on the mental and vital planes. If there had not been, the descents of peace would not have begun. The fall came because when you descended into the physical consciousness to complete the preparation there, you became too passive, not continuing your will of tapasya, with the result that this sex force took advantage of the inertia of the physical consciousness to assert itself fully. That kind of passivity to the forces comes upon many when there is the descent into the physical; one then feels different forces playing in the consciousness without having the same power of reaction as one had in the mind and the vital—sometimes peace etc. from above, sometimes disturbing forces. I had to pass through the same stage myself and it took me 2 years at least to get out of it. To develop in the physical itself a constant will for the drawing down of the higher consciousness—especially the Peace and Force from above, is the best way out of it.
8 July 1935
Either because the silence deepened or because the dullness increased, I felt a little sleepy after work. After waking I found my thoughts were moving about very slowly in a dull way. During meditation the mental lethargy passed away, but something of it remained in the body.
It is sometimes a little difficult to say whether it is silence or the physical's translation of the silence into a kind of inertia. I have experienced that very often in the rather difficult task of turning the tamas into śama, physical tamas into spiritual rest and peace which is its divine counterpart.
11 March 1934
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I still feel dizzy sometimes, but I would like to do some work in the evenings.
You can try. I used to feel dizziness at one time for months together, but it never prevented me from walking or doing my work—but for that you must have a consciousness which observes the dizziness and is not lost in it.
Giddiness can come from many causes. I used to walk about for hours with my head going round or going up in a most exhilarating way. It gave me a perverse Ananda but did not inconvenience me otherwise.
17 March 1935
For the last few days I am having frequent dreams of eating. Does it indicate greed for food or a need in the body, or is it a sign of coming illness as they believe in the villages?
I don't think so—it is probably old impressions from the subconscient material (not vital—therefore a memory rather than a desire) rising up in sleep. I remember a time when I was always seeing dishes of food even though I did not care a hang about food at the time.
2 April 1934
I do not find any change in the character of my dreams as yet—I get the usual kind of dreams about home life, eating, meeting strange people, moving about, etc. Why has there been no change in this respect in spite of my three years of sadhana here?
Dreams of this kind can last for years and years after the waking consciousness has ceased to interest itself in things of that kind. The subconscient is exceedingly obstinate in the keeping of its old impressions. I find myself even recently having a dream of
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revolutionary activities or another in which the Maharaja of Baroda butted in, people and things I have not even thought of passingly for the last twenty years almost. I suppose it is because the very business of the subconscient in the human psychology is to keep all the past inside it and, being without conscious mentality, it clings to its office until the light has fully come down into it, illumining even its corners and crevices.
17 December 1934
Even though I have stopped corresponding with my relatives, I still get useless memories of them. Others who do correspond with their relatives don't seem to get disturbed by it. How solid these people seem to be.
I suppose it acts differently with different natures. Some benefit greatly by not writing; after a time they lose all contact with the old life. There are others who go on thinking and dreaming of relatives, old places and scenes, old faces etc. etc.; others dream of these things half the night although in the daytime they never think of them. I myself found myself sometimes (not so long ago) dreaming of the Gaekwar and even now sometimes Barin turns up in a most unexpected way. The impressions of the subconscient fade out very slowly. But all the same I think not renewing them does help. I am not so sure about the solidity of the persons you speak of—I know that in some cases it keeps up old attachments and prevents the physical consciousness from being free as it would have been otherwise.
14 June 1935
I concentrate so much on reading French that no room is left for sadhana-thinking, with the result that as soon as I come out of that concentration anything can enter in my mind. Should I continue to read during work time or not?
The Mother says she has no objection to your reading French during the work time.
I should say however that if you could divide your attention
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between the reading and sadhana-thought and concentration more, it might be better from the point of view you mention. I mean that there should be sufficient concentration to create in your mind a sadhana atmosphere which you can bring up to the surface as soon as you leave reading or whenever it is needed to set right an invading movement. Otherwise the subconscient forces have free play and gain power. Besides the condition becomes subconscient, i.e. inert and like a drift. At least that is what I have seen recently in my dealings with my own subconscient, so I pass on the hint to you.
27 May 1935
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