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
The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda.
15 August 1929
It is not by your mind that you can hope to understand the Divine and its action, but by the growth of the true and divine consciousness within you. If the Divine were to unveil and reveal itself in all its glory, the mind might feel a Presence, but it would not understand its action or its nature. It is in the measure of your own realisation and by the birth and growth of that greater consciousness in yourself that you will see the Divine and understand its action even behind its terrestrial disguises.
24 November 1929
To bring the Divine Love and Beauty and Ananda into the world is, indeed, the whole crown and essence of our Yoga. But it has always seemed to me impossible unless there comes as its support and foundation and guard the Divine Truth—what I call the Supramental—and its Divine Power.1
15 August 1931
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For Duraiswami
Let the new birth become manifest in your heart and radiate in calm and joy and take up all the parts of your being, mind and vision and will and feeling and life and body. Let each date in your life be a date of its growth and greater completeness till all in you is the child of the Mother. Let the Light and Power and Presence envelop you and protect and cherish and foster, till all in your inner and outer existence is one movement and an expression of its peace and strength and Ananda.
23 January 1929
For Kantilal
Live always as if you were under the very eye of the Supreme and of the Divine Mother. Do nothing, try to think and feel nothing that would be unworthy of the Divine Presence.
16 April 1930
For K. Krishna Rao
Go below the surface of the consciousness deep within, for there you will find the soul's profound quietude, luminous silence, freedom and spiritual wideness, there the direct touch and presence of the Divine.
13 October 1938
For Madanlal
My blessings.
Efface the stamp of ego from the heart and let the love of the Mother take its place. Cast from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgments, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self-will, ego-drive in the act, love of personal authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother's force will be able to act clearly in you and you will get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect.
27 November 1940
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For Satyendra
A veil behind the heart, a lid over the mind divide us from the Divine. Love and devotion rend the veil, in the quietude of the mind the lid thins and vanishes.
9 September 1936
May the inner Sun tranquillise and illumine the mind and awaken fully the heart and guide it.
9 September 1937
In a quietude of the mind open to the presence of the Divine in your heart and everywhere; in a still mind and heart the Divine is seen like the sun in still water.
9 September 1938
Rise into the higher consciousness, let its light control and transform the nature.
9 September 1939
By the heart's self-giving the Presence and the Influence will be there even in the inconscience and prepare the nature for the true light and consciousness through the whole range of the being.
9 September 1940
Put stress always on the aspiration within; let that get depth and steadiness in the heart; the outer obstacles of mind and the vital will recede of themselves with the growth of the heart's love and aspiration.
9 September 1941
Keep the mind and heart open and turned inward and upward so that when the touch comes from within or the flow from above, you may be ready to receive it.
9 September 1942
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To persevere in turning towards the Light is what is most demanded. The Light is nearer to us than we think and at any time its hour may come.
9 September 1943
To keep the soul ready for the Divine Grace so that it may be ready to receive it when it comes.
9 September 1944
A persistent will for the work to be done in us and in the world is what is most needed; there is a sure spiritual result, the growth of the consciousness and the soul's readiness for the touch of the Divine Light and Power.
9 September 1945
When the Light enters into the Inconscience which hedges in all our being and prevents or limits the manifestation of the true consciousness in us, when it inhibits the habits and recurrences and constant repetition of the same stimuli which besiege us and rise from the subconscient, then only can the nature be wholly free and respond only to the Truth from above.
9 September 1946
Clarity of knowledge and inner self-vision, subjugation of the ego, love, scrupulousness in selfless and dedicated works, are the four wheels of the chariot of Yoga. One who has them will progress safely on the path.
9 September 1947
For Kamala
In faith and confidence and joy on the quiet and sunlit path towards the home of Light and Ananda.
11 February 1936
My blessings on Kamala for the year of her life that begins today.
11 February 1938
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My blessings on your birthday. May you grow in spirit with this new year of life.
11 February 1941
My blessings for the day and the year. Grow in faith, grow in light, grow in consciousness.
11 February 1942
My blessings for your birthday. May this year be a step forward in consciousness and towards union with the Divine.
11 February 1943
My blessings for the year. May it bring to you growth in consciousness towards the Divine.
11 February 1944
My blessings on your birthday. May this be a year of more and more progress both in your inner and your outer being.
11 February 1945
Fidelity, devotion, self-giving, selfless work and service, constant aspiration are the simplest and most effective means by which the soul can be made ready and fit to be in the abiding presence of the Divine.
11 February 1946
To light always and keep alight the psychic fire within, the fire of aspiration, devotion and self-giving—not to stifle it with the damp smouldering logs of vital desire and egoistic reactions. If that becomes permanent and continuous, then it will be easy to bring down the spiritual transformation.
11 February 1947
Devotion to the Divine, fidelity to his work and obedience to his will are the first supports of the Yoga. On these pillars all the rest can be supported.
11 February 1948
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For Champaklal
Tranquillise and widen your consciousness; go deeper into your soul.
2 February 1940
A clarified consciousness with strength to reject all inconscience and receive all that comes from the Light, this should be the aim before you.
2 February 1941
Aspire always to grow more and more conscious so that all the small obstacles shall disappear from the physical consciousness and the obscurer parts of the vital nature.
2 February 1942
Keep yourself ready by faith and self-opening to receive the Light when it comes.
2 February 1943
Let the mind be quiet and receive the Light; let the vital be quiet and receive the Force that delivers.
2 February 1944
Let the year that is beginning mark a definitive stage in the growth of your psychic being and its power over your nature and your life.
2 February 1945
Continue to open yourself and the psychic consciousness will grow in you and the Light refine and illumine whatever is left of the shadows in the mind and vital being.
2 February 1946
An increasing advance on the road to the entire psychic change is what is most important in the sadhana, for that is the straight road to the spiritual transformation. Devotion, harmony
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and scrupulousness in work, a growing inner perception and consciousness, more and more fading of the more vehement movements of the vital ego are among the more prominent landmarks on the road.
2 February 1947
Matter, blind to the Light, deaf to the call, the material consciousness and material life are the last and most obstinate refuge of the Inconscient and its resistance. There, the nearer the light, the higher it raises its wall of resistance. When that is overcome, the decisive transformation can have an open way.
2 February 1948
Prayers for a Sadhak
Deliver me from anger, ingratitude and foolish pride. Make me calm, humble and gentle. Let me feel your divine control in my work and in all my action.
5 November 1938
I pray to be purified from self-will and self-assertion so that I may become docile and obedient to the Mother and a fit instrument for her work, surrendered and guided by her Grace in all I do.
5 November 1942
May I henceforth with a firm determination cast away from me my faults and defects and may I do it with energy and perseverance till I succeed entirely. May I get rid of all arrogance, quarrelsomeness, self-esteem and vanity, disobedience and revolt against the Mother, hatred and rancour against others, violence of speech and conduct, falsehood, self-assertion and demand, discontent and grumbling. May I be friendly to all and without malice against anyone. May I become a true child of the Mother.
5 November 1943
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It is the lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man—only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you—blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.
21 April 1933
You must make grow in you the peace that is born of the certitude of victory.
14 June 1933
Keep firm faith in the victory of the Light and face with calm equanimity the resistances of Matter and human personality to their own transformation.
21 December 1933
Our blessings are with you always. Persevere and have full confidence.
16 October 1934
I am about to complete one year of my stay here. The past year has been one of hard and painful struggle for me. I have not done much during the year but hope to do better in the next. And although my heart seems to have become a stranger to all higher and finer emotions I promise you this: that I shall endeavour with all the strength I can command to obey you.
Blessings for the new year. May all struggle cease and a quiet ascent begin.
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The time for your turning to the spiritual life depends upon your own aspiration. A sincere aspiration brings always its response, and if there is continuity in the will, the result cannot fail.
So the Light grows always. As for the shadow it is only a shadow and will disappear in the growing Light.
It is not a hope but a certitude that the complete transformation of the nature will take place.
Keep faith quietude openness to divine power. Ashirvada.
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