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
It is not usual to use the word Guru in the supramental yoga, here everything comes from the Divine himself. But if anybody wants it he can use it for the time being.
November 1929
The relation of Guru and disciple is only one of many relations which one can have with the Divine, and in this Yoga which aims at a supramental realisation, it is not usual to give it this name; rather, the Divine is regarded as the Source, the living Sun of Light and Knowledge and Consciousness and spiritual realisation and all that one receives is felt as coming from there and the whole being remoulded by the Divine Hand. This is a greater and more intimate relation than that of the human Guru and disciple, which is more of a limited mental ideal. Nevertheless, if the mind still needs the more familiar mental conception, it can be kept so long as it is needed; only do not let the soul be bound by it and do not let it limit the inflow of other relations with the Divine and larger forms of experience.
12 December 1929
Those who consciously carry in them ideas about becoming equal in status with the Divine or with their guru may be detained long, if not in the larger planes, at least in the Overmind, so long as the ego is there.
They cannot get beyond unless they lose it. Even in these planes it prevents them from getting the full consciousness and knowledge. For in the Overmind cosmic consciousness too ego is absent, though the true Person may be there.
27 April 1935
Page 395
Surrender to the Divine and surrender to the Guru are said to be two different things. Is it really so?
No. In surrendering to the Guru, it is to the Divine in him that one surrenders—if it were only to a human entity it would be ineffective. But it is the consciousness of the Divine Presence that makes the Guru a real Guru, so that even if the disciple surrenders to him thinking of the human being to whom he surrenders, that Presence would still make it effective.
Does surrender to the formless Divine leave the being subject to the gunas and ego to a certain extent?
Yes—because only the static part would be free in formlessness, the active Nature would be still in the play of the gunas. Many think they are free from the ego because they get the sense of the formless Existence, they do not see that the egoistic element remains in their action just as before.
Is not surrender to the Divine in form—as the Guru—higher than the surrender to the formless Divine?
It is more dynamic.
What makes the surrender to the Guru so grand and glorious as to be called the surrender beyond all surrenders?
Because through it you surrender not only to the impersonal but to the personal, not only to the Divine in yourself but to the Divine outside you; you get a chance for the surpassing of ego not only by retreat into the Self where ego does not exist, but in the personal nature where it is the ruler. It is the sign of the will to complete surrender to the total Divine, samagraṁ mām, mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam. Of course it must be a genuine spiritual surrender for all this to be true.
Page 396
If absolute surrender to the Guru leaves one helpless like a puppet in the hands of forces—what good is it? I think what is harmful is to surrender only to the Divine in the Guru and not to the Divine in one's Self. It is this one-sided surrender which is harmful.
What is harmful is to surrender to something in yourself which flatters your ego and which you call the Divine. It is that which makes you a puppet in the hands of Forces.
20 November 1933
An old man of sixty began practising Yoga by reading your books. Eventually he developed signs of insanity. His son de scribes his condition and asks for advice. I am sending his letter.
As for the letter, I suppose you will have to tell the writer that his father committed a mistake when he took up Yoga without a Guru—for the mental idea about a Guru cannot take the place of the actual living influence. This Yoga especially, as I have written in my books, needs the help of the Guru and cannot be done without it. The condition into which his father got was a breakdown, not a state of siddhi. He passed out of the normal mental consciousness into a contact with some intermediate zone of consciousness (not the spiritual) where one can be subjected to all sorts of voices, suggestions, ideas, so-called aspirations which are not genuine. I have warned against the dangers of this intermediate zone in one of my books. The sadhak can avoid entering into this zone—if he enters, he has to look with indifference on all these things and observe them without lending any credence, by so doing he can safely pass into the true spiritual light. If he takes them all as true or real without discrimination, he is likely to land himself in a great mental confusion and, if there is in addition a lesion or weakness of the brain—the latter is quite possible in one who has been subject to apoplexy—it may have serious consequences and even lead to a disturbance of the reason. If there is ambition, or other motive of the kind
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mixed up in the spiritual seeking, it may lead to a fall in the Yoga and the growth of an exaggerated egoism or megalomania—of this there are several symptoms in the utterances of his father during the crisis. In fact one cannot or ought not to plunge into the experiences of this sadhana without a fairly long period of preparation and purification (unless one has already a great spiritual strength and elevation). Sri Aurobindo himself does not care to accept many into his path and rejects many more than he accepts. It would be well if he can get his father to pursue the sadhana no farther—for what he is doing is not really Sri Aurobindo's Yoga but something he has constructed in his own mind and once there has been an upset of this kind the wisest course is discontinuance.
21 April 1937
I have prayed a lot today. Some comfort to dwell on that, though Krishnaprem advocates the Upanishadic attitude—"Awake! Arise!"—and not to trust too much to Divine Grace.
Krishnaprem's objection to Grace would be valid if the religionists mattered, but in spiritual things they don't. Their action naturally is to make a formula and dry shell of everything, not Grace alone. Even "Awake, Arise" leads to the swelled head or the formula—can't be avoided when Mr. Everyman deals with things divine. I had the same kind of violent objection to Gurugiri, but you see I was obliged by the irony of things or rather by the inexorable truth behind them to become a Guru and preach the Guruvada. Such is Fate.
16 January 1936
Page 398
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