Letters on Himself
and the Ashram

The Sadhana of 1927-1929

Sadhana on the Physical Level

Last night during my meditation I saw a cat—probably one of the Mother's cats, the one which sleeps on the staircase—come and enter the room where I was meditating. But I at once opened my eyes. Would you very kindly let me know the meaning of this cat and why I opened my eyes.

If it is the cat Bushy, she has some strange connection with the siddhi in the physical consciousness. It was she who ushered us into our present house running before us into each room. The change to this house marked the change from the sadhana on the vital to the sadhana on the physical level.¹

7 July 1936

Bringing Down the Powers of Transformation

Once X said about Y that the Mother had said that she was a "Vedic Goddess"—that is, Saraswati or another.

I never heard of this Vedic Goddess affair before. There was a time when the Mother was trying to bring down certain powers in the sadhaks here, but there was never any question of the Saraswati power in Y.

6 October 1934

Come down, Sir,—for heaven's sake give us something and make life more substantial and concrete. I am really beginning to doubt that things like divine Love, Knowledge, etc. can be brought down in me.

In the old days long before you came² plenty of things were

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brought down—including the love. Hardly one could bear it and even then only in a small measure. Is it any better now, I wonder? It does not look like it. That is why I want the supermind first,—and especially the peace, the balance in an intensity unshakable. There are several who have been trying to push on with the intensities, but—. Well, let us hope for the best. For God's sake, peace, balance, an unshakable supramental poise and sanity first. Ecstasies and intensities of other kinds can come afterwards.

8 April 1935

The Creation Postponed

I have answered the actual points in your letter separately, on the letter itself. But there is besides one thing that you must understand clearly. Things are no longer what they were before, when you were last here.³ At that time the Mother was bringing down a rapid (collective as well as individual) transformation and creation into the mental, vital and physical planes from above, by the power of a supramental Light and Force acting through the higher illumined mind and the psychic being. For that purpose she was calling down beings of a higher plane (like the one of which you speak) as an indispensable aid in that process. All went on well enough so long as the work was on the mental, psychic and higher vital levels. But as soon as it began in the lower vital, it appeared at once that the lower vital and physical nature of human beings (at least of those here) was too small, obscure and full of rebellious impurities to admit of so great a working. One after another failed in the test and you were among the first to fall. The creation had to be postponed, the process changed, and, instead of doing all from above, it became necessary to come down into the lower vital and material nature for a long, slow, patient and difficult work of opening and change.⁴

This is the sadhana that has been going on here. Are you prepared for this opening and change which needs an absolute

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sincerity and a work in which there is no room for pretence, self-deception or a half-hearted will? You are very evidently deep down in your lower vital and material self, "cooped up" there; but you seem to have been fairly content and self-satisfied in this dark and unswept lodging. Talk of surrender or a mere idea or tepid wish for integral consecration will not do; there must be the push for a radical and total change.

It is not by taking a mere mental attitude that this can be done or even by any number of inner experiences which leave the outer man as he was. It is this outer man who has to open, to surrender and to change. His every least movement, habit, action has to be surrendered, seen, held up and exposed to the divine Light, offered to the divine Force for its old forms and motives to be destroyed and the divine Truth and the action of the transforming consciousness of the Divine Mother to take their place.

If you want to make any progress while you are here, you will first have to realise how much time you have lost and how far you are from this. Afterwards, you will have to see whether you can light a fire of aspiration strong enough to burn up all that is unclean and obscure in you. Then only can you speak of the transformation of your lower vital nature.

29 September 1929

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