Letters on Yoga - II

Chapter VI

Rejection

Rejection of the Lower Impulses

It is no part of the sadhana to accept the uglinesses of the lower nature on the ground that they exist—if that is what is meant by realism. Our object is not to accept or enjoy these things but to get rid of them and create a life of spiritual beauty and perfection. So long as we accept these things, that cannot be done. To observe that these things are there and reject them, refusing to allow them to touch you, is one thing; to accept and acquiesce in them is quite another.

Who is able to reject the lower nature fully? All one can do is to aspire and reject the lower impulses and call in the Divine to do the rest.

There are no right positive vibrations of devious impulses—these are wrong vibrations of the mind or vital. The right vibrations I speak of are those that come from the psychic or from the spiritual above or take place in the mind or vital under the influence of the psychic or spiritual. If one aspires sincerely and rejects what has to be rejected, as far as one can, then the psychic and spiritual influences will more and more work, bring more and more true discrimination, support, stimulate and create the right vibrations, detect, discourage and eliminate the wrong ones. That is the method the Mother and I advise to all.

Rejection is a principle element in this sadhana. But what I say is that one can reject best by bringing in the positive psychic

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and spiritual forces through the pursuit of positive things like brahmacharya and the rest.

I do not know what you mean by dissolution [of desires]. The principle of the Yoga is rejection—throwing out of the being. It is true that rejected from the mind it often goes to the vital, rejected by the vital, to the physical, rejected by the physical to the subconscient. Rejected from the subconscient also, it can still linger in the environmental consciousness—but there it has no longer any possession of the being and can be thrown away altogether.

That is a known fact that everything comes from outside, from universal Nature. But the individual is not bound to accept everything that comes; he can accept and he can reject. The rejection may not succeed at once, if there is a strong habit of past acceptance; but if it is steadily persisted in, the rejection will succeed in the end.

What you should do, is always to reject the lower experiences and concentrate on a fixed and quiet aspiration towards the one thing needed, the Light, the Calm, the Peace, the Devotion that you felt for two or three days. It is because you get interested in the lower vital experiences and in observing and thinking about them that they take hold, and then comes the absence of the Contact and the confusion. You have surely had enough of this kind of experience already and should make up your mind to steadily reject it when it comes.

The effort should be to reject the restlessness and its suggestions altogether. These things come to everybody in the early stages of the sadhana and are sometimes very persistent, even later on they continue—but the sadhak rejects them and regards them as no part of his true consciousness or worthy to determine his action and life, but as untrue suggestions which he has to overcome. If

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that is always done, they begin after a time to lose their force of invasion and become superficial things; finally they disappear.

The peace and the equality are there above you, you have to call them down into the mind and the vital and the body. And whenever something disturbs you have to reject the thing that disturbs and the disturbance.

What do you mean by active means [to overcome inertia]? The power to refuse, to reject is always there in the being and to go on rejecting till the rejection is effective. Nothing can obstruct a quiet aspiration except one's own acquiescence in the inertia.

The practice of rejection prevails in the end; but with personal effort only, it may take a long time. If you can feel the Divine Power working in you, then it should become easier.

There should be nothing inert or tamasic in the self-giving to the guidance and it should not be made by any part of the vital into a plea for not rejecting the suggestions of lower impulse and desire.

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