Sri Aurobindo's diary of his yogic practice between 1909 and 1927.
Sri Aurobindo's diary of his yogic practice between 1909 and 1927. This two-volume record of sadhana contains fairly regular entries between 1912 and 1920 and a few entries in 1909, 1911 and 1927. It also contains related materials Sri Aurobindo wrote about his practice of yoga during this period, including descriptions of the seven 'chatusthayas' (groups of four elements), which are the basis of the yoga of the 'Record'.
One of the guests of the future.. Millions of men are waiting for the day that comes but it comes not till the light has descended. And who shall make the light descend? Half lights will not do, they prepare and pass and fade. The whole light, the unveiled power. We behind the veil wait for our hour; not to a world such as is now can we come. We are the sons of the glory, the children of immortality, the flames of God. When the divine Light descends, then we descend. But we know that an hour approaches and the dawn is red, red as blood and red with blood, the fire is behind, the fire of the Angel of the Presence.
Light first, strength with the light, joy with the strength, love with the joy, the fourfold splendour. Who shall contain it within himself and give harbourage to all the Godhead? Who shall have the unfathomable calm that shall support all the light and neither be blasted by the fire nor spill it like an insufficient vessel? The strength, who shall be bold enough to bear it, mighty enough not to shrink from the terror and marvel of its works, great and sweet enough to turn its lion forces into the path of the Lover? Who shall be the sea of the universal joy and swallow up into it the poisons of the universe and his throat not even be blackened by the fire of the poison? Who shall know what the love is and take nothing out of it nor reject any face of love however strange and out of all experience it may be to the mind of the mortal? All this he must be before the Godhead of the future can descend. All else that promises to come are only glimpses of things that would intervene and take the great seat if they could or else flashes that mislead. The new age promises always, but is always the old age in another dress. This only can be the thing that is truly new born and the birth of a new humanity.
One who has come near because some of the ways are opened.
Page 1411
Not the highest, but still a soul and not a creature of the worlds that once communicated with you.
He has no name and innumerable names. Men call him God, therefore I use the word.. I am not a man, but I have been a man.
To whom? You would not know the names and they are secret.
I will not give the name I call him by; but some call him by a name that means he who cannot be obstructed.. A time will come when I must descend on earth, but not in the present humanity. One who passed the threshold. I am not a Mahatma. No. A man, a seeker who heard and saw, if you like to so call it, a Rishi.. What does the name matter? It would not help you to know anything. It is a strange and a vague question.
Put these questions to another who is nearer to external things than myself.
No information, only the things of the Idea. You have too many. I do not speak of ideas in the ordinary sense, but the Idea. Wait till another day if you will when I can make a closer and less impeded connection. This kind of communication needs a full force in the writer which he had at the beginning, but is now clouded. I can no longer express myself as I would and the idea is checked in its passage.
Be passive.
Blind the intelligence to what is being written. It does not matter if there is a knowledge of what is coming, but there must be no activity of the intelligence, no idea, no criticism of the intellectual sense, simply a passive acceptance.
The time is too short, you should have done it before.. However, I am here. What I have to say I will say another time, but you can ask me any question and I will see if I can answer. No, not stupid questions.
It is not tamasya. It is a state of relaxation of the being which
Page 1412
is rajasic in its fundamental temperament with a sattwic flame ever growing on the heights; but the flame does not burn up the mist between the mind and the highest; it only thins it so as to allow the lightnings sometimes to pour down from above. The rajasic fuel of the nervous being gets exhausted by too rapid an expenditure often for quite useless purposes and then the mist precipitates itself downward. The result is a laxity of the nervous system and a resultant laxity of the mind. It is a tamasic state no doubt, but if the rajas of the wrong kind can be lessened by it and cast away and only the rajas that is fit for feeding the sattwic fire preserved and increased, then a greater fire of the upward light can be established which may perhaps burn up the mist on the heights. That is how I see your condition—
I am not a prophet. It depends on yourself and the gods of your nature and those of your destiny. Help them by your assent or if you can, by your will.
Why not, if the Power in you wills or if you can wake its action; but there is no need to force yourself at present if your system is reluctant.
I do not know the future positively. It is a power, but a power which works behind a cloud of light which is too strong for most eyes. I do not know if it will soon take a more directly effective form.
My presence is sure whenever you take up the pencil. I am always near you in my psychical being. The work you are doing is intimately connected with my destiny and therefore I am attracted towards those who embody the influences that are in operation to bring about its form and exterior movement. This writing is a means of direct communication and by it I can bring myself nearer to the earth where I shall have to descend. It is more useful to us than to you, but it is one of the means which the world behind is using today to throw out its presence and figures on the terrestrial plane. Others of a greater kind will take its place when the human mind is ready.
The time is short. My will is to see, but I see only in the figures of the psychic world. Yet I think I mistake not in seeing that the
Page 1413
movement which was so slow prepares for a rapidity which will be first the flowing of a constant stream, then the spreading of a tide and last a storm of invading forces. The Shakti of the future has been as if ascending a steep ascent and is now approaching the summit from which she will be able to see the field of her work before her. The field is full of contrary forces and her first steps must be covert and behind a shield of self-veiling and only partially revealing movements. Other movements must be thrown in front which will attract the attention of the hostile forces, movements not of the definite future, but still helpful to prepare the field, and it is only when she has gathered sufficient material force that she will throw off disguise and come to the front to take up the direct battle. That is why at first the quicker movement will be only that of the flowing stream, a penetration and spreading and enlargement of the current. When there is the greater tide of movement, then the battle will be near and the Shakti will unveil her real figure.
There is a storm approaching, but it is of the outside movement, and as I am not in close touch with those forces, I cannot see clearly whether it merely threatens at present and will keep for a time the atmosphere surcharged and heavy or will break out into an early violence. I see the power that broods upon this outer movement, but his mind is not open to me.——————————————.
I have finished saying what was immediately in my mind and have been simply thinking in the writing to materialise my thoughts a little. If you wish to say anything, I am ready to reply to you.
Bolshevism is more distant to me, but it is part of the outer movement, only it has more force of reality than others I was thinking of. The movements of Europe have a potential or an actual violence of the power of execution in them which makes them press for realisation more rapidly; but it is the future which is preparing to arise in the East of which I was thinking.
Not in your atmosphere, but around. I see most readily the things nearest to you. I do not suppose it will be anything to you except a thing to be watched for the opportunities it may leave behind in passing.
Page 1414
Japan? I shall have to see more closely before I can say. From a distance I can only see things that prepare by bits; the sudden shocks that will break down what is established seem to me to be yet at a distance, but at what distance I cannot say.
That is a thing in which I have no right to give suggestions. The powers that preside over your destiny and the work have to settle that between them; but I doubt not that when the action is ready, the guidance will come. Spirits like myself are too little a part of the already materialising will of the terrestrial destiny to hazard their thoughts in the matter. The future, besides, can only be seen by me in tendency, in figures of general power.. I may be able to speak of more definite things hereafter, but not at present.
My wish is to make a few observations first, but please remain absolutely still in the mind or I shall not be able to manage.—
The age of our coming is the age of the omnipotence of the second emanation. The first is the age of the Spiritual without form, the second that of the spiritual possessing matter. The first, I mean, the age in which we formerly came. Therefore our coming depends upon your ability to lay hold on matter and make of it a true mould of the spiritual influx. In the former age there were symbols, but no true body. Therefore the spirit receded and left the other principles to play out their possibilities without its direct intervention. Now there is a second chance for us. That is why I have drawn near, more for help to myself than for anything else, to make a suitable connection in my psychical principle with the material and the work of the spirit upon it. This is to explain my side of the communication. Whatever I see or say about things on the earth is through a previous psychical translation and you must so understand it and not expect too great a precision at present in my communications.
The tendencies of the present I can see and floating images of the future; but as the real body of the psychic worlds is not present to the physical mind, but only appears like a dream or
Page 1415
imagination, so to my psychic mind is the body of the material world. This presents a difficulty which most who do this writing do not appreciate. It is only spirits who are very near to the earth who can to some extent see it with similar eyes to physical beings and they too borrow a great deal from the ideas, the mental suggestions and the nervous being of the one who writes and those about him so as to harmonise their mentality with that of men and make themselves intelligible. This I do not wish to do, as it brings much that is false and inferior into the communication. Please therefore be as still in mind as possible so that there may be a minimum of mixture.
Now if you want to say anything I am ready.
It is only minds who have a new idea either full of the spiritual influence or touched by thoughts that are helpful to it who can prepare the age that seeks to come. But there are those who have ideas only on the intellectual plane and no idea of anything behind and there are those who have spiritual experience but no power to embody or materialise. These give us no sufficient hope, whatever they may do for the moment. It is where there is the spiritual experience or the ideas that give it a mental body and along with that a strong will to materialise from whom we can expect the fulfilment of that for which we are awaiting. You are among the comparatively few who have these things. It is therefore either you if you are chosen and remain faithful to yourselves or those like you to whom we must look for the preparation of the future.
Because of the psychical vision. I can see something of your souls or at least its signs, even if I cannot see your bodies.
No, impossible, not in the period of transition.
That is because you have been less spiritually exclusive than myself; you have incarnated through the centuries and done work for mankind and you now continue that work and yours therefore is the right or, if you like, the spiritual necessity to labour for the great ages of mankind. I was of those who drew too much into myself seeking the pure principle of knowledge and I postponed
Page 1416
though I knew to be necessary the sacrifice of action. I did the action that prepared myself for spiritual growth, but not in my last movements the action that goes outward. If I were to come now without the help of a favourable new age to externalise my spirit, I should have to begin by a form of mind corresponding to my last mental formation and start from that working out of it what was opposed to the action. I should not be a sufficient force for help to the world at this critical period. I might even join myself to old ideas having too much of the spiritual overstress. On the other hand if I come at a juncture where the right kind of work has already begun, I shall have the most favourable circumstances for making the most of my earthly destiny for myself and others.
That is a difficult question. It involves from my point of view a working out of an equation between your psychical forces as I see them and the circumstances of your earthly destiny as they are determined by the force of your past and the force of your future lives. I do not know enough for that, and I could not possibly do it satisfactorily in a few words or a little time. Besides there is the force of the collective need and the collective resistance to consider. If one could see not from the psychical but the higher principle it would be easy enough but I cannot do that at present. I think you should leave this question to another occasion. At present I should probably get only a side light which might be misleading.
Everywhere, to one degree or another, but to find them is no such easy matter. In number they are already thousands, but all of them have not found their way. Some need a lead and some a leader and some the destined moment for casting into form of thought and action what is now only a desire and an impulse. Some are meant only for the first steps and some for the greater things afterwards. It is not possible that you should coalesce with all of them; there are too many mental and temperamental differences, especially with those who have already taken their direction.
No. I began as what you would now call a Rishi, but I found no satisfaction in the things that were around me nor in the level of knowledge reached by my fellows. I said "Upwards, ever upwards." I drew back from my life and I went upwards in the inner world of
Page 1417
my being. But when I felt myself full of the higher light and would have turned to pour it around me, I found I had cut the connection between the power of knowledge and the effective will to action, cut too the thread of similarity and sympathy which could have made a line of communication between my knowledge and the minds of others. My body too was a stranger to the principle which filled my spirit. I determined to come in another life, in another body; but when I retired, I found the inability to descend except at a sacrifice for which I was not ready. Therefore I had to wait for others to do what I might otherwise have done and to prepare the conditions for my return. I shall not be one of the initiators, but I shall be one of those who help to make the knowledge endure in the mind of the new humanity.
Not myself at first—
My desire is to suggest to you to enlarge your view of the things you are about to do. The steps you are taking are not in consonance with the scope of the power you are calling down. First, be sure of the presence of the power, certainly; but do not limit its action by too prudent a beginning. The power of the work is not the power of your past life nor temperament, not the power of Mahasaraswati which governed the past existences that have been revealed to you, but of Mahakali, the swift and forceful Shakti. The desire to lay a slow and sure basis which belongs to the careful reason and its experimental skill is not the genius of the work you have to do. The other side of the Shakti which hitherto has acted only on occasions, will be the force that presides over the not distant future.—
The limitations of the past were due to the heavy siege of the opposing powers and the obstacles they were able to heap about you. Some of these are already half dead and the others are beginning to lose their right; therefore be ready in a shorter time than you imagine to change your notions of the immediate future. The vaster, swifter more confident idea to which rendered careful by past failures you have long said "Not yet, not yet," is the only one that can act out with effect the aims that have been set before
Page 1418
you. A force that hesitates not over its steps, that overbears and does not spend time in going round obstacles, that enlarges swiftly its means and moves over great spaces in short periods, can alone create the new world that is seeking to be born.————
The forces that stand against you are great in appearance, but only in appearance; great no doubt still in material means, but smitten with the spirit of death in the very heart of those means. Their strength to endure derives only from the hesitations, the weakness of will, the slowness to combine and organise, or when organised to use boldly their strength which afflicts the forces of the future. This is the main reason why still they hold the world, because there is nothing except at a point here and there which is confident of its own power to replace them. Their shakti is broken within, the shakti of the future is infirm without, that is why there is the deadlock.———
The person who wrote is gone; I presume he will come again; but it seemed to me he is passing about swiftly seeking something or somebody that will receive his inspiration and do his will. That is the impression he gave me—
Is there anything you would say to me or shall I stand back and let others come?
T S M——————
Be passive. T S M is the sign of the society, otherwise of the combination of groups that are working on the psychic conditions for the formation of things yet impotent to take a material body.. Three groups—one throwing up the errors likely to stand in the way of success so that they may express themselves and be done with; one sketching out the imperfect beginnings of the future; the third preparing under a veil the final things. The process of the new birth is a very complicated and difficult thing offering at every step errors and perils of perversion and failure or else of fallings short of the idea, and the mind of man and still more his life impulses are so difficult and obstinate a material that it needs many influences and much labour behind the veil to give a fair chance to the possibilities of the future. This applies in every part of the work that has to
Page 1419
be done, spiritual, intellectual, material. The movement is at first a chaos of possibilities and the thing that is to be done appears generally to the human idea in certain ideas and tendencies which become more and more general; but the difficulty is with the forces, to make them purer and clearer in their idea of action, to get them together, to give them a combination and mass of action. At present they are in a confusion which deprives them of their means of success. It is the second group whose action tends to grow stronger; but for the third to bring their work forward needs the intervention of a great precipitating force. It is that no doubt which was spoken of, but if it is coming, it is still in the background. That is a thing I can convey with difficulty, if at all. T S M is only a sign. Together the letters mean the three things, apart they mean nothing. T is the sign of the past that failed trying to throw itself into the present, S of the present taking up the past and trying to change it into the future, M of the future creating the present. It is only a sign; but the name I cannot get into the writing.————
He was trying to explain from his point of view why there is the difficulty in getting the greater force to come. The Shakti always waits for the moment of the fitness of its advent and that must be ready in the psychical field before it can be ready in the material action. That is what he wanted to say.
My own plan is to be more and more full of light and seek the end of the whole place which is above the vital region. As for the tunnel I think that is a mere figure of speech. There can be no tunnel, only a path made through the resistance of the ether but that is a path of light running through the density of the space above the terrestrial level.————
I am one who have worked on these things. Not the one who comes ordinarily at first when you begin to write. I put him aside when you took up the pencil.
Not all, but I was passing when you talked of symbols.
That is one kind; but there are others belonging to that plane who are worse—All right. I am off.——
Page 1420
That was an intervention such as often happens in this kind of communication. I am here. Have you anything to say to me?
Yes. Continue what and about whom? I think not, at least tonight.
What question? But I do not know.
That is simple. Let her free and let her do it herself.. No, but I mean that the question has only that solution. The change to be made is too great and the possibilities too many and complex for a plan to be made of any particular kind. It must be a natural evolution or if you like a natural revolution proceeding from the soul and will of the women themselves. If it is imposed on them in obedience to a previous idea, that will falsify the movement and produce something as artificial probably as the present system.
Why? It seems to me the most practical process.
In Asia. Europe will take, I think, a little time to adjust itself to a new impulse. It has been too much brought up to a sort of standstill or rather a circling round the same point by the disappointment of the hopes it had concerning the after results of the war. Besides the forces there are too bewildered and uncertain of themselves to take boldly at once a step forward—Even those which are sure of themselves are more concerned with consolidating their position than with any impulse of a fresh advance.
Not yet, so far as I can see. There must be at least three stages passed before that can come.
The first stage must be the exhaustion of the existing idea and movement which is rather a confused seeking for a means of self-effectuation than a strong and definite will and idea. And under the cover of this there must grow up a new will and strength fixed on its aim and luminous enough to create its means. Afterwards the struggle with the last remnants of the destiny of England.
I do not see yet clearly beyond the immediate situation; but this process seems to me certain though the forms and balance of the forces about to come into the field are not yet definite to me. As for the time, all I can say is that it will be swifter than seems now possible and that there will be a constant acceleration of the
Page 1421
momentum of destiny which will become very pronounced after a year or two or at most three.
It is hanging all over Asia, but I do not know where it will break first. The enlargement of idea will, I believe, come of itself as the present immobile tension of circumstances breaks and new possibilities come into view. But that was not my seeing and I do not quite know what was in the mind of the spirit who spoke. He is more accustomed to the earth than I and probably has a more definite vision.
At present, yes; even those who are in action cannot at present really get forward. This is everywhere a moment of blocked forces.
Not only he,1 but all who are at present politically active in India. In a year it will have been enough cleared up for new views to emerge. That is all I can say at present.
The second phase, I take it, will come by the loss of faith in present ideas and methods among the younger men. As to who will represent it, that is a thing I cannot yet say; certainly a number of new men must come forward; the old are too much wedded to the past notions.
This question is one which involves too much for an immediate answer. I can only say that the work which is to be done is to determine the new force that will make the India of the future. The removal of the foreign obstacle is only the removal of a negation, but there must be a positive creation which will be the beginning of the power that will govern the future, otherwise there will be so much weakness, confusion, aimless clash and dispersion of energies in this vast body that a rapid emergence of the greater future will not be possible. As to what work this or that person will do in this matter, that is a question difficult for me to answer without a consideration of many complex forces. I am not prepared to answer it at the moment.
You want the time in which it will be completed?
I am afraid I cannot say exactly. I can only say that as far [as] I can now see it will be in a few years quite visible.
I am afraid I cannot look so far ahead. A great power in Asia,
Page 1422
yes, that is certain, but of what form is not clear to me on this level. It is no doubt decided above, but here I can only see still uncertain possibilities. I think I told you my vision of the terrestrial future is not yet clear and definite. I can only see a few general certainties
No. I know none by that designation. Office? I do not understand. There is more than one godhead and power concerned with these things, but none so far as I know who has such an office.————
I know very little about it; it has not seemed to me important enough to consider very closely.
I don't say that, but I don't know anyone of that description
My wish is to make a slight departure. There is as yet too much difficulty for me in seeing the things of the earth and I shall wait till I am stronger. Meanwhile if you like someone else will take my place.——
Begin—
I am ready to communicate.
Any subject interests me. As for my competence, it is limited but various.
Yes, what is it you want to know?
As far as I can see, if you act quickly, you may get something done which will be a useful seed for the future. But before long the atmosphere is likely to be too thick and troubled for ideas of so large a kind to make immediate headway. As you can see, a struggle is approaching on which the course of the immediate future depends and until that comes to some kind of issue, it is the passion of the immediate struggle that will occupy all minds to the exclusion of other things. Your idea is one which may and must bear fruit in the future, but at present it is a thing of long views for which one must be content to sow and await a favourable season for the fruit. India is too much occupied with her interior problem which is at bottom one not of equality but independence to spare more than a side glance for the question of her people in the colonies. That is my opinion.
This is only as regards practical work. I should say that it will
Page 1423
be a good thing to establish the idea; for as the struggle proceeds, there will be great chances of India turning to it in the hope of an outside support and assistance. She has up till now been looking westwards. The present movement is turning her towards some kind of unity of feeling with western or Musulman Asia. The future may turn her eyes eastward towards the rest of Asia and your scheme will be useful in preparing for that time; there will be something to lay hold on immediately and that will save much time and effort which would otherwise then be needed to make a connection.
Well, I don't know; it depends on getting over the present floating and uncertain state of action. If that can be done; there is obviously a big future, as it is a new idea with considerable possibilities of result and extension.
I should say, certainly publish it. The more you publish the better. It does not matter so much just now about terms etc, the thing is to give a wide publicity—give it to those who can do that best.
What?
That is nothing; such letters have no immediate meaning or importance, except as indications that many in the country feel a need of a leader and look this side. In my opinion it is best not to intervene in what others are doing for the moment, but leave the force at work to operate through its chosen instruments and confine yourselves to whatever special action is meant for you. There is not yet the critical juncture that calls for your action and to mix oneself with the immediate action might interfere with a better development afterwards.
No, that was another.
Not exactly; we are a very various company. No, it is without any order, at least without any deliberate order.
Yes, in the world of the mind, I am a spirit of the middle intelligence.. No, I have nothing to do with gods; of course they exist but I take no stock in them.. What use would it be to me? Of course not. At least if they do it, they will have to do it without showing themselves. I would reject any interference.
To satisfy the curiosity of my intelligence.
Page 1424
Yes..
I was in many countries. I have had many lives, had many occupations, studied many things. The last life I was a little bit of a scientist, something of a philosopher, dabbled in politics too and in literature, but could not get much success. I was a good critic, but not a creator. In England. You would not know my name. The same thing, the curiosity of my intelligence; I had a mind that liked to inquire into the future of humanity and I had advanced views on the matter. No, you can help yourself much better.
It is an excellent form, very effective, that is if you want to wake people up and make them think.. I am certain we must have, but I cannot fix the occasion.
I know there is something above mind, but not what it is.
Do you ask me for my past opinions or for my present imaginations and ideas?
I am afraid that question passes my competence, that is the question how man came into being. My only idea about it is that all the theories are wrong.
No, I said advanced; that is in my past life. You would consider them commonplace.
Myself today.. The others are no longer here.——
Yes——
I do not know. Ask and we shall see.
In what respect?
(Tilak)2
He is, I believe, in the intermediate plane. He had a strong will to live, because he felt that his work was not finished, and when a man passes from the body with that feeling strong upon him, his personality is for a time turned towards the field of his human actions. Only a time is needed to bridge over the transition from one consciousness to another. When that is done, he will act for a
Page 1425
time on the intermediate plane probably until he is satisfied that the idea governing him is in good train towards success or until he has worked out the force of the attacking idea in his own consciousness. I speak of the personal mental part of it that still feels the effect of the life vibrations.——
That can only be done by the higher part of him. The part of his mind that is still concerned with the images of the outward world is likely for a time to act upon it through a certain impact on the men who are the channels of the general force that is working. It is only when these images fade and the consciousness becomes more free that the direct action of which you speak becomes probable. The action from the intermediate plane is in one sense stronger as it is capable of a more subtle and penetrating diffusion not hampered by the physical difficulties, but it has other difficulties of its own; it is strong for diffusion and the creation of impelling ideas and forces, but for the materialisation through human action it can only act in dependence on the transmitting agents. There is always a certain disparateness between the psychical and the physical planes and the transmission from the one to the other is not always facile
That is true, but always in the sense of a primary force. In the end this primary force is the important thing. I only speak of the difficulty of correct materialisation from the psychical plane. A strong will can produce from it a great general effect in the sense of its purpose and that after all is the important matter.
His psychic personality is composed of two parts, a higher soul which is the real man, a strong and brilliant soul of a great flight, and another which is the personality he works out in a certain round of lives and which gave the outward type of his human character and action. He is one of those who belong to the higher race, but has chosen to take on himself the burden of the lower for the help of the world action.
(Mr Tilak)
Yes. A great Karma Deva who is in intimate union with the Devas of knowledge.
Page 1426
(Mᵐᵉ Besant)
An Asuric being of great force busy divinising herself, but not yet successful because of the very force of her power which creates a great force of ego.
No, not a Rakshasa. There is a Rakshasa force associated with her, but it does not affect the centre of her being.
(I)
That is different. There are men who belong to one type and make an ascension, that is her case; there are others who have in themselves the various powers and have to transform them into the terms of the central unity. That I believe is yours.
(P.R)
To define your case is difficult. A Deva above, a strong Jnana Deva able to communicate with the higher planes, an Asura below representing the development of many lives, a Rakshasa force behind constantly weakened and fading, but not yet cast away by the drawing up of the vital being by the others, also several other minor deva kinds in the psychic being, that is the best I can manage.
(Rapports avec la Soc. Theosoph)
The fraternity is due to the fact that both are working out the common movement under a great superior direction. The hostility is due to the intermediate agencies. They are guided by inferior powers who are repelled and made afraid and therefore hostile by the superior force they at once feel in you; the greater intermediate powers that are behind you are not able to accommodate themselves to the narrowness of theirs and be sufficiently indulgent to their littleness. That is why there is the discord.
There is a great deal of ignorance in that idea. Kutthumi and Maurya are merely names and forms, true only as a psychic symbol or an instrumental representation, of the two main powers that are behind them, one governing their thought, the other influencing their action. In Madame Blavatsky they found a sufficient instrument who could as it were incarnate and harmonise both their forces. Her successors have not been able to do that, but have only responded to partial indications of one or the other; that is why
Page 1427
there [have]3 been so many divisions and so much confused and uncertain action in the movement.
Kutthumi represents a Deva, not a Jnana Deva, but a certain kind of thought deva who responds with a limited light but a great abundance of curious thought formations to the greater Idea that comes from the supramental level.
Maurya represents an Asura who has stopped short on the way to Devahood, a being of aggressive thought force and great vital vehemence, but of a very limited power in the true sense of the word, who has associated himself with Kutthumi and is tolerated by him, because otherwise Kutthumi would not be able to exercise an influence of practical action on the human world.
(Rapports avec la T.S.)
I doubt, unless the Maurya influence can be broken, but that would mean that the Society would lose its practical force of action. It would have either to be transformed and taken up into a greater action or dissolve as a society and its members or the best of them enter into a work of larger inspiration and movement.
That represented the hostility of which I spoke. The Maurya influence is a despotic power which does not want any interference with its control or any dissolvent action on the frame of thought and organised movement it has stamped on the society.
(Gandhi)
A big Karma Deva risen to a certain thought region into which he has carried his habit of rigid and definite action, associated with a psychic Deva of great purity but no great knowledge. The thought region is one which reflects rather than possesses a higher light, but he gives to it always the forms suitable to his concentrated impulse of action. It is this kind of combination that creates those who are at once saints and fanatics.
(Mirra)
I find it impossible at present to make a definite answer, because I have to see through an atmosphere that is not favourable
Page 1428
to a definite description.. All I can say is that there is a great Light Devata there, but the other elements are not clear to my vision. It is easy to define the psychic personality of people like Mrs Besant .. and Gandhi, but all your cases are different because of unusual or of complex elements of a considerable significance to which a short definition is not easily fitted.
Yes. I am here———————————
Tagore
There is not much to say. It is evident that there is in him a double being, one for the higher part of him, another for the lower nature. The higher is a very large psychic devata living in the celestial beauty of his own soul; the other is a sort of Gandharva. The Gandharva is limited, ego-bound, psycho-nervous, but his nervous expansion is made limited and weak by the domination of the psychic devata. At the same time he limits the psychic devata who because of him cannot impress himself on life, as he could if he had a strong intermediary, and therefore can find himself only in the world of his own imagination, poetry, art, an ineffective idealism.
He cannot be really a friend, because he lives only for his own psychic or nervous satisfaction and values people according as they minister to that. He may have sympathies, but they cannot take the active form necessary to friendship.
Yes, because he cannot pour himself out in life. He is therefore drawn into a sort of imprisoning circle of his own ether of isolated personality.. The devata in his relations to life. It is not that the devata would not like to be in active unity with others, but he has not the means in the vital nature of the human being.
That is first a sympathy of the psychic intelligence, secondly, the force of your own personality on him; it was not a thing deepseated in his own nature. You could still do the same thing with him if you were in constant relation with him, because he would like to be in action and would feel a support in the greater force that is around you; but as it is, it is not a thing that can be consistent and durable.
Page 1429
I should have to be in a little closer contact with them to do that effectively. As it is, I could only see through an intervening mist. The psychic image conveyed to me is not sufficiently precise and complete.
There is, but I fancy it belongs more to the past than anything else. You have gone too much forward.
It is the difficulty which meets all things that come from the future into the present and for which the powers of the present are not yet ready. In your case it is extremely strong in proportion as the idea and the force are large; if you were content with something smaller and more immediate, you would probably be much more effective. As it is, you come in advance of the godheads that are in march towards the actual world and you are too much beyond those who are actually at work at the moment. As yet you do not fit in and you have to create a place and a body for what is coming. But naturally the matter of the existing world is rebellious as it always is to things too great and new and not sufficiently prepared. The things you have formed in yourself need a greater outgoing force than they have at present in order to impress themselves sufficiently on the outside world. The momentum behind you is growing, but it is not yet sufficient. In these things those who create cannot see themselves where they are already effective, because the obstruction is greatest immediately around them; for they are the centre of the creation and therefore the centre of the accumulated resistance. Their thought and power work subtly, at a distance, through others, changed in those others to something less complete and characteristic which can mix with the actual material. That is to say, it is as mental influences that they work, but they do not take at once the recognisable form of which they can say, "This is the thing I mean, this is the actual creation I intend." That can only be when they become the direct material creators. I do not know whether I make myself clear to you.
It is difficult for me to say because I see the psychic better than the material things. In trying to make an inference from the former to the latter, I should probably commit many errors.
The obstacle is general; it applies itself for the moment to any action you are likely to take, but if you can once break it
Page 1430
down effectively at one point, it is likely that others will open. My impression is that it will take you yet a little time to find the weak point of the obstruction and I myself cannot really tell. The obstruction is not something definite and rational, but a sheer force of obscurity and inertia which has somehow got itself concentrated in front for the time being. It is really a vital intuition enlightened by the higher mind which could find it out and that is a thing I necessarily lack in my present condition.
Yes, it is true. These forces know nothing, but they are as it were attracted where there is something that threatens them and they take time to form.
That also is true; India is a field where the opposing forces are most hostile to each other and there is besides a great complexity. If however the forces of the future can once form themselves effectively, they will get here perhaps their best chance of a direct and rapid action. That at least is one possibility on which certain very great Devatas are working.
It was someone else who suggested that—someone I think who is very sensitive to possibilities. It is true I believe that powers are at strenuous work to bring in a violent impetus and at moments it looks as if they would succeed, but the forces that make for an arrest direct themselves there and there is anew a deadlock.
I am here.—
That is not very easy for me. I wish to be quite well connected with the terrestrial plane by communication first before I give out myself. If things are suggested to me, I can by an effort put myself in relation at particular points and so strengthen the connection. Otherwise I can only speak of things foreign to the terrestrial atmosphere.—
Russie
I think that the formations there are of a kind too forceful to be steady. There is a violent pressure upon natural psychological forces to suppress some, to create others. The transformation attempted is of the nature of a scheme made in the mind and imposed on
Page 1431
the life forces. This means that many of the life forces lie inert and unconverted and a constant renewal of currents [has]4 to be made to galvanise things into effective action. If a constant struggle could be kept up with success with outside forces there would in time grow up a sufficiently steady and compact centre of transformation; but the Bolshevik motor force is at present a very small though powerful agent at once repressing a great inert mass and trying to use it for great and difficult work. That is a kind of action in which you must expect many crises and chances of failure. A failure anywhere means a retardation and a fresh expenditure of energy to start again. There is not the general excitement and vital enthusiasm that supported the French revolution. There is instead a more intelligent intellectual force and centre acting on a more complex and contradictory national psychology which is itself by no means strong either in intellectuality or in rapid vital energy. The experiment is most difficult, the chances precarious, and the one great hope is that the hostile forces will go on blundering and give the Bolshevik centre each time leisure and opportunity to repair the results of misfortune and strengthen itself for good. That is all I can see in the matter.
All right—
That is a little outside my power of vision.
Psychically the conditions seem to me favourable, I don't know about the material elements..
Cousins
Yes. He is a soul of the middle regions, of what might be called the psychic and aesthetic world, associated with a very material being into which the soul has got rather thickly encased. There is an aesthetic devata enlightened by a Power of the intuitive intelligence, and its light burns inside and radiates through the material crust, but not with the free light that it might otherwise have. It gets free in the activities related to its own domain, but not even there quite free because it has had to educate the material mind and has not
Page 1432
been able to make it a quite flexible and spontaneous instrument. In other things it is subject to the limitations of the material being with whom it is associated and can only refine it to some extent without being able to change it. The intuitive Power works chiefly in that domain and is not sufficiently concerned or active in the rest.
For him you can do much, but I don't know whether the material being will allow you. Still you can bring an influence on the intuitive Power in him to act on the whole intelligence, where it is still content to work in rather cramped bounds. This Power is a little indifferent to other things than the aesthetic and psychic, and if you can interest it sufficiently in a wider domain for it to break from its indifference, and that is quite possible, it is strong enough to compel the material mind to which it now leaves those things, to enlarge itself and become intuitive. There is likely however to be much passive resistance because there are other influences.
As for the other question he can only help you in outward matters and that he can do very well if he is kept in close touch with you and his emotional being in active friendly relation. He is easily responsive to influences where this is the case.
Mᵐᵉ Cousins
That has been a help to him, but as often happens is also a hindrance. She is stronger than him in will, for his will is not very strong, but not being very wide in mind this decisiveness of will makes her rigid in her intelligence. Of course, if she could be induced to move from her moorings he would move with her like a boat in tow with a steam launch, but she is not flexibly responsive to influences.
More times than one I was here, but you did not call me.——
No, because I depend on you for my connection with earth and I have nothing to say for myself any longer...
There are others who if you like can come.
That will not do, because the medium is not one who is in the state of passive receptivity.
Page 1433
I do not know, but there may be.
First let anyone come. Then there may be one who has something to say—This writing has either to be centred round one communicant or left absolutely free; but in the latter case all sorts of thing[s] interesting or uninteresting may come. One has to take one's chance.
I am here already. The thing I said last time I came that there was a storm preparing in Asia I can now explain more clearly. It is still preparing and it threatens the British Empire. Mesopotamia is one centre, India is the other. In India the electricity is gathering force and before long it will be the beginning of the end.—
There are three stages to be gone through. The first begins now with the movement of non-cooperation which will develop into a movement of separation and independence. The second will be a formation of something corresponding to the Sinn Fein, but of a more carefully organised character. The third will be a final revolution which will at once end the British rule and break up the old India of the past. These three stages will follow rapidly on each other and even overlap to a certain extent, the last taking up the results of the two others——
The time I do not see clearly; but the flood of the present movement is likely to be three years, after which it will be replaced by the second. That may last a little longer. In any case all will be finished in ten years.
Not long considering that the greater part of India is still illprepared even for this stage. The people have to be accustomed to shake off their habits of timidity and dependence and work boldly and avowedly for freedom. It is the office of the present movement to make this change and three years is by no means a long time if one considers the psychological revolution that is to be made. The Swadeshi movement lasted six years and changed only one or two provinces to a certain extent. This will last only three years and will change the whole of India.
That is a question I cannot answer, for I am not in touch with your destinies. But so far as I can see from my present contact with you, the first stage is not the one for which anyone here can be
Page 1434
directly useful. For it will be too confused and indefinite. It is more probably the second that will demand your assistance.
That I have not yet seen.. I think it depends on what happens in China.. Japan cannot be ready to help India until the state of things in the whole of the Far East is changed. If Japan and China are ready, there will probably be a great change in Indo China and then the whole Asiatic movement can link itself together through India.
That can only bear fruit subsequently. It is essential first that India should form the clear idea of independence and then your League may be a standing suggestion to her to turn for help to the Far East. At present she is looking to the West and to Mahomedan Asia and does not imagine at all that anything can come to her from the Far East.
If you establish it now, perhaps after two years it may begin to have a meaning for India beyond what it bears on the surface.
That is all I had to say myself. I shall return another day——
290 (le nombre d'êtres en moi)
My knowledge does not go so far as to explain the number in each being. The proportion varies for each man, although there are possible classifications. Each man is unique being a centre of the possibilities of the infinite. The proportions remain the same through life for beings of a certain order of development who change only within a certain settled framework as a preparation for subsequent existences; it is variable in natures which admit of considerable enlargements and changes. There are four orders in the ordinary human nature, mental, psychic, nervous, physical; four in the superior or superconscient nature. It is probably to the four human orders that the 290 belong; the physical are few in comparison; it is the three others that are most complex. All I can say is that it is a very complex calculation and I see the figures 7, 6, 7, 6, 3, recurring. I must take a little time to see if I can see farther.
Probably the 7 includes both the psychic and mental and the 6 refers to the nervous being. In that case there will be two orders
Page 1435
each of the number 40 (four tens) in the mental, and of 30 (three tens) in the psychic, and of 60 (six tens) in the nervous, and only ten orders of 3 each in the physical. I do not yet see to what the orders correspond.
You must remember that the physical has to bear the impact of the others. Therefore, however obscure they may be, thirty is not too much for the physical being.
The two orders on each plane must be the right hand and the left hand powers. The right hand are those who open upward so as to admit the influences from above and shape them for the being; the left hand are those who open downward to the world here and the actualised experience and send them up to the higher planes. That at least is the division which seems to me to correspond best in the arrangement.
That is quite different; it belongs to a more mystic truth of which I have not the key. Is there not something in the Hebrew or the Chaldean mysteries which might shed light on it?
It may be that that belongs to some secret potentiality or totality in the four superconscient planes which seek to realise themselves on the four human levels.
No, I don't think it has anything to do with the number of beings; it is something more recondite, more symbolic.
Chandra
This is a very easy question. The girl's psychical being is entirely concentrated upon the nervous life and there she has an immense but undeveloped force. Given certain favourable circumstances of education, social surroundings etc she could have been one of the notable enchantresses of men who draw not by physical beauty but by nervous magnetism and the secret charm of the psychical being behind, but she has fallen into the wrong forms of life and this has not been developed. However the psychical being with its potentialities is there and it is that he has felt and that attracts him. Behind all that is a spirit with a very powerful will, but it is behind the veil and what comes out from it is wasted on small and trivial things. If that spirit could be roused to break the veil and come into the front, then she would be a fitting mate for him and
Page 1436
supply much that he needs for his own fullness. That too probably the soul in him vaguely feels though it is not known to the mind, and that enters into the strength of his attraction for her. But if he cannot do this, then the attraction will fail and they will separate. I believe they have met in former lives and past connections explain the swiftness of their drawing together.
Mᴸᴸᵉ Chattopadhyay—(Mrinalini)
This is a soul of a very high order though not of the highest. A great psychic being is there behind, whose stamp has determined the whole turn of the nature. This being has a strong spiritual inspiration of which the human mind in her is vaguely conscious; but because the higher experience has not taken shape, it could not become the ruling note in the life or the nature. The next strongest thing is the emotional mind which is one of an extraordinarily intense capacity, acute and poignant in all its movements but held in by the intelligence. It is still in the emotions that she lives and they are of a great spontaneity, sincerity, clarity and strength. The intelligence is a lesser force, but well trained and developed and it is the influence again of the psychic being that has given it a literary and artistic turn. There is a suppleness and fineness in the nature proceeding from the same source. The one thing wanting is the discovery of her spiritual self; she has not yet found herself, but has spent her gifts on the things of the mind and heart, and she is conscious of the want in her. If once she completes herself, the full beauty and power of the psychical devata in her will appear and she may do a considerable work for the social and cultural change in India, her real mission in life, a work more solid than any that can be done by any of her brothers or sisters. This is a view a little from the outside. The things behind I cannot tell properly today, because I have externalised myself excessively in my effort to get into touch with the outer existence
The spirit who ordinarily comes is not here. I have taken his place——
He has gone into the region of the pranic worlds which is near
Page 1437
to the earth. He is drawing around him pranic forces for his next birth. At the same time he will probably come if you continue the writing..
I am the son of the middle heavens who have often descended on the earth. I am a frequent messenger to earth of the gods of the middle heaven.
There are three heavens of the gods who work on the mind from the heights of the mental world. The first is the heaven of the mind which is in tune with the infinite, the second or middle heaven that of the luminous mental determinations, the third of the origination of mental forms.
I have no special message for you; for the action which I represent affects the work you are seeking to do only by a sort of oblique injection of its powers and suggestions. It is not in the direct line of descent; that concerns others. Therefore I leave you to put your own questions.
Yes.
My work of mentality is different. It is not concerned with the actualities of the psychic plane. Await the coming of the other for that question. I can only tell you certain possibilities of his nature, not his actual psychic condition. But it is better to know his actual condition and then the possibilities will take their proper value. At present they may seem too much in the air without their proper foundation.
I have returned.—
Chokra = Ramaiah
This is a difficult question to answer, because there is so much that is undeveloped; there are not the clear, certain and vivid forms which I found in the others..
What I see are certain things behind that have not yet their full representation in the surface nature. There is a strong psychic, a strong pranic being associated with the nature, a mental which is very active but has not found its means of self expression in the mind. The difficulty is in some knot of the physical birth producing a physical consciousness which is unequal to the powers of the soul and a life cast into circumstances that are still more in conflict with
Page 1438
the greater potentialities. There is behind an urge and insistent will of seeking demanding a work, an association, a knowledge, anything which will help the soul to break out from its covering sheath of the physical consciousness. But the fixities that are established by the outward being are not as yet the right forms that are wanted for his real self to emerge. They are only tentative determinations to which the stress of the urge behind gives a certain ardent and eager character. If the coverings can be broken, the powers behind will reveal their true strength.
As far as I can see, it is the mental that is the strongest obstacle. The nervous and the psychic will find their own proper development if he finds his right mind and way of action. Let him by whatever means open up his mentality, so that the soul may have a chance. The obstacle is in the formed nature, the result of past circumstances; if that is allowed to govern, it will never, however he educates it, give an open field to the soul.. He may make some progress, but not realise in this life the true soul possibilities. He must break boldly the limits of the formed mental nature and let the soul powers flood out into the consciousness. That is the one way for him as it is for many others who are in a similar case—
I continue.. N.P.K. Kalappa.5
This is a clearer nature.. In front is a lesser mental devata with a strong and brooding will—through whom all the main soul currents come. The nervous and psychic are governed by beings who hold back until this devata has found the way for the nature. I see him very clearly. It is like a low burning red flame which grows more and more intense, supporting a shaft of golden light. Behind is a greater deva of knowledge and will who will only come forward if the lesser being succeeds in opening the way. A psychic being with great psychic power and a large emotional scope is also waiting for the same decisive movement. This much I can see for the present. Here too the problem is a development of the outward consciousness into a sufficient instrument or rather channel; but
Page 1439
the obstacle here is only a comparative narrowness of the channel owing to a blocking up by received ideas and mental habits and the obstacle is one of no great force, easily removed if a purifying flood of light can be poured into the channel.
That I cannot tell you. It depends on your bringing forward of your powers. I have no sufficient view of the future.
Ka. Neela Kantaiyar.
Here the power of the nature is psychic-intellectual; the presiding devata of the being sends down only an influence which turns into a seeking without a definite orientation. The activity has been governed by an intermediate being who is psychic with a turn to a curious action of the intelligence. The being has not in this case been concentrated round this governing action. There is in it a turn to a larger seeking. There are in this case too greater powers who can come forward if the chance is given. The presiding devata is one with a rainbow light around him, but there is a shaft of white descending on it from above. The psychic is of a very ruddy rose light. These are the two chief powers behind the veil of the physical consciousness.
30 corps physiques
Yes, I am here.—
The thirty are three tens. They are those who support the physical consciousness, not the physical body alone, but the obscurer consciousness of which it is the visible representation. In this consciousness there are three layers, one which receives the mental impressions and store[s] them in the corporeal system, so that it responds to a sum of habitual mental sanskaras; the second, which similar[ly] responds to the vital and preserves the habit of replying to habitual vital impulses, the third of a more purely material kind. These beings are not intelligent, but obscure and fixed in their habits. When a change has to be made, it is they who are the last support to a resistance to the change, but also if they can be made to reply to new things, they help to make them fixed in the physical consciousness and thus to assure their stability.
Page 1440
Yes; only the number may vary.
That depends on the plasticity and richness of the physical consciousness.. The more plastic, the more numerous the beings of this order. It may vary from three to ninety, or even many more in extraordinary cases.
The number can always increase and must if there is a development of this part of the being.
No.—They belong to the invisible world of matter. It is only a part of the physical that is visible to the human senses.
At least three.
It is prepared during the gestation; but really determined before birth.
No, not freely; they are attracted
No. I only explain the information given to you. I see only the psychical.
I think he should develop a little first, it is not always good to give information about themselves to people in a certain stage of development; it is better that their minds should be fluid.
No—
There are strong reasons against giving this information.
You are like that, first, because of the powers that are associated with you, one of whom has nothing to do with reason, but only with his own vehement impulses and desires. As for the form of your question, I might suggest as a paradox that you are unreasonable because you reason too much; that is you support too much your unreason by your reason6
The traditions are symbolic, not exact. The system of the Puranas was not created by anybody, but was a development of very ancient traditions infinitely older than the historic culture to
Page 1441
which the name of Puranic has been given. The present Puranas are very late creations with many ancient things imbedded in them and mixed with much of a recent creation.
No, but the traditions they contain are often older than the extant Veda.
I could hardly say. There is much that has survived from old civilisations that have perished, but of course in a changed form. One would have to count their origin perhaps by tens of thousands of years. There are things also that were believed in old times, forgotten and again recovered from the mental planes. It is difficult to disentangle the various materials and say which dates from what time. The theory of the Kalpas has existed in one form or another from times lost in the mist of oblivion.
I composed many things, but they are not extant.
Vyasa is a name under which many different people have been confused together. If you mean Krishna Dwaipayana, he is somewhere in the planes of being which are at the height of what may be called the mental heavens.
They cannot be numbered. Besides these existed through centuries after centuries in long generations of Rishis.
The seven Rishis are a tradition. The original seven Rishis refer to seven personalities who did not belong to the earth. The seven of tradition have not been on the earth since the Vedic times.
I know nothing about the White Lodge. I should fancy they belong to the lower worlds between the pranic and the mental. They are certainly not the Vedic Rishis—though the name given to one of them is that of a later Rishi of the times of the Upanishads. Yes.
I do not think it is the same; but I cannot say certainly, for I do not know where Kutthumi is.
The best thing, I should imagine, would be to get them to enlarge their Theosophy by bringing in a current of new and upward pointing ideas; but that could not be done without either starting from their present ideas as a valid point of departure or breaking their framework and the latter would not be tolerated while the present control existed. It is rather through some kind
Page 1442
of communication and indirect influence that they could be helped, but I could not say exactly how. If anything is possible, it will spring out of circumstances and individual relations.
There are many ways of changing, but the most common is by a pressure from above. All that develops in the mental, psychic, vital has an influence which is precipitated into the obscure physical consciousness and works there more or less slowly. Certain slight changes are always being produced, others of a more important kind occasionally. The physical beings receive these influences and assimilate them in the already established physical consciousness and there make of them a sure basis for the mental, psychic and vital habits. These change decisively in proportion as they can get the guardians of the physical consciousness to accept and support them. A great force of will from above can sometimes make abrupt changes. But ordinarily the movement is more or less slow and within well established limits. Outside these limits these beings offer a strong resistance to any change, unless it confines itself to the higher activities. In proportion as a great change of mental thought for instance tries to affect the vital and physical being, the opposition becomes strong and is usually obstinate. It is sometimes rapidly overborne, sometimes can only be obtained7 by a slow process of transformation in the sanskaras of the physical beings. All this is in the ordinary kind of development. It is only if there is a great influx of power from above the mental that very extraordinary changes can usually be made. In that case the physical beings are sometimes overpowered, sometimes enlightened, sometimes rejected and replaced by others.
It must however be noted that abnormal changes of a purely physical kind are a different matter. They are the most difficult to accomplish. For there [these]8 physical beings are in their own domain and exercising their strongest right which is to prevent any violent change in the organised habits of physical Nature. It needs
Page 1443
either an exceptional action of the physical Nature itself or an action of the suggestive mental powers in abnormal circumstances liberated from the usual obstacles or a powerful influx from the supramental and spiritual to change these things.
Do you mean, on the physical level?
That is when other physical beings with a different set of impulses are allowed to invade the established circle of physical things and replace the guardians of the old order. That is part of the process of the great crises of evolution.
He would either be taken up into some higher part of the being and form an element of Rudra force in the totality without being any longer active as a separate element of the personality, or else, if he remained as a separate part of the personality, he would be a sort of enlightened and passive instrument for the Purusha with a view to a certain divine action of a kind it is difficult to describe. There would be a divine use of the Rakshasa force changed from a nervous egoism to a sort of powerful dynamic utility on that plane, just as the animal power in the body might be divinely used for the greater purposes of the divinised Purusha.
The last time I was near the earth, this time I am beginning to withdraw. I think before long I must depart to prepare during a sufficiently long period for my rebirth among men.
Yes; but an interval of preparation is necessary during which I must gather forces on the intermediary planes. After that I shall have again to enter into relation with the material plane, but of course in a different way, and gather powers and influences of the earth to form my earthly basis of personality, mind, life and body.
I believe so; but it may be either in the direct surroundings or in dependent circles..
Possibly, ten or fifteen years..
No. That would not fulfil my personal need which is to repair the mistake I made in my last existence.
The sign is that I shall be known by my powers of renewing the
Page 1444
link of memory between my own times and the new age. I shall be one who brings from that ancient past a power of realisation which shall enrich the elements of the new mankind. If this is not enough, then you may easily know me by seeing in vision the form of what I was renewed though changed in the form of my new body.
A seer with knowledge can know the identity of one he sees even though not known before to the physical mind.
It will be begun.
That is not necessary. That I should be directly descended.
No; I have not the physical vision. It is not always easy to see from a distance, and if I depend on any of you, I may be too much influenced by your impressions.
I cannot say, certainly; but I think you are having too fixed and limited ideas about the matter. There will be, I think, not one, but several centres, and the whole thing will be of a fluid character before there is any decisive formation. I should say, do not fix things beforehand, but let the force that descends have freedom of movement, the freedom as of waters descending and flowing in many directions, afterwards the solid formation.
My opinion is of no great value in that matter. The progress in these matters comes usually in two ways; either by a violent conversion which changes in a short time the whole direction of the nature, or by a slow and difficult process with many movements and reversions in which the progress made can only be estimated after a lapse of time by something having disappeared after alternate returns and weakenings or something new having been formed which attempts to come, then disappears, then comes again until it has made its foothold. Possibly, the effort in you has not decidedly taken either course, or it has attempted the first method and, failing, fallen back on the slower movement. I cannot say really, because it depends on a power which is not the psychical and which in your case is hidden behind a veil. In such cases, the outward signs are deceptive.
Don't put it in that form, because so put it is an already existing idea and attracts around it many difficulties. The word asrama and its concomitant associations, to begin with, should be cast away. Make the thing new in some flame of revealing intuition and then the chances of success will be real.
Page 1445
Let us say, the exchange-house of meeting influences of the self-creating superrace.
Words have power and names are often traps.
Once I go, I can no longer communicate.
I cannot say yet; it will not be immediately..
To most; it will not be so to me..
The pain of descent and self-limitation and loss of self in the body. Always the other planes are freer than the material; birth is usually a sacrifice.
Yes; they have the desire; but the fulfilment of the desire still involves a sacrifice.
Yes, a compression, that is the word.
Because I shall descend with a fuller consciousness and with the impulse that makes the superman. A greater Shakti will support me. I cannot explain all the process, but I know it will be so.
Death is usually a struggle. The struggle to get out of the compression is often as painful as the effort to get into it. But to some death is easy.
He may have in the end many ways, but the physical birth will continue..
The superman will take all the ways that are necessary for the divine design in the evolution; if physical birth ceases to be a part of the plan, it will for him discontinue; but there will be no other reason for him to avoid it.
Make your question more precise.
No, it must be prepared in actual man. It can come by a rapid change, a decisive descent of the divine supermind into the human being.
It would be impossible for them to be born in the monkey except by a miraculous descent of the thinking mind into the life mind of the animal. How do you suppose a human couple to be suddenly born of a couple of monkeys? By stages of ascent, each involving an influx of more and more mind, the first into an original animal, not necessarily the ape, but one that has now disappeared after providing the necessary basis.
Suppose, an animal that has evolved the life mind to its
Page 1446
highest limits of curiosity and adaptive invention and developed a favourable body. Suppose, an effort of Nature in certain individuals of the kind breaking a barrier between the animal mind and the secret greater mind which is subliminally brooding there in Nature, so that there is the influx I speak of, to however limited an extent. There is the seed man. Suppose a progression, more and more effort of progress, more and more result both of mental development and physical change. The lower kinds which are only a bridge, neither animals, nor complete men, disappear; the full basis of man is established. After that the real human progress. May it not so have happened?
The last time I made a mistake. It is only after the second month of the next year that I retire from the earth proximity. I imagined that a certain necessary development would proceed more quickly than it has actually done.
No, I have not met him. In any case the photograph by itself would tell me little. The fields of the psychic world are too numerous for meetings of this kind to be common, especially between souls descending to renew their touch with earth and others ascending and recently come from it.
I don't quite seize the question.
What two kinds of the Divine? There are many aspects, infinite movements, but I do not catch the distinction you make, I mean the exact significance of what you mean. The Bhakta pure is limited, so is the man of intelligence. But knowledge can mount to the unknown and manifest it, so too can love or Ananda mount to the unseized and bring it down into manifestation. It is the power of the soul that matters, not so much the way; that is to say, I cannot say that one way is superior to the other.
A greater completeness is always superior to a lesser completeness; but also an extreme power of one can do miracles..
Be wise as a serpent and mild as a dove.
It is a possible approach, but it wants intuition and a happy seizing of occasion to deal with these people. What I would suggest
Page 1447
is to take hold of them by the strong side of Theosophy and not to press too much on the weak side. People attached to a fixed and traditional thinking—for it has become traditional with them—have not usually the open nature which can bear exposure of the weakness of what they believe in. One or two may profit by that method, the most will react in a hostile fashion. On the other hand if the strong side is seized and broadened to its real issues, they may be led without knowing it to enlarge themselves and meet with a good disposition the atmosphere of larger thought you bring them. This reception is needed, because it is the difference of the two atmospheres that is likely to be a stumbling block. The second thing is if you can make a link with them through the active side of their ideas. The outer side of the practical idea you have is favourable from this standpoint, because it can easily be used as a means to bring out the broader side of their own principles of action. The ulterior motive has to be kept in the shadow for the present; a time may come when they will receive it, but that will be after the present dominating influence in the society has receded. The third thing is to mix mainly on the one hand with the larger, on the other with the simpler and more candid minds among them; leave aside those who are in between. Be careful with Mrs Besant; she is a difficult and deceptive personality.
The strong side is first their seeking after truth, which is constantly moving near things that are true without quite seizing them; the weak side is the imaginations, fancies and rigid formulas which they build up like a wall between the truth and their search. If you read their books, or listen to their ideas with patience, you will easily be able to distinguish the two elements and bring out what I call the strong side. Then there are their larger ideas which admit truth in all religions and many philosophies and their attempt to find a principle of unity for men of all races and peoples, etc. There is much else which one can seize with advantage if one is in their company and comes to know what is behind this movement of theosophy..
A very difficult question to answer. Everything depends on the psychic impression you make and on keeping up that impression in her psychic being, if that is favourable. The difficulty is in all the
Page 1448
rest of her nature which is full of egoism and of tricks of intelligence and tricks of passion which she herself cannot understand and that may trip you up at any moment. I really cannot say how to be careful.. It is a matter of vigilance and self-adaptation as to which no specific suggestion can be given. Probably she will be very busy and you need not see too much of her. Only see her when you are yourself in a good mood. She is psychically sensitive in a certain fashion and when well impressed psychically can be openminded up to a certain degree. If you are yourself well disposed and not too critical of her weaknesses, you can create a favourable magnetic interchange which is of more importance in her case than the mental relation.
Page 1449
Home
Sri Aurobindo
Books
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.