Letters On Yoga - Parts 2,3

Experiences and Realisations - VI

The emptiness that you described in your letter yesterday was not a bad thing—it is this emptiness inward and outward that often in yoga becomes the first step towards a new consciousness. Man's nature is like a cup of dirty water—the water has to be thrown out, the cup left clean and empty for the divine liquor to be poured into it. The difficulty is that the human physical consciousness feels it difficult to bear this emptiness—it is accustomed to be occupied by all sorts of little mental and vital movements which keep it interested and amused or even if in trouble and sorrow still active. The cessation of these things is hard to bear for it. It begins to feel dull and restless and eager for the old interests and movements. But by this restlessness it disturbs the quietude and brings back the things that had been thrown out. It is this that is creating the difficulty and the

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obstruction for the moment. If you can accept emptiness as a passage to the true consciousness and true movements, then it will be easier to get rid of the obstacle.

All in the Ashram are not suffering from the sense of dullness and want of interest, but many are because the Force that is descending is discouraging the old movements of the physical and vital mind which they call life and they are not accustomed to accept the renunciation of these things, or to admit the peace or joy of silence.

Emptiness is not in itself a bad condition, only if it is a sad and restless emptiness of the dissatisfied vital. In sadhana emptiness is very usually a necessary transition from one state to another. When mind and vital fall quiet and their restless movements, thoughts and desires cease, then one feels empty. This is at first often a neutral emptiness with nothing in it, nothing in it either good or bad, happy or unhappy, no impulse or movement. This neutral state is often or even usually followed by the opening to inner experience. There is also an emptiness made of peace and silence, when the peace and silence come out from the psychic within or descend from the higher consciousness above. This is not neutral, for in it there is the sense of peace, often also of wideness and freedom. There is also a happy emptiness with the sense of something close or drawing near which is not yet there, e.g. the closeness of the Mother or some other preparing experience. What you describe is the neutral quiet. There is no need for anxiety. When it comes, one has only to remain quiet and open and turned to the Mother till something develops from within.

To be an empty vessel is a very good thing if one knows how to make use of the emptiness.

If it is only emptiness, there is nothing wrong. Alternations of

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emptiness and fullness are a quite normal feature of experience in sadhana.

The voidness (if by that you mean silence and emptiness of thoughts, movements etc.) is the basic condition into which the higher consciousness can flow.

The voidness is the best condition for a full receptivity.

Voidness can come from anywhere, mind, vital or from above.

Emptiness usually comes as a clearance of the consciousness or some part of it. The consciousness or part becomes like an empty cup into which something new can be poured. The highest emptiness is the pure existence of the self in which all manifestation can take place.

Emptiness as such is not a character of the higher consciousness, though it often looks like that to the human vital when one has the pure realisation of the Self, because all is immobile, and for the vital all that is not full of action appears empty. But the emptiness that comes to the mind, vital or physical is a special thing intended to clear the room for the things from above.

An emptiness in the mind or vital may be spiritual without emptiness being an essential characteristic of the higher consciousness. If it were, there could be no Force, Light or Ananda in the higher consciousness. Emptiness is only a result produced by a certain

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action of the higher Force on the system in order that the higher consciousness may be able to come into it. It is a spiritual emptiness as opposed to the dull and inert emptiness of complete tamas which is not spiritual.

Emptiness is a state of quietude of the mental or vital or all the consciousness not visited by any mind or vital movements, but open to the Pure Existence and ready or tending to be that or already that but not yet realised in its full power of being. Which of these conditions it happens to be depends on the particular case. The Self state or the state of pure existence is sometimes also called emptiness, but only in the sense that it is a state of sheer static rest of being without any contacts of mobile Nature.

There is no such thing as néant. By "void" is meant emptiness clear of all contents except existence pure and simple. Without that one cannot realise the silent Brahman.

The void is the condition of the Self—free, wide and silent. It seems void to the mind but in reality it is simply a state of pure existence and consciousness, Sat and Chit with Shanti.

Voidness may be of different kinds—a certain kind of spiritual voidness, or the emptiness that is a preparation for new experience. But an exhaustion of life energy is a very different thing. It may come from fatigue, from somebody or something drawing away the vital force or from an invasion of tamas. But I don't know why it should be connected with the English study and happening only then.

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The usual result of voidness is to quiet down any vital disturbance although it does not, unless it is complete, stop the mechanical recurrent action of the mind.

If it is a real emptiness, one can rest in it for years together,—it is because the vital is restless and full of desires (not empty) that it is like that. Also the physical mind is by no means at rest. If the desires were thrown out and the ego less active and the physical mind at rest, knowledge would come from above in place of the physical mind's stupidities, the vital mind could be calm and quiet and the Mother's Force take up the action and the higher consciousness begin to come down. That is the proper sequel of emptiness.

I cannot have written that it is only you who feel the silence as empty, as there are plenty who do so feel it at first. One feels it empty because one is accustomed to associate existence with thought, feeling and movement or with forms and objects, and there are none of these there. But it is not really empty.

You have written about the Force coming down—even sometimes of its filling all parts—so what is this "never"? I did not at all mean that there is a mechanical process by which every time there is emptiness there comes an entire filling up. It depends on the stage of the sadhana. The emptiness may come often or stay long before there is any descent—what fills may be silence and peace and Force or Knowledge and they may fill only the mind or mind and heart or mind and heart and vital or all. But there is nothing fixed and mechanically regular about these two processes.

Silence of the being is the first natural aim of the yoga. X and

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some others do not find satisfaction in it because they have not overcome the vital mind which wants always some kind of activity, change, doing something, something to happen. The eternal immobility of the silent Brahman is a thing it does not relish. So when emptiness comes, it finds it dull, inert, monotonous.

Certainly, the vital cannot take an interest in a blank condition. If you depend on your vital you cannot prolong it. It is the spirit that feels a release in the silence empty of all mental or other activities, for in that silence it becomes self-aware. For the blankness to be real one must have got into the Purusha or Witness Consciousness. If you are looking at it with your mind or vital, then there is not blankness, for even if there are not distinct thoughts then there must be a mental attitude or mental vibrations—e.g. the not feeling interest.

There is no reason why the void should be a dull or unhappy condition. It is usually the habit of the mind and vital to associate happiness or interest only with activity, but the spiritual consciousness has no such limitations.

I really do not know what kind of joy you want. All experiences are not accompanied by joy. Interest is another matter.

It is the tendency of the physical to substitute its own inertia for the emptiness. The true emptiness is the beginning of what I call in the Arya "śama"—the rest, calm, peace of the eternal Self—which has finally to replace tamas, the physical inertia. Tamas is the degradation of sama, as rajas is the degradation of Tapas, the Divine Force. The physical consciousness is always

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trying to substitute its own inertia for the calm, peace or rest of the true consciousness, just as the vital is always trying to substitute its rajas for the true action of the Force.

The physical does not get tired of the blankness. It may feel tamasic because of its own tendency to inertia, but it does not usually object to voidness. Of course it may be the vital physical. You have only to reject it as a remnant of the old movements.

In the course of the sadhana a state of blankness, of "neutral quiet" like this often comes—especially when the sadhana is in the physical consciousness. It is not that the aspiration is gone, but that it does not manifest for the time being, because all has become neutrally quiet. This condition is trying for the human mind and vital which are accustomed to be in some kind of activity always and regard this as a lifeless state. But one must not feel disturbed or disappointed when this comes, but remain calm in the full confidence that it is a stage only, a ground that has to be crossed in the sadhana. In whatever condition, the faith and the fixed idea of surrender must be kept before the mind. As for the brief movements of restlessness, they will still down if this is kept and the quiet mind and vital reassert themselves quickly.

Blankness is only a condition in which realisation has to come. If aspiration is needed for that, it has to be used; if the realisation comes of itself, then of course aspiration is not necessary.

The "state" I was speaking of was not blankness but something else—I see by reference to the passage in your letter that it was

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a "state in which aspiration is not needed." Such a state is not blankness but a condition in which the Mother's force is present to the consciousness and doing everything.

Every kind of realisation—infinite self, cosmic consciousness, the Mother's Presence, Light, Force, Ananda, Knowledge, Sachchidananda realisation, the different layers of consciousness up to the supermind. All these can come in the silence which remains but ceases to be blank.

The silence can remain when the blankness has gone. All sorts of things can pour in and yet the silence still remains, but if you become full of force, light, Ananda, knowledge etc. you cannot call yourself blank any longer.

If it is the spiritual emptiness then it will not be felt as interfering with the sadhana.

What you describe is the same neutral condition that you had before. It is a transitional state in which the old consciousness has ceased to be active, the new is preparing behind a neutral quietude. One must take it quietly and wait for it to turn into the spiritual peace and the psychic happiness which is quite different from vital joy and grief. To have neither vital joy nor vital grief is considered by the yogins to be a very desirable release,—it makes it possible to pass from the ordinary human vital feelings to the true and constant inner peace, joy or happiness. I suppose you have no time just now for sitting in meditation. The pressure of sleep is a pressure to go inside and the habit of meditation makes it possible to turn the sleep that comes into a

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kind of sleep-samadhi in which one is conscious of various experiences and progresses in the inner being.

The condition which you feel is one which is very well known in sadhana. It is a sort of passage or transition, a state of inwardness which is growing but not yet completed—at that time to speak or throw oneself outward is painful. What is necessary is to be very quiet and remain within oneself all the time until the movement is completed,—one should not speak or only a little and in a low quiet way nor concentrate the mind on outward things. You should also not mind what people say or question,—although they are practising sadhana, they know nothing about these conditions and if one becomes quiet or withdrawn they think one must be sad or ill. The Mother did not find you at all like that, sad or ill; it is simply a phase or temporary state in the sadhana that she has experience of and knows very well.

The condition lasts often for a number of days, sometimes many, until something definite begins. Remain confident and quiet.