The Indian Spirit and the World's Future

The Spiritual Life and World-Problems: Two Letters to a Seeker

I

I BELIEVE you have sincerity of search. It seems to me that what you have to do is to let this sincerity take as much effect as possible by bringing up the true Godward strain in you which at present appears to be a little mixed up with the ethico-social urge. Not that the two need be at loggerheads; but the former should subsume the latter and not vice versa.

I come now to the specific points you have raised. A person who is frustrated and unhappy can make others happy by doing his best to keep his frustration and unhappiness in the background and by being good and considerate and helpful. It can also be that if one is loved by somebody, one automatically gives happiness of a kind, even though one is frustrated and unhappy. But frustration and unhappiness are serious impediments and they can often distort one's attitude and spoil one's conduct. What is required is some sort of "sublimation" if one's desire to serve people and make them happy is to prove fruitful. And there can be no greater sublimation than the turning of one's frustrated and unhappy self towards the Divine and away from the feverish attachments to ordinary things which has brought about that unfulfilled and miserable state of mind. When such a turning is done, that state of mind is not a drag but an occasion for the calling down of a supreme light and bliss. Filled with this light and bliss one is the natural radiating centre of a constant happiness which does not even need to speak or do things but invades and envelops other people's consciousness, so that the very presence is sufficient to make broken spirits whole. And this radiated happiness does not merely make people comfortable in their own little holes of all-too-human imperfection: it lifts them up, kindles in them a sense of the ideal and the perfect, draws out the secret soul of them and helps them to find in themselves the strength and the peace which

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no circumstance can defeat or destroy. Authentic and truly evolutive happiness, therefore, can only be given by those who have caught something of the Divine's delight and fullness.

What you call "self-knowledge" and consider "the beginning of wisdom" is precisely the awakening of one's real soul whose spontaneous movement is always to be in communion with the Divine and be charged with the Divine's Truth, Rightness, Beatitude and Wideness. The more this movement develops, the more self-knowledge comes and Wisdom grows. The development has, normally, to depend on two powers. One is the direct power of the soul itself - the intense aspiration, the passionate devotion, the unconditional surrender to the Divine. The other is an indirect power - the clearing of the way for the soul by the mind's will towards an inner detachment from things and persons, a large equanimity and disinterestedness, a freedom from anger and rancour, a tranquil strength, a calm generosity, an untroubled accomplishment of all work, a remembrance of the Divine Presence everywhere and a quiet yet concentrated offering of all one's work into Its hands. I may add that some time may be reserved for what is called meditation - the getting alone, the cutting off of contacts, the turning inward, the stilling of thought, the one-pointed flowing of the consciousness towards the Supreme.

Your question about the prevalence of so much suffering in the world would require a long philosophical discussion for a complete answer. But, for practical purposes, it is enough to know that we ordinarily live in a consciousness which is not in union with the perfect Being of God but is limited and divided: suffering is the badge of all limited and divided living. And, as long as this limitation and division lasts, it is not possible also for people to abstain from hurting one another or bring to one another understanding and love. I don't mean that people cannot be or are not good at all. But there is always an uncertainty in their intentions and actions: whatever effort they may make, there is an easy slipping back into selfishness and cruelty. Conflict is the second badge of a living that is limited and divided. To get rid of the two baleful badges we have to change our poise of consciousness. Such a change cannot be compassed by merely will-

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power attempting to follow certain mind-made rules of ethics. The ethical endeavour has considerable value, but it cannot eradicate the evil from the roots. Our present mental-vital-physical status lacks the light and the force by which alone suffering and conflict can be avoided. We have to explore our deeper ranges of being, bring into the forefront the inner self, the true soul, call down into the mind and the life-energy and the body the Divine Consciousness by a direct process of Yoga. By Yoga I don't imply a sitting in a fixed posture or breath-exercises or any special ascetic regime. Yoga is simply the leap of the consciousness towards the Eternal, the Infinite, the Divine in order to achieve a union with that Perfection, a union both in rest and activity. When one has this union one knows and becomes the single Spirit that is all things and more than all things in the universe. And don't you see that if the same supreme Self is experienced to be in all beings the very ground of conflict disappears and a wonderful harmony takes its place?

As for social work, I think there can be no real social work unless one proceeds from the living sense of the single supreme Self in all beings. Then alone one's action will be pure and powerful. Mind you, I say "real social work". Short of this there are various degrees of social service of a good kind; but always the limited and divided consciousness that is man will bring in its greeds and egoistic motives and competitions and lust for fame and for position. The authentic idealist in you will always be disappointed, for ordinary social work is a very mixed affair and even at its best it does not escape the taint, however subtle and refined, of the limited and divided ego. Well, I suppose you have to accept certain conditions. But if you are in the field of social work, what you have to do is to work there in the spirit of a Yogi and inwardly dedicate all your work to God by a constant remembrance and offering. For, whether you do one kind of work or another, you as a Yogi serve not any persons or institutions or merely human causes but only the Divine and have to manifest His will and His light and His joy. Also, there should be no attachment to one kind of work in preference to another. You may certainly choose what you are inclined towards or what you think

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you are best fitted for; but you should have the capacity to give it up without uneasiness and disturbance if ever the call comes to do so. And I can assure you that if you live in constant touch with your true soul you will have such a fund of causeless and unconditional happiness within you that no changing of work or any other vicissitude can upset you or make you feel that you have lost something.

Now your last query. Of course it is possible to do Sri Aurobindo's Yoga even outside his Ashram. But at some time or other it is always advisable to go for a stay, short or long, in the Ashram in order to have the Mother's direct contact and get into the luminous atmosphere of the life there. However, a genuine contact with the Mother is quite possible while staying in Bombay. And the best way of doing Yoga is to have this contact. Think of her and feel her to be your Guru. Inwardly open your heart to her. Keep remembering her always and dedicate your actions to her. Aspire to have her guiding word within yourself. And now and again write to her, freely and frankly, as if you were her child both in soul and body. Fellow-aspirants can give you whatever advice they may be capable of and their advice can be of help. But the Mother alone can be your Guru and in important crucial matters her advice and guidance are essential.

II

You have asked: How is one to know that one's search for the Divine is a true quest? I am not sure what exactly you mean. Are you doubting that to search for the Divine is a quest worth making and not merely a pursuit of a will-o'-the-wisp? Or are you wondering whether what you are searching for is the Divine or is something else? I think it is the latter sense you have in mind. If so, my reply in brief is: "Whenever one feels that the things of ordinary life do not satisfy one and that even the best of fortunes commonly imaginable will not answer the need in one's heart, one has known the call and the touch of the Divine. Whether the call and the touch are a temporary phenomenon - an incident in an interval between two phases of ordinary human life - or a

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permanent event remoulding one's whole being and shaping one's whole future: this depends on the intensity of the inner flame. The intensity may not always show on the surface in its full drive, but a certain inner certitude is its sign for the outer self. When you say, T definitely know that I am searching for something, but what I do not know,' you seem to me to give a hint of the certitude I speak of. But you must try to get some sort of silence in the being so that matters may become quite clear and the call and the touch of the Divine may reveal themselves in an unmistakable shape. Don't doubt your destiny, but ask it inwardly to show its true light."

Your next question is about the exceeding care needed about one's company and environment when one is wanting the Divine. The injunction you quote does not mean, that you should seclude yourself from common contacts, but it would be wise to refrain at present from the contact of those who are opposed to your quest for the Divine or are very gross in their nature. A lot of influences come to us on the level of the subconscient: we may hardly know what has happened and yet a host of things can take place because all of us are constantly interchanging currents on the submental level where there are not sharp demarcations of individuals but a general amorphous mass flowing through all and passing from one to another. In spite of our best aloofness in mind and heart the interchange can take place: that is why we have to be somewhat careful about our contacts. Of course the invasion can come even from afar, but it is less likely and not so strong, provided one is on vigil within and turned towards the Divine.

Your query about humanity and Yoga brings again the theme of "social work". I should say that humanity is certainly meant to receive the boon of Yoga but our principal and central aim is not merely service of humanity. As soon as you make that service your chief concern you will be attacked by all sorts of doubts about doing Yoga: you will feel that instead of doing Yoga you must absorb yourself in social work, give money to charities etc., etc. You will not want to spare any moment for direct communion with God - and quite naturally because that would take away the attention you should give every moment to humanity. But if, while accepting humanity as God's creation and therefore meant to

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receive His boon, you realise that the basic need in the world is more and more of God's direct presence, His superhuman consciousness and power and bliss, and that God is greater than humanity and is therefore our primary concern, then Yoga will be a spontaneous movement and the channelling of its influence to humanity will also be an automatic action and you will be helping to remove the world's evil and suffering from the very foundation. Work in the midst of humanity and ostensibly for humanity need not always cease, but during the work the Yogic consciousness will go on and the work itself will be really done as an offering to the Divine and not either for oneself or for humanity which is after all a repetition of oneself on a huge scale.

Your final question is the shortest but actually a tremendous "stumper". All the books written by all the sages won't be a sufficient answer to it. And yet, I suppose, a few general words could hold the heart of the matter. Let me first repeat your question: "Why do we come into this world and whither are we going?" I'll begin with the words: "this world." What is the nature of this world? It seems to start in brute matter without consciousness. It develops the quivering of life. It attains the level of mind. It keeps straining beyond the mental. It is a world of evolution in which the initial stage is an apparent negation of the Divine. The open affirmation of the Divine is therefore its evolutionary aim. But such affirmation cannot stop with the soul's inner realisation of God. The outer nature must also become Godlike - and this becoming Godlike is not tantamount only to the outer nature obeying the soul and receiving something of its light. Mind, Life Force, Matter are themselves the Divine concealed, and the soul is just the centre and guide of a world which is not ultimately a contradiction of its divine spark but a veiled perfection which it has to clear of encumbrances and help to unveil. A divine Mind, a divine Life Force, even a divine Matter have to be realised and established. Then alone the aim of evolution will be fulfilled. The complete and integral divinisation of our whole being is the "why" of our coming into this world. If that is so, there is no "whither" in an essential sense. Here and here only must we attain perfection. Of course, the soul passes out of earth at death,

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moves through subtle worlds and then waits in its own deep world until the time comes to shape forth a new embodiment of new mind and vitality - this happens again and again till a large range of experience has been collected by the soul in its own depths and the hour strikes for it to turn the whole being into divine values and terms. The Yogic call is a sign that the hour has struck or is very near. Another "whither" is the higher and inner worlds which have to be explored and possessed by the Yogi: he goes into the profundities of being and scales the peaks above the mind, but after experiencing and realising them he must strive to bring their wonders into the outer being. So my answer to the query -"Whither are we going"- is: "We are going everywhere but in order to come back to Mother Earth and transform her and fulfil the purpose for which we came."

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