Writings, talks, letters of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother that were preserved by Champaklal. 'These writings to devotees are most valuable..' - Champaklal
14 April 1923
MORNING
One cannot accept everything that comes to the mind as inspiration or intuition and act accordingly.
It is true that the emotional being contains a Truth behind it and that is that of Love. But one cannot and should not go on identifying himself with everybody. It is not a good thing for this Yoga at least. For other Yogas like Bhakti Yoga it is all right. In our Yoga the love must be universal but that only as a feeling and if the feeling is there, it is no harm. But that love must be absolutely calm and above all discriminating. It must know, otherwise one identifies himself with any being and if that is good, it is all right but if his being is not pure one gets all the difficulties of that being into himself. Such external aggression ought to be guarded at least while one is a Sadhak. I know of a Madrasi Sadhak who had an experience like that and then he identified himself with Barindra and some one else and then their influence predominated over him. If one remains open like that to external influences, it creates a lot of troubles in the Sadhak. Yes, the love is for him but we must carefully distinguish identification of other parts of being from that of the spirit.
16 April 1923
Strong Rajasic nature has always an outgoing tendency. But that can hardly be said to be a drawback. If that could disqualify a man for Yoga, none of us could have a chance of practising.
Firm entire absolute will for this is indispensable in this Yoga which he must bring to bear.
Strong intellectual doubt is certainly a great obstacle but who of us had not had! In my case it followed me for years together...
When all the elements are transformed they become a great asset to the spiritual nature.
22 December 1923
B.G: What is the way to eliminate this mechanical play of the mind? How to do away with it?
Sri Aurobindo: The physical mind must remain as the instrument to act here on the material plane, only its play, its movements will be transformed and its stuff too. Only withdrawal from the lower movements won't do. When you rise above the mind you can remain either quiescent or become dynamic.
B.G: How to transform its movements?
Sri Aurobindo: You will have not only to withdraw from its lower movements, or play by rejecting it whenever that train of activity begins but also seek its true movement above. In a thought, in an act, in speech, you have in everything to reject the lower form and seek its truer forms in the Supramental. If you seek and yet cannot always get, it shows that the lower being is not yet used to refer above and act in response to movement from there. It cannot come all at once. Slowly and with great care it is to act always from an intense intuitive and psychic plane and cannot get beyond that. Of course I am not belittling the psychic, that is also a movement—a higher mental of the soul. But there is the still higher Supramental into which the roots of all you are and do must be refounded, everything changed in the stuff. Between the intuitive and the Supramental there is this difference, that the intuitive is somehow small, insufficient and not capable of transforming anything. The other is full of power and knowledge and complete in itself, it transforms everything.
14 February 1924
14-2-24
The talk on Whiner, the writer of “The Super sensuous Life”
B.G: Did you read that book?
A.G: Yes, not everything but some parts.
B.G: How do you find it?
A.G: Good book. But his idea about the relation of the higher to the lower Nature is not clear except that the higher only makes some impression on the lower, there is no idea of the—transformation.
B.G: I thought he has some knowledge through the psychic.
A.G: That also is superficial. I mean not that deep soul consciousness which is the basis of the true psychic knowledge. Besides, his intellect is not his strong point, for instance he defines “Reason as light of nature” or something like that. It is not so. Besides he has not got complete grasp of human psychology.
18 February 1924
18-2-24
A.G. I am well impressed with Haribhai. There seems to be something large and warm about him. I do not know how far he would go in the Yoga but apart from it he has something large about him. If he takes to Sadhana more intensely, he would find many difficulties in the way, especially in the vital being. It is help as well as obstacle. But if he can bring the psychic being to the surface and develop it, then he can overcome these difficulties and if he can go through, the result would be richer and more ample in his case. He is not like Kashibhai straight and limited. There is a tendency to throw himself out in many activities.
21 February 1924
21-2-24
Sri Aurobindo said about Gandhi's appendicitis that those who (generally) take grapes and oranges get appendicitis. In France once there was an epidemic of it on account of people eating too much of it. Grapes are perfectly harmless otherwise.
28 February 1924
28-2-1924
Sri Aurobindo: But why do you want something immediate—some excitement for a time. What is the use of creating a row and ultimately finding that there are only ten people who stand to the last. Let the peoples feeling be raised. Let all feel and then unite. If they all unite then it is easy. Let the country get slowly prepared ...
Sri Aurobindo: That is the history of every religion, sect or religious institution. It begins with religion and ends in commerce, everywhere you will find the same thing.
Interview with Sri Aurobindo Ghose by a Sadhak
1924-10-25
On my visit to Motibabu, Motibabu told me that Mr. C. R. Das told him that Sri Aurobindo is lost to India.
REPLY: Mr. Das had come to Pondicherry after seeing Motibabu and said, Motibabu's work in Chandernagore is not satisfactory. Mr. Das and Motibabu hold opposite views, several of Motibabu's close disciples have also left him. The number of his disciples given by him is unreliable.
The Sadhak said to Motibabu that Sri Aurobindo Ghose appears to move very near to Shankaracharya. Sri Aurobindo Ghose told him when he (the Sadhak) was at Pondicherry on 15th August, 1923 that we should not accept ignorance of life and as ordinary life is full of ignorance, the only possible solution is to reject ordinary life and as this doctrine is preached by Shankaracharya, so Sri Aurobindo Ghose is near to Shankaracharya and therefore there is very little new to learn from him.
REPLY: That is an entire misreading of my Yoga which aims not at rejection of life but fulfilment of life. Of course,—ordinary life is full of ignorance but it is not impossible to live without ignorance. In fact, life with full consciousness is the meaning of evolution. There is a nescience in matter and life which offers great obstacles when we progress towards conscious life and these obstacles have to be conquered by means of the supermind. There are several curves and circles coming up and down. They have to be understood and used for transforming the ordinary life. Shankaracharya understood Vijnan as a superior mental consciousness and as this was still mental he rejected that Vijnan, Shankaracharya did not believe in manifestation which to him was Maya. Manifestation is truth of Divine power and has to be accepted. That power is working in us and it is possible for us to identify ourselves with that power and thus take part in the manifestation of the Divine on this earth. For some time I also could not—understand Vijnan and mistook higher mental consciousness for Vijnan.
It is not sufficient to realise the higher-consciousness in meditation. Its working presence should be felt even while doing the ordinary works of life. But supermind proper is Divine Consciousness which arranges and guides the movements of the Universe. This consciousness must be made to be our normal nature, and allowed to descend and transform our mind, life and body. Human effort is of no use. There should be complete surrender so that the higher power will come down and work. It is not difficult to realise supramental consciousness but it is very difficult to make it active. Therefore several great souls after realising this consciousness worked through mind and reduced it to mental terms. Therefore they could not experience the working of the supramental consciousness in its true nature. This new process has not yet been attempted by anyone up to now. I believe in this process and have accepted it and it is giving good results and unless I complete it, I cannot do any other work, i.e. I do not want to multiply disciples nor can I think of Mother India. When I will get it, it will act in such a way that other people will get it without much trouble. Even at present I can give something worth giving to others but I do not wish to attempt this until the process is completed. Still I must have some men on whom I can make experiments and they will get according to their capacity. The Divine Life lives in unity but sees the difference also and the reasons of differences. There will be no action where there is knowledge of only unity. True action is possible by reading the truth of all activities by means of higher consciousness. Human consciousness is limited and therefore called ignorance. The higher consciousness is bound to grow.
Interview with a Sadhak
1924-10-26
In meditation, the light that I experienced here last year repeats itself. The only difference is that, while that light was white, the light that I now get is more like sunlight, and sometimes blue. Besides it is not steady except on rare occasions. There are also other experiences such as sweet smell, stoppage of breath, stability, vastness, timelessness etc., but these are occasional. The highest experience has been that of possession of self having some control over universal nature, but the ordinary mind takes hold of these experiences and reduces them to its own level.
Do the experiences touch the mind—Yes, except on some occasions when they live in their own greatness.
Then the unstability of the light is due to vital consciousness and stability is due to physical consciousness. Difficulty is experienced by everyone in making the higher experiences normal as the lower being gets hold of them and reduces them to their own level. That is what has happened also in Motilal Roy's case. The remedy is to increase the stability and purify the being by removing all hostile forces. Calmness is the essential nature of the Purusha.
It is Purusha. Every thought and action must be discriminated and hostile forces eliminated, so that the being may be purified. The process is necessary and is sometimes perilous. Even before the purification is done, the physical, vital and mental experiences and higher experiences are very much disturbed by similar experiences and moving forces outside oneself. Their relation must be understood and by discrimination, hostile forces coming from cosmic nature must be conquered. Then when purification is completed, there will be liberation of mental and vital being and mental and vital forces. This is ordinarily called Moksha but the real Moksha comes when there is perfection of the being and then enjoyment follows.
Is it possible to see the world by supramental sight as we see with our eyes and is there in man something like the third eye of Shiva?
Yes, but the supramental vision is not of the same kind as the mental or sensational vision. The being that stands back sees all the forces working in the world. This has been attempted by many in the past and has been acquired by some of them, but our own Yoga is not satisfied by mere vision. We must have power to control those forces. It is possible to know the physical nature of outside things by means of our physical nature, their vital nature by our vital nature, and their mental nature by our mental nature and their supramental nature by our supramental nature. It is possible also to know the inner nature of all things directly.
Is it possible to purify, liberate and per feet our nature i.e. to make an inner change without changing the outer life and whether this can be done as rapidly as by changing the outer life?
Generally this is not possible. In my own case, I was very much engrossed with political work and could not make an inner change without changing the outer life. But it all depends on the nature of the individual. For a certain time it is possible to make an inner change without changing the outer life. Afterwards the higher nature becomes very strong and many people are obliged to change the outer life. Our aim is not to get supramental experiences only in meditation but also in making them conscious and in every act of ordinary life.
There is one Sutra in Brahmasutras viz., the upadesha of manifestation and non-manifestation in the Upanishads can be explained by the example of a serpent sitting in coiled form or otherwise.
From one standpoint, there is no manifestation as all exist in one, from another standpoint, we are one and yet different. The latter is superficial consciousness. It comes to play when there is projection of the Divine Power like a cinematograph. There are various aspects of the Divine and one example is not sufficient to explain all of them.
Evening Talks
It was stated by a Sadhak to Shyam Sunder Chakravarty that Sri Aurobindo's mind had become international and that he does not think about national matters.
REPLY OF Sri Aurobindo: I do not believe in present day internationalism which aims at creating unity by destroying nationality. Nationality also has value. Out of all nations, India is most fitted to begin a new race of supermen and it is for this purpose that the Indian nation must keep up its individuality and recover her soul. At the same time I do not want India to imitate Europe nor to remain in the present mud. Mahatma Gandhi has introduced Tolstoyan Christianity in India and has given a set-back to Indian culture. I do not believe also that Councils will be very useful as the vision of the men there is limited. My work is meant for future India and will bring better results than what can be achieved through Councils, but that is silent work and does not require advertisement or speeches as made by leaders of men. India will be free. There is no doubt about it. Western individualism has failed. Russian communism is also not useful for India. India must find its elevation and it will come. If I find it necessary to come out for future work for India, I will do so, but I think inner change is necessary before outward action is accepted. Communism is useful for India but it should be based on spiritual lines.
(Dilip Kumar Roy wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo asking certain questions regarding marriage. These are the answers of Sri Aurobindo conveyed by Mom.)
November 1924
No cut and dry answer can be given to such questions as that will convey a wrong impression of this very complex and complicated subject. A solution is hardly possible in a few words. It depends, so Sri Aurobindo tells you something in a general way.
Bonds of union between man and woman are generally of three kinds. The first is the vital and the physical bond. This is very common and ninety nine out of every hundred marriages result in this type of union. This is the only possible bond among men and women of ordinary type and there is absolutely nothing wrong in it. In fact it is neither right nor wrong, but is rather necessary for them for gaining experience in their progress of life. It is also there for fulfilling a great purpose of Nature, that is, reproduction or the continuity of the race. You ask why sexual impulse is so strong in man making him almost a helpless tool in its hand. Because, as Sri Aurobindo has said, it is there placed by Nature for fulfilling her most primary and primitive purpose, that of reproduction, and it is strong in order to compel man to do it in spite of himself. For ordinary men it is the only principle and in fact the sole impulse, however man may try to cover it with his emotional and aesthetic ideas and ideals.
The second type of union between man and woman is the psychic bond. Those who are extraordinary in type, of rare refinement and culture and have a call for a greater ideal in life than the average man and woman, as for instance, for art, music, poetry, patriotism, they should seek their life companion not from sexual desires but from a higher outlook so that their union may result in this type of pure and psychic bond. In such a case of an extra-ordinary man a psychic woman alone can be his real partner of life. She alone can help him to fulfil himself and add to his power and Ananda. A wrong choice for him spells a set-back, and even ruin. A vital and physical union with a lower type of woman may blunt his aspirations and even wreck his life according as the woman is. This psychic union is very rare in the world and is so difficult to find—especially as your seeking for a partner is always coloured by your clamouring of desires and lower impulses. On the other hand, when found, your life is extremely happy and both of you grow in power and purity and may even develop the highest type of bond—the spiritual out of this psychic one. Because psychic union is so rare and a real companion of life is so hard to find for a man of higher ideal, they generally remain single. Some of them find their mate late in life like Mustafa Kamal. Some are fortunate like Browning and are very happy all their life.
K.D: What about Napoleon and Josephine? Isn't that relation psychic?
Sri Aurobindo: Not entirely; it is half and half. Something in Josephine's luck helped Napolean. Josephine had a better chance of being an Empress than Napolean had of being an Emperor. It was by marrying her he made his chance secure.
The spiritual bond is the third and the highest and is for him who feels the true call for spiritual life and has to find his Shakti or complementary soul who will be at once his partner and guide in his sadhana. If you have spiritual life as an ideal in view, you must not seek either an ordinary woman or a mere psychic one but a woman of that spiritual type who is also psychic and something more. This spiritual bond between man and woman is still more difficult to find and only one per cent of the marriages in the world, if at all, result in such a union. When found, a spiritual companion doubles your life and power and increases your speed of progress tenfold. It is really the Purusha and Prakriti fulfilling themselves in their world and raising themselves to the Divine plane by their united power. A wrong choice in the type of one who seeks spiritual greatness is worse than in the psychic bond, the fall is swifter and the result may be fatal. Where there is spiritual union, the psychic is sure to be, but where there is psychic, the higher may not be; only in some cases the higher can be evolved out of it. But out of the lowest the highest cannot certainly come and even the psychic is hardly possible.
What Ramakrishna had in his mind Sri Aurobindo cannot say, but he thinks Ramakrishna dreaded marriage from the point of view of the ascetic life. If one's ideal is to renounce the world he has to avoid woman, she being like wealth and ambition, one of the great forces in Nature which drag down man's consciousness to the lower planes of vital and physical desires. Ramakrishna's insistence on renouncing woman was from a moral and ascetic standpoint. You can very well see that Sri Aurobindo does not tell you anything from this ascetic or moral point of view, but because of the above facts.
These are general truths relating to union of man and woman. In your own case everything depends on your ideal. If it is to be the ordinary life of vital and physical enjoyments you can choose your mate just wherever you like.
If it is a nobler ideal of art or music or patriotism, the seeking for a companion of life must not primarily be from the sexual desire but from something higher and the woman must have something in her in tune with the psychic part of your being. If on the other hand, your ideal is spiritual life you must think fifty times before you marry: Sri Aurobindo has already told you how rare a fit mate is for such a spiritual union. You are here given the general principles only. From its complexity you can easily imagine how difficult it will be for Sri Aurobindo to give you any clear-cut answer. With these data before you you must decide for yourself.
(FURTHER POINTS ELICITED IN 2ND CONVERSATION)
K.D: How can one know when he meets his psychic mate?
Sri Aurobindo: How do you know a spiritual experience? How do you know when you have the right leader? It is all a matter of feeling and inner perception. It is an art and not a science. When she walks into your life you will know her right enough. As I have told you again and again, no rigid and hard and fast rule is possible in things like this. Union with woman is right in one case and perhaps wrong in other 99 cases. In that one case again without his Shakti the man's progress will be very slow and he may even go wrong. In the other 99 cases contact with woman itself may prove an obstacle. There are so many hostile powers working against the right union of complementary souls that very often, you can seldom meet your right mate. Of course I am talking of the path and not of the goal. When you reach the highest you will have to see whether you can get your Shakti. Without a Shakti you can yourself be perfect, in the sense that you can attain full knowledge, power and Ananda and change your entire organised being into its divine nature, but when you want to throw your powers on the world for creation, it is different. Take my instance. It may so happen that I reach the highest all alone, my Shakti falling in the way. Then I cannot create without her. I can by my highest siddhi only prepare the way for others to follow and accomplish the rest in the future. It is not only the dark forces who obstruct and make it impossible for the twin souls to meet, but even when they actually meet their life may get wrecked owing to mental and vital impediments. It is only when the psychic or the spiritual part is predominant in both, the two can really fulfil one another and progress higher and higher. The hostile powers working against the siddhi of yogis are difficult to conquer. Ordinarily we are in complete darkness or ignorance with only flashes of knowledge now and then, even when the sadhaka has risen into a continual glow of knowledge and can discern the play of all the dark forces, he is not exempt from attack. Only when he reaches full illumination and is in serene and revealed knowledge he is beyond them and safe." } ] }, { t: "Tirupatti's Questions", chapters: [ { t: "7 April 1925
1925-04-07
A.G.: When you bring down Power, you always bring down fighting power. The Divine Power need not always be fighting power. When so power comes, mere touch is enough to produce great effect. The Higher Power knows the need of the system. In the physical, it is the calm, persistent power that works best, so you open with Sattvic ease, and the power can come down very easily, without your feeling strain. You need not bring down fighting power, unless you have to fight very great forces. In the vital, you could safely bring it down, for the vital is a fighting being.
11 April 1925
1925-04-11
Tirupatti: What I am now getting is the consciousness of unity with everything. The knowledge of difference, feeling etc. will come afterwards?
A.G.: When you have got the unity, then you have got the right foundation for difference.
16 April 1925
1925-04-16
1) Supermind is the Divine mind of knowledge and wisdom.
2) It shows the true relation of everything.
3) It shows everything.
4) Unity is the nature of the infinite.
5) The idea of unity ... etc. is the creation of the mind.
6) You must pass beyond all these, to arrive at the true Supermind.
7) That which is coming is coming from above.
17 April 1925
1925-04-17
1) What you are getting is what I call Vishaya Ananda; Ananda of the visayas.
2) Influence coming from these, have the nature of the true physical.
3) The Power is working in the material.
19 April 1925
1925-04-19
1) Faith may be due to:
(a) The awakening of the psychic being.
(b) Fully developed emotional being turned upwards.
(c) Fully developed mind, which sees the thing as certain.
(d) Religious faith which is stupidity.
(e) Faith may be due to the absence of intellectual development; intellect which sees all possibilities gives prominence to each.
(f) Doubt may be due to the physical mind having positive side. We have to see, what is the source of faith. There is no absolute rule or law.
2) Spiritual being is Sachchidananda, which can be realised on the mental plane. One need not go to the Supermind at all.
3) First the whole physical being must be opened up; the Supermind must come and change the whole being from top to bottom: supramentalise it; then you get into the Supermind when you have the absolute truth.
4) Capacity of the physical being to extend depends upon our becoming conscious, and upon the plasticity of matter. Its capacity is the same as in the. other parts, i.e., the plasticity and becoming conscious.
20 April 1925
1925-04-20
There are very few people who have a trained mind. The education is such—getting mere ideas from books. They do not have that accuracy of the intelligence: intelligence which properly deals with the facts that are offered to it.
21 April 1925
1925-04-21
I mean by trained intelligence, the capacity to think rightly and see the truth, the truth of things in themselves and in right relation to each other. I mean the ideative mind. I do not mean to say that people have no ideas, but having ideas does not mean they think or look for the truth. Being idealistic does not mean that they have trained intelligence. It is just the opposite of it. Idealists are mostly narrow. Opinions anybody can have. People may be optimistic, pessimistic, idealistic and it does not mean that they think.
2) My faith is from the psychic plane.
3) All power is one, but in manifestation it takes different forms and aspects.
4) These are different aspects and expressions of Ananda, delight of the perception of all things on all planes. In some there may be psychic or intuition, but that is a different matter. That is very rare in humanity.
1) Tirupatti: What do you mean by psycho-mental, psycho-vital, etc.?
A.G.: That is only a name. You can call it larger mental and larger vital.
Tirupatti: What is pure psychic?
A.G.: Pure psychic is Divine Principle.
2) Tirupatti: Should we not be conscious of our strength? You say, what is strong in me.
A.G.: Yes, but you should be also conscious of your defects. You have a very strong vital being, and a good psychic being.
Tirupatti: Is it to act from the psychic, more easily?
A.G.: That you need not know now. The one advantage of having a good psychic is that there will be faith and certainty that the thing will come down. It is this that is necessary to fight the things on the physical plane. What they say Cue... it is faith. The nature of the Physical is to refuse power and light. But your faith brings down into the physical, the power and the light.
3) Tirupatti: You ask me to be always conscious of the forces working and you make me so. But many people are not conscious yet; and yet they make progress. Why? How does the power work?
A.G.: That is very common. It works behind the veil. Power is always working in the world. People are progressing, but few know how much they progress.
Becoming conscious is exceptional. It depends upon the aspiration of the being behind and upon the call from above. There is something in you which always, even in the darkest period, wants the higher thing. That is because of the force that has been gathered up in previous lives.
Answers to Questions from Velji
1925
An Avatār is not subject to the laws of Karma as ordinary men are. The mind, life and body of the ordinary man are formed as a result of his past Karma. The Avatar having no such past how are his mind, life and body formed?
The Avatar gets it as other men do. What has that to do with his being an Avatar ? All that is only a certain movement in nature in his lower Prakriti. If your idea is that the Avatar is something miraculous and that he is not subject to the laws of Nature, then you have only the conventional notion about it. He is not miraculous in the methods he adopts. He also like others accepts the human limitations. If he did not then he ceases to have any meaning for man.
But how is his Adhāra prepared?
It is a certain movement which takes place in his nature leaving his soul free unaffected. If he were to use his freedom he would grow twenty arms and ten eyes. But he does not do so. Krishna says he has been taking birth always since the beginning. It is not that God is above somewhere else and has to come down. He is always here and everywhere. Only he has to manifest his Divinity.
Did Buddha live in the Supermind?
His aim was not to produce superman. His idea was to realise all this as the impermanent manifestation of the Permanent, to leave this and always remain in the permanent Nirvana State.
But his vital and physical parts did not live in Nirvana?
Evidently not.
Then were these parts subject to ignorance or were they free? If they were subject to ignorance then they could drag him down to birth again.
He could have abandoned those parts.
Then was he free?
What do you mean by freedom ? Birth is a bondage so long as one is in the mental being. It only appears so. But if you look at the thing from above then there is no such thing, one is not affected by birth and death.
Then Buddha did not achieve perfection of his nature?
He may have entered the higher ignorance. You see there are infinite movements of the higher consciousness in Nature. Human mind can occupy itself with certain mental absolutes, not all. It can confine itself to the absolute of the silent Brahman or the absolute of the Infinite Power, Mahashakti, and exclude the rest of the infinite. So many movements like this are possible. But I do not concern myself with them. Looking at the thing as a whole, we find that the aim has been to manifest more and more of the Divine.
In the Jaina Philosophy there is an idea that in this age this body would not be capable of bearing the supermind.
We shall see.
They say that we have to prepare our body infield of consciousness first.
That may be the true body which is in the Supermind. We have to bring that body down into the physical. Besides Jaina Philosophy is concerned with individual perfection. Our effort is quite different. We want to bring down the Supermind as a new faculty just as the mind is now a permanent state of consciousness in humanity which anybody can attain if he makes an effort. So we want to create a race in which the supermind will be a permanent state of consciousness.
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