Enlarged edition. Writings, letters of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother that were preserved by Champaklal. 'These writings to devotees are most valuable' - Champaklal
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
To Punamchand
I) Separation of Purusha and Prakriti to establish tranquillity of heart and mind.
(a) Separated Purusha, calm, observing Prakriti.
(b) Prakriti in the heart and mind attending calmness.
II) Offering of all the actions, all that is done in your life as a sacrifice to the Lord.
III) Realisation of the higher Divine Shakti doing all the works.
(a) Living with the constant idea that it is the Shakti which does the work.
(b) Feeling of the Divine Shakti descending from above the mind and moving the whole being.
1921
Sri Aurobindo
(Punamchand's letter to Sri Aurobindo)
My Lord,
After I left Pondicherry, November last, this is my first letter. Although I thought to write many a time, I write only this one.,
I thought it better to write you after I see some light or some experience, but up to now I have not seen anything substantial.
You said to me "it is not good to give shakti now when it is pushing forward for its own perfection; when it will be perfect, I will give it to you," I also know there are many who ask you for shakti and so I thought it better not to write you for that. But now I see no other way than this.
There are altogether nine souls in the Ashrama — I, my wife, Dixit and his wife and two children, a boy of six and a daughter of one year old, Kantilal, Champaklal and Natvarlal. All, we feel, have a spiritual tendency but externally very much undeveloped. The result is a very unpleasant discord. In the constructive work of the Ashrama, with regard to education and culture, I should say that we have been able to do very, very little. And with regard to economic life, we had no permanent resources, we financed ourselves with the help of friends. Very likely, in the present condition, we cannot henceforward receive financial help nor do we like to seek it. And so we have already started work of preparing leather sandals (which we do with our own hands) on a very small scale; that gives us food and cloth anyhow. Apart from giving us food and cloth, it also help us spiritually in removing our old samskaras of considering the work to be quite inferior and below our dignity and not befitting us! We have some other works in view, as for example, agriculture and silk weaving etc., but owing to want of capital we cannot begin at the present. Thus cultural and economic causes have produced great strain. Dixit is weakened physically and mentally owing to anxiety of finance, strain of internal discord, physical drain due to sexual excess etc. Dixit's wife with two children cannot undergo the hardships entailed by our present precarious economic position. And so Dixit has now accepted an employment as a teacher here in Patan, so as to enable to cover his expenses. (All about Dixit is in his own words). Kantilal will go to Bombay in a few days and stay and serve there for a few months, (until his elder brother who has recently passed his final examination in Civil Engineering, gets a good service) he is forced to do so owing to strong financial necessity of his house and family. He will return afterwards and stay and work with us. Now I will be in the Ashrama with my wife and two boys, Champaklal and Natvarlal. Now I have realised perfectly well, how difficult it is to establish a Deva Sangha or a spiritual unity even between a few souls. I fee] that it is most difficult or rather impossible to establish a Deva Sangha without the realization of the Spirit. I know it is very difficult to realize oneself but at least there must be some sound spiritual basis for the commune and the work.
I do not desire personal salvation or Bliss, but for our work this is the means and so as means for the work, I want it and not for anything else personal. In November last a fortnight after I saw you, I felt separation of Purusha and Prakriti once in the dream-state. Once I felt for nearly seven days that all my desires, as they were entering into me, were dissolving calmly as rivers in the ocean. Once I felt the world and all around me very terrible, kalasvarupa, and it continued for about a month and then stopped. Then once, after about two hours' concentration, I felt for an hour an ocean of shakti around me, and I was as if a leaf moved here and there. Sometimes I feel the centre of my being, above the top of my head, and at the time I feel that the substance of thought descends from that centre but the formations of thought take place in the mind. Nowadays I feel a pressure on my head, I feel as if some one thinks, sees, hears and does everything but through mind, eyes, ears, etc. I also feel the reflection and response of the state of the minds of the persons with whom I come into contact and according as the person is happy, gloomy or sick, the same feelings arise in me and cause a great physical and mental disturbance. Then I felt some invisible white light within my body for a very short time. And very recently on 24th last, at night, in meditation, I saw a golden light (it was like a circle of nearly two inches diameter). I am not confident at all, whether all my above experiences are mental imaginations or true and real experiences.
Now I feel that I must have, at any cost, some sound and solid basis in me for the work and so I wish to come over there for that purpose. If it is your will, I may come there; if not, I will surrender to your will. If I am to come, am I to come alone or with her?
Instead of an unwritten answer, I would indeed like most to receive an immediate written answer and so I humbly pray to you to accede to this my request. I am now anxiously awaiting it.
Eternally at your feet,
Patan
28 July 1922 Yours,
Punamchand Mohanlal Shah
(Sri Aurobindo's reply through his disciple, K. Amrita)
Dear Punamchand,
Your small note to me and the letter addressed to Sri Aurobindo Ghose are to hand. I gave your letter personally and "hand to hand" as directed by you to A.G.
A.G. says it is not possible to call and it would not be desirable for your sadhana at present. He is too much engrossed in his own sadhana and hardly gives us time except for meditation for which we all sit daily between 5 and 6 in the evening. It is the pressure of the yoga and the way in which it has taken him that makes it difficult for him to call you. It is the same reason Moti Babu of Chandernagore also is not called. Some, when allowed to remain here, found it rather difficult as the pressure of the yoga around A.G. is too intense and powerful and at last it was thought necessary that they should do yoga from a distance deriving inspiration from him. As a matter of fact I know one or two who are marvelously benefiting by the very fact of their being at a distance. I think this is why he has asked me to tell you that it will not be good for you to come here at present and do sadhana.
Secondly, he wanted me to tell you that this yoga cannot and must not be taken as a means for any work, even if the work is not personal. He learnt from your letter that you want to make work and activity the goal and to use this yoga as a means for that. The sadhana must be done in order to get to a Consciousness which is above this human and men The rest, whether to do a work (if any work, the nature of the work) or to do a particular work or to remain quiet will all be decided by that Supreme Consciousness which is above us. Then only we become real instrument of that Consciousness and also our surrender to God g a significance and value. Not only our work must not be personal but our work or no work must also be decided by God.
Thirdly, A.G. says your experiences are real and they are not mental imaginations as you seem to doubt them. As for example, the feeling the centre of our being above our head, or the vision of the white light above our head or the circular golden light on the top of the head - one and all of them are real and true - experiences. If you begin to disbelieve these experiences, then you will be creating an impediment strong enough to prevent the experiences from settling into permanent states consciousness. You must have faith in the power of the Supreme that giving you these glimpses, if you want the supreme help and guidance To get to the Divine Consciousness which will shape itself into a Div Life must be the central idea of this sadhana.
Please keep writing as often as you can, intimating your experience The rest he will do.
Kumud Bandhu Bagchi is in Nawadweep. He and some others doing sadhana there. Please acknowledge receipt of this letter.
Pondicherry
3 August 1922
Yours sincere
K. Amrita
The Bearer Punamchand Mohanlal Shah is my disciple and is now with me practising Yoga in Pondicherry. He is trustworthy and faithful in matters and enjoys my entire confidence.
Pondicherry 15
August 19
AUROBINDO GHOSE
Punamchand
As regards the amount of Rs. 500/- monthly from Vithaldas and your note in the account, I presume it is clearly understood that his sum has nothing to do with the account. It must be kept quite separate and remit here every month as soon as it is received; it must on no account and in circumstances be detained or used for any other purpose whatsoever.
As to the expenses shown in the account, you asked originally for Rs. 70/- a month in Bombay or Rs. 30/- in Patan; but the actual expenditure has been for months above Rs. 200/-. This is an enormous amount and, as I have already pointed out, it is swallowing up all you collect. I do not see how you expect to be able to maintain this rate of expenditure for an indefinite period or what purpose it serves.
The ornaments offered by Chandulal's mother.
Certainly, you can accept and send them. I do not know why you felt any scruple in this matter. Whatever is given with Bhakti can and ought to be received and not rejected whether it is money, things of value or useful things, there may be exceptions, as for instance where the gift is of a quite unsuitable or cumberous kind, but this is obviously not the case here.
(2) The talk with Haribhai.
Think no more about it except to retain the lesson. Your mistake was to interfere with your ignorant mind in a matter which had been decided by the Mother, as if it could know better than she did. As usually happens when the physical mind acts in this way, it made wrong reasoning and foolish blunder. It was as if you gave Haribhai a choice between giving money or giving the clothes and other articles. He was to give both and there was no question of a choice between them; nor could this kind of balancing and reduction on one side or the other be good for his spiritual progress. The fact that other clothes were coming from a Mill could make no difference; that was quite another list and did not meet the same needs. As for the other possibilities you speak of, they have nothing to do with previous arrangements and present requirements; they are only a possibility of the future. I write this much only to show you how mistaken these mental movements are: but you need not worry about it any longer.
(3) The 'Four Aspects' is half written and will be finished in a few days. It has been decided to publish these four writings with the February message in Calcutta. Motilal Mehta can use them instead of the August 15"' utterances.
3 October, 1927
To Punamchand M. Shah
I have received your letter and am sending this answer with Haribhai. I do not consider it necessary or advisable to make a public appeal for the sum of money I have asked you to raise for me in Gujarat. If a public appeal is to be made, it can only be when the time comes for my work to be laid on larger foundations and I can create the model form or outward material organization of the new life which will be multiplied throughout India and, with India as a spiritual nucleus and centre in other countries. Then larger sums of money will be indispensable and a public appeal may become advisable.
At present I am making a smaller preliminary foundation, a spiritual training ground and the first form of a community of spiritual workers. Here they will practise and grow in this Yoga and learn to act from the true consciousness and with the true knowledge and power. Here too some first work will be undertaken and institutions founded on a small scale which will prepare for the larger and more definite work of the future. I need money to buy land and houses, to get equipment for these first institutions and to accommodate and maintain an increasing number of sadhaks and workers. A public appeal is not necessary to raise the sums that are at present indispensable. I prefer to make it only when I have already created sufficient external form that all can see. It will be easy for you to raise privately the money I now want if you are inspired to get into touch with the right and chosen people.
As you can judge, even this preliminary work will be a matter not of one but several lakhs, but I have named one lakh as the minimum immediately needed in order that we may start solidly and go on without being hampered at each step for want of funds. If you can raise more than the initial minimum, so much the better. The work will proceed more easily and quickly and with a surer immediate prospect. Preserve the right consciousness and attitude, keep yourself open to the Divine Shakti and let her will be done through you.
1 January 1928
Punamchand,
I have not been "angry" with you, but have simply been observing your state of consciousness and your action with the necessary approval or disapproval. Therefore the excessive emotions of grief and dejection you describe in your letter are out of place. What you have to realize is that your success or failure depends, first and always, on your keeping in the right attitude and in the true psychic and spiritual atmosphere and allowing the Mother's force to act through you and move those whom you approach for this work. Or, if you cannot do that always, you must at least be able to put them into relation with her force and keep them in connection with it. They would then move in the right way without well knowing why or what moved them, but through an impulse and an interest or a psychic need created in them, and the work would be done. It is not "their movement" or your movement that matters most, but the movement of the Mother's force. If I can judge from your letters, you take its support too much for granted and lay the first stress on your own ideas and plans and words about the work; but these whether good or bad, right or mistaken, are bound to fail if they are not instruments of the true Force.
I do not wish, however, to waste time over the past and its mistakes and failures; it is the future that matters. The two men you speak of in your letter will be tried; the Mother will put her force behind your and their endeavour. The success will depend on whether you can make your self a transmitting instrument and whether they can be receptive. You must remember that we have no physical contact with the place or with these people: you are there as a support and a means of communication; you have to be always concentrated, always referring all difficulties for solution to the force that is being sent from here, always letting it act and not substituting your own mind and separate vital will or impulse.
I cannot approve of your idea about a society with a subscription for each member and with the kind of publicity of which you speak. These are methods quite inappropriate to a spiritual action. If applied to my work they would either miserably fail or else vulgarise and distort it. If you have sympathizers and want to keep them together and have their help, you must find other means.
Your other idea that it would be well if someone likely to be very useful in the work you are doing came here to receive the touch, is better inspired. It would obviously be the right thing provided the man in question had means and influence and was capable of a psychic or spiritual opening or some other kind of openness to the Power. If already touched from a distance, so much the better. It may be in this direction that there lies the best possibility for the future. Before sending anyone here, how- ever, you must take special permission after writing all that we should know about him.
Meanwhile proceed with your work, never forgetting the condition of success. Do not lose yourself in the work or in your ideas or plans or forget to keep yourself in constant touch with the true source. Do not allow anybody's mind or vital influence or the surrounding atmosphere or the ordinary human mentality to come between you and the power and presence of the Mother.
15 May 1928
I am surprised to see from your letter that you have received from Vithaldas an offer of Rs. 500 a month towards the expenses of the Ashram and that you have not immediately accepted it. In fact the language reported in your letter could mean that it was rejected almost with a polite disdain; but I suppose this would be a wrong impression. It is precisely help of this kind that we are feeling the most need of just now. For so long as this monthly deficit is not filled, we are obliged to spend on the monthly upkeep sums that ought to go for capital outlay and under such circumstances the very foundation of the Ashram from the pecuniary point of view remains insecure. If the monthly expenses are secured, the Ashram will be put on a safe foundation and the work for bringing the lakh and other large sums can go forward on a much sounder basis. Besides the forces will not be diverted from their proper work by the harassment of daily needs. Therefore, recently, it is just contributions of this kind that we have been pressing for as the first necessity. Vithaldas seems to have received an inspiration from this pressure and made a magnificent answer. And you do not immediately seize on this response. This is an example of what I meant when I warned you to keep yourself open to the Mother's force and not follow merely your own ideas and plans. Now the only thing to do is to speak to Vithaldas and see whether he keeps to his offer. If so you should accept at once. The sooner we get the money, the better. Our deficit is really more than Rs 800, for the number of disciples is increasing and the expenses also. If Vithaldas can be relied upon to give regularly Rs. 500 a month the gap will be almost filled and once that is done, the obstruction we have felt hitherto in the matter is likely to disappear and the rest to come in with greater ease. If you have not already accepted Vithaldas's offer and made arrangements for the regular transmission of the money, then realize its importance and act at once.
The Mother does not want to buy saris for herself with the money raised; in the present state of the finances the idea is altogether out of the question. The income and the expenses must be balanced; money must be found for the work of building up the Ashram. All the rest comes after.
2 June 1928
Write to Punamchand asking what are the 500/- that reached us today. Whenever he sends money, he should inform us at the same time what it is and who has given it.
Write to him also with regard to the letter he wrote about the detectiv's visit and his proposals. He has only to send regular accounts with details of sums, names etc. to me and he is on safe ground. He can simply answer that all monies given are accounted for and full details sent to me. If on the other hand he is loose in his accounts and dealings with money, he gives room for this kind of rumour and creates a wrong atmosphere. Nor in the absence of accounts can I myself have any ground to go upon if I am questioned whether I received or not the sums paid to him for me. In this connection note that he has not sent, as promised, the accounts for the last few months, since his arrival and return we have received nothing.
16 April 1929
He (Punamchand) can let Narayanji have Veda translations, but I do not want them widely circulated because they are a first draft, not final. Messages and letters he may have. But the evening talks must not get about. I have not seen these reports and therefore they are not authorized, and there must be any number of things in them which either ought not to be public or for which in the form they have there, I cannot accept responsibility.
September 1931
Re: Punamchand
(1) To give up his Bombay work and stay here.
(2) To return to Bombay, If so, for what work and on what conditions ?
For (l)—
I doubt whether he will be able, after the very different conditions to which he has been accustomed in Bombay, to settle down to the discipline of the Ashram which itself is very different from what it was when he was last here. And where to put them, if they stay?
For (2) —
On the other hand, if he goes back, how is he to live? It is out of the question for us to send him money and he must not even think of it. In future also we cannot make ourselves responsible for any loans he may contract; that too must be understood clearly.
If he collects money and spends all or most of what he gets on his own expenses, that is about the worst thing that can be done. It discredits him in people's eyes and discredits the collection and the Ashram. As soon as it is known people cease to give money. Moreover, what is the meaning of a collection in which all the money realized goes to collection expenses and nothing goes to the fund for which the collection is made.
There is therefore only one possible solution, for him to fix a maximum amount for his expenses and find someone (now that Vithaldas is no more) who will give him that sum monthly. All other amounts must be strictly sent here and on no account must his expenses exceed the sum fixed. This seems to me the only solution if he goes back to Bombay.
For the work —
It seems no longer possible for him to collect money in the way he and Dikshit first did — approaching anybody and everybody for contributions. The one thing he might possibly do, is what he has done with Narayanji and Ramanarayan — to make the acquaintance of people, get them interested in the Ashram and its work, and prepare them for coming here for us to see what can be done with them; if he can get them mean- while to contribute, so much the better. But they must be men who can give assistance either in a large sum or as a substantial assistance to the monthly expenses.
How can he expect me to protect him if constantly he is going out of my protection?
The Mother
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