This is the fourth and final volume in the correspondence between Sri Aurobindo and Dilip. Sri Aurobindo keeps up his correspondence with his 'favourite' son throughout the difficult war years. Mother’s letters to Dilip are included in this volume.
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
*
January 2, 1945
There is no change with regard to sex whatever. Babies may be allowed in the Ashram but the manufacture of babies – there is an industry which has no sanction or license. Married people (that is not new) or families may be living here, but on the old condition of the complete cessation of marital activities. The ban on sex here stands, unchanged by an iota.
Asit and Manju are not sadhaks. Asit is a very good boy, but that is not enough to make a sadhak. There is needed a call, a strong predisposition or a clear and decided will; he has none of these things. Mother found that he was not fit as yet for sadhana and there is nothing sure to build on for the future. So why forbid the marriage? Manju was the better of two alternatives, the other being quite unsuitable from the psychological standpoint. That is all about it.
Naturally, Mother had nothing to do with the other things you speak of. It is hardly possible that anyone could really believe in a change of this kind on such flimsy grounds. But the motives of the human mind are incalculable.
P.S. I think I have forgotten to say that the boy evidently wanted and was even eager to marry – leaving aside any inclination towards Yoga he may have had at one time. This case therefore is quite different from that of someone who wants to do Yoga and yet thinks of marriage – so!
February 17, 1945
You certainly misheard what the Mother said to you. She asks me to write that what she actually said was that she gave your letters to me to read for her and to tell her what you wrote and if I did not tell her, it could only be an accident or because I had not found time. She could not have said that I never told her anything you wrote – that would have been a rather colossal misstatement and she did not say it.
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What she said was exact about the Madras journey. You wrote asking for an immediate answer, so I wrote at once with our approval and blessings as I knew beforehand what the Mother would answer. I saw her in the evening and told her then and she confirmed my answer. So it is not a fact that I told her nothing about your going to Madras. I think you were told that I would be seeing the Mother only in the evening. That was the only time when I would see her alone, so it was then that we spoke about most matters. Now her work has become so heavy that we have even less time only a few minutes or a few seconds, so this has to change; but I acted according to the then arrangement of things of which I thought you knew, by long experience.
As to the Gramophone affair that was an accident. I had your letter read to me by Nirod – it would have been physically impossible for me to go through it myself, my eyes were too bad – and I somehow missed the question about Indu Ray28 and got the impression that you had received money which you were to give to Mother. Under this misapprehension imposed on me by the Inconscient in me, I omitted to speak of it to the Mother when I was telling her the contents of the letter. There was no intentional omission.
As to the rest, my not writing myself in answer to your letters, I have been suffering for some time from defective eyesight due to overstrain and chronic attacks on the eyes – especially in sleep. I had to get newspapers, articles, etc. read to me by Nirod and could no longer write as before. I found that by giving rest and avoiding all strain, there was a slight improvement every evening, so I thought I would give rest and avoid all strain so as to get a quicker improvement and full recovery. I understand that Nirod had said something to you about my difficulty, so it did not occur to me that you would misunderstand. However, I will now try to write answers on your letters as before whenever possible, as I can write though I can’t easily read what I have written and cannot revise. And as soon as there is some solid improvement,
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I will start reading letters myself again – with the help of the magnifying glass if necessary. If I can’t do it as soon as I hope, you will just have to be as patient as you can with me till I can. It is not my will but physical necessity that disables me.
In any case I hope that with these explanations you will understand that there has been no intentional neglect or indifference either on my part or the Mother’s and will see that there is no reason for your going away.
P.S. I hope this letter is not a jumble of mistakes or even more illegible than usual. I have tried to write as large and fair as was possible for me.
I understand from Mother that she has answered your question about Indu Ray so it is no use sending the money to him as you have already signed for it yourself – you will have to confirm the company that you can’t take it directly again and all such money should be sent to Indu Ray.
(Letter dictated to Nirodbaran.)
February 25, 1945
I don’t think I could approve of your departure to Brinda-van in this way – if you were going on a visit or temporary stay to see if you could get there some spiritual experience or for relief from pressure, it would be different; for however I would wish to have you here, your spiritual needs must take first place. The reasons you put forward in your letter seem to me very slight and outward: a dispute with Purani, the tragedy of the Professor’s handbag, certain difficulties about visitors’ cards and the Mother’s insistence on method and order in her work (what really good work is done without them?) are not sufficient reasons for abandoning the Ashram.
You can’t expect me to argue about my own spiritual greatness in comparison with Krishna. The question itself would be relevant only if there were two sectarian religions in opposition, Aurobindo-ism and Vaishnavism, each insisting on its own God’s greatness. That is not the case.
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And then what Krishna must I challenge – the Krishna of the Gita who is the transcendent godhead, Paramatma, Para-brahma, Purushottama, the cosmic Deity, master of the universe, Vasudeva who is all, the immanent in the heart of all creatures, or the Godhead who was incarnate at Brindavan and Dwarka and Kurukshetra and who was the guide of my Yoga and with whom I realised identity? All that is not to me something philosophical or mental but a matter of daily and hourly realisation and intimate to the stuff of my consciousness. Then from what position can I adjudicate this dispute? Purani thinks I am superior in greatness, you think there can be nothing greater than Krishna: each is entitled to have his own view of feeling whether it is itself right or not. It can be left there; it can be no reason for your leaving the Ashram.
But the argument you put forward seems to me rather queer. By that logic one could deny greatness or divinity to Krishna because he was driven by superior armaments from Mathura to the farthest end of India or because he was wounded by an arrow in the heel and died of it, or to Ramakrishna because he suffered and died from cancer. You wrote the other day blaming somebody for losing faith in the Mother for exterior reasons such as her inability to save Tyagesan – even Krishna could not stave off fated death from the son of his beloved friend and beloved sister – but in this letter you seem to argue on that side.
I may say that I see no reason for alarm or apprehension about my eyesight; it has happened before and I was able to recover, even getting a better reading eyesight than before. These things are for me a question of the working of the Yogic force. Many customary illnesses have passed away from me permanently after an intimation that they would occur no more. In my last days in Calcutta that happened with regard to colds in the head, and when I was in the Rue des Missions Etrangeres with regard to fever. I had no cold or fever after that. So also with regard to things like the bad cough I had for many years: it was intimated some time ago that these things would fade out, and it has been so happening – only vestiges remain. So it will happen with what ailments remain, I expect.
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The institution of visitors’ cards was not made for love of discipline or rule-making, but out of practical necessity. People from the town were coming in pretending to be visitors and taking their meals in the dining room and unpermitted visitors were passing themselves in for the Darshan; it was not possible for the dining room workers or the gate-keepers to know all the visitors of who were or were not genuine. I don’t see myself why anybody should object or resent this necessary precaution. The alternative would be to let everybody who wanted enter for the Darshan and to let anybody who wanted to take his meal in the dining room. That would soon make things impossible.
As for Doctor Syed’s handbag that is part of the special rules for Golconde. These rules, which do not obtain for the rest of the Ashram houses, are read out to everybody who is to stay in Golconde and if he does not want he can be given accommodation elsewhere. Doctor Syed seemed to be very happy about his stay here; if he was not really so and felt badly about these rules, why on earth did he refuse to stay in your place?
I may mention that he told Purani that there were two things he specially admired in the Ashram, first the fact that everybody here, rich or poor or of whatever caste were on the same level, and secondly the discipline of the Ashram. He said, according to Purani, that the absence of discipline was the great bane in India, neither individuals nor groups had any discipline. Then why did he weep merely because he was not allowed to put his handbag in a place not intended for it? I do not agree myself with him in the idea that there is perfect discipline in the Ashram. On the contrary, there is a great lack of it, much indiscipline, quarrelling and self assertion. What there is, is organisation and order which the Mother has been able to establish and maintain in spite of all that. That organisation and order is necessary for all collective work; it has been an object of admiration and surprise for all from outside who have observed the Ashram; it is the reason why the Ashram has been able to survive and outlive the malignant attacks [of the Catholic priests and]29 of many people in Pondicherry who would otherwise have got it dissolved long ago. The Mother knew very well what she was doing and what was necessary for the work she had to do.
Discipline itself is not something especially Western; in Oriental countries like Japan, China and India, it was at one time all regulating and supported by severe sanctions in a way that Westerners would not tolerate. Socially whatever objections we may make to it, it is a fact that it preserved Hindu religion and Hindu society through the ages and through all vicissitudes.
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In the political field there was on the contrary indiscipline, individualism and strife; that is one reason why India collapsed and entered into servitude. Organisation and order were attempted but failed to endure. Even in the spiritual life India has had not only the free wandering ascetic, a law to himself, but has felt impelled to create orders of Sannyasins with their rules and governing bodies and there have also been monastic institutions with a strict discipline. Since no work can be done successfully without these things – even the individual worker, the artist for instance has to go through a severe discipline in order to become efficient – why should the Mother be held to blame if she insists on discipline in the exceedingly difficult work she has had put in her charge.
I don’t see on what ground you expect order and organisation to be carried on without rules and without discipline. You seem to say that people should be allowed complete freedom with only such discipline as they choose to impose upon themselves; that might do if the only thing to be done were for each individual to get some inner realisation and life did not matter or if there were no collective life or work or none that had any importance. But this is not the case here: we have undertaken a work which includes life and action and the physical world. In what I am trying to do, the spiritual realisation is the first necessity but it cannot be complete without an outer realisation also in life, in man, in this world. Spiritual consciousness within but also spiritual life without. The Ashram as it is now is not that ideal, for that all its members would have to live in a spiritual consciousness and not in the ordinary egoistic mind and mainly rajasic vital nature. But all the same the Ashram is a first form which our effort has taken, a field in which the preparatory work has to be done. The Mother has to maintain it and for that all this order and organisation has to be there and it cannot be done without rules and discipline. Discipline is even necessary for the overcoming of the ego and the mental preferences and the rajasic vital nature, as a help to it at any rate. If these were overcome outward rules, etc. would be less necessary, spontaneous agreement, unity, harmony and spontaneous right action might take its place. But while the present state of things exists, the abandonment or leaving out of discipline except such as people might choose or not choose upon themselves the result would be failure and disaster. [One has only to think what would have been the result if there had been no rules and no disciplines prohibiting sex-indulgence; even with them things have not been so very good!]30 On that principle the work also would have gone to pot, there would have been nothing but strife, assertion by each worker of his own idea and self-will and constant clashes; even as it is that has abounded and it is only the Mother’s authority, the frame of work she has given and her skill in getting incompatibles to act together that has kept things going.
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I do not find that Mother is a rigid disciplinarian. On the contrary, I have seen with what a constant leniency, tolerant patience and kindness she has met the huge mass of indiscipline, disobedience, self-assertion, revolt that has surrounded her even to abuse to her very face and violent letters overwhelming her with the worst kind of vituperation. A rigid disciplinarian would not have treated these things like that.
I do not know what ill-treatment visitors have received apart from the insistence on rules of which you complain, but it cannot be a general complaint, otherwise the number of visitors would not be constantly increasing nor would so many people want to come back again or even come every time or so many want to stay on if the Mother allowed them. After all they do not come here on the basis of a social occasion but for Darshan of those whom they regard to be spiritually great or in the case of constant visitors for a share in the life of the Ashram and for spiritual advantage and for both of these motives one would expect them to submit willingly to the conditions imposed and not to mind a little inconvenience.
As regards Golconde and its rules – they are not imposed elsewhere – there is a reason for them and they are not imposed for nothing. In Golconde Mother has worked out her own idea through Raymond,31 Sammer and others. First Mother believes in beauty as a part of spirituality and divine living; secondly she believes that physical things have the Divine Consciousness underlying them as much as living things, and thirdly, that they have an individuality of their own and ought to be properly treated, used in the right way, not misused or improperly handled or hurt or neglected so that they perish soon or lose their full beauty or value; she feels the consciousness in them and is so much in sympathy with them that what in other hands may be spoilt or wasted in a short time last with her for years or decades. It is on this basis that She planned the Golconde.
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First, she wanted a high architectural beauty, and in this she succeeded – architects and people with architectural knowledge have admired it with enthusiasm as a remarkable achievement; one spoke of it as the finest building of its kind he had seen with no egual in all Europe or America and a French architect, pupil of a great master said it executed superbly the idea which his master had been seeking for but failed to realise – but also she wanted all the objects in it, the rooms, the fittings, the furniture to be individually artistic and to form a harmonious whole. This too was done with great care. Moreover, each thing was arranged to have its own use, for each thing there was a place, and there should be no mixing up, or confused and wrong use. But all this had to be kept up and carried out in practice; for it was easy for people living there to create a complete confusion and misuse and to bring everything to disorder and ruination in a short time. That was why the rules were made and for no other purpose. The Mother hoped that if right people were accommodated there or others trained to a less rough and ready living than is common, her idea could be preserved and the wasting of all the labour and expenses avoided.
Unfortunately the crisis of accommodation came and we were forced to house people in Golconde who could not be accommodated elsewhere and a careful choice could not be made. So, often there was damage and misuse and the Mother had to spend some time two or three hundred rupees after darshan to repair things and restore what had been realised. Mona32 has taken the responsibility of the house and of keeping things right as much as possible. That was why she interfered in the handbag affair – it was as much a tragedy for the table as for the doctor, for it got scratched and spoiled by the handbag – and tried to keep both the bag and shaving utensils in the places that had been assigned for them. If I had been in the doctor’s place, I would have been grateful to her for her care and solicitude instead of being upset by what ought to have been for him trifles, although, because of her responsibility, they had for her their importance. Anyhow, this is the rationale for the rules and they do not seem to me to be meaningless regulation and discipline.
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Finally, about financial arrangements. It has been an arduous and trying work for the Mother and myself to keep up this Ashram with its ever increasing numbers, to make both ends meet and at times to prevent deficit budgets, and their results, specially in this war time when the expenses have climbed to a dizzy and fantastic height. Only one accustomed to these things or who had similar responsibilities can understand what we have gone through. Carrying on anything of this magnitude without any settled income could not have been done if there had not been the working of a Divine Force. Works of charity are not part of our work, there are other people who can see to that. We have to spend all on the work we have taken in hand and what we get is nothing compared to what is needed. We cannot undertake things that would bring in money in the ordinary ways. We have to use whatever means are possible. There is no general rule that spiritual men must do works of charity or they should receive and care for whatever visitors come or house and feed them. If we do it, it is because it has become part of our work. The Mother charges visitors for accommodation and food because she has expenses to meet and cannot make money out of air; she charges in fact less than her expense. It is quite natural that she should not like people to take advantage of her and allow those who try to take meals in the dining room under false pretences; even if they are a few at first, yet if this were allowed a few would soon become a legion. As for people being allowed to come in freely for Darshan without permission, which would soon convert me into a thing for show and an object of curiosity, often critical or hostile curiosity, it is I who would be the first to cry “stop. “
I have tried to explain our standpoint and have gone to some length to do it. Whether it is agreed with or not, at any rate it is a standpoint and I think a rational one. I am writing only on the surface and I do not speak of what is behind or from the Yogic standpoint, the standpoint of the Yogic consciousness from which we act; that would be more difficult to express. This is merely for intellectual satisfaction, and there, there is always room for dispute.
I hope you will soon be able to shake off the dryness and depression and the upset that can always come in that state if one is not on guard. These attacks used always to come to you as to others at the time of the Darshan. Recently you had got into a state of consciousness in which they did not come or were merely thrown off, but this time you allowed something to pass through your defence, owing to the prolongation of the dull condition. There are still habits of the mind and vital which lay you open, but when you have recognised such things as things to be overcome you have shown in the recent past that you can overcome them even if after some time and struggle. Perhaps, after all, Krishna is only waiting for that to be complete to give you the state of psychic grace in which He allows people to get His direct touch.
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March 9, 1945
(Signed by both Sri Aurobindo and Mother.)
Your visit to Malabar for raising funds and a brief stay there has our entire approval. Our love and blessings.
(Letter dictated to Nirodbaran)
May 13, 1945
I think the best will be for him [Shibnarayan Sen, Director of Archaeology, Nepal] to come for Darshan once again when he can come to pranam the Mother and I also can see him at the Darshan time.
Meanwhile he can continue his endeavour and let us know if there is any result. The difficulties that have arisen in him are quite normal and natural reaction to the effort he is making. It is usual for these resistances to rise up for they have to manifest themselves in order that they may be dealt with and thrown out. If he perseveres that should happen sooner or later. But it is best not to struggle with the resistances but to stand back from them, observe as a witness, reject these movements and call on the Divine Power to remove them.
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Surrender of the nature is not an easy thing and may take a long time; surrender of the self, if one can do it, is easier and once that is done that of the nature will come about sooner or later. But for that it is necessary to detach oneself from the action of the Prakriti and see oneself as separate. That is why I asked whether he had any (major) realisation from his previous sadhana. To observe the movements as a witness without being discouraged or disturbed is the best way to effect the necessary detachment and separation. This also would help to increase the receptivity to any aid that may be given to him and to bring about the reliance, nirbhar.
If he turns to us, we will of course give him whatever help he can just now consciously or subconsciously receive.
I quite approve of the course you wish to take with regard to your own sadhana. I have always thought that your natural path was bhakti, work and service.
May 18, 1945
(Dilipda’s note re. Context)
Sir Chunilal Mehta33 wrote to me in a letter dated 8.5.45 that he has been having some misgivings about the Guru’s force which Sri Aurobindo so often speaks and writes about. Iftapasya has to be done and hard tapasya at that where does the Guru’s force come in? Gurus can rely solely on his own strength and effort. Raman Maharshi says that the sadhaka has to work his way through to his own salvation himself.
And yet we see numerous disciples writing ecstatically about the Guru’s Grace: but didn’t even Vivekananda have to do a lot of uphill climbing even though he did have an experience of Samadhi at his Guru’s touch? But then when one came down from the realm of Samadhi one re-became the ordinary humdrum person he had been before the Samadhi. Such was Sir Chunilal’s line of argument or rather of questioning and doubt. In the end he suggested that he should do personal service to Sri Aurobindo and there gain admission say for three months, into his personal atmosphere. Such propinquity might help him materially in realising how far the Guru’s force might help a seeker in his great quest.
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Yes, you can send the letter to Chunilal.
Perhaps you might point out to him also that there are misconceptions in his letter about the Force. The action of the Force does not exclude tapasya, concentration and the need of sadhana. Its action rather comes as an answer or a help to these things. It is true that it sometimes acts without them; it very often wakes a response in those who have not prepared themselves and do not seem to be ready. But it does not always or usually act like that, nor is it a sort of magic that acts in the void or without any process. Nor is it a machine which acts in the same way on everybody or in all conditions and circumstances; it is not a physical but a spiritual Force and its action cannot be reduced to rules.
What he quotes about the limitation of the power of the Guru to that of a teacher who shows the way but cannot help or guide is the conception of certain paths of Yoga such as the pure Adwaitin and the Buddhist which say that you must rely upon yourself and no one can help you; but even the pure Adwaitin does in fact rely upon the Guru and the chief mantra of Buddhism insists on saranam to Buddha. For other paths of sadhana, especially those which, like the Gita, accept the reality of the individual soul as an “eternal portion “ of the Divine or which believe that Bhagavan and the bhakta are both real, the help of the Guru has always been relied upon as an indispensable aid. I don’t understand the objection to the validity of Vivekananda’s experience: it was exactly the realisation which is described in the Upanishads as a supreme experience of the Self. It is not a fact that an experience gained in samadhi cannot be prolonged into the waking state.
It is not possible to accept his suggestion about joining with those who are in personal attendance upon me. They were not admitted as a help to their sadhana but for practical reasons. In fact here also there is some misconception. Continual personal contact does not necessarily bring out the action of the Force.
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Hriday had that personal contact with Ramakrishna and the opportunity of personal service to him, but he received nothing except on one occasion and then he could not contain the Force and the realisation which the Master put into him. The feeling of losing himself which Chunilal had was on the special occasions of the Darshan and the pranam to the Mother. That he had this response shows that he can answer to the Force, that he has the receptivity, as we say, and that is a great thing; all don’t have it and those who have it are not always conscious of its cause but only of its result. But he should reason less and rather try to keep himself open as he was in those moments. The Force is not a matter for reasoning or theory but of experience. If I have written about force, it is because both the Mother and myself have had many thousand experiences in which it acted and produced results of every kind. This idea of the Force has nothing to do with theory or reasoning but is felt constantly by every Yogin; it is a part of his yogic consciousness and his constant spiritual activity.
August 13, 1945
I never said anything of this kind and never mentioned Krishna in connection with the Mikado. All that I said about the Mikado was that he (or it is rather his position as the divine descendant of the Sun-goddess, Mother of Nippon) was the centre of the whole social system, culture and religion of patriotism of the Japanese nation and if that broke down, all the rest would sink down with it. That is a historical and actual fact as anybody who knows anything of that country at first hand will tell. I fail to see how in saying that obvious thing I did anything wrong. Whether the Japanese were right or wrong or their faith justified was not the question; and Krishna has nothing to do with the Mikado.\
It is a pity that you still allow yourself to be emotionally upset by anything said by anybody, whether as a report or an opinion or a dictum about Yoga, etc. This you have done so many times and I have pointed out the mistake. You must get rid of this altogether. If you hear anything attributed to me you should merely ask me first as to what I actually said or did. Apart from inventions, people often misreport owing to misunderstanding or inaccurate memory. Anyhow now that you know that your reaction was groundless, you will I hope get over it at once and recover the peace that came to you before this happened. Keep to that and don’t allow anything to interfere with it.
My love and blessings.
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August 14, 1945
I understand from your letter that the alleged equalisation of the Mikado and Krishna was only an occasion and that the real cause of the upset was the old thing, the upsurge of vital discontent because of the lack of physical contact with me and my supposed indifference, contempt or neglect, and also the interference with your liberty of opinion, not certainly by me but by others trying to force my opinion real or alleged on you as exclusive.
About the last point, what is difficult to understand is why you should allow yourself to be [?] in that way especially when you know how continually the name of the Mother and myself or our alleged sayings are being used à tort et à travers [here, there and everywhere] whenever possible – “Mother said “ or “Sri Aurobindo has said “ – and as often as not it is twisted [?]; the Mother did not say and Sri Aurobindo has not said anything of the kind or they said something different. How do you expect me to stop a habit which is almost universal and seems to have become a sort of second nature? You might just as well try to stop the Mississipi from flowing. It will stop only when the sadhaks get out of the imperfections of their vital [mind]. Or it can stop having any effect on you if you meet it with refusal to take these things at second hand and reply, “Well, I will ask Sri Aurobindo himself and then find out if my opinion is wrong till then [?] support you. I would of course tell people not to report my remarks in conversation outside but how many would really observe that rule?
As to the other point, you seem to me to be generalising from two lonely instances, the Hafiz letter and another about which I know nothing.
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Nirod gave the letter to Nolini to get the Mother’s answer as it was She who must decide and this was a shorter route [?][?] over the Himalayas that is [?]. But as the matter did not seem urgent and the Mother during those days has no time for anything, Nolini postponed it till after the darshan. Therefore I am “not guilty. “ For the same reason I was postponing the Hafiz affair as I had no time to speak to the Mother and this rather eccentric gentleman and his case did not seem to me to call for haste; he did not seem to be asking for darshan but only for opportunity to see you which he could do at any time. I have however spoken to the Mother of him in connection with your letter and will tell you what she says. I do not remember to have failed to answer either directly or through Nirod any other letter of yours that called for an answer [?] difference. It is true that I am not writing letters to you – it was only to you that I was writing which is not a proof of personal indifference – as I used to do, but I thought you knew the reason for that. I did not read as that tires my eyes and that, I found, threw back the slow recovery of my reading sight – that one might consider selfish, but I think natural and necessary for the fullness of my work in future. Henceforward, however, when I can, I will write.
I have no intention, I can assure you, of cutting off connection in the future. What restrictions there have been, were due to unavoidable causes. My retirement itself was indispensable; otherwise I would not now be where I am, that is passibly near the goal. When the goal is reached, it will be different. But as far as you are concerned, I have given to you what I have not given to others; what you have stated about my connection with you was perfectly true,* if it were false, why should I have persistently pressed you to remain with me always? Inwardly, I have been constant in my desire and
* Dilipda had asked Sri Aurobindo if he had really meant it when he wrote in February, 1925 in a very private letter:
“It is a strong and lasting personal relation that I have felt with you ever since we met and even before and it is only that that has been the base of all the outward support, consideration, care and constant helping endeavour which I have always extended towards you and which could not have arisen from any tepid impersonal feeling. On my side that relation is not likely to change ever.
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I meant, even before I met you for the first time, I knew of you and felt at once the contact of one with whom I had that relation which declares itself constantly through many lives and followed your career (all that I could hear about it) with a close sympathy and interest. It is a feeling which is never mistaken and gives the impression of not only close to one but part of one’s existence. The Mother had not heard of you before you came here for the first time, but even on that occasion, on seeing you (though without any actual meeting) she had a sympathetic contact. The relation that is so indicated always turns out to be that of those who have been together in the past and were predestined to join again (though the past circumstances may not be known) drawn together by old ties. It was the same inward recognition (apart even from the deepest spiritual connection) that brought you here. If the outer consciousness does not yet fully realise, it is the crust always created by a new physical birth that prevents it. But the soul knows all the while. “ my effort to help you, not only from time to time, but daily and always. If you had an unprecedented peace for so long a time, it was due to my persistent inner pressure; I refuse to give up all the credit to my double, Krishna.
I expect you to give up again this consistently recurring decision to go away and arrive at a complete [silence]. To go for a temporary relief from pressure, is a different matter, but the Darshan is not the time for that, and I don’t think it is necessary now. You have only to get back your poise and the peace will return; that it has gone for ever is not true, or would only be true, if you were determined and made every effort not to let it come back. These things, once they have come, always come back unless one parts company with one’s own soul.
September 2, 1945
Yesterday Nirod told me you wanted me to add something about H. in my letter. I could not quite grasp what he meant. So I ask you. About C. I have written to him that if he still had a soft corner for Hitler he might be sure the Ashram was no place for him. So you see I am traveling away from friends you have decided not to smile on.
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I have failed, unrepentantly, when it came to a question of faith and optimism which I find no way whatsoever of reconciling to this anityam asukharh lokam, but I stick to the way out also as equally real: loyalty to Krishna which alone can rescue those who feel that He is the one Reality and Remedy and Rest. Nothing else matters. I write this as yesterday I was left rather uneasy by our charming Sotuda, the optimist who told me with a face glowing with faith: 1) Since you are at the Helm of affairs and have worked a miracle anent Hitler, it is rational to expect that you will be going on doing so till doomsday. 2) The atomic bomb is going to chasten men ail into sanity as its consequences are too gruesome by half. 3) Since you are doing a wonderful tapasya, the result will be equally wonderful: look at the Japs talking ecstatically of cooperation – this was one of his premises. I agreed with him only on count three and there too I can’t persuade myself that this tapasya must work people into sanity in the way we, little humans, expect – the wonderful result may also bear fruit through further tragedies. But I disagree roundly with him on counts two and one... Personally I would like to serve you because you are you, that is all, not because I have any faith in humanity or its future. (As you hinted in a letter re. Hitler, that man may be bypassed by God and another type sponsored better able to evolve on the lines He wishes him to – the procedure He adopted re. Mammoths.) Guru is Krishna, that is enough for me and Krishna’s Lila is inscrutable, to say the least. So I find myself unable to hold with dear Sotuda in his sattwic optimism specially after Mother’s thought-provoking letter to Prithwi Singh that she cannot promise anybody that “the Divine’s will is to preserve the present human civilisation. “ This she said a propos of the atomic bomb and this must mean, if it means anything, that our idea of human salvation may not square at all with the Divine’s plan.
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Sotuda left, beaming and happy, but I dozed off at about 3, lack-lustre and worried because I could not persuade myself that faith, however robust, was necessarily justified and optimism also can put up but a very poor show in this world where human agonies bid fair to deepen more and more. Then I had a dream when I talked with you and questioned you, actually shedding tears, “Why must I advocate Faith against Reason when I find both equally liable to error and how can I grow blind as a bat to the samsrtim ghoram (horrible world – a la Bhagavat) and believe that it will be saved as we desire it ought to be? “ To which you replied, “How could Truth be displeased with you if you sincerely repudiated a faith or optimism which you believed to be false? “ And much more to the same effect. But I wonder – when I feel not a little comforted by this – whether my comfort is not as illusory as Sotuda’s optimism. I won’t be at all agonised if you tell me it is all moonshine; only, incidentally, can you possibly see your way to confide in the likes of us as to whether there is any chance of our sick humanity recovering at all?
As regards Chamanlal, I think the Mother did not intend the reminder of his rodomontade about Hitler and God to be very serious; Nirod said that she suggested that you should write about it more as a joke and see what he would say. I understand she was inclined to give permission for him to come. However, if he is in sound earnest about the spiritual life and coming here, I suppose he will answer your letter in the right way.
Hafiz is a different matter. The Mother was not enthusiastic about his coming here again; she did not take his apology and vehement denials at their face value and could not after what had happened in Golconde. But since he had apologised and wanted to disclaim any critical or hostile feeling she thought she need not put a complete bar against his coming as she had at first done; that was what she meant by “not insisting. “ It was your liking for him and his evidently sincere desire to keep up friendship that made her feel she need not come in the way of his coming to see you; but since you feel as you say that reason disappears. It is of no great importance. He was not coming here as a candidate for discipleship; he had his own guru, and a very good one, Krishnaprem’s, and I understand he is now under the protection of Raman Maharshi. We can very well leave him there.
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Your dream was certainly not moonshine: it was an inner experience and can be given its full value. As for the other questions, they are full of complications and I do not feel armed to cut the Gordian knot with a sentence. Certainly, you are right to follow directly the truth for yourself and need not accept Sotuda’s or anybody else’s proposition or solution. Man needs both faith and reason so long as he has not reached a surer insight and greater knowledge. Without faith he cannot walk certainly on any road, and without reason he might very well be walking, even with the staff of faith to support him, in the darkness. Sotuda himself founds his faith, if not on Reason yet on reasons; and the rationalist, the rationaliser or the reasoner must have some faith even if it be faith only in Reason itself as sufficient and authoritative, just as the believer has faith in his faith as sufficient and authoritative. Yet both are capable of error, as they must be since both are instruments of the human mind whose nature is to err, and they share that mind’s limitations. Each must walk by the light he has even though there are dark spots in which he stumbles.
All that is, however, another matter than the question about the present human civilisation. It is not this which has to be saved; it is the world that has to be saved and that will surely be done, though it may not be so easily or so soon as some wish or imagine, or in the way that they imagine. The present civilisation must surely change, but whether by a destruction or a new construction on the basis of a greater Truth, is the issue. The Mother has left the question hanging and I can only do the same. After all, the wise man, unless he is a prophet or a Director of the Madras Astrological Bureau, must often be content to take the Asquithian position. Neither optimism nor pessimism is the truth: they are only modes of the mind or modes of the temperament. Let us then, without either excessive optimism or excessive pessimism, “wait and see “.
I don’t know that I can help you very much with an answer to Ambalal’s questions. I can only state my own position with regard to these matters
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1. Shankara’s Explanation of the Universe.
It is rather difficult to say nowadays what really was Shankara’s philosophy: there are numberless exponents and none of them agrees with any of the others. I have read accounts given by some scores of his exegetes and each followed his own line. We are even told by some that he was no Mayava-din at all, although he has always been famed as the greatest exponent of the theory of Maya, but rather, the greatest Realist in philosophical history. One eminent follower of Shankara even declared that my philosophy and Shankara’s were identical, a statement which rather took my breath away. One used to think that Shankara’s philosophy was this that the Supreme Reality is a spaceless and timeless Absolute (Parabrahman) which is beyond all feature or quality, beyond all action or creation, and that the world is a creation of Maya, not absolutely unreal, but real only in time and while one lives in time; once we get into a knowledge of the Reality, we perceive that Maya and the world and all in it have no abiding or true existence. It is, if not non-existent, yet false, jaganmithya; it is a mistake of the consciousness, it is and it is not; it is an irrational and inexplicable mystery in its origin, though we can see its process or at least how it keeps itself imposed on the consciousness. Brahman is seen in Maya as Ishwara upholding the works of Maya and the apparently individual soul is really nothing but Brahman itself. In the end, however, all this seems to be a myth of Maya, mithya, and not anything really true. If that is Shankara’s philosophy, it is to me unacceptable and incredible, however brilliantly ingenious it may be and however boldly and incisively reasoned; it does not satisfy my reason and it does not agree with my experience.
I don’t know exactly what is meant by this yuktivada. If it is meant that it is merely for the sake of arguing clown opponents, then this part of the philosophy has no fundamental validity; Shankara’s theory destroys itself. Either he meant it as a sufficient explanation of the universe or he did not. If he did, it is no use dismissing it as yuktivada. I can understand that thorough-going Mayavadin’s declaration that the whole question is illegitimate, because Maya and the world do not really exist; in fact, the problem how the world came into existence is only a part of Maya, is like Maya unreal and does not truly arise; but if an explanation is to be given, it must be a real, valid and satisfying explanation. If there are two planes and in putting the question we are confusing the two planes, that argument can only be of value if both planes have some kind of existence and the reasoning and explanation are true in the lower plane but cease to have any meaning for a consciousness which has passed out of it.
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2.Adwaita
People are apt to speak of the Adwaita as if it were identical with Mayavada monism, just as they speak of Vedanta as if it were identical with Adwaita only; that is not the case. There are several forms of Indian philosophy which base themselves upon the One Reality, but they admit also the reality of the world, the reality of the Many, the reality of the differences of the Many as well as the sameness of the One [bhedabheda). But the Many exist in the One and by the One, the differences are variations in manifestation of that which is fundamentally ever the same. This we actually see as the universal law of existence where oneness is always the basis with an endless multiplicity and difference in the oneness; as, for instance, there is one mankind but many kinds of men, one thing called leaf or flower but many forms, patterns, colours of leaf and flower. Through this we can look back into one of the fundamental secrets of existence, the secret which is contained in the one Reality itself. The oneness of the Infinite is not something limited, fettered to its unity; it is capable of an infinite multiplicity. The Supreme Reality is an Absolute not limited by either oneness or multiplicity but simultaneously capable of both; for both are its aspects, although the oneness is fundamental and the multiplicity depends upon the oneness.
There is possible a realistic as well as an illusionist Adwaita. The philosophy of the Life Divine is such a realistic Adwaita. The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is self-real. The reality is the infinite and eternal Divine, infinite and eternal Being, Consciousness-Force and Bliss. This Divine by his power has created the world or rather manifested it in his own infinite Being. But here in the material world or at its basis he has hidden himself in what seem to be his opposites, Non-Being, Inconscience and Insentience.
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This is what we now-a-days call the Inconscient which seems to have created the material universe by its inconscient Energy; but this is only an appearance, for we find in the end that all the dispositions of the world can only have been arranged by the working of a supreme secret Intelligence. The Being which is hidden in what seems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a Spiritual Consciousness and finally a Supramental Consciousness through which we become aware of the Reality, enter into it and unite ourselves with it. This is what we call evolution which is an evolution of Consciousness and an evolution of the Spirit in things and only outwardly an evolution of species. Thus also, the delight of existence emerges from the original insentience, first in the contrary forms of pleasure and pain, and then has to find itself in the bliss of the Spirit or, as it is called in the Upanishads, the bliss of the Brahman. That is the central idea in the explanation of the universe put forward in the Life Divine.
3. Nirguna and Saguna
In a realistic Adwaita there is no need to regard the Saguna as a creation from the Nirguna or even secondary or subordinate to it; both are equal aspects of the one Reality, its position of silent status and rest and its position of action and dynamic force; a silence of eternal rest and peace supports an eternal action and movement. The one Reality, the Divine Being, is bound by neither, since it is in no way limited; it possesses both. There is no incompatibility between the two, as there is none between the Many and the One, the sameness and the difference. They are all eternal aspects of the universe which could not exist if either of them were eliminated, and it is reasonable to suppose that they both came from the Reality which has manifested the universe and are both real. We can only get rid of the apparent contradiction – which is not really a contradiction but only a natural concomitance – by treating one or the other as an illusion. But it is hardly reasonable to suppose that the eternal Reality allows the existence of an eternal illusion with which it has nothing to do or that it supports and enforces on beings a vain cosmic illusion and has no power for any other and real action. The force of the Divine is always there in silence as in action, inactive in silence, active in the manifestation. It is hardly possible to suppose that the Divine Reality has no power or force or that its only power is to create a universal falsehood, a cosmic lie – mithya.
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4. Compounds and Disintegration
No doubt, all compounds, being not integral things in themselves but integrations, can disintegrate. Also it is true of life, though not a physical compound, that it has a curve of birth or integration and, after it reaches a certain point, of disintegration, decay and death. But these ideas or this rule of existence cannot be safely applied to things in themselves. The soul is not a compound but an integer, a thing in itself; it does not disintegrate, but at most enters into manifestation and goes out of manifestation. That is true even of forms other than constructed physical or constructed life-forms; they do not disintegrate but appear and disappear or at most fade out of manifestation. Mind itself as opposed to particular thoughts is something essential and permanent; it is a power of the
Divine Consciousness. So is life, as opposed to constructed living bodies; so I think is what we call material energy which is really the force of essential substance in motion, a power of the Spirit. Thoughts, lives, material objects are formations of these energies, constructed or simply manifested according to the habit of the play of the particular energy. As for the elements, what is the pure natural condition of an element? According to modern Science, what used to be called elements turn out to be compounds and the pure natural condition, if any, must be a condition of pure energy; it is that pure condition into which compounds including what we call elements must go when they pass by disintegration into Nirvana.
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5. Nirvana
What then is Nirvana? In orthodox Buddhism it does mean a disintegration, not of the soul – for that does not exist – but of a mental compound or stream of associations or samskaras which we mistake for ourself. In illusionist Vedanta it means, not a disintegration but a disappearance of a false and unreal individual self into the one real Self or Brahman; it is the idea and experience of individuality that so disappears and ceases – we may say a false light that is extinguished (nirvana) in the true Light. In spiritual experience it is sometimes the loss of all sense of individuality in a boundless cosmic consciousness; what was the individual remains only as a centre or a channel for the flow of a cosmic consciousness and a cosmic force and action. Or it may be the experience of the loss of individuality in a transcendent being and consciousness in which the sense of cosmos as well as the individual disappears. Or again, it may be in a transcendence which is aware of and supports the cosmic action. But what do we mean by the individual? What we usually call by that name is a natural ego, a device of Nature which holds together her action in the mind and body. This ego has to be extinguished, otherwise there is no complete liberation possible; but the individual self or soul is not this ego. The individual soul is the spiritual being which is sometimes described as an eternal portion of the Divine, but can also be described as the Divine himself supporting his manifestation as the Many. This is the true spiritual individual which appears in its complete truth when we get rid of the ego and our false separative sense of individuality, realise our oneness with the transcendent and cosmic Divine and with all beings. It is this which makes possible the Divine Life. Nirvana is a step towards it; the disappearance of the false separative individuality is a necessary condition for our realising and living in our true eternal being, living divinely in the Divine. But this we can do in the world and in life.
6. Rebirth
If evolution is a truth and is not only a physical evolution of species, but an evolution of consciousness, it must be a spiritual and not only a physical fact. In that case, it is the individual who evolves and grows into a more and more developed and perfect consciousness and obviously that cannot be done in the course of a brief single human life. If there is the evolution of a conscious individual, then there must be rebirth. Rebirth is a logical necessity and a spiritual fact of which we can have the experience. Proofs of rebirth, sometimes of an overwhelmingly convincing nature, are not lacking, but as yet they have not been carefully registered and brought together.
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7. Evolution
In my explanation of the universe I have put forward this cardinal fact of a spiritual evolution as the meaning of our existence here. It is a series of ascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond the mental, into the Supramental Consciousness and the Supramental Being, the Truth-Consciousness which is the integral consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally an ignorance seeking for knowledge; it is only the supramental Truth-Consciousness that can bring us the true and whole Self-Knowledge and world-Knowledge; it is through that only that we can get to our true being and the fulfilment of our spiritual evolution.
October 8, 1945
All true Gurus are the same, the one Guru, because all are the one Divine. That is a fundamental and universal truth which justifies Krishnaprem’s statement. But there is also a truth of difference; the Divine dwells in different personalities with different minds, teachings, influences so that He may lead different disciples with their special need, character, destiny by different ways to the realisation: that justifies Krishnaprem’s action. Because all Gurus are the same Divine, it does not follow that the disciple does well if he leaves the one meant for him to follow another. Fidelity to the Guru is demanded of every disciple, according to the Indian tradition. Krishnaprem has that fidelity; he feels the spiritual tie holding him to his guru in life and after her departure, that is why he cannot think of going to someone else. “All are the same “ is a spiritual truth, but you cannot convert it indiscriminately into action; you cannot deal with all persons in the same way because they are the one Brahman: if one did, the result pragmatically would be an awful mess. You yourself have always in your heart laid stress on the principle of fidelity, Krishnaprem does the same; so you ought to find it easy to understand his standpoint. It is a rigid mental logic that makes the difficulty but in spiritual matters mental logic easily blunders; intuition, faith, a plastic spiritual reason are here the only guides.
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As for faith, his meaning is clear enough. Faith in the spiritual sense is not a mental belief which can waver and change. It can wear that form in the mind, but that belief is not the faith itself, it is only its external form. Just as the body, the external form, can change but the spirit remains the same, so is it here. Faith is a certitude in the soul which does not depend on reasoning, on this or that mental idea, on circumstances, on this or that passing condition of the mind or the vital or the body. It may be hidden, eclipsed, may even seem to be quenched, but it reappears again after the storm or the eclipse; it is seen burning still in the soul when one has thought that it was extinguished for ever. The mind may be a shifting sea of doubts and yet that faith may be there within and, if so, it will keep even the doubt-racked mind in the way so that it goes on in spite of itself towards its destined goal. Faith is a spiritual certitude of the spiritual, the divine, the soul’s ideal, something that clings to that even when it is not fulfilled in life, even when the immediate facts or the persistent circumstances seem to deny it. This is a common experience in the life of the human being; if it were not so, man would be the plaything of a changing mind or a sport of circumstance. I have, I think, more than once, written the same thing as Krishnaprem though in different language.
If you understand this and keep it in mind, Krishnaprem’s experience and the image in which he saw it should be sufficiently clear. The needle is this power in the soul and the card with its directions the guiding indications given by it to the mind and life. The ship is the psychological structure of ideas, beliefs, spiritual and psychic experiences, the whole building of the inner life in which one moves onward in the voyage towards the goal.
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When the storm comes, a storm of doubts, failures, disappointments, adverse circumstances and what not, the crew – let us say, the powers of the mind and vital and the physical consciousness, begin to disbelieve, despond, stand aghast at the contradiction between our hopes and beliefs and the present facts, and they even turn in their rage of disbelief and despair to deny and destroy the structure of their inner thought and life which was bearing them on, tear up even the compass which was their help and guide, even to reject the needle, the great constant in their spirit. But when they have come to the point of drowning, that power acts on them, they turn to it instinctively for refuge and then suddenly they find all cleared, all the destruction was their own illusory action and the ship reappears as strong as before. This is an experience which most seekers have had many times especially in the earlier or middle course of their sadhana. All that has been done seems to be undone, then suddenly or slowly the storm passes, the constant needle reappears; it may even be that the ship which was a small sloop or at most a schooner or a frigate becomes an armed cruiser and finally a great battleship unsinkable and indestructible. That is a parable, but its meaning should be quite intelligible, and it is a pragmatic fact of common spiritual experience. I may add that this inmost faith or fixed needle of spiritual aspiration may be there without one’s clearly knowing it; one may think that one has only beliefs, propensities, a yearning in the heart or a vital preference which can be smashed or put out of action; but even if these things are or seem to be temporarily destroyed or suspended the hidden constant remains, resumes its action, keeps us on the way and carries us through. It can be said of it in the words of the Gita that even a little of this delivers us from great danger, carries us to the other side of all difficulties, sarva durgani.
October 25, 1945
Mother was not thinking at all about Chamanlal and Golconde, as a matter of fact she did not know (I myself did not know till this morning) that you were seriously upset about the matter, so there was no possibility of her being hard to you on that account. As usual on these occasions, you have been putting into her mind things which were not there, but which you thought were or must be there.
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Mother did not take the initiative in putting Chamanlal into Golconde. As soon as she heard about his complaints, she tried to arrange for him the Gala House with orders that he should be given the electric fan, free access for his friends and everything else he asked for. She found the room was already engaged, and while she was wondering what could be done, he decided to go away. I fail to see how, in view of that, she can be [said] to have insulted your friend.
As for Golconde, it is in that [house] [?] of all the [eight or nine] houses in the Ashram that she has been trying to carry out her idea [?] physical things, their harmony and order and proper treatment, she has not been imposing it elsewhere except in the matter of cleanliness and hygiene, which are surely not objectionable. I may say that you are mistaken in thinking that everybody who stays in Golconde is in a state of misery or revolt. On the contrary there are many who have asked for it and are put there at their own request every time they come. And they are not Europeans. Mother highly appreciated and praised the old Indian way of living, its simplicity, harmony and order when she saw it exemplified by Chandrashekhar Aiyar and his brother in the Ashram but that is not the way of living of most [people] [nowadays] which is a mixture. Chairs, tables, electric fans, etc. are European introductions, but I don’t suppose those who have got accustomed to them would like to give them up or return to the true simplicity of Indian life. That however, is by the way. But I fail to see why you should treat this external trifle as of so stupendous importance. Mother should be free to carry out her idea in this corner of her kingdom all that is to be seen is that those who evidently do not like it should not stay in Golconde.
All I want to impress on you is that your idea about the Mother being displeased or hard [or] [?] is quite unfounded. Also, your idea you are always harping on that I shall eventually cast you away or abandon you is entirely gratuitous, I shall not do so, now or hereafter.
For heaven’s sake, throw away all that and try to get back to the peace you had and can have again if you will to have it.
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