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
1949
To answer all the questions you raise with any point or adequacy, I should have to take up my unfinished letter and either recast it or finish it as it stands in spite of its deficiencies; for all arises from the condition of things spoken of there and depends upon it. Your own difficulties and those of the sadhaks whom you mention are due to the same cause, the pushing back of the higher mind and the higher vital and the psychic and what they have gained either into the background or behind a curtain and a domination by the difficulties of the ignorant and obstructing physical consciousness with its obscure and mistaken ideas, habitual reactions, irresponsive obstructions, doubts and objections and the small lower vital nature with its ego-centric reactions and revolts and disturbances. This condition is not fundamental either in your case or that of the others and it is not a proof of radical unfitness for the Yoga, but a temporary, even if persistent, condition which would disappear with the removal of its cause.
I may point out that this condition which tries to justify itself by the facts it sees – for the physical mind is always strong on apparent facts and triumphantly appeals to them and its inferences from them as conclusive and irrefutable – almost always sees wrongly or imperfectly and, even when the facts may be partially correct it misinterprets them, attributes the wrong causes and motives, draws the wrong inferences and makes of them an unreal picture. The ego-centric’s small lower vital makes use of that to justify its revolts or its despondencies and despairs and its assertions of a failure final and irrevocable. It is not true, for instance, that I have become more and more aloof and indifferent or that I am too much preoccupied with the state of the world to care about the state of the sadhaks or that I am no longer giving any help to you or to others. My “aloofness “ consists in two facts, one the very ancient fact of my physical withdrawal and the less ancient still long-standing fact of my having ceased to write letters. Neither of these facts constitute a withdrawal of help or a lofty self-preoccupied indifference...
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March 4, 1949
Mother has asked me to write to you on her behalf and to tell you that she had no feeling of coldness or indifference and no intention whatever of showing anything of the kind in her reception of you this morning or at any other time during all these days. Her feelings were just the same as before and she thought she had received you in her usual way towards you with all affection and kindness. If you had an opposite impression, it must have been a mistaken reaction, for she had no feeling or intention of coldness and indifference. I trust you will accept her disclaimer and dismiss any sense of hurt or depression created in you without any intention on her part.
As to your idea about the sports, your idea that the Mother looks on you coldly because you are not capable of taking delight in sports, that is entirely without foundation. I must have told you already more than once that the Mother does not want anybody to take up the sports if he has no inclination or natural bent for them; to join or not to join must be quite voluntary and those who do not join are not cold-shouldered or looked down upon by her for that reason. It would be absurd for her to take that attitude: there are those who do her faithful service which she deeply appreciates and whom she regards with affection and confidence but who never go to the playground either because they have no turn for it or no time – can you imagine that for that reason she will turn away from them and regard them with coldness? The Mother could never intend that sports should be the sole or the chief preoccupation of the inmates of the Ashram; even the children of the school for whose physical development these sports and athletic exercises are important and for whom they were originally instituted, have other things to do, their work, their studies and other occupations and amusements in which they are as interested as in these athletics. The idea that you should “throw up the sponge “ because you do not succeed in sports or like them, is surely an extravagant imagination: there are other things more important, there are Yoga, spiritual progress, bhakti, devotion, service.
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I don’t know on what you found your idea that we have changed towards you since your return from Bengal and become cold towards you. There has been no such change on our part; on the contrary we have always had a full appreciation of what you have done there for us and for your untiring effort and what you have achieved in collecting much needed contributions for the Ashram funds and still more in turning the minds of people there, previously indifferent, towards us and our work. You should throw away entirely any idea that we are so insensitive as not to have appreciated what you have done for us.
I do not understand what you mean by my giving time to sport; I am not giving any time to it except that I have written at the Mother’s request an article for the first number of the Bulletin and another for the forthcoming number. It is the Mother who is doing all the rest of the work for the organisation of the sports and the Bulletin and that she must do obviously till it is sufficiently organised to go on of itself with only a general supervision from above and her actual presence once in the day. I put out my force to support her as in all the other work of the Ashram, but otherwise I am not giving any time for the sports. As to my silence, this does not arise from any change of feeling towards you or any coldness or indifference. I have not concealed from you the difficulty I feel now that I cannot write my own letters or, generally, do my own writing but I do not think I have neglected anything you have asked for when you have written. There is the question of the interview which you want to publish, but this I have to consider carefully as to what parts can be published as soon as I have been able to go through it. At the moment I have been very much under pressure of work for the Press which needed immediate attention and could not be postponed, mostly correction of manuscripts and proofs; but I hope to make an arrangement which will rid me of most of this tedious and uninteresting work so that I can turn my time to better purposes. I am conscious all the same that my remissness in writing has been excessive and that you have just cause for your complaint; but I hope to remedy this remissness in future as it is not at all due to any indifference but to a visitation of indolence of the creative will which has extended even to the completion of the unfinished parts of Savitri. I hope soon to get rid of this inability, complete Savitri and satisfy your just demand for more alertness in my correspondence with you.
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March 14, 1949
About Janak Kumari’s39 faculty of receiving the thoughts of others – if this had been of the nature of thought reading, that is to say looking at the minds of others and seeing what is there, the remedy would have been simple; refusal to look would be enough and even the faculty might disappear by atrophy through long discontinuance. But if the thoughts of others come to her of themselves, it may be the psychic opening in her inner mind, which it would be difficult to get rid of. If she could remain indifferent or push away these unwelcome visitors behind her and not think of them again, that would be one remedy; it might even be discouraged from coming after a time by this lack of reception. As for why it comes, it is not something that comes but something that is there, a faculty or a psychic habit of the nature – I use the word psychic in the popular sense, it has nothing to do with what I call the psychic being. If she practices Yoga and is able to make some considerable progress, then it would be possible for her to bar the door to these visitors. At the same time I might say that this power need not be a mere source of trouble; it can be helpful even: for it can give one who has acquired mastery over his own nature the knowledge of the thoughts and feelings around her and she can then help, guide, change what has to be changed in their minds so that they can become more effective for the divine work. I shall await what further you have to tell me about Janak Kumari’s experiences before saying anything further about her entry into the field of Yoga.
About the blue flag, I presume you mean the flag with the white lotus. If so, it is the Mother’s flag, for the white lotus is her symbol as the red lotus is mine. The blue of the flag is meant to be the colour of Krishna and so represents the spiritual or Divine Consciousness which it is her work to establish so that it may reign upon earth. This is the meaning of the flag being used as the Ashram flag, that our work is to bring down this consciousness and make it the leader of the world’s life.
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As for the rest, I think I need only repeat emphatically that there is no need for anyone to take up sports as indispensable for Yoga or for enjoying the Mother’s affection and kindness. Yoga is its own object and has its own means and conditions; sport is something quite different as the Mother herself indicated to you through Nirod when she said that the concentration practised on the playground was not meditation and was used for efficacy in the movements of the body and not for any purpose of Yoga.
March 21, 1949
All that I need to say is that the Roxy40 performance and all the work you have done for us in Bengal had our full support and approval. I don’t know who can have said that it was a disservice or what that could mean, there was no ground for saying so and it is a wholly unjustifiable aspersion.
March 24, 1949
In response to a letter received by Dilipda from Janak Kumari who said, “My dear Dada, I didn’t tell you but I was getting a little heart-trouble at Pondicherry the day I left. When I reached Nagpur yesterday I found the trouble getting worse. Unfortunately my car had gone back and I had to travel by bus. At about 2.30 p.m., sitting in the bus at the bus-stand I had one of the worst heart attacks in my life. It was attended with a violent nausea and I had an excruciating pain in the chest and I found myself losing consciousness.
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I was cold with perspiration. Just as I was about to slide off the bench I called out to Mother for help. I remember praying, “Please save me! “ It could not have been more than five minutes that I had remained unconscious when I suddenly found myself awake as from sleep without the slightest trouble or pain or even a legacy of weakness. Since then I travelled all the way back home fit, strong and reassured as never before! I can’t tell you what a miracle the whole thing was and what a blessing! How can I tell you how grateful I am to Mother for helping me? I felt almost as if I wouldn’t have to worry about anything in future and that I should be taken care of everywhere. Please tell me, Dada, if I can be of any little service to the Ashram. I would love to do any work – anything. I would feel very grateful if Mother can give me something to do for her. “
Nirod has, no doubt, explained to you Mother’s answers to the points that arise in Janak Kumari’s letter and her reasons for them, so I confine this letter to two points, her request to be given some work to do for the Mother and her experience. On the first you must have heard from Nirod what is Mother’s difficulty in deciding and giving any concrete answer. But this does not mean that she would be at all unwilling if she had anything of the kind before her – on the contrary. My own idea is that if the demand in her is persistent, the work will come of itself or she will herself find it. If anything does occur to us we shall let her know at once.
As to the experience, certainly Janak Kumari’s call for help did reach the Mother, even though all the details she relates in her letter might not have been present to the Mother’s physical mind. Always calls of this kind are coming to the Mother, sometimes a hundred close upon each other and always the answer is given. The occasions are of all kinds, but whatever the need that occasions the call, the Force is there to answer it. That is the principle of this action on the occult plane. It is not of the same kind as an ordinary human action and does not need a written or oral communication on the one who calls; an interchange of psychic communication is quite sufficient to set the Force at work. At the same time it is not an impersonal Force and the suggestion of a divine energy that is there ready to answer and satisfy anybody who calls it is not at all relevant here.
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It is something personal to the Mother and if she had not this power and this kind of action she would not be able to do her work; but this is quite different from the outside practical working on the material plane where the methods must necessarily be different although the occult working and the material working can and do join and the occult power gives to the material working its utmost efficacy. As for the one who is helped not feeling the force at work, his knowing might help very substantially the effective working, but it need not be indispensable; the effect can be there even if he does not know how the thing is done. For instance, in your work in Calcutta and elsewhere my help has been always with you and I don’t think it can be said that it was ineffective; but it was of the same occult nature and could have had the same effect even if you had not been conscious in some way that my help was with you.
Mother says that you can very well ask Janak Kumari plainly to give financial help to the Ashram if she is in a position to do so. The need of such assistance is very great and, with the financial and economic conditions in the world worsening all the time, it may be long before things right themselves.
April 27, 1949
Much less than half the Ashram, the majority of them boys and girls and children, have taken up sports; the rest have not been pressed to do so and there is no earthly reason why any pressure should be put upon you. The Mother has never intended to put any such pressure on you and if anybody has said that, there is no foundation whatever for what they have told you.
It is also not a fact that either the Mother or I are turning away from Yoga and intend to interest ourselves only in sport; we have no intention whatever of altering the fundamental character of the Ashram replacing it by a sportive association. If we did that it would be a most idiotic act and if anybody should have told you anything like that, he must be off his head or in a temporary crisis of delirious enthusiasm or a very upside-down idea. The Mother told you very clearly once through Nirod that what was being done in the playground was not meditation or a concentration for Yoga but only an ordinary concentration for the physical exercises alone.
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If she is busy with the organisation of these things – and it is not true that she is busy with that alone – it is in order to get finished with that as soon as possible after which it will go on of itself without her being at all engrossed or especially occupied by it, as is the case with other works of the Ashram. As for myself, it is surely absurd to think that I am neglecting meditation and Yoga and interested only in running, jumping and marching! There seem to have been strange misunderstandings about my second message in the Bulletin. In the first, I wrote about sports and their utility just as I have written on politics or social development or any other matter. In the second, I took up the question incidentally because people were expressing ignorance as to why the Ashram should concern itself with sports at all. I explained why it had been done and dealt with the more general question of how this and other human activities could be part of a search for a total perfection of all parts of the being including the body and more specially what would be the nature of the perfection of the body. I indicated clearly that only by Yoga could there come a supreme and total perfection of all the instruments of the Spirit and the ascent of the whole being to the highest level and a divine life on earth and the assumption of a divine body. I made it clear that by human and physical means such as sports only a limited and precarious human perfection could come. In all this there is nothing to justify the idea that sports could be a means for jumping to the Supermind or that the Supermind was going to descend on the playground and nowhere else and only those who are there will receive it; that would be a bad look-out for me as I would have no chance!\
I write all this in the hope of clearing away all the strange misconceptions with which the air seems to have become thick and by some of which you may have been affected. I wish to assure you that my love and affection and the Mother’s love and affection are constantly with you. We have had nothing for you but love and affection and a full appreciation of all you have done for us, your work, your service, your labour to make people over there appreciate our Ashram and what it stands for and to turn men’s minds favourably towards us and what we are trying to do. As for me, you should realise that the will to help you towards divine realisation is one of the things that has been constantly nearest to my heart and will be always there.
This is not the letter I intended to write which must wait. It is not possible for me to write a whole answer now since it is already one o’clock, and I shall continue it tonight.
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April 28, 1949
I continue my letter. I hope I have been able to persuade you that all these ideas about sport and the Yoga are misconceptions and that those who suggest them are wholly mistaken; certainly, we are not putting Yoga away or in the background and turning to sport as a substitute, such an idea is absurdly impossible. I hope also that you will accept from me and the Mother our firm asseveration that our love and affection for you are undiminished and that there has been no coldness on the Mother’s part and no least diminution in my constant inner relation with you.
In view of what I have written, you ought to be able to see that your idea of our insistence on you to take up sport or to like it and accept it in any way has no foundation; you can be as averse to it as you choose, we don’t mind that. I myself have never been a sportsman, apart from a spectator’s interest in cricket in England or a non-player member of the Baroda cricket club, or taken up any physical games or athletics except some exercises learnt from Madrasi wrestlers in Baroda such as dand, baithak, and those I took up only to put some strength and vigour into a frail and weak though not unhealthy body, but I never attached any other importance or significance to these things and dropped the exercises when I thought they were no longer necessary.
Certainly, neither the abstinence from athletics and physical games nor the taking up of those physical exercises have for me any relevance to Yoga. Neither your aversion to sport nor the liking of others for it makes either you or them more fit or more unfit for sadhana. So there is absolutely no reason why we should insist on your taking it up or why you should trouble your mind with the supposition that we want you to do it. You are surely quite free, as everybody is quite free, to take your own way in such matters.
One thing I feel I must say in connection with your remark about the soul of India and Doraiswamy’s observation about “this stress on this-worldliness to the exclusion of the other-worldliness. “ I do not quite understand in what connection his remark was made or what he meant by this-worldliness, but I feel it necessary to state my own position in the matter.
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My own life and my yoga have always been since my coming to India, both this-worldly and other-worldly without any exclusiveness on either side. All human interests are, I suppose, this-worldly and most of them have entered into my mental field and some, like politics, into my life, but at the same time, since I set foot on Indian soil on the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, I began to have spiritual experiences, but these were not divorced from this world but had an inner and intimate bearing on it, such as a feeling of the Infinite pervading material space and the Immanent inhabiting material objects and bodies. At the same time I found myself entering supraphysical worlds and planes with influences and an effect from them upon the material plane, so I could make no sharp divorce or irreconcilable opposition between what I have called the two ends of existence and all that lies between them. For me all is the Brahman and I find the Divine everywhere. Everyone has the right to throw away this-worldliness and choose other-worldliness only, and if he finds peace by that choice he is greatly blessed. I, personally, have not found it necessary to do this in order to have peace. In my Yoga also I found myself moved to include both worlds in my purview, the spiritual and the material, and to try to establish the Divine Consciousness and the Divine Power in men’s hearts and in earthly life, not for a personal salvation only but for a life divine here. This seems to me as spiritual an aim as any and the fact of this life taking up earthly pursuits and earthly things into its scope cannot, I believe, tarnish its spirituality or alter its Indian character. This at least has always been my view and experience of the reality and nature of the world and things and the Divine: it seemed to me as nearly as possible the integral truth about them and I have therefore spoken of the pursuit of it as the integral Yoga. Everyone is, of course, free to reject and disbelieve in this kind of integrality or to believe in the spiritual necessity of an entire other-worldliness excluding any kind of this-worldliness altogether, but that would make the exercise of my Yoga impossible. My Yoga can include indeed a full experience of the other worlds, the plane of the Supreme Spirit and the other planes in between and their possible effects upon our life and material world; but it will be quite possible to insist only on the realisation of the Supreme Being or Ishwara even in one aspect,
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Shiva, Krishna as Lord of the world and Master of ourselves and our works or else the Universal Sachchidananda, and attain to the essential results of this Yoga and afterwards to proceed from them to the integral results if one accepted the ideal of the divine life and this material world conquered by the Spirit. It is this view and experience of things and of the truth of existence that enabled me to write the Life Divine and Savitri. The realisation of the Supreme, the Ishwara, is certainly the essential thing; but to approach Him with love and devotion and bhakti, to serve Him with one’s works and to know Him, not necessarily by the intellectual cognition, but in a spiritual experience, is also essential in the path of the integral Yoga. If you accept Krishnaprem’s insistence that this and no other must be your path, it is this that you have to attain and realise; any exclusive other-worldliness cannot be your way. I believe that you are quite capable of attaining this and realising the Divine and I have never been able to share your constantly recurring doubts about your capacity or the despair that arises in you so violently when there are these attacks, nor is their persistent recurrence a valid ground for believing that they can never be overcome. Such a persistent recurrence has been a feature in the sadhana of many who have finally emerged and reached the goal; even the sadhana of very great yogis has not been exempt from such violent and constant recurrences, they have sometimes been special objects of such persistent assaults, as I have indeed indicated in Savitri in more places than one, and that was indeed founded on my own experience. In the nature of these recurrences there is usually a constant return of the same adverse experiences, the same adverse resistance, thoughts destructive of all belief and faith and confidence in the future of the sadhana, frustrating doubts of what one has known as the truth, voices of despondency and despair, urgings to abandonment of the yoga or to suicide or else other disastrous counsels of decheance. The course taken by the attacks is not indeed the same for all, but still they have strong family resemblance. One can eventually overcome if one begins to realise the nature and source of these assaults and acquires the faculty of observing them, bearing, without being involved or absorbed into their gulf, finally becoming the witness of their phenomena and understanding them and refusing the mind’s sanction even when the vital is still tossed in the whirl or the most outward physical mind still reflects the adverse suggestions.
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In the end, these attacks lose their power and fall away from the nature; the recurrence becomes feeble or has no power to last: even, if the detachment is strong enough, they can be cut out very soon or at once. The strongest attitude to take is to regard these things as what they really are, incursions of dark forces from outside taking advantage of certain openings in the physical mind or the vital part, but not a real part of oneself or spontaneous creation in one’s own nature to create a confusion and darkness in the physical mind and to throw into it or awake in it mistaken ideas, dark thoughts, false impressions is a favourite method of these assailants, and if they can get the support of this mind from over-confidence in its own correctness or the natural Tightness of its impressions and inferences, then they can have a field-day until the true mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one’s nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out the intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no proof of a fundamental incapacity; if one takes the right inner attitude, it can and will be overcome. The idea of suicide ought never to be accepted; there is no real ground for it and in any case it cannot be a remedy or a real escape: at most it can only be postponement of difficulties and the necessity for their solution under no better circumstances in another life. One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals Himself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence.
I have tried to dispel all the misconceptions, explained things as they are and meet all the points at issue. It is not that you really cannot make progress or have not made any progress; on the contrary, you yourself have admitted that you have made a good advance in many directions and there is no reason why, if you persevere, rest should not come. You have always believed in the Guruvada: I would ask you then to put your faith in the Guru and the guidance and rely on the Ishwara for the fulfillment, to have faith in my abiding love and affection, in the affection and divine goodwill and loving kindness of the Mother, stand firm against all attacks and go forward perseveringly towards the spiritual goal and the all-fulfilling and all-satisfying touch of the All-Blissful, the Ishwara.
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April 29, 1949*
The reading of your letter was finished too late for there to be any sufficient time for an answer. Besides there is much in the letter that I have to consider carefully before I reply. I quite understand your difficulty in getting out of these reactions and impressions which come with such a natural strength and force, although I must reaffirm that what i have said about the Mother’s feelings and mine towards you are perfectly sincere and nothing has been written merely to please you. i shall see what I can write further to help you out of these difficulties: our inner help will be always with you.
May 1, 1949*
i have spoken to Mother about Janak Kumari’s experience. She says that it might be too soon for her to draw back from her family and from ordinary life, she thinks she ought to wait longer for that; but there is no reason why she should not follow this urge of prayer and solitude with its strong experience for some time in the day.
Janak Kumari can certainly come for Darshan as she proposes, if she can arrange it, and stay for the three months.
July 11, 1949
It is not really surprising that people should be able to draw help from you and feel themselves helped and this can happen even though you yourself may not consciously have the idea or the feeling of extending any help to them. You have a very strong vital with a great communicative and creative power which is not shut up in itself but expansive and naturally flows out on those around it. Even ordinarily in the world people easily turn to such a strong and expansive vital and draw upon it for strength and assistance. In your case this is enhanced by your psychic being having the habit of using your vital force for communication to the outside world as it has been habitually doing in your creative activities, poetry and other forms of writing or speech, song and music: apart from artistic qualities and appeal these have an appeal and influence which comes from that inner power which has breathed itself into them and formed their substance. It has again been greatly increased by the practice of Yoga and the feeling of bhakti which comes out of you when you write your songs and sing them.
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In your work for us you have the knowledge that our force stands behind you; it is always there and can increase your power to help others, not only when you are doing the work but at other times or whenever they turn towards you with the idea or faith that the help they need can come from you.
As for the zamindar he seems to expect some diksba of the traditional kind from me, but this I do not give. He will have to be told that I do not and that my method is different. It may be a little difficult to explain to him or for him to understand what it is. Perhaps he may be told that those who come to have the Yoga are not accepted at once and there is sometimes a long period of trial before they are. We can see how he takes it and decide afterwards if he persists in his desire to come here.
For your going to Calcutta it depends mostly on your own inner movement and whether you feel inclined to undertake this work. This celebration and the force or the tendency which is trying to push it to the front is part of something that is trying to bring about a new turn in the country and its future; its success depends upon the temper and spirit of the people who have taken charge over there and also on the feeling in the country and how far it is ready to break away or prepare[d] to break away from the old moorings. If you feel moved to take the journey and make the venture, we will give you our sanction and our full blessings will be with you.
July 15, 1949
Regarding a letter from Raja Dhiren of Lalgola41 who said, “1 see often now-a-days Sri Aurobindo and Mother in vision. I will tell you what I saw yesterday. When I was sitting in meditation suddenly Sri Aurobindo’s figure shimmered just in front of me overlaying the picture of my Ishtadevi: he gave me a look of blessing and then suddenly gave me his own garland by way of benediction. I wonder if it was real or was it merely my imagination which was responsible for what I saw, though, so vividly? Can you ask him and tell me? “
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I have been very much pleased by the account received of Raja Dhiren of Lalgola and the zeal and energy which he has put in the work for the August 15th celebration. Please let him know how highly I have appreciated the way in which he has opened to the consciousness and force and all the work he is doing and has done. I find his song a very fine poem, beautiful both in language and in bhava.
I suppose his experience about the garland was symbolic in its nature and my action in it was expressive of my appreciation and indicated that it was my work he had done or was doing and that he had received my power and the credit and crown of the achievement belonged to him.
August 11, 1949
It is quite evident that all the suggestions that are coming to Janak Kumari are part of the pressure that is being put on her from a distance by this evil-minded man: the idea of coming away before the Darshan is his idea and so is the thought of going to see him. You must persuade her this and tell her that on no account and for no reason should she yield to the pressure. It is clear what he is after and to allow herself to do what he wants in these matters is not to be thought of, the consequences might be very serious. She must on no account see this man or have anything to do with him. Even if she finds it difficult physically or otherwise to bear this kind of pressure she must remain firm; then eventually he will have to desist or he will get his quietus. If you think it necessary for me to write to her directly, let me know and I will do so.
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Janak Kumari,
I have already written to Dilip my advice and instructions as to what you should do in the matter of this yogi and his pressure upon you. But I am writing to you both to confirm what I have written to him and to add one or two words which are necessary to complete what I have said.
What is especially important for you is to dismiss fear from your mind. In these occult workings fear is a great drawback and handicap; it gives strength to the attack and weakens your resistance. Have faith in the help of the Divine and your ultimate deliverance and throw away fear whenever it tries to come. If you do that you will become stronger and be more able to endure till there is victory.
The physical pain and suffering inflicted by him is hard to bear, but you must try to remain firm in spite of it until his power to touch you diminishes and comes to nothing. Be courageous and push the obsession of him away from you; it is through the nervous being and some pressure of his force upon it which he has been able to establish that he makes you suffer. Try to be calm and steady there; then it will be easier to remain firm and overcome.
Be sure that the Mother’s help and mine will be always with you. Call for it whenever you need it.
December 5, 1949
Mother got your letter and wanted to write an answer to you but she could not do so because it was the moment when she had to go out for the outside work and she was already late. You may be quite sure that she entirely forgives you if there is anything to forgive; she was very much pleased with the frankness with which you have confessed all your feelings and where there is that sincerity there is nothing that does not draw its own forgiveness. But throughout she has had nothing but a feeling of kindness and affection for you. She did not dream of asking you to join the drill, for it is quite unnecessary and in view of what you have written about your state of health she does not consider it advisable.
P.S. My own letter to you will, I hope, be completed tomorrow; it will explain to you Mother’s real attitude about this sport business and I hope it will make you feel quite at ease about it in future.
What Sri Aurobindo has written is exactly what I wanted to say. I shall add only my love and blessings. Mother
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December 7, 1949
First about Janak: I expressed no disapproval of your letter to Janak; what I thought and said was that it might be better not to send the letter you have written, the one containing the reference to Krishnaprem, and I said that because I thought it would not have the desired effect and might, if she took it in the wrong way, have a result of some discouragement and painful perplexity upon her. Fortunately, she took it well and your later letter was such, even if it had been otherwise, as to put things right. I do not see any chance for your persuading her not to regard you as her guru. The idea and the feeling about it are evidently rooted in her mind and heart and to pull it out would not only be impossible for her, but too painful for her to accept it at all. She feels that it is you who have brought her to us and helped and guided her; us she looks at as your Gurus and that has been her door of approach to us. It seems to me that it would be dangerous to give too rude a shock to her reliance on you and that it is not really necessary; you have helped her greatly and she needs the continuance of your helping influence. You can, of course, insist on disclaiming the position of a Guru and tell her to turn more to us, but I think the insistence need not be too peremptory and absolute. After all, you can help and have helped her and others and drawn them to the spiritual path and you have made many turn towards us who of their notion would not have thought of doing so. There is a power in you to draw others like that and it seems to me that not only Nature but the Divine has put it in you for his service and it is quite right that you should use it for him as you have done. There can be no harm in using his gifts for him when it is done in the right spirit.
It is good that you have asked her to come here away from that welter of ill-treatment and misfortunes, but this combination of maladies has an alarming appearance especially as there is tendency in her to desire or look forward to death as a release; also the diagnosis of thrombosis by your uncle is disquieting, for we know from the experience of Kshitish how the danger of it can hang around even after a temporary cure. If she goes to Calcutta, it is to be hoped that your uncle will be able to remove the danger.
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But the circumstances do not seem to be favourable to her chances of getting away from her undesirable surroundings especially as her husband has taken this attitude and appropriated her money and jewels and seems determined to prevent her from any escape from his hold. There is also her own weakness and her sentimental attachment to him as well as to her children and the sense of obligation to them which she is indulging that are helping him in his purpose. These are old vital samskaras which conflict with her determination to lead the spiritual life or to come here for at least the necessary time; but these contradictions are always cropping up in the sadhak’s endeavour and they can be overcome. I will say nothing here about her spiritual experience, as that is not immediately urgent; I will answer your question about it later on in another letter.
I wrote the above before I quite realised the violence of the attack or depression from which you are suffering, otherwise I would not have written it in so easy and confident a vein; but what I have written there about you and your work for us was the expression of the feeling I have always had about it, so I need change nothing. I still do not understand why you should think that Mother and myself do not appreciate the hard work you have done for us in Bengal and the help you have given us at a moment when we very badly needed it and still need whatever help you can get at this difficult and critical juncture. It helped us to meet to some extent a very serious emergency and though that emergency still remains and is still perilous, it gave a relief in this serious trouble. I still do not understand, apart from what you say about some gesture of the Mother – I shall refer to that afterwards – why you should think that we not only did not appreciate but disregarded and disdained all you have done for us at the expense of your ease and health during your absence. I have never had that attitude towards you and your work for me and could not possibly have it; my personal feeling towards you would forbid it under any circumstances and those feelings, as you ought to know, have always been and will always be the same. As for the Mother, she too has fully appreciated your work and, whatever your depression may persuade you to think for the moment, she is entirely guiltless of any disregard for it or coldness and indifference towards you.
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You also seem to have misunderstood something I said to Nirod about pressure and difficulties as indicating some unwillingness on my part to write to you; nothing was farther from my mind, I said that only to explain my remissness in writing to you before. I was not referring to the pressure caused by the necessity of hastening the publication of my yet unpublished books or those that need to be republished – there is much work of that kind pressing to be done and much else not pressing but still needing to be done while there is still time such as the Future Poetry or other works like the first part of Savitri which has to be revised for early publication in book form. All that could have nothing to do with it – I was referring only to personal difficulties of my own and the difficulties concerning the Ashram which I had to face and which owing to their gravity and even danger had too much preoccupied my mind. That I have mentioned as an explanation of my earlier remissness and not as an excuse – there could be no valid excuse. Certainly, that had nothing to do with your present trouble and the letter – the present one – which I had sent word through Nirod that I was starting to write yesterday.
It is a great pity that there should have been, especially at this time, after the good work you have done and the progress made in your consciousness, this return of the old vital upset and nervous depression to a degree which was not, I think, fully justified by the circumstances in which it arose and that it should have been pushed, largely by the wrong suggestions thrown on you by others, to an excessive violence of dejection or despair. I believe Krishnaprem’s estimate of your position in Yoga to be fairly correct: the deficiency of trust is in itself something minor and belongs to a small part of yourself and, in fact, almost wholly to the physical mind and a little part of the lower vital ego. It is no doubt, helped by the inability to feel directly that the Force working on you or in you is mine although your higher mind and vital have more than once admitted it and felt that it could be nothing else. But the response has been there and the effects of the Force, though these are strongly interrupted and may seem to be annulled for a time when these periods of darkness and upheaval take place and may be diminished when much restlessness or nervous troubles occur. It would need only some opening of the physical mind to remedy this defect of the consciousness; for the lower vital ego has lost much of its insistence by the progress of your consciousness and the strong efforts you have made to abate and get rid of its reactions.
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If once an experience at that time came, it might be sufficient to remove the obstacle and you will then become able to feel directly and palpably the working of the Consciousness and the Force and recognise it as mine. Most of your difficulties would then disappear and the way would lie open to the fullness of your sadhana and the realisation of the Divine, the presence of Krishna would be possible – I would even say that it would become an early certitude. At the same time a diminution of the hold of the physical mind and its too absolute trust in the infallibility or correctness of its own impressions, reasonings and sensational reactions would diminish and a larger consciousness take its place. The ground would be largely cut away which makes these upsets recur. I understand that the very recurrence caused, I suppose, largely by the failure of your efforts at meditation and concentration to bring the results you want is principally responsible for this kind of upset and the mistaken impression that you cannot do the Yoga. It is not really so; for the growth in bhakti and your power to awake bhakti in others and the earnestness of your works of service and self-dedication to service are sufficient evidence of fitness – not to speak of certain experiences in the past which were clear proof of the capacity for what can be called occult spiritual experience. These things of themselves would in time bring about the necessary growth of the inner consciousness behind the surface which makes for successful concentration and meditation and renders all kinds of inner experience possible.
Before coming to the main point I may as well clear out one matter not unconnected with it, my articles or messages, as they have been called, in the Bulletin; for their appearance there and their contents seem to have caused some trouble, perplexity or misunderstanding in your mind and especially my speculations about the Divine Body. I wrote the first of these articles to explain about how or why sport came to be included in the programme of the Ashram activities and I think I made it clear, as I went on, that sport was not sadhana, that it belonged to what I called the lower end of things, but that it might be used not merely for amusement or recreation or the maintenance of health, but for a greater efficiency of the body and for the development of certain qualities and capacities not of the body only but of morale and discipline and the stimulation of mental energies: but I pointed out also that these could be and were developed by other means and that there were limitations to this utility.
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In fact, it is only by sadhana that one could go beyond the limits natural to the lower end means. I think there was little room for misunderstanding here but the Mother had asked me to write on other subjects not connected in any way with sport and had suggested some subjects such as the possibilities of the evolution of a divine body; so I wrote on that subject and went on to speak of the Supermind and Truth-Consciousness which had obviously not even the remotest connection with sport. The object was to bring in something higher and more interesting than a mere record of gymnasium events but which might appeal to some of the readers or even to wider circles. In speaking of the Divine Body I entered into some far off speculations about what might become possible in the future evolution of it by means of a spiritual force, but obviously the possibilities could not be anything near or immediate and I said clearly enough that we shall have to begin at the beginning and not attempt anything out of the way. Perhaps I should have insisted more on present limitations but that I should now make clear. For the immediate object of my endeavours is to establish spiritual life on earth and for that the first necessity must always be to realise the Divine; only then can life be spiritualised or what I have called the Life Divine be made possible. The creation of something that could be called a divine body could be only an ulterior aim undertaken as part of this transformation; as obviously the development of such a divine body as was visioned in these speculations could only come into view as the result of a distant evolution and need not alarm or distract any one. It might even be regarded as a phantasy of some remotely possible future which might one day happen to come true.
I then come to the main point namely that the intention attributed to the Mother of concentrating permanently on sports and withdrawing from other things pertinent to sadhana and our spiritual endeavour is a legend and a myth and has no truth in it. Except for the time given to her own physical exercise and, ordinarily two hours or sometimes three in the evening on the Playground, the Mother’s whole day from early morning and a large part of the night also has always been devoted to her other occupations connected with her work and with the sadhana – not her own but that of the sadhaks, pranam, blessings, meditation and receiving the sadhaks on the staircase or elsewhere sometimes for two hours at a time, and listening to what they have to say, questions about the sadhana, reports of their work or other matters, complaints, disputes, quarrels, all kinds of conferences about this or that to be decided or done, there is no end to the list; for the rest she had to attend to their letters, to reports about the material work of the Ashram and all its many departments, decisions on a hundred matters, correspondence and all sorts of things connected with contacts with the outside world including often serious troubles and difficulties and the settlement of matters of great importance.
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All this has certainly nothing to do with sports and she had little occasion to think of it at all apart from the short time in the evening. There was here no ground for the idea that she was neglecting the sadhaks or the sadhana or thinking of turning her mind solely or predominantly to sport and still less for imputing the same preoccupation to me. Only during the period before the first and second December this year the Mother had to give a great deal of time and concentration to the preparation of the events of those two days because she had decided on a big cultural programme, her own play “Vers l’avenir/’ [ “Towards the Future “], dances, recitation from Savitri and from the Prayers and Meditations for the first December and also a big and ambitious programme for the second of sportive items and events. This meant a good deal more time for these purposes but not any interruption of her other occupations except for one or two of them just at the end of this period. There was surely no sufficient ground here either for drawing the conclusion that this was to be for the future a normal feature of her action or a permanent change in it or in the life of the Ashram ending in a complete withdrawal from spiritual life and an apotheosis of the deity of sport. Those who voiced this idea or declared that sport would henceforth be obligatory on all were indulging in fantasies that have no claim to credibility. As a matter of fact the period of tension is over and after the second December things have returned to normal or even to subnormal in the activities of the Playground and as for the future you may recall the proverb that “once is not for ever. “
But there seems to be still a survival of the groundless idea that sportsmanship is obligatory henceforth on every sadhak and, without it there is no chance of having the Mother’s attention or favour.
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It is therefore necessary for me to repeat with the utmost emphasis the statement I made long ago when this fable became current for a time along, I think, with the rumour that the Supermind was to descend on the Playground and the people who happen to be there at the time and nowhere else and on nobody else – which would have meant that I for one would never have it!! I must repeat what I said then, that the Mother has never imposed or has any idea of imposing any such obligation and had no reason for doing so. The Mother does not want you or anybody else to take to sports if there is no inclination or turn towards it. There are any number of people who enjoy her highest favour, among them some of her best and most valued workers, some most near to her and cherished by her who do not even set foot on the Playground. Nobody then could possibly lose her favour or her affection by refusing to take up sport or by a dislike of sport or a strong disinclination towards it: these things are a matter of idiosyncracy and nothing else. The idea, whether advanced or not by someone claiming to have authority to voice the Mother’s intentions, that sport is now the most important thing with her and obligatory for sadhana is absurd in the extreme. Again, how could you ever imagine that the Mother or myself would turn you away or ask you to leave us for any reason, least of all for such a fantastic one as this? All this is indeed a maze of fantasies and you should drive them from your mind altogether. Your place in our hearts is permanent and your place near us must be that also; you should not allow anything to cloud that truth in your mind or lend credence to anything or anyone telling you otherwise.
There remains the incident from which the upset started, the gesture of the Mother putting only the tips of her fingers and then, as you felt it, pushing your head away; such an incident or an identical one has been more than once at the origin of these upsets in the past; but, certainly, this time it could only have happened if the Mother had slipped into a state subconscient or half-conscious in which the body was left to itself and made a mechanical or involuntary movement in which her mind had no share. The Mother has no recollection of having on this occasion passed into such a state, but it is quite sure that she made consciously no such gesture and she had no reason for doing so. There was no indifference or coldness in her mind or feelings after your return from
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Bengal, but very much the contrary since she had fully appreciated the work you have done. There was also no resentment at your attitude towards sport, for she had never any idea of obliging or putting any pressure on you or anybody else for the purpose of making them join the gymnastic exercises; such an attitude was always quite foreign to her mind and never entered at all into her intention. If there was any such involuntary gesture, you should dismiss it from your mind as something the Mother herself would greatly regret; it could not have happened consciously or deliberately, for that at least you may be sure.
I believe that I have left out nothing of any importance that needed to be written. About Janak, I do not quite gather what we are to understand about her physical condition or whether she got better for a moment but has become worse again; but I will do the best I can to help her out of her difficulties of so many kinds; it is to be hoped she will not feel herself obliged to linger for any reason in the midst of what seems to be a terribly unpleasant and dangerous family atmosphere: if she can get away from it, that would give a better chance of things turning out for the best and I hope she will do it.
I shall answer more fully what you have written in your letter to the Mother, but I will do that tomorrow in the course of the day, as I don’t want to delay sending you this letter of mine in which I have tried to dissipate the mistaken impressions which have caused so much trouble. I hope it will clear the atmosphere to a large extent and put things right or at least more right than they were. But let me say at once that there is no reserve or arriere pensee [ulterior motive] in our emphatic statement about our not pressing sport as an obligation on you or anyone. As we do not press it on you now, so too we shall not press it on you hereafter. I shall write more fully about this tomorrow. Just now I want to give you the assurance that our relation of love and affection with you cannot change for any cause nor our will to help you in your long and persistent endeavour to realise the Divine and achieve the spiritual life. You have made much progress on the way and I feel sure that you will arrive.
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I had thought of writing something more than what I wrote in my letter to you so as to meet any difficulties on your part that I might not have sufficiently cleared up and that might stand in your way, but after reading your two last letters to the Mother I find little more to be said; I feel as if the air was now quite clear. As to your prayer not to give you up, you must now feel sure that that could never happen in any circumstances. You will of course decide for yourself what is the best to do with regard to Calcutta and connected matters. As to Janak, I hope that she will get out of that place and overcome the difficulty created by her still existing attachment; to get out of that place and pernicious atmosphere seems to me the first necessary step, and I hope she will take it as soon as it becomes possible.
Perhaps I might say a word about Ramakrishna’s attitude with regard to the body. He seems always to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise it for preserving the body or curing its ailments or taking care of it. Other Yogis – I do not speak of those who think it justifiable to develop Yogic siddhis, but of those who think that that should be avoided – have not had this complete disregard of the body: they have taken care to maintain it in good health and condition as an instrument or a physical basis for their development in Yoga. I have always been in agreement with this view: moreover, I have never had any hesitation in the use of a spiritual force for all legitimate purposes including the maintenance of health and physical life in myself and in others – that is indeed why the Mother has given flowers, not only as a blessing but as a help in illness. I put a value on the body first as an instrument, dharmasadhana or, more fully as a centre of manifested personality in action, a basis of spiritual life and activity as of all life and activity upon the earth, but also because for me the body as well as the mind and life is a part of the divine whole, a form of the spirit and therefore not to be disregarded or despised as something incurably gross and incapable of spiritual realisation or of spiritual use. Matter itself is secretly a form of the Spirit and has to reveal itself as that, can be made to wake to consciousness and evolve and realise the Spirit, the Divine within it.
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In my view the body as well as the mind and life have to be spiritualised or, one may say, divinised so as to be fit instrument and receptacle for the realisation and manifestation of the Divine. It has its part in the divine lila, even, according to the Vaishnava sadhana, in the joy and beauty of Divine Love. That does not mean that the body has to be valued for its own separate sake or that the creation of a divine body in a future evolution of the whole being has to be contemplated as an end and not a means – that would be a serious error which would not be admissible. In any case, my speculations about an extreme form of divinisation are something in a far distance and are no part of the preoccupations of the spiritual life in the near future.
If there is any difficulty left or any question you wish to put, do not hesitate to write to me about it and I shall answer.
December 8, 1949
I do not think Janak’s trance has anything to do with her ill-health; I have never known the habit of trances of that kind to have any such result, only the violent breaking of a trance might have a bad result, though it would not necessarily produce a disaster. But there is the possibility that if the conscious being goes out of the body in an absolutely complete trance, the thread which connects it with the body might be broken or else cut by some adverse force and it would not be able to return into the physical frame. Apart from any such fatal possibility there might be a shock which might produce a temporary disorder or even some kind of lesion; as a rule, however, a shock would be the only consequence. The general question is a different matter. There is a sort of traditional belief in many minds that the practice of yoga is inimical to the health of the body and tends to have a bad effect of one kind or another and even finally leads to a premature or an early dropping of the body. Ramakrishna seems to have held the view, if we can judge from his remarks about the connection between Keshav Sen’s42 progress in spirituality and the illness which undermined him, that one was the result and the desirable result of the other, a liberation and release from life in this world, mukti.
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That may or may not be, but I find it difficult to believe that illness and deterioration of the body is the natural and general result of the practice of yoga or that that practice is the cause of an inevitable breakdown of health or of the final illnesses which bring about departure from the body. On what ground are we to suppose or how can it be proved that while non-yogis suffer from ill-health and die because of the disorders of Nature, yogis die of their yoga? Unless a direct connection between their death and their practice of yoga can be proved – and this could be proved with certainty only in particular cases and even then not with an absolute certainty – there is no sufficient reason to believe in such a difference. It is more rational to conclude that both yogis and non-yogis fall ill and die from natural causes and by the same dispensation of Nature; one might even advance the view, since they have the Yoga-Shakti at their disposal if they choose to use it, that the yogi falls ill and dies not because of but in spite of his yoga. At any rate, I don’t believe that Ramakrishna (or any other yogi) fell ill because of his trances; there is nothing to show that he ever suffered in that way after a trance. I think it is said somewhere or he himself said that the cancer in his throat of which he died came by his swallowing the sins of his disciples and those who approached him: that again may or may not be, but it will be his own peculiar case. It is no doubt possible to draw the illnesses of others upon oneself and even to do it deliberately, the instance of the Greek king Antigonus43 and his son Dimitrius is a famous historical case in point; yogis also do this sometimes; or else adverse forces may throw illnesses upon the yogi, using those round him as a door or a passage or the ill wishes of people as an instrumental force. But all these are special circumstances connected, no doubt, with his practice of yoga; but they do not establish the general proposition as an absolute rule. A tendency such as Janak’s to desire or welcome or accept death as a release could have a force because of her advanced spiritual consciousness which it would not have in ordinary people. On the other side, there can be an opposite use and result of the yogic consciousness: illness can be repelled from one’s own body or cured, even chronic or deep-seated illnesses and long-established constitutional defects remedied or expelled and even a predestined death delayed for a long period.
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Narayan Jyotishi,44 a Calcutta astrologer, who predicted, not knowing then who I was, in the days before my name was politically known, my struggle with Mlechchha enemies and afterwards the three cases against me and my three acquittals, predicted also that though death was prefixed for me in my horoscope at the age of sixty-three, I would prolong my life by yogic power for a very long period and arrive at a full old age. In fact, I have got rid by yogic pressure of a number of chronic maladies that had got settled in my body, reduced others to a vanishing minimum, brought about steadily progressing diminution of two that remained and on the last produced a considerable effect. But none of these instances either on the favourable or unfavourable side can be made into a rule; there is no validity in the tendency of human reason to transform the relativity of these things into an absolute. Finally I may say of Janak’s trances that they are the usual savikalpa kind opening to all kinds of experiences, but the large abiding realisations in yoga do not usually come in trance but by a persistent waking sadhana. The same may be said of the removal of attachments; some may be got rid of sometimes by an experience in trance, but more usually it must be done by persistent endeavour in waking sadhana.
You have our full approval for your project about Kanpur and Gwalior, etc.; our blessings will go with you and your success cannot fail to be a great help to us.
With love and blessings
December 9, 1949
I don’t think there is much either in this man himself or in his teachings. It does not seem to me that he is a Yogi in the true sense of the word but rather a man with some intellectual ability who is posing as a spiritual teacher. His photograph gives an impression of much pretension and vanity and an impression also of much falsity in the character. As for what he teaches it does not hang together. If all books are worthless, why did he write a book and one of this kind telling people what they should do, what they should not do and if all teachers are unhelpful, why does he take the posture of a teacher since according to his own statement that cannot be helpful to anybody? Krishnamurti45 was before he broke away on his own, certainly the disciple of two gurus, Leadbeater46 and Annie Besant:47 if he has denounced Mrs. Besant, Krishnaprem is quite entitled to denounce him as a gurudrohi [betrayer of guru].
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December 11, 1949
Mother has been told of the opinion of Dr. Satyavrata48 and in view of what he says about the diagnosis and proposed treatment of the alleged osteoarthritis, Janak should certainly drop the whole affair as she has done. In the uncertainty about the rest it is hardly possible to make her any definite recommendation contrary to her resolution to drop all medical treatment. The one definite hope lies in her resolution to come away at the first opportunity; her position is terribly difficult, but a strong will often creates an unexpected opportunity or means for its own fulfilment. You have done well to write to Justice Mullick to help her, but in the present state of things will she be allowed by these people to receive his visit or his help? I do not know if anybody else would have a chance, in view of the strange relations between her husband and her own people.
Of course, recommendation to Jogendra not to take you away but to let you realise the Divine first has no meaning. Must one realise the Divine before one can serve him or is not service of the Divine a step on the way to realisation and a help towards it? In any case, the service and the realisation are both necessary for a complete yoga and one cannot fix an unalterable rule of precedence between the two.
All right for the stotra in March. “
December 21, 1949
I have spoken to the Mother and in the circumstances she agrees about your starting for Jubbulpore tonight. But we hope that it is a passing depression created by her
* Dilipda’s note: “I wanted to sing to him a Sanskrit hymn I had composed – which later I sang to him in his room on my birthday, 22.1.50. “
misunderstanding of what you wrote to her and that the elasticity of her psychic temperament and aspiration will help her to recover from it rapidly, if not at once. Still, wires and letters may not help her to recover her natural condition immediately and your presence there may be necessary and is certainly advisable, since it will set things right at once. So you can start tonight as you propose and our blessings will go with you. With love and blessings
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