Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1

SPIRITUAL GREATNESS AND

THE SUPRAMENTAL YOGA

      There must be several great Yogis in India who are open to the Divine. If the Divine manifested in a human form in their own country, would they not know it?

      There is no reason why they should. Each has approached the Divine in his own way. He may not recognise if the Divine manifests in another way or a new form.

      People say that there are many similitudes between our Yoga and Raman Maharshi's. Are they right? I would also like to know if there is really something great in him.

      Of course there is. But I know nothing about the similitudes. So far as I know he does not believe in the ascent and descent.

      He dissuaded all his disciples from visions and voices and said that such things have nothing to do with the true realisation of the Self or with one's own goal. What is your opinion?

      Maharshi is very much of a Vedantist. He does not believe in what we believe or in the descent etc. At

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the same time he himself had experiences in which the Mother interfered in a visible free material form and prevented him from doing what he intended to do.*

      He discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and intuition — in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind —visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that they are being misled or in danger of being misled by false visions and false voices. That does not mean that visions and voices have no value. 

      You have called Maharshi a great man and once you said that he lives always in the light. So he must be in the Truth-Consciousness. How then could he be mistaken in discouraging his disciples' occult faculties even when they were not misusing them but were making spiritual progress through them?

      * The incident referred to may be this: Once Sri Raman Maharshi was much displeased with the quarrels among his disciples. He left the Ashram and was passing through a narrow track. There he saw an old woman, sitting with her legs stretched in such a way that he could not pass across. He was so angry that he did not halt to understand her attempt to stop him. A few steps later after by-passing her, he understood the situation and stopped, became normal and looked back at the woman. She had disappeared. Immediately the whole thing became clear to him. The Divine Mother had come in a physical form to prevent his quitting the Ashram. He returned and never left the Ashram again.

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      Because he is a great man does it follow that everything he thinks or says is right? or because he lives in the light does it follow that his light is absolute and complete? The "Truth-Consciousness" is a phrase I use for the Supermind. Maharshi is not in the Supermind. He may be and is in a true Consciousness, but that is a different matter.

      If he lives in the true consciousness, has he not always the full knowledge? Is he not using the intuitive mind?

      Living in the true consciousness is living in a consciousness in which one is spiritually in union with the Divine in one way or another. But it does not follow that so living one will have the complete, exact and infallible truth about all ideas, all things and all persons. Maharshi realises the Divine in a certain aspect and he has the knowledge of what is necessary for his path. It does not follow that he will have other knowledge that [is] beyond what he has reached or is outside it.

      Intuition proper is true in itself (when not interpreted or altered by mind) although fragmentary — intuitive mind is mixed with mind and therefore not infallible; because the truth intuition gives may be mixed or imperfectly formed by mind.

      Is not the inner Self everywhere? Why do we speak of descent and manifestation?

      Perhaps you are of the opinion of Raman Maharshi, "The Divine is here, how can he descend from anywhere?" The Divine may be here, but if he has covered here his Light with darkness of Ignorance and his

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Ananda with suffering, that, I should think, makes a big difference to the plane and, even if one enters into that sealed Light etc., it makes a difference to the consciousness but very little to the Energy at work in this plane which remains of a dark or mixed character.

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