Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
From the beginning of my correspondence I was asking Sri Aurobindo a good number of questions about the nature of the mind and the right way of turning it towards the higher light and truth. The reason for doing this was not a wish to develop my immature mind; as a matter of fact, I did not quite know the reason myself till the correspondence was over. I just asked because I was somehow moved to do so. But as time passed I realised that in my sadh-ana the mind was to be the chief instrument — not a purely intellectualised mind moving about within its own limited boundaries but a mind plastic and receptive to the higher truth and able to act under its impulsion, and also open to the psychic behind.
As my mind began to develop with Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's help, the answers to my letters began to be more and more brief. At first this came as a shock, but later I understood that Sri Aurobindo wanted me to try and solve my own questions about my sadhana and send him the solutions only for verification. For a time I did not quite appreciate this kind of mental growth, which deprived me of his
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interesting and valuable replies. I remonstrated a little; he soothed me finally by making me understand that in the spiritual field the true development of the mind lies not in its restless questionings and wanderings amidst ideas, but in its capacity to remain calm and find the truth which lies beyond itself, and that the higher it penetrates, the more illumined it becomes.
HOW THOUGHTS ARE FORMED
What is the function of Manas?
To sense things and react mentally to objects and convey impressions to the Buddhi etc.
What is the place of the Manas in the scheme of our Sadhana?
I don't use these terms myself as a rule—they are the psychological phraseology of the old Yoga.
What exactly is the relation between the Manas and the Chitta?
The Chitta is the general stuff of mental consciousness which supports Manas and everything else — it is an indeterminate consciousness which gets determined into thoughts and memories and desires and sensations and perceptions and impulses and feelings (chittavritti).
Is it not true that at times the Chitta takes something
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from the general Nature and then determines it into thoughts, desires etc.?
It is both ways. The Chitta receives these things, gives them for formation to the vital and the mind and all is transmitted to the Buddhi, but also it receives thoughts from the Buddhi and turns these into desires and sensations and impulses.
You say "The Chitta receives these things, gives them for formation to the vital and mind and all is transmitted to the Buddhi". Does it mean that the Chitta does not give formation to anything but that the mind or the vital does it?
The Chitta is the consciousness out of which all is formed, but the formation is made by the mind or vital or other force — which are, as it were, the instruments of the Chitta for self-expression.
When the Chitta sends things to the mind and the vital for formation, is it they that are responsible for the formation made and not at all the Chitta?
There is something in the Chitta that either lends itself or subtly determines the formation.
What does your word "subtly" mean here?
Not openly or precisely or in such a way that you can say — the Chitta has done this or that and the vital the rest.
Has not the Chitta to cease catching influences at random from outside?
Yes, certainly, but as its whole business is to receive from above or below or around it cannot stop
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doing it, it cannot of itself determine what it shall or shall not receive. It has to be assisted by the Buddhi, vital will or some higher power. Afterwards when the higher consciousness descends it begins to be transformed and capable of an automatic rejection of what is not true or right or divine or helpful to the growth of the divine in the being.
When the vital will helps the Chitta, does it do so as freely and impersonally as the Buddhi?
In the ordinary control by the Buddhi or vital will there is no need of impersonality.
Can one distinguish between the thoughts, desires, sensations, impulsions etc. coming to the Chitta from outside and those coming from the Buddhi?
Yes. But the Chitta does not receive desires and sensations from the Buddhi. It takes thoughts from the Buddhi and turns them into desires.
Unless the Chitta is enlightened the desires cannot be expected to be transformed fundamentally. Is it not so?
Yes.
When the Chitta receives thoughts, desires etc. not from the Buddhi, but from outside, does it keep them as they come or does it change them?
There is always or generally at least a modifying reaction in the Chitta — except when it simply receives and stores without passing over to the instruments.
The Manas may cease conceiving but how does it stop perceiving?
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It can perceive passively and silently — that creates no vibration and does not break the silence.
What sort of connection exists between the Chitta and the Subconscient?
The same as with any part of the being — there is a subconscient part of the Chitta which keeps the past impressions of things and sends up forms of them to the consciousness in dream or else keeps the habit of old movements and sends up these whenever it finds an opportunity.
Is it the Chitta which supplies our mechanical mind with the recurrent rounds of thoughts?
May I know the nature of thoughts, desires and impulses? How and why do they come into men?
This is a thing one feels: one cannot say more than what everybody knows. As for how these come, they come as movements of universal Nature, taking form in the person if they are admitted, just as other natural forces move about in waves or currents and take form or act for particular purposes in a suitable receptacle.
You wrote to me the other day that X's thought and desire may have taken form in my dream. How can a thought or desire of another person take form in my dream?
Why not? People's thoughts are passing into each other's mind always during the waking state even, without their knowing it, why not in dream also?
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If one gives full and constant assent to the Mother's working, how can the attempt of other beings to enter into one succeed?
If you give consent to the Mother's working alone, then it cannot.
It is not always an attempt. One receives the thoughts and feelings of the others without any attempt or intention of theirs, because they are in the atmosphere.
If one is unconscious of others' thoughts, wouldn't they come and pass away leaving no trace behind?
Not at all. If you don't know how they come you take them for your own and they have much greater force.
Is it true that no one has his own thoughts? Either they come from the lower nature — from people — or from the higher mind?
All comes from Nature of which people are a part — but they are called ours because they receive a particular form, arrangement or combination in our own minds.
All thoughts that are passing into one's mind do not stay there. Some pass away invisibly, leaving no trace but others stay there and work. Do they not stay because of the response of some part of the being? If nothing responds to them, how can they stay there any longer?
It is not a conscious response. It is only when the thoughts rise to the surface, that the conscious mind is aware of them and accepts them—but it accepts them with the idea that they are its own thoughts.
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In which condition can one be conscious of one's thoughts and desires before they enter?
When one has got out of one's limited physical personality and the consciousness is spread outside.
To keep the thoughts out of the system, is it not preferable that one should become indifferent to them and aspire to the Mother?
You can do it in that way — provided the thought does not get hold of you through your inattention.
Is it true that what we receive from the general Nature has no definite form, but is a particular kind of force? How is the force changed so as to make us feel it as a thought, sensation or impulse?
One can not only receive a force, but an impulse, thought or sensation. One may receive it from others, from beings in Nature or from Nature herself if she chooses to give her Force a ready-made form of that kind.
What happens with the force and energy of a thought or impulse rejected by a sadhaka?
A force returned goes back necessarily into the universal plane—at most its form gets abolished but the energy returns there.
When everything comes really from universal Nature, why are impulses felt as if they arose in one's own self?
Because people are shut up in their personal consciousness — they see the results, that is the sensations in themselves but they do not see the process and the
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source— it is so all through human life.
Cannot a thought be a guide to us by ceasing to follow its own exclusive satisfaction?
What thought? The mental thought can never be more than a partial and ignorant guide.
What is the function of the physical thoughts?
They are concerned with physical things, ordinary external experiences, habitual thought and action. The physical mind looks at these things from a superficial point of view, taking things as they seem and dealing with them in what appears to it to be a practical ordinary way.
When the mind is psychicised the thoughts that come from the lower forces would change themselves into divine thoughts. Correct?
Yes, or fall off and come no more.
MIND'S ACTIVITY AND DEVELOPMENT
How does the real knowledge come? Can it descend even though the mind is not prepared?
In some it does, others need a mental preparation.
How shall I obtain mental development? Can it be had only by reading?
A man may have read much and yet be mentally undeveloped. It is by thinking, understanding, receiving
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mental influences from his intellectual superiors that a man's mind develops.
Where does the discriminating power of the mind or the psychic come from?
It belongs to them by nature — only the mind can err, the psychic does not.
You once said: "You have to become conscious entirely and not only in your mind." I fail to catch the exact meaning of these words.
The mind is not the whole of you, there is also the vita,l and physical. If the mind is conscious and rejects but the vital or the physical do not, then you cannot get free.
The mind can be easily conscious of a wrong movement. But I don't know how the vital and the physical can be conscious of it and reject it.
There is a vital mind and a physical mind and there is too a power of feeling and a consciousness. If there is a consciousness, why should it be impossible for it to be conscious?
Sometimes the mind feels the pressure and wants to be free from mental work and to remain at rest. Should I let it do that?
If it did that, it might get the habit of inertia. You can do less mental work, if you like.
How is the lower mind to be transformed or thrown away in order to awake the faculties of the higher mental ranges?
How can you throw away the mind unless you
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want to disappear from manifested existence? It has first to be made quiet and open to the higher consciousness and transformed by the descent of the higher consciousness.
Does a quiet mind mean focussing attention one-pointedly on a particular subject? As for instance, while aspiring one should not allow any other thoughts than of the Divine in the quiet mind.
A quiet mind is a mind that does not get disturbed, is not restless and always vibrating with the need of mental action.
What you are talking about is a concentrated mind, concentrated on something or on a subject. That is quite different.
Does one build the vital world for oneself just like the mental world?
It is the mind that builds, the vital tries to enjoy and possess the world of its desires.
Does each human being live and move in a world of his own? Has it any relation with the world of another being?
As he lives in a separative consciousness, he makes a mental world of his own out of his experience of the common world in which all here live. It is built in the same way as that of others and he receives into it the thoughts, feelings of others, without knowing it most often, and uses that too as material for his separate world.
Everyone carries around him an environmental consciousness
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or atmosphere through which he is in relation with others —or with the universal forces. It is through this that there [enter] forces or thoughts or feelings of others.
It can become silent when there is the wideness. One can become conscious of it and deal with what passes through it. A man without it would be without contact with the rest of the world.
Can the hostile forces attack us on the mental plane as they do on the vital plane?
Yes — the physical mind especially can be made easily their prey — they can also invade the thinking mind.
Our sense mind is active all the time and leaping out. How is one to make it sit down for some time? How to hold it in one's hands, so to speak?
It is not the sense mind that has to sit down; it is the mind that has to stop paying attention.
What would be the true activity of the senses which at present are so subject to material things and cause all sorts of dualities of emotion (like, dislike etc.)?
It is to record the divine or true appearance of things and return to them the reaction of an equal Ananda without dislike or desire.
What does the mental physical contain?
Habitual thoughts and thoughts that are reflexes to the touch of external things.
The physical mind can deal only with outward
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things. One has to think and decide in other things with the mind itself (buddhi), not with the physical part of it.
This morning the mind — the physical mind, most probably — became very obstinate and refused to concentrate or to receive light. Any reason for its being thus headstrong?
That part of the being has no reason except its whims, its habits or an inclination to be tamasic.
If the mechanical mind goes on in its rounds, it does not matter much. But when the thinking mind seems to get caught into them and identifies itself with them one feels troubled. What exactly is it that gets caught?
That is the physical mind. The physical and the mechanical mind are closely connected.
Repetition is the habit of the mental physical — it is not the true thinking mind that does like that, it is the mental physical or else the lowest part of the physical mind.
From this morning to this evening, I was in a somewhat passive condition — one part of me receiving all sorts of thoughts, the other part observing and sometimes rejecting but not very effectively. What is it in us that receives thoughts like this?
It is usually the mechanical mind if the thoughts are random — the physical mind, if they are connected.
From where does the mechanical mind obtain its food?
From things and impressions and old habitual
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thoughts or ways of thinking and feeling.
The mechanical mind is a sort of engine — whatever comes to it puts into the machine and goes on turning it round and round no matter what it is.
Is it not the function of the mechanical mind to be mechanical, just as it is that of the mind proper to perceive and conceive?
Certainly not—it is mechanical because it has no light in it and goes on like a machine. If there were light, it would not be like that.
When the higher consciousness takes hold of the mechanical mind, it ceases to be mechanical.
When the thinking mind and the physical mind become quiet, does not the mechanical mind cease by itself to be mechanical?
No. It has to be separately transformed.
Is it natural that old impressions from the sub-conscient should come up or does it happen because some part of the being opens to them?
The human like the animal mind lives largely in impressions rising up from the subconscient.
MIND'S ENLIGHTENMENT
On what level can imagination find out the Truth?
What Truth? Imagination is a power of the mind and supplies the mind with formations which may
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be true or not. It is not the business of the imagination to find out whether they are true— that is the work of other powers.
What other powers?
Any powers whose business it is to seek for or reveal or discover the Truth — from mental discrimination or intuition to Supermind. All I meant was that Truth-finding is not the business of imagination which imagines all things, conceives all possibilities, but does not tell us which of them is true.
What is the proper function of the intellect? Is it helpful in Sadhana?
Its function is to reason from the perceptions of the mind and senses, to form conclusions and to put things in logical relation with each other. A well-trained intellect is a good preparation of the mind for greater knowledge, but it cannot itself give the Yogic knowledge or know the Divine — it can only have ideas about the Divine, but having ideas is not knowledge. In the course of the sadhana intellect has to be transformed into the higher mind which is itself a passage towards the true knowledge.
How to distinguish the thoughts and actions of the mind, vital and physical? Are not the vital's thoughts and actions derived from desire or ego?
Yes, from some vital movement. Vital thought expresses vital movements, the play of vital forces. It does not think freely and independently of them as the thinking mind can do. The true thinking mind can stand
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above the vital movements, watch and observe and judge them freely as it would observe and judge outside things. In most men however the thinking mind (reason) is invaded by the vital mind and not free.
Does the thinking mind need some guidance in order to stand above the vital and watch and judge?
No. It can do it in its own right. It is its function to think, observe, discover and judge.
If the intellect judged impersonally, would it not be always right?
To judge impersonally does not necessarily mean to judge rightly — it only gives a greater chance of being right.
I have a "Meccano". A thought came that I should offer it to the Mother as there was no time left for me to make steamers and aeroplanes from it. But soon followed another thought that I was still young and should use it and ought to send the Model Book to the Mother and ask her to select models for me to make and show her. Again, on returning from the pranam, I decided to send the whole set, but only after the Model Book had got bound properly and its stand repainted. I am much confused by these conflicting thoughts. What is the truth in them? How to pick out the correct thought at once? Please give me a clear answer. Finally I have decided to offer the "Meccano" to you.
These are merely different thoughts trying to represent
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different sides of a question. For the human thinking mind there are always many sides to everything and it decides according to its own bent or preference or to its habitual ideas or some reason that presents itself to the intellect as the best. It gets the real truth only when something else puts a higher light into it — when the psychic or the intuition touches it and makes it feel or see.
Before the psychic being takes hold of the Adhar, which part governs our mind, vital and physical?
Usually it is the Mind (buddhi) that governs the rest as best it can.
When the Buddhi governs the Adhar (mind, vital and physical), does the Mother's Force work through the Buddhi?
Not necessarily — if the Buddhi is surrendered or open to the Mother, she works through it. If it is ignorant and closed to her, the mental Nature (Intelligence) works through the Buddhi.
What would be the right activity of the Buddhi when it opens or surrenders itself to the Mother?
The right activity of the buddhi is always to observe, discern, discriminate, understand rightly and give the right direction to the vital and the body. But it does it imperfectly so long as it is in the Ignorance; by opening to the Mother it begins to get the true light and direction. Afterwards it is transformed into intuition and from intuition to the instrumental action of the overmind or the supermind Consciousness.
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How does the Buddhi begin to open or surrender to the Mother?
By recognising its own ignorance and aspiring for light and transformation.
Can it by itself have the right activity or must it be enlightened by the higher consciousness to do so?
If it is trained, it can act rightly within its limits,— but that does not give the higher Truth.
What is the true activity of the psychicised intellect?
To see and judge things in their inner or spiritual truth, not merely in their external appearances.
Once you wrote: "It is either the mind or the psychic that controls the vital or both the mind and the psychic together." Why should the psychic control the vital together with the mind? I thought, the psychic being was sufficiently powerful.
Why should the mind be left out of the action? How is the mind to be spiritualised if the psychic refuses all association with it? Or what is the mind there for if it is not to be used as an instrument by the soul?
In the course of the sadhana what happens to the mental world of one's own?
The Truth comes down in the mind and a world of Truth is created there.
When the mind has discovered that what it had received was not true, why should there be any "unwillingness and resistance" in its rejecting it?
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Your question presupposes that the mental cares only for the truth and does not prefer its own opinions. Most minds have not that desire for the truth.
Why does something that happened come to one's consciousness in a representation that changes the form of it instead of giving the fact?
Where? In the mind? The mind does not record things as they are, but as they appear to it. It catches parts, omits others; afterwards the memory and imagination mix together and make a quite different representation of it.
By this time it is possible for me to remain conscious of the Mother during my physical work unless I become careless. Now I feel that it is time I became aware of Her presence during intellectual activity also. How to start doing it?
By developing a double consciousness, one that reads and writes and one that watches and receives the inspiration or is in contact with the Divine.
While trying to remember the Mother during the intellectual work I cannot pay sufficient attention to what is read or written. Why is this so?
Because your consciousness is not wide enough to contain many things at a time.
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LOSS OF MENTAL CONTROL
For the last three days I have been noticing this difference. A lack of strength or power in my consciousness to react against the movements of the ordinary nature. What is the matter with me?
It is, I suppose, because the mental control has fallen silent and the new control has not come as yet.
In the absence of the mental control which, as you say, has fallen silent, how am I to carry out my actions?
It is the will of the Purusha that ought to meet the action —will is a silent force put upon the thing to be changed.
Why did my consciousness relax the mental control?
Because you thought you must leave everything to the Mother and not interfere.
Did not the Mother like me to do it?
It may be necessary at a certain stage, but it stops the mental control.
Could you kindly enlighten me a little more about the mental control? Was it really necessary to lose it?
It is perfectly clear. You were using a mental control. When the silence came, the mind stopped its action, so the mental control ceased. It has to be
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replaced by a spiritual control, the silent Purusha will.
It was probably inevitable owing to the nature of the movements towards passivity, emptiness and silence.
TALKING
Yesterday I wrote to you about my good inner condition. But, outwardly, something made me talk a lot. In spite of my knowing that such unnecessary speech would disturb the inner and higher experience I could not check it. Kindly explain what made me go on,
It is always something in the physical or the outermost vital that does that.
You have to learn not to allow the speaking to alter your condition or else to recover it as soon as the interruption is over.
To remain aloof from the talk is what you should always do. The detachment is the first necessary condition for being free.
My writing comes out more easily through silence than my speech does.
Talk is more external than writing, depends more on the physical and its condition. Therefore in most cases it is more difficult to get it out of the clutch of the external mind.
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To remain concentrated during a talk is very difficult.
That is very usual. It is only when the consciousness is very strongly established that it remains while talking.
You have said: "But at this stage it is much better to keep yourself separate and look with a certain indifference at the doings of others." I suppose it means also not talking. What is actually meant by the last few words of your statement?
Not to mind what they do or interest yourself or criticise or intervene — but leave all to the Mother.
Now it is becoming possible to observe silence during mental pursuits also. But it is rather a slow and tedious process. While talking I have to utter each sentence to myself first and then only express it.
Good. But afterwards that process will not be necessary. You will remain in the silence automatically even when speaking.
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