Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
Instead of rejecting its weaknesses the vital goes on suffering inwardly. Or else it withdraws into neutrality which is not a healthy thing, as it makes the tender parts of my being sad and dry.
Obviously all that must go — it is the old vital egoism of the human being always preoccupied with itself, so that the being cannot give itself simply and unquestioningly to the adoration of the Divine.
Is it not really difficult to offer oneself to the Divine when he seems to give no return?
It is the only way to a real self-giving — otherwise the ego always remains in spite of experiences and progress.
What is the part in us that demands a special attention even from the Divine Mother?
It is the ego that wants the satisfaction of being the first or specially singled out. It is this egoistic vital demand with all its consequent results and disturbances that made it necessary for the Mother to limit the physical manifestation of nearness to a minimum.
My place at the Mother's feet will not be shifted even when I become fully supramentalised.
Good — that keeps one to the Truth and keeps out the megalomania of the ego.
Once the lower vital agrees to the hostile suggestions and accepts the demand, we are finished — from the high peak we
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fall rolling down below.
It is very true. Ego and its desires were at the root of all the falls that have taken place.
I thought that after attaining a certain stage of perfection in sadhana none can consciously do even a small action which is not in conformity with the Divine.
Yes, but what stage? The state of complete surrender of the ego.
Am I right in thinking "the whole present trouble lies in the ego and is due to the ego alone"?
It is due to the persistence of the lower nature of which the ego is the chief motive force.
I heard that the Mother put her Force on some sadhak because he wanted to change his vital. Well, I too wish intensely to change my vital and my ego. They will naturally refuse change as is their right. But what does it matter? My soul and mind are in earnest about it and that should be enough for the beginning.
It is not the right of the vital and ego to refuse, it is only their habit.
"I roamed and roamed, sought in each niche and corner, broke through here and there, explored this way and that, but alas! met nothing that could satisfy my desires. All my energy was wasted and now I lie fallen and depressed. The world is all maya..." So says my ego!
Well, if it has discovered that the world is all maya, why does it not give up its desires and let the soul have a chance?
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But now what is to be done with the ego?
There is nothing to do but to refuse to accept it — unless you can use the Force on it to make it go or else change.
Has the ego to go or to change?
In its place there must be the true being.
Some part in the vital wants to make an experiment: to come frequently in physical contact with the Mother to shake off the ego.
I don't see how that could get rid of the ego.
Once when the Mother was showing love, the vital being felt it should surrender itself to her. Now it keeps hankering for a bit more of the same thing.
It is the ego that is showing itself in its true character. Formerly, it was associating with the sadhana because it either got something of what it desired or had great expectations. Now that these things are held back and the demand for the true attitude is made on it, it resists or non-co-operates, saying "No value in such a sadhana." In all the sadhaks here, the ego (in its physical or vital physical roots) is proving to be the stumbling-block. No transformation is possible unless it changes.
The ego seems to be throwing up strong suggestions against the manifested personality of the Mother.
That can hardly be the ego. Such suggestions also come from the Adversary.
I am aware that I did not guard myself sufficiently against inertia. But was I really so careless about the ego?
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You left it to be dealt with by the Force while you remained above — and if you would have remained above, it would no doubt have been dealt with.
Has my two years of serious sadhana brought no change in the ego? Was what I considered a selfless surrender all a mere illusion?
It was not shared by the ego, evidently, — otherwise such things as vanity, jealousy etc. would not be there, for these things are the negation of selflessness.
After the evening meditation (with the Mother), a powerful struggle took place in the vital against the ego. Is there any strong part of the higher light that fights the ego?
There necessarily must be if there is a strong struggle.
The fight with the ego is part of the fight with the physical nature, for it is the superficial ego in the physical consciousness, irrational and instinctive, that refuses to go.
After a long introspection I discovered that the ego or the vital being rises up on its own and not because of outer reasons.
It rises because it is its nature to do so; it wants to keep hold of the being which it considers its property and field of experience.
I heard that some sadhaks have a gigantic ego like H and P while some have a fat ego like N. Could I be told about the form of my ego?
Your ego is small and not gigantic — not tall and vehement and aggressive like P's, but squat and inertly obstinate
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— not fat completely, nor thin, but short and roundish and grey in colour.
What do these symbols of the ego stand for?
Squat=short in stature but broad and substantial, so difficult to get rid of.
Not tall and pre-eminent or flourishingly settled in self-fullness.
Roundish =plenty of it all the same.
Grey=tamasic in tendency, therefore not aggressive, but obstinate in persistence.
But these are not symbols, they are the temperamental figures of the ego.
Are there many egos here which are "flourishingly settled in self-fullness"?
Plenty of them, but they are not all fat.
What is the solution to the problem of the ego?
You have to throw out all the forms in which the ego shows itself.
Is it not possible to rub out the ego completely by a continued application of the Force?
It is possible if your consciousness associates itself with the action; then at least one can get rid of its major action and leave only minor traces. To get rid of the ego altogether, however, comes usually only by the descent of Consciousness from above and its occupation of the whole being aided of course by the rule of the psychic in the nature.
I am not sad to learn from you about my defects, imperfections
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etc. It is better to be conscious than ignorant.
Yes. But there was a part of you that did not like to have any defects suggested or pointed out and it is this part which is vexed now and supporting the vital disappointment and refusal of sadhana.
You wrote: "If ego cannot trouble the being why should sex trouble it?" But the ego is not the same thing as sex. Is it not possible to have control over one and not over the other?
They are both rajasic forces of vital nature. Ego troubles with vanity, ambition, desire for the satisfaction of ego, anger, depression etc., when it is not satisfied. Because it is not the "same thing as sex", it does not follow that it cannot trouble.
Today, the ego did not revolt under the normal circumstances. What then made it so quiescent?
It has to be seen by experience; whether it is quiescent or expelled or eradicated. It is certainly a great thing gained if it is the last.
Even when there is no active revolt, the ego keeps the heart or vital on the wheel of suffering, saying: "The Mother does not love you at all!"
Obviously, such feelings and reasonings are just the things to impede the action of the Force and prevent or spoil the sadhana.
If the ego determines its revolt according to the Mother's failing to smile or to put her hand on our head, how is it that at times it can remain quiescent in spite of her failing to do so?
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The ego acts according to these things when it dominates; when it docs not dominate or is not present then these motives can have no effect. The whole question is whether the ego leads or something else leads. If the higher consciousness leads, then even if the Mother does not smile or put her hand at all. there will be no egoistic reaction. Once the Mother did that with a sadhika. being herself in trance — the result was that the sadhika got a greater force and Ananda than she had ever got when the Mother put her hand fully.
Now I see that the ego is not likely to go so easily. But why does the vital turn against the Mother's Force?
Where is the ego if not in the vital?
On this topic could I submit one more question? Since you had perceived this defect in me, why did you not point it out to me at once? If you had simply written that it was only my ego in the physical that insisted on asserting its views, the present disturbance might have been avoided altogether!
The ego would not have accepted it like that and would not have understood.
Your ego does come up from time to time without your seeing that it is the ego. It comes up not in your higher parts but in your physical mind and consciousness and you think that because your higher parts are clear, this also is clear.
That is very true. Not only did I think but I believed it to be so! And that was why I was surprised even to see the thing back which was supposed to have been thrown out long ago.
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It was quiescent for a long time under the influence of the higher being.
Among all the parts of a sadhak, the ego seems to be the toughest in not submitting to the Divine. When the other parts have surrendered can they not impose their surrender on his ego?
Yes, his psychic being, his mind and will, his heart can do it, provided they are conscious of the ego and strictly reject it in all its movements.
The other day you said, " You must get rid of the ego activities." Will you please point out to me which ego activities I am still fostering consciously?
That you must know. For when you say ego comes and stops everything, it must be in some form or other — that form is what I mean by activity. Ego by itself is nothing — there must be an egoistic thought, feeling etc.
THE TAMASIC AND RAJASIC EGO
Tamas and tamasic ego are implied in each other. When one yields to tamas one indulges the tamasic ego.
For the last few months nearly all the parts of my being have felt that there is no need of living on earth. Interest and joy in life are now gone. Once the Divine thought of making me His instrument and therefore there was some sense and delight in going ahead. Because of my constant tamas and illness He seems to have lost that hope. Now I am only a burden to Him.
These are the feelings of the tamasic ego — the reaction
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to a disappointment in the rajasic ego. Mingled with the true attitude and experience or running concurrently along with it was a demand of the vital "What I am having now, I must always have, otherwise I can't do sadhana; if I ever lose that, I shall die" — whereas the proper attitude is "Even if I lose it for a time it will be because something in me has to be changed in order that the Mother's consciousness may be fulfilled in me, not only in the self but in every part." The lower forces attacked at this weak point, made demands through the vital and brought about a state of inertia in which what you had clung to seemed to be lost, went back behind the veil. So came the tamasic reaction of the ego, "What is the use of living, I prefer to die." Obviously it is not the whole of you that says it, it is a part in the disappointed vital and tamasic physical. It is not enough that the active demands should be broken and removed; for this also is a passive way of demand "I can't have my demands; very well, I abdicate, don't want to exist." That must disappear.
What is the tamasic ego?
The tamasic ego is that which accepts and supports despondency, weakness, inertia, self-depreciation, unwillingness to act, unwillingness to know or be open, fatigue, indolence, do-nothingness. Contrary to the rajasic it says "I am so weak, so obscure, so miserable, so oppressed and ill-used — there is no hope for me, no success, I am denied everything, I am unsupported, how can I do this, how can I do that, I have no power for it, no capacity, I am helpless; let me die; let me lie still and moan" etc. etc. Of course not all that at once or in every case; but I am giving the general character of the thing.
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It is now that the tamasic ego has been manifest, it showed itself in the tone of what you wrote about your illness, helplessness, also the recent suggestions of hopelessness and dying etc.
In spite of my vigilant eye how on earth could the ego get in?
So long as you had fully the attitude of surrender, the rajasic ego could only take the form of suggestions from outside, uprisings from the subconscient. It was suppressed in the vital. When the inertia rose and the energy of will receded, it began to try to come in again.
I had thought that at least the rajasic ego had been eliminated!
Do you mean to say that you never had any rajasic element in you? There is not a human being who has not got it in him so long as he is not divinised in his vital. What were all the vital suggestions coming to you so insistently always, except appeals to the rajasic ego? When you threw out sex, jealousy, vanity etc. what were you throwing out but the rajasic ego? What was the demand at the pranam or the disturbance caused there but a movement of the rajasic ego? Some of these things you threw out successfully — others still kept a response.
Since you saw wrong things entering me and myself being unconscious of them, why did you not warn me about them?
Here again is the rajasic ego in you, dictating to us what we should have done and showing us our mistakes.
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THE EGO AND THE HIGHER PLANES
Some sadhaks say that as one enters into higher planes one meets with a greater ego, ignorance and falsehood. How can this be?
It is because they go higher and higher in the same plane of consciousness as before and do not rise beyond — e.g. higher and higher in the realm of vital-mental formations — not higher beyond mind into the planes that lead to the full supramental.
Before or while rising to the higher spiritual ranges, often we imagine that the ego has been dropped altogether. But we must not be careless. For it cannot completely disappear before the Overmind border is crossed.
Even if there is no consciousness of ego in the higher parts where oneness of all things has been realised, it does not follow that in the lower parts ego has been abolished. It can on the contrary become very strong and the action can be very egoistic even while the mind is thinking "I have no ego".
People speak of the "spiritual ego". The question is: "Is there really an ego on the higher spiritual planes?" Certainly not. There is absolutely no element of ego there. For they are all (from the Higher mind to Overmind) divine planes of consciousness.
On the higher spiritual planes there is no ego, because the oneness of the Divine is felt, but there may be the sense of one's true person or individual being — not ego, but a portion of the Divine.
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Some travellers of the overhead ranges ask: "Even we do notice ego here and there and sometimes even in greater mass than below. How is it so?"
The ego they perceive there is not the inhabitant of the spiritual heights. But the thing is, man being a mental being, when he ascends he carries with him subtly or unconsciously the ego of the lower nature. And as his consciousness is naturally heightened and cosmicised in the spiritual planes, the ego too feels extended and enlarged! But there is no such thing as "spiritual ego".
All the same a sadhak cannot wait to be egoless before he attempts the higher flights. For it is impossible to have a complete annihilation of ego at such an early stage of sadhana.
Although there is no ego in the spiritual planes, yet by the spiritual experience the ego on the lower planes may get aggrandised through pride and wrong reception of the experience. Also one may by entering into the larger mental and vital planes aggrandise the ego. These things are always possible so long as the higher consciousness and the lower are not harmonised in the being and the lower transformed into the nature of the higher.
In effect, a poet sadhak, H, sang to the Mother:
"One day from my begging condition I shall grow divine And sit beside Thee on Thy throne!"
It is a dream of the ego hoping for its own highest possible (or impossible) aggrandisement.
Those who consciously carry in them ambitious ideas about developing in sadhana and becoming equal in status with the Divine Himself or with one's guru may be detained long, if
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not in the larger planes, at least in the Overmind, so long as the ego is there.
They cannot get beyond unless they lose it. Even in these planes it prevents them from getting the full consciousness and knowledge. For in the Overmind cosmic consciousness too ego is absent, though the true person may be there.
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