Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
PART I
ASPIRATION AND SURRENDER
Shouldn't a sadhak offer to the Mother not only his good experiences and knowledge but also the ordinary movements of ignorance? Otherwise how will his lower nature be purified and transformed? The psychic elements of our nature will help, won't they?
It is true that with the psychic action these things are more easily overcome. Also the ignorance etc. must be surrendered, i.e., all attachment to them, justification or acquiescent habitual response must be given up.
If my being is to make some real and substantial progress, it will be done only when it learns to depend completely on the Mother and her inner help and guidance.
Yes. It must be absolutely sincere in its self-giving and dependence and keep nothing for the ego and its desires.
Sincerity means to accept the Divine influence only and not that of lower forces.
When one learns to leave things to the Divine, isn't He bound to answer all our real needs?
The Divine is not bound to do that, He can give or not give; whether He gives or does not give makes no difference to the one who is surrendered to Him. Otherwise there is an arriere pensee in the surrender which is not then complete.
Because there is a sense of ego in our surrender, to stop surrendering is absurd. Even if we can't reject the ego, an egoistic surrender is better than no surrender.
Certainly. The action must go on, only the mixture of ego in it must more and more disappear.
If there is any identification with the vital demands or outcries,
Page 3
that necessarily diminishes the surrender for the time.
What is meant by a complete surrender?
A surrender of all the parts and all the movements without insistence or claim or desire or demand of any kind.
In this case a complete surrender is not possible in the initial stages.
It is for that reason that personal effort is necessary.
You said that, when the surrender is not complete, personal effort is necessary. Is the baby-cat attitude not possible in the beginning?
If there is not a complete surrender, then it is not possible to adopt the baby-cat attitude; it becomes mere tamasic passivity calling itself surrender. If a complete surrender is not possible in the beginning, it follows that personal effort is necessary.
If complete surrender means a total extinction of the ego, then not a single human creature can claim it till he reaches the final stage of Yoga.
It is correct on the whole, but one can overcome this difficulty if the psychic leads.
The absolute surrender must be not only an experience in meditation, but a fact governing all the life, all the thoughts, feelings, actions. Till then the use of one's own will and effort is necessary, but an effort in which also there is the spirit of surrender, calling in the Force to support the will and effort and undisturbed by success or failure. When the Force takes up the sadhana, then indeed effort may cease, but still there will be the necessity of the constant assent of the being and a vigilance so that one may not admit a false Force at any point.
It depends on what is meant by absolute surrender - the experience of it in some part of the being or the fact of it in all
Page 4
parts of the being. The former may easily come at any time; it is the latter that takes time to complete.
If you are surrendered only in the higher consciousness, with no peace or purity in the lower, certainly that is not enough and you have to aspire for the peace and purity everywhere.
If the surrender is complete, then that certainly is the best -what has to be avoided is a tamasic state devoid of will or vigilance justifying itself under the name of surrender.
In the morning there comes a spontaneous state during which I feel like surrendering my sadhana to the Mother. But in the evening that condition withdraws, and I have to take up personal effort to save my nature from getting into inertia. Is this the only way to arrive at a complete surrender?
It is not a way or method of arriving at complete surrender; it is a mixed action that one has to use so long as there is not a complete surrender.
How can you surrender to the psychic if you are not conscious of its action?
Can't I do it in the same way as surrender to the Force above? I am not always conscious of the Force.
It is then a sankalpa [resolution] of surrender. But the surrender must be to the Mother - not even to the Force, but the Mother herself.
If the psychic manifests, it will not ask you to surrender to it, but to surrender to the Mother.
Surrender and love-bhakti are not contrary things - they go together. It is true that at first surrender can be made through knowledge by the mind but it implies a mental bhakti and, as soon as the surrender reaches the heart, the bhakti manifests as a feeling, and with the feeling of bhakti, love comes.
Page 5
A surrender by any means is good, but obviously the impersonal is not enough - for surrender to that may be limited in result to the inner experience without any transformation of the outer nature.
Could you kindly inform me when you find my surrender is on the decrease?
It is not a question of decrease, but of necessary increase.
The aspiration must be for entire purification, especially (1) purification from sex, so that no sex imaginations may enter and the sex impulse may cease, (2) purification from desires and demands, (3) purification from depression which is the result of disappointed desires. It is the most important for you. Particularly what you must aspire for is peace in all the being, complete equanimity - samata. The feeling that peace is not enough must go. Peace and purity and equanimity, once established, all the rest must be the Mother's free gift, not a result of the demand from the being.
You can mix normally with people keeping as much as possible an inner quietude. In future when the purification is done and a continuous experience possible we can reconsider the matter.
Is not a state where no aspiration is needed better than one with aspiration?
You have to arrive at such a state first.
How is it that the working of the Force felt at one time is so different from what is felt at another?
I can only say as before, that there is "no specific" reason which the mind can determine. It depends on the total condition and interaction of the forces. One has to hold on to the aspiration and look steadily towards the goal without being disturbed by these inequalities and fluctuations.
Are there not some laws and rules in the fluctuations? Cannot
Page 6
one find out what caused them and then manage them?
There are no fixed rules. There are simply a mass of tendencies and forces with which one has to become familiar. It is not a fixed machinery which one can manage by devices or by pulling this or that button. It is only by the inner Will, the constant aspiration, by detachment and rejection, by bringing down the true consciousness, force etc. that it can be done.
You said, "It is a stage [in which one cannot aspire freely] from which you must come out as soon as possible." What is this stage?
Your present condition in which the lower nature is able to stop the aspiration and experience.
Instead of trying to find out reasons for not being able to aspire, better I turn all my energy to making the way forward.
That is right.
My attitude of surrender is now being planted too deeply to be shaken by the storm of suggestions and demands of ego. Therefore I live as if I have no difficulties.
Not to be touched or disturbed by the difficulties, to feel separate from them is the first step towards freedom.
Page 7
MEDITATION AND CONCENTRATION
Effort means straining endeavour. There can be an action with a will in it in which there is no strain or effort.
Straining and concentration are not the same thing. Straining implies an overeagerness and violence of effort, while concentration is in its nature quiet and steady. If there is restlessness or overeagerness, then that is not concentration.
I have been advised to have some dispersion of mind in order to get over difficulties of sadhana.
Dispersion and sadhana are two things that cannot go together. In sadhana one has to have a control over the mind and all its actions; in dispersion one is on the contrary controlled and run away with by the mind and unable to keep it to its subject. If the mind is to be always dispersed, then you can't concentrate on reading either or any other occupation; you will be fit for nothing except perhaps talking, mixing, flirting with women and similar occupations.
Mental work during the meditation - is that what you have written? How is that?
The condition of meditation (Yogic concentration) is mental quietude, there can be no mental "work" during meditation. Unless you mean meditation of the mental kind, i.e. thinking about things, but that is a different matter.
Have I a capacity for long meditation?
The capacity is there of course, but latent.
Naturally one does not get tired if the meditation has become natural. But if the capacity is not there yet, then many cannot go on without a strain which brings fatigue.
At present, I spend a lot of time in meditation. People say too
Page 8
much meditation is sometimes not very good or healthy. It makes life too one-sided.
Certainly, if all one's life one did nothing but meditate, it would be a one-sided affair. But at times to give the first place or a lion's share to meditation may be necessary. It is especially when things are coming down and have to be fixed.
Do you approve of my long sittings of motionless meditation?
If you can have it, it is certainly desirable at this stage.
Because there is no result yet, should I think that the aspiration, concentration and will used to bring down the higher things are not sincere?
It does not follow.
At I p.m. my consciousness became less and less aware of the mind and body. It felt as if it was moving towards some unknown region. At 2 p.m. while getting up from the chair, my body began to stagger as if I had lost consciousness even though inwardly I was perfectly self-aware.
That happens if one gets up too suddenly from a deep concentration.
Too suddenly means before the consciousness has come back into the body.
You wrote, "if one waits, the consciousness comes back." Waiting for what?
You say that the consciousness had gone too high to come down in order to support the physical movement of going. If so, you have to wait till it comes back before you make the movement.
At times, when I read a piece of philosophy or yogic literature I feel like falling into meditation. Is it not a sign of laziness in the mind?
Page 9
It is quite natural to want to meditate while reading Yogic literature - that is not the laziness. The laziness of the mind consists in not meditating, when the consciousness wants to do so.
How is it that 1 can concentrate well only in a sitting posture and not while standing or walking?
That is so with most people.
The sitting motionless posture is the natural posture for concentrated meditation - walking and standing are active conditions suited for the dispense of energy and the activity of the mind. It is only when one has gained the enduring rest and passivity of the consciousness that it is easy to concentrate and receive when walking or doing anything. A fundamental passive condition of the consciousness gathered into itself is the proper poise for concentration and a seated gathered immobility in the body is the best for that. It can be done also lying down, but that position is too passive, tending to be inert rather than gathered. This is the reason why Yogis always sit in an asana. One can accustom oneself to meditate walking, standing, lying, but sitting is the first natural position.
It is not a fact that when there is obscurity or inertia, one cannot concentrate or meditate. If one has in the inner being the steady will to do it, it can be done.
One can have no fixed hours of meditation and yet be doing sadhana.
If it is possible to keep a fixed period for meditation and stick to it, it would certainly be desirable.
Page 10
THE POWER OF WILL
What is the will?
The energy which dictates the action or prevents a wrong action is the Will.
By energy is meant the life-force. If energy is the will, why do we sometimes find the will without any power or energy?
Energy is energy, it is not the life-force. I have not said that "energy is the Will". There is a whole qualifying clause there which you treat as if it were meaningless nonsense.
The will is a part of the consciousness and ought to be in human beings the chief agent in controlling the activities of the nature.
Will is will whether it is calm or restless, whether it acts in a yogic or unyogic way, for a yogic or an unyogic object. Do you think Napoleon and Caesar had no will or that they were Yogis? You have strange ideas about things. You might just as well say that memory is memory only when it remembers the Divine and it is not memory when it remembers other things.
Is there no difference between the will used by a worldly man and that used by a Yogi?
Who said there was not? but both are will, different forms of the same thing. To say one is will and the other is not is nonsense.
Is it not true that the will becomes or changes into desire when it comes down into the lower nature?
It usually does so in the vital or at least it gets a strong mixture of desire.
I suppose the vital despair is the cause of my not being able to
Page 11
put up a persistent and calm aspiration and will.
The calm and steady will must be the mental being's. There is no reason why the mental being should allow itself to be at the mercy of the vital.
The fundamental remedy is to strengthen the vital at any rate. But that cannot be done if the inner vital remains weak and indifferent. The only way to do it is to reject all vital desires and bring the Mother's peace and force.
That is the way. If there is a constant use of the will the rest of the being learns however slowly to obey the will and then the actions become in conformity with the will and not with the vital impulses and desires. As for the rest (the feelings and desires etc. themselves) if they are not indulged in action or imagination and not supported by the will, if they are merely looked at and rejected when they come, then after some struggle they begin to lose their force and dwindle away.
Peace is not a necessary precondition for the action of the will. When the being is troubled, it is often the business of the will to impose quiet on it.
There is no such thing as an inert passive will. Will is dynamic in its nature. Even if it does not struggle or endeavour its very presence is dynamic and acts dynamically on the resistance. What you are speaking of is a passive wish - I would like it to be like that, I want it to be like that. That is not will.
I have mentioned several methods available to me for dealing with my human nature. Which of them do you find best for me?
Whatever method is used, persistence and perseverance are essential. For whatever method is used, the complexity of the Nature-resistance will be there to combat it.
There can be no persistence or insistence without will.
Page 12
Insist on the effort till it becomes persistent. Especially you must make up your mind to be master of your vital, not "helpless" before it.
Impulse is not enough; steady carrying out of a resolution is necessary.
You wrote, "One need not 'feel' a Force in order to use the will." By "feel" I meant that there should be at least some force or energy to make the will work.
The will can make itself work - it is in its own nature a force or energy.
I find my will power almost veiled and forceless. How to bring it out and use it is itself a problem.
That is the suggestion that has been enforced on you by the physical inertia. It has covered up your will and persuaded you that there is no will left and no possibility of any will.
One can always use the will. The idea that you cannot is only a suggestion of the inertia.
I lack the requisite energy to stand up against the opposite forces. Where does my difficulty lie?
In the indolence of the will which does not want to make a sustained effort for a long period. It is like a person who moves slightly half a leg for a second and then wonders why he is not already a hundred miles away at the goal after making such a gigantic effort.
You cannot expect a persistent inertia like that to disappear in three days because you made some kind of a beginning of effort to resist it.
The will sometimes seems to be without energy or like something that can act only if some additional energy pushes it from behind.
Page 13
It simply means that your will is weak and not a true will. Queer kind of will! Perhaps it is like a motor car that won't go and you have to push from behind.
I suppose it must be because you have not been in the habit of using the will to compel the other parts of the nature - so when you want it done, they refuse to obey a control to which they are not accustomed and it also has not any habitual hold upon them.
The difficulty of managing the mechanical mind is part of the human constitution. But I find it more active and burdensome in me than in the majority.
That is what everyone thinks about his difficulties - this idea is an effect of tamasic egoism and forms an excuse for not making the necessary effort. What is more in you than in the majority is the entire laziness of the nature in facing the need of dealing with this difficulty.
The helplessness is there because of the habit of not using the will. You can use the will obstinately enough when you want to satisfy a desire.
You wrote, "You can use the will obstinately enough when you want to satisfy a desire." It is true. But the difficulty is that I am not aware of using the will consciously while satisfying a desire. Would you kindly explain to me how to use it? If the process is known, I can employ it to overcome the wrong movements of the sadhana instead of for satisfying desires.
There is no process. The will acts of itself when the mind and vital agree as in the case of a desire. If the desire is not satisfied, it goes on hammering, trying to get it, insisting on it, repeating the demand, making use of this person or that person, this device or that device, getting the mind to support it with reasons, representing it as a need that must be satisfied etc. etc. till the desire is satisfied. All that is the evidence of a will in action. When you have to use the will for the sadhana, you have not the
Page 14
same persistence, the mind finds reasons for not getting on with the effort, as soon as the difficulty becomes strong it is dropped; there is no continuity, no keeping of the will fixed on its object.
Something ought to intervene in this inert period. How else shall I prepare myself for the coming Darshan of the 15th August?
There is not much use in thinking that something ought to be. It is better to get done what can be done by as steady a will, aspiration and pressure as possible.
The resolution, to be a real resolution, must be there always, fixed. If it is dependent on an urge, not self-dependent, it can also be knocked down by inertia.
I have said, it is the persistent will and endeavour that matter, not the date of achievement.
The ego and the vital demand feel baffled due to the strong action by the Force and by my resolution to drive them out completely before the 15th of August. That is why such a vehement resistance has surged up suddenly.
Of course, they always resist a pressure to get rid of them -and if one fixes a given time, they are all the more resistant in the hope of creating disappointment and discouragement by the failure to do it in the given time.
I wonder how my own will that was dormant all this time suddenly became so active and powerful!
The Force can bring forward and use the will.
Is not Mother disclosing my true will in this way?
It sounds like it.
If this will-power is developed fully, it may soon be possible for Mother's Force to use my will consciously for the conquest of my lower nature.
Page 15
Very good - it was that that was needed.
If I persevere in the use of my will-power, many obstructions will be worked out within a short time.
Yes.
I want to develop my will to perfection, so that it can merge into Mother's Will.
By development it becomes fit to merge into the Mother's will. A will that is not strong is a great hindrance to sadhana.
What was my position up to now regarding the consciousness and the will?
All the time when the sadhana in you was really active, the whole stress was on the consciousness, not on the will. It is only recently you are giving more attention to the will.
This morning also the habitual depression tried to enter. But the Mother saved the situation by pulling my consciousness above and using my will-force on the vital, with the result that the depression failed to get in. All this happened because of the intervention of Mother's power and not of any effort on my part.
All the same, there must be a will acting on the vital in the way you describe. Such a use of will is essential so long as the Higher Consciousness has not occupied the being.
You had written, "I need not bother about it - if peace is needed it will bring itself." Certainly the main stress should be on the Force, but the active assent of the sadhak is needed, in certain things his will also may be needed as an instrument of the Force.
The higher action does not preclude a use of the will - will is an element of the higher action.
I feel that I must make a dynamic and serious effort to overcome
Page 16
the inertia - at least so much as the Force wants me to do so that it can then complete the purification by itself. Do you think that I allow the inertia to play with me willingly and that I do nothing to overcome it?
Are you going to deny the tamas in you and put all the fault of your want of progress on the Divine Force?
I did not mean that the Force should do everything for me while I remain lazy. But is it not true that our personal effort can bear definite and lasting fruit only if the Force has acted in or through.
The Force also produces no definite and lasting fruit unless there is the will and the resolution to advance in the sadhak. Your argument tries to establish the very thing you deny in your first sentence - viz. that all your want of progress is due to the Force, you yourself are not to blame.
I started using the higher will because I read that this Will-Tapas is all-powerful and effective and least strainful.
Is the will you are using all-powerful? Does it succeed inevitably always and produce infallible effects?
The will of the Supreme is alone all-powerful.
Page 17
PERIODS OF ASSIMILATION
Why am I not aware of the process of assimilation?
Hardly one ever feels that. It goes on under cover.
The period of assimilation can either be a perfect quietude or else the assimilation can go on behind the veil, as it were.
The difficulty is that I am not conscious of the assimilation taking place. It almost seems a cessation of sadhana.
Quite natural. But one must keep in the inner being the faith and knowledge that it is an assimilation and not a cessation, even if it looks like a cessation.
If I could only watch this process behind the veil, all the wrong reactions of the assimilation would cease.
How on earth could it be said then to be behind the veil? It would be a very unveiling veil.
During these periods the experiences etc. come like mere flashes or glimpses and disappear in a short time. During other periods they come almost like a state, as a normal thing to the inner being.
That is as it should be.
Do I still need long periods of assimilation?
The periods of assimilation continue really till all that has to be done is fundamentally done. Only they have a different character in the later stages of sadhana. If they cease altogether at an early stage (you are still in a very early stage), it is because all the nature was capable of has been done and that would mean it was not capable of much.
The only change in the assimilation periods afterwards is that certain things remain settled while the assimilation applies to others that are not yet settled in the system. E.g. one feels always a constant peace in the inner being, but disturbances go
Page 18
on on the surface, till the surface also has assimilated peace. Or perhaps peace is settled everywhere and always there, but knowledge comes and goes, or strength comes and goes. Or all these are there but Ananda comes and goes, etc. etc.
If they stop early, it means that all has been done that could be done and nothing more is possible; the later and more advanced developments of the sadhana are not possible, - if they were, the assimilation periods would continue until all was developed and not cease. The only reason for such a premature end of the sadhana would be that the sadhak is not capable of going farther.
Page 19
ACTION OF PURUSHA AND PRAKRITI
What do you mean by the individuality of the Prakriti? Prakriti means nature - each person individualises his own nature in the sense that he centres it round his ego and also in the sense that he makes or there happens for him a selection and combination of the qualities and movements of Nature which he calls his nature and character. But this is not usually called the individuality of the Prakriti.
People with strong egos would find the process of surrender difficult and painful if there was no separation of the inner Purusha.
Yes - it is hardly possible except by separation of the inner Purusha or the pressure of the psychic.
In the absence of the working of the Force, my condition is uncertain. The mental control is completely withdrawn and there is no other control to replace it. So anything is able to take hold of my mind and use it as if it came from the truth!
A control is necessary - if nothing higher, there ought at least to be the will of the mental Purusha (that is different from the control by the reason).
What is this will and from what centre does it act?
It is the will of the Purusha that can act directly or from anywhere. For the will of the Purusha there is no fixed centre.
The different Purushas are only representatives of the one Purusha. Each naturally acts from his own centre if there is to be his separate action. But the Purusha-will as a general power is not confined to any one centre.
What is this one Purusha? Is it the psychic being?
The one Purusha is the individual Being of which the psychic and all others are representatives.
Page 20
Then is this one Purusha the Jivatman, the Self above?
The Self above may be the Atman one in all. When the Atman is individualised - i.e. supporting from above the play of individual being, it is called the Purusha or sometimes the Jivatman. It is the central being. Usually however it is the mental Purusha one first becomes aware of and through that the nature is led. To become aware of the psychic being or the central Purusha is more difficult.
Even during action, when I am vigilant, I can remain above as a separate and observing Purusha. But I always fail to change the nature of the actions. Could you kindly give me some instructions so that the actions might be changed into at least psychic actions if not divine for the present?
For the actions to be psychic the psychic must be in front. The observing Purusha can separate himself, but cannot change the Prakriti. But to be the observing Purusha is a first step. Afterwards there must be the action of the Purusha-Will as an instrument of the Mother's force. This Will must be founded on a right consciousness which sees what is wrong, ignorant, selfish, egoistic, moved by desire in the nature and puts it right.
What a great will the Purusha has that you write it with a capital W!
You might just as well ask what a great man is Nagin that his name has to be written with a capital.
If the Purusha has a will, why does it not exert it on the nature and keep it under its control? I see it remaining simply detached, doing nothing!
That is its first condition when it manifests in the lower nature. It is then called the witness Purusha. If you want the rest to develop, you have to train your mind to be its instrument.
The working consciousness is still so restless during work. The Purusha is separate but unable to control the force of inertia.
Page 21
It is because you have not developed the will for these purposes.
For the last few days, there is something like a tangible experience and vision that I am the lord of my mind, vital and physical. I see myself seated above them, as the Mother's child, full of power and energy - enough to make the revolting parts obey me by a mere look.
I suppose it is a vision and experience of what should be or is to be or of what the Purusha is in the Force consciousness. The Purusha is really the master of the nature - it is only in the play of the ignorance that he behaves as if its slave.
The will of the Purusha is emerging with a force and effectiveness which cannot be neglected so easily by the inertia and the vital demand.
That is good.
Today, during the work I found that the separation from and control over the Prakriti would not come by fighting with the thoughts. The mechanical and the subconscient minds have great power. The Purusha tried to detach itself and bring the Prakriti too to the detachment by a quiet separation from the thoughts. So far as it went, it promised to bring about a complete aloofness. What then happens is that I begin to feel myself, even in the midst of activity, more and more above, one with the Mother and her Force, carrying out the actions as if I was a second person!
That is quite as it should be.
Regarding the mental work, at least I feel the study is being done in the silent consciousness. Is that true?
Yes, if you feel so.
During the physical work the Purusha is often separate. But the Prakriti, though it wants to separate itself from the action, finds it rather difficult to follow the Purusha. What comes in the way?
Page 22
It is more difficult for the Prakriti as its ordinary play is that of the surface being. It has to divide itself into two to separate from that. The Purusha on the contrary is in its nature silent and separate - so it has only to go back to its original nature.
How does the Prakriti divide itself into two for the necessary separation?
It divides itself into an inner Force that is free in its action (free from rajas, tamas, etc.) and the outer Prakriti which it is using and changing.
Does Prakriti's division mean separating one part of itself from the gunas and becoming the inner being?
It becomes an inner Force, not the inner being.
Page 23
TRANSFORMATION OF THE GUNAS
Are Prakriti, Nature and the gunas quite different things? If so, why do we see them always mixed?
Prakriti and Nature are the same thing - the gunas are modes or processes of Nature (Prakriti).
Do impulses or passions such as killing or fighting come from a push of Rajoguna or Tamoguna?
Both together - for it is made up of tamasic obscurity and rajasic wrong impulse.
Can a purely sattwic man become very angry or passionate?
No - he can only be firm or severe when severity is needed.
Are depression, despair and fear reactions of tamas or rajas?
Tamas.
"Not only will the Purusha stand apart and be trigunatita, beyond the three gunas, but the Prakriti, though using the gunas, will be free from their bondage." So says the The Yoga and its Objects. How can Prakriti remain free from the bondage of the gunas in spite of her using them?
By the transformation of the gunas eventually. Till then by using them without attachment as the will and as the instrumentation of the Divine Shakti.
But before the transformation, how can the Prakriti use the gunas without attachment, since it is with a great difficulty that even the Purusha manages to be detached?
How then are the Yogis who act with detachment able to act at all? If the action of the gunas necessarily implies attachment, then it follows that in their parts of nature they remain attached, ego-ridden, desire-ridden, not free. There are three separate things, ego, desire, the gunas.
Page 24
How is your last sentence related to the previous sentences? In fact, my mind failed to grasp properly your whole answer.
If ego and desire are different things from the gunas, then there can be an action of the gunas without ego and desire and therefore without attachment. That is the nature of the action of these gunas in the unattached liberated Yogi. If it were not possible, then it would be nonsense to talk of the Yogis being unattached, for there would remain still attachment in part of their being. To say that they are unattached in the Purusha but attached in the Prakriti, therefore they are unattached, is to talk nonsense. Attachment is attachment in whatever part of the being it may be. In order to be unattached one must be unattached everywhere, in the mental, vital, physical action and not only in the silent soul somewhere inside.
Does not the usual action of the gunas bring attachment, desire and bondage? If not, why should we bother so much about the transformation of the gunas?
We were not speaking of the "usual" action of the gunas, but of an unusual action possible by Yoga. The transformation of the gunas is necessary for the perfection of the nature, not for liberation. Liberation comes by loss of ego and desire.
When speaking of the detached activity in spite of the gunas' action, if you meant that the yogi's inner being remains detached while the outer is under the action of the gunas, then it is an understandable thing.
All nature is Prakriti, not only the outer nature. The difference is between Purusha and Prakriti, not between inner and outer being. Purusha is the still, observing, supporting, creating consciousness. Prakriti is the dynamic side of the being.
It is not the inner Purusha only that remains detached - the inner Purusha is always detached, only one is not conscious of it in the ordinary state. It is the Prakriti also that is not disturbed by the action of the gunas or attached to it - the mind, the vital,
Page 25
the physical (which are Prakriti) begin to get the same quietude, unperturbed peace and detachment as the Purusha, but it is a quietude, not a cessation of all action. It is a quietude in action itself. If it were not so my statement in the 'Arya' that there can be a desireless or liberated action on which I found the possibility of a free (mukta) action would be false. The whole being Purusha-Prakriti becomes detached (having no desire or attachment) even in the action of the gunas.
The outer being is also detached - the whole being is without desire or attachment and still action is possible. Action without desire is possible, action without attachment is possible, action without ego is possible.
"Prakriti is the dynamic side of the being." What is meant here by "the being"? Generally we use the term "lower being" for the Prakriti.
Prakriti is Nature; being includes Purusha also. Prakriti is not the lower being - the word covers the whole of Nature. We speak of the lower nature, the higher nature.
I cannot make out how the action of the gunas can escape causing attachment.
That inability of yours does not prevent it from being a fact. It simply means that you have not reached the point where such detachment of the Prakriti is possible.
It is a general progress of the consciousness that is needed. These things are not done according to a fixed programme, map or plan.
If the Prakriti is separated from the gunas, what will remain of it? How will it act?
If the gunas are quiescent, then Prakriti ceases to act - unless the gunas are transformed into their divine equivalents, - then Prakriti becomes the higher or divine Nature.
Page 26
When the Prakriti is emptied of the action of the gunas, or when it ceases to act, what is left in it for us to distinguish between Prakriti and Purusha?
You seem to think that action and Prakriti are the same thing and where there is no action there can be no Prakriti! Purusha and Prakriti are separate powers of the being. It is not that Purusha = quiescence and Prakriti = action, so that when all is quiescent there is no Prakriti and when all is active there is no Purusha. When all is active there is still the Purusha behind the active Nature and when all is quiescent there is still the Prakriti, but the Prakriti at rest.
Prakriti is the Force that acts. A Force may be in action or in quiescence, but when it rests, it is as much a force as when it acts. The gunas are an action of the Force, they are not the Force itself. The sea is there and the waves are there, but the waves are not the sea and when there are no waves and the sea is still, it does not stop being the sea.
When we do work without ego, desire and attachment, what kind of action do the gunas take up?
The sattwa predominates, the rajas acts as a kinetic movement under the control of sattwa until the tamas imposes the need of rest. That is the usual thing. But even if the tamas predominates and the action is weak or the rajas predominates and the action is excessive, neither the Purusha nor the Prakriti gets disturbed, there is a fundamental calm in the whole being and the action is no more than a ripple or an eddy on the surface.
Is "kinetic" a Sanskrit word?
No, the word is"kinetic" from Greek kineo I move, "kinetic" means something that puts things in activity. It is kinesis, pure activity and movement without desire.
Even when our actions are really free from any attachment we feel sometimes tamas or rajas.
Page 27
I said that the predominance of sattwa was the usual thing, but rajas and tamas could also be prominent.
When the consciousness as well as the action is free from ego and desire, there is always a fundamental calm. This calm remains whether sattwa predominates or not. Sattwa need not always predominate, because to become sattwic is not the object of sadhana. To need to be always sattwic would be a limitation. Whatever guna predominates in the action, to be free, desireless, calm behind all actions, is the condition of the liberated man.
In the unattached actions, it is, as you said, usually the sattwa that predominates. What happens, then, to the gunas when the Mother's Force takes up our actions?
They are used and led gradually towards transformation.
In the process, are the gunas first transformed or the Prakriti?
The Prakriti can be psychicised and spiritualised and the gunas yet remain but with the sattwa dominant and the rajas and tamas enlightened by the sattwa. As the transformation increases, the gunas change more and more towards their divine equivalents, but it is only when the supramental comes that there is the full change.
I encounter so much resistance, revolt and attack from my physical nature while trying only to enlighten it. How much resistance you and the Mother must be facing while supramen-talising the whole material Nature! How do you manage it? The attacks must be coming on your physical body also.
When one knows that it is like that and sees the play of forces one does not get disturbed. There is the inner position described by the Gita, "Whatever comes or goes, sattwa, rajas or tamas, the Yogi regards calmly and is not elated or depressed by it."
Today the Prakriti also was able to detach itself to a certain extent, while I felt myself quite inactive in the midst of work. Why
Page 28
then does the Prakriti fall back into the gunas?
It is because of the existence of the ordinary consciousness which relapses to its old movement.
When one feels it is the Mother's Force that acts through one and not one's own, is it then her Force alone that works in the actions and do the gunas remain quiescent?
No, the gunas are there and not quiescent - for they are the instrumentation. If the force and the inner consciousness are very strong, then there is a tendency for the rajas to become like some inferior form of tapas and the tamas to become more like a kind of inert shama. That is how the transformation begins, but usually it is very slow in its process.
What is the inert shama?
Inert shama is shama still mixed with tamas - a quietude that has no force of action (tapas) in it, no positive principle of happy ease, no positive light of knowledge - but is still calm, repose, release from all disturbance.
Page 29
Home
Disciples
Nagin Doshi
Books
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.