Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
THEME/S
PART VII
VISIONS AND VOICES
I am not able to understand the varying subtle smells coming from some people. I used to get a strong bad smell from X. Then it stopped. Now again it is coming.
The smell is due to something in the person's vital-physical. That something may not be prominent at all times. When it is, the smell is there.
What is this something in the vital physical?
I wrote that the something may be of different kinds in different cases and one cannot give a rule that it is this or it is that. What has the dirtiest smell is sex.
Has this subtle smell any connection with sadhana?
It isn't connected with one's sadhana. It is a part of the character, quite noticeable in those who do no sadhana.
When certain people pass by me, their influence falls on my environmental consciousness like a shadow. Something in me can discriminate whether the influence is good or bad, pure or impure etc. But still I cannot be sure of my judgment as I am not a mature Yogi.
The consciousness of these things is intended for knowledge - a psycho-occult knowledge, necessary for the fullness of consciousness and experience. It is not intended that what is felt should be allowed to become an influence, whether a good one or a bad one.
In meditation I saw three flowers of "Divine Ananda" hanging from a bower. Some time ago there was a similar vision of the three flowers of "Divine Love" offered to the Mother. Has this any correspondence with my sadhana?
It is not quite clear what this number 3 means in this connection. Possibly it is the aspiration for the divine's love in the three parts of the being.
Page 235
During yesterday's dream, while plucking flowers I found two hidden flowers of "Surrender". I plucked them immediately.
Well, they mean surrender; hiding will mean withholding themselves still.
In meditation I saw the Mother distributing the flowers called "Aspiration for the Divine". But as it was the Darshan day there were many visitors and the flowers were exhausted when my turn came. So she gave me an incense stick. What does it symbolise?
The incense stick is the symbol of self-consecration.
At about 2 o'clock this afternoon I heard something like this: "Rise from thy slumber. Tamas and ego are in everybody, do not be disappointed. You are a child of the Mother. Rush forward with her fire. The psychicisation of the nature is certain, have faith and confidence in her." From where and whom did this voice come?
It is an inner voice, evidently, but from where or whom it comes is not clear - anyway, the advice is good.
The inner voices give us a truth and a command. But books also can do that. The former must also bring the necessary force. Perhaps we don't get it because some veil between the inner and the outer being hinders it.
The inner voice is a voice only - it may give direction, but not the force. A voice speaks, it does not act. There is a great difference between reading a book and receiving the inner direction.
I wrote to you about the subtle sounds heard by my ears. But now I hear very loud sounds in the head also. These are different not only in pitch but also in their character. They are of two types which, ring simultaneously and yet separately. The latter increases when I use will-power or draw on the Mother's Force.
They are frequently heard when the force of sadhana is strong -I suppose they are sounds made by the vibration of subtle forces.
Page 236
Has my opening to the subtle sounds, smells and tastes any importance for the progress of my sadhana?
They were merely signs of the opening. Their becoming of importance depends upon the development of the occult knowledge and powers.
How is it that there has been no development of knowledge and powers since the opening of the subtle faculty two years ago?
It was not an opening of occult knowledge and powers, but simply an opening of the inner consciousness.
In your book Bases of Yoga one reads, "It is with the Mother who is always with you and in you that you converse." Will you kindly explain how the sadhak in question converses with her?
One hears the voice or the thought speaking inwardly and one answers inwardly. Only it is not always safe for the sadhak if there is any insincerity of ego, desire, vanity, ambition in him - for then he may construct a voice or thought in his mind and ascribe it to the Mother and it will say to him pleasing and flattering things which mislead him. Or he may mistake some other Voice for the Mother's.
L told me that she had been in touch with the Mother long before she came here. She saw the Mother not only in meditation and vision, but in a waking state with open eyes. She also said that when she was in difficulty, Mother would appear and tell her what to do. Do not these experiences indicate an advanced sadhana?
She has not related them to us. But there is nothing improbable in it. It means simply that she externalised her inner vision and experience so as to see through the physical eyes also, but it was the inner vision that saw and the inner hearing that heard, not the physical sight or hearing. That is common enough. It does not indicate an "advanced" sadhana, whatever that phrase may mean, but only a special faculty.
This kind of inwardly visible contact with the Mother and her
Page 237
clear guidance seems to be unique. I wonder how many sadhaks here have developed it.
These things are extremely common among those who practise Yoga everywhere. In this Ashram the sadhaks are too intelligent, sceptical and matter of fact to have a mind of that kind of experience. Even those who might develop it are hampered by the outward-mindedness and physical-mindedness that dominates the atmosphere.
It is quite usual at a certain stage of the sadhana for people who have the faculty to see or hear the Devata of their worship and to receive constant directions from him or her with regard either to action or sadhana. Defects and difficulties may remain, but that does not prevent the direct guidance from being a fact. The necessity of the Guru in such cases is to see that it is the right experience, the right voice or vision - for it is possible for a false guidance to come as it did with Nolinbehari and Bijoy.
Are not peace, purity, surrender, etc. what is wanted of an integral sadhak? These are the real spiritual aids, visions and voices are only helpful to build faith in us, and no more.
Visions and voices are not meant for creating faith; they are effective only if one has faith already.
You take a very utilitarian view of spiritual things. Whatever develops in the sadhana, provided it is genuine, has its place in the total experience and knowledge. A knowledge of the occult worlds and occult forces and phenomena has its place also. Visions and voices are only a small part of that vast realm of occult experience. As for utility, for one who has intelligence and discrimination, visions etc. have many uses - but very little use for those who have no discrimination or understanding.
Visions and voices have their place when they are the genuine visions and the true voices. Naturally, they are not the realisations but only a step on the way and one has not to get shut up in them or take all as of value.
Page 238
People who have the occult faculty always tend to give too large a place to it.
I suppose this capacity for visions and voices is by no means a sign of progress in itself.
What do you mean by progress? The Mother spent many years entering the occult worlds and learning all that was to be learnt there. All that time she was making no progress? She sees things always when she goes into trance. Her capacity is a thing of no value? Because a great number of people don't know how to use these faculties or misuse them or give them excessive value or nourish their ego by them, does it follow that these faculties themselves have no Yogic use or value?
Even by itself it [the capacity for visions and voices] is a progress in the development of the consciousness, though it may not carry with it any spiritualisation of the nature.
I do not know what you mean by practical sadhana. If one develops the occult faculty and the occult experience and knowledge, these things can be of great use, therefore practical. In themselves they are a part of opening of the inner consciousness and also help to open it further - though they are not indispensable for that.
It is difficult to develop the faculty of hearing inner voices, whereas all can develop the consciousness for their guidance. Again, those voices are often dangerous, aren't they?
There are plenty of difficulties and dangers in the consciousness also. There is only one reliable inner voice, the psychic.
X and Y had no voices but they justified the wrong things their consciousness suggested to them and indulged them as if they were divine things (Y) or very high and noble ideas (X). So what is the difference?
Page 239
I see now that my ideas about the occult faculty are elementary. But if it has such good uses, then why did Sri Raman Maharshi discourage his disciples from having any dealings with it?
He discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and the 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.
The visions and voices can help one to receive constant directions from you or the Mother. Well, why not open me to them? I shall then not need to trouble you with all sorts of questions. With this faculty you will always appear before me and talk to me.
I shall have first to be sure that you will make the right use of them. I prefer that you should get higher discrimination and knowledge first.
Pseudo-Occultism
I was surprised to learn that Y is going away. I thought he was progressing well.
He was not progressing at all. He was full of pseudo-occult delusions and "sufferings". So he is going with our approval to see if he cannot shake them off by a change of atmosphere.
He opened himself to wrong suggestions and influences in his desire to get occult powers and be able to figure as a great Yogi. It was these forces that made him feel all sorts of pains and sufferings in his body caused by a distracted state of his nerves, while his mind and vital became clouded and tortured by the struggle between these influences and the Truth pressing upon him.
Page 240
I thought he was living in his inner being.
What do you mean by the inner being? Y was not living in his psychic but in his vital.
X did the same. It is one thing to live within with the Mother and with the Truth in the psychic being and another to live in the vital with delusions and false voices that mislead and obscure.
He [Y] had too much ego, ambition, sex and he brought these into his sadhana, accepted them as part of it- when he tried to free himself from the delusions, the vital brought them back because the ego could not free itself from its ambition.
Could not occultism be turned into a help in the sadhana?
How
Going away was necessary, because staying here he was moved always to do sadhana and sadhana had come for him to mean this occultism. He could not get back to the right track without getting back to the normal mind and living in the ordinary consciousness so as to begin with a blank page. This he failed to do here.
It is not for vital satisfaction that he goes, but to get out of this wrong groove.
The Ashram is the best place for getting rid of wrong movements. Is not the Guru's physical presence the best means for doing it?
That is only true if one can open oneself to the Mother. To be here and shut up to it and under another control does not help.
Page 241
OLD YOGAS AND OUR YOGA
Some parts of my being feel this world as a strange place for them. They think they belong to the higher worlds which have nothing much to do with this earth. So whenever anything of the world pulls them down they do not feel at ease.
That would be all right for some other Yoga - this one has as its aim a change of nature in this world.
What is meant by this full identification? A going up somewhere above and leaving the manifested being and nature to remain as they are? How then is the transformation to take place? It would be a full identification in the self as in the old Adwaita Yoga; but what of the union in the whole being?
A sadhak of integral Yoga who stops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral Yoga. Impersonal realisation is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an Existent, Conscient, Blissful. It leads therefore to Nirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the Self and of the impersonal Sachchidananda is only a step though a very important step or part of the integral knowledge. It is a beginning, not an end of the highest realisation.
It is said that normally one passes from the impersonal to the personal aspect of the realisation. But at present I have both the aspects. The personal was there from the beginning and the impersonal came by itself. So what is the truth of the matter?
There is no truth of the matter. One can pass from personal to impersonal or from impersonal to the personal or get the impersonal upon the personal or the personal upon the impersonal or both together. Why want to make fixed rules about everything?
Page 242
There are two different things,
(1) The liberated soul.
(2) The sadhak who has surrendered his actions to God.
The liberated soul is necessarily above shastra. But the sadhak of liberation need not be unless he has surrendered his actions to God.
Quite so! To live in the mind and vital and try to reach the Divine through them is religion at the most, it is not spirituality nor Yoga.
I have never seen that despondency brings down anything - at least here. It is supposed in Vaishnava Yoga to be effective in that way - sometimes, or at least to be a natural movement or recurring phase of the sadhana. It certainly seems to be the latter with many sadhaks here but I think the sadhana is better without it.
Anyhow chaos means an anarchy of disordered forces and the old theory was that out of such a chaos God created a world by imposing order and harmony on the forces.
Page 243
THE ASHRAM SADHAKS
People believe that drawing down of the higher things is not a desirable movement - there should be an effortless descent.
But that is made an excuse for not doing any active sadhana at all - hence a general tamas and inertia in the Ashram, people taking things easily as if they had only to wait and chat and eat and read and sleep and whatever was necessary would descend of itself some day or other. There must be the concentration, the aspiration, the call, the rejection of the lower nature.
That is why the Ashram is what it is. Only those who are taking the Yoga seriously are making any progress.
I am told some sadhaks have misused the descent of the Force. I wonder how such a thing takes place. For it is the Force that has to use us and not vice versa.
They allow something else to use it and them.
In Y's case, was there any descent of the higher Force which got mixed up or degraded by his lower nature and brought about the madness?
There was no descent of Force at all - such results do not come from a descent of the higher Force - they are attacks from the Asuric vital forces.
It appears that he had a great spiritual ambition which was beyond his powers and he seems to have been indulging in practices such as not sleeping against which he had been warned as well as others (not allowed) which can put one into contact with the vital beings and lead to lunacy.
I am not aware of any "development" of the mental etc. on their own planes; the development takes place on earth. The mental and other planes are not evolutionary. The one who dies
Page 244
here is assisted in his passage to the psychic world and helped in his future evolution towards the Divine.
Depression and Despair
I heard that some people here remain constantly in despair and gloom because they have become conscious of their minutest imperfections and defects which they are unable to get rid of.
They are unable for two reasons: (1) because they yield to despair and gloom and the illusion of impotence, (2) because they try only with their own strength and do not care or know how to call on the working of the Mother's Force.
Some sadhaks think that when we do not meet Mother we should feel dull and unhappy. They even consciously bring in depression and despair in order to prove that their love for the Mother is overflowing!
This theory is terrible nonsense. It is applying the formulae of the most vital kind of love to the Yoga. This vital idea of love for the Divine has been a great stumbling-block in the Yoga in the Ashram.
Are not the movements of depression and despair big and strong movements?
They can hardly be called big movements. The real distinction is that they are rajasic movements, not tamasic.
They are not big - they are small movements of the vital ego -I mean the movements of vital dissatisfaction which cause people here to be depressed and revolt and despair. If the resultant depression or despair is strong, that simply means that the minds of the people here are seeing things out of all right measure and proportion, magnifying trifles into tremendous things, swelling little hurts to vanity, petty pride, small ambition, amour propre etc. They make a tempest in a tea-cup, a tragedy out of a trifle. Because people are living here under the Mother's shelter and
Page 245
saved from the great sufferings and tragedies of human life, they must need spin despairs and tragedies out of nothing. The vital wants to indulge its sorrow sense and shout and groan and weep and if it can't have a good or strong reason for doing it, it will use a bad or small one.
How poor, weak and sensitive is our little vital! Even in its own egoistic sense it has no pride and dignity. If it had, it would not allow itself to be moved by these petty movements of the world.
Not even of the world - of a small circle of people exaggerating the little vital movements around them and in themselves into something big and stupendously important.
How is it that there are some persons who rarely get depression or despondency? Has it anything to do with the Grace of the Divine?
For many reasons, some because their vital has taken the right attitude, some because their psychic is prominent, some simply because they have a more sound, balanced and reasonable nature. The Grace of the Divine has nothing to do with it.
It seems that yesterday some Ashramites ran away from here - a few miles - and returned after a short time!
They are divided - they feel pushed to go and yet don't want to go.
Did they act thus as a revolt against the Mother?
Yes, there is that also. But it is a very confused condition.
About people's impulse to go out at present, you wrote, "It was always strong - only now we don't contradict as strongly as before." Does your answer mean that now there is no harm (from the spiritual point of view) if they go out and return?
No, it does not; it simply means that we can't always be holding back people whose vital says, "I want to go, I want to go," and they side with the vital. They are allowed to go and take their risk.
If one leads the ordinary vital life, there can be no spiritual struggles - only vital troubles.
Page 246
He was always on the point of going. He wanted to be immediately rid of all imperfections and struggles and have at once a perfect surrender and when he found himself upset by the smallest things in his work or otherwise, he concluded that he was unfit for Yoga and must go away. He was in fact a constant victim of the going away illness and immediate siddhi demand illness from which Z also was a sufferer.
If I said only things that human nature finds easy and natural, that would certainly be very comfortable for the disciples, but there would be no room for spiritual aim or endeavour. Spiritual aims and methods are not easy or natural (e.g. as quarrelling, sex-indulgence, greed, indolence, acquiescence in all imperfections are easy and natural) and if people become disciples, they are supposed to follow spiritual aims and endeavours, however hard and above ordinary nature and not the things that are easy and natural.
When we have spoken the truth, should we withdraw it if the other person gets depressed or troubled by it?
No. If it is true, it should not be withdrawn. But the truth need be told only when it helps the person spoken to, otherwise silence is better.
I would like to know how sadhaks who have progressed more than I manage their outer life in spite of their overwhelming higher and deeper experiences?
Nothing can be said about that, if there is no reference to specific sadhaks. Each has his own movement and it is not the fact that all have to pass through the same stages or experiences - for each has a different nature.
I like P's atmosphere and find it helpful. Is my finding true?
It is true. He is very sincere in his sadhana.
Page 247
There are a few here who share all the difficulties of the Path with others and yet do not seem to be burdened with them!
Probably because they have a quiet and controlled vital and do not allow it to clamour - also in some a calm reliance on the Divine.
A fully developed sadhak can be an instrument of the Mother for helping others, but a fully developed sadhak means one who is free from ego and he would never claim the work as his own. In this Ashram all helping has recoiled on the helper by either making him egoistic or by his getting affected with the very things he is helping the other to get rid of.
Could I entrust Mulshankar1 with copying my letters to you?
Mulshankar is a man with much serious strength in his character and a strong will. The discretion and secrecy of such people can be trusted.
Some sadhaks type out their experiences and your comments on them and then show them to their friends!
To show what is written about experiences or to speak about one's experiences to others is always risky. They are much better kept to oneself.
Vanity is not pride. It is self-admiration and has always in it something light and absurd.
Ostentation can be a show of things one has but also a show of things one has not. Ostentation means a showing off to others. A vain man may or may not be ostentatious.
All antagonism to other sadhaks or dislike of them should go. There should be a calm goodwill and charity to all, but no inner mixing or interchange. Liking and disliking always means interchange of influences.
1 Mulshankar was one of the six inmates selected by the Mother to attend on Sri Aurobindo during his convalescent period after the accident to his right leg in November 1938.
Page 248
The point is that [human] relations and friendships are usually founded on the vital and are very mixed affairs. That is why they turn out to be obstacles in sadhana.
Why are some people here always craving for letters or news from their relatives and friends?
So long as the mind is not sufficiently drawn inwards, it runs after these things, needing food for its activity.
You wrote, "They [the sadhaks] go according to their own preference, Mother's liking or not liking has nothing to do with it." They say that they go for outings with Mother's permission, not out of any desire but to see Nature and learn to appreciate it, and that she herself used to go and take some sadhaks with her.
That is all rubbish. They go for the vital fun of it and it would be better if they recognised it instead of talking high-sounding humbug. Mother went because her health needed fresh air and she could not be quiet anywhere else owing to her position and people crowding round her. But if she had never gone, they would still be taking their Nature trips to please themselves.
What is a "true necessity" - one can always say to oneself that one has a "true necessity" for the thing one desires. Moreover in approaching a thing needed one can do it with desire or without desire. The fact that a thing is "needed" does not prove that you have no desire for it.
Every sadhak has a good amount of defects and imperfections and the majority of them seem as unable to get rid of them as X.
In fact, if Z and a few others had not made themselves the instruments of the Mother and helped her to reorganise the whole material side of the Ashram, the Ashram would have collapsed long ago under the weight of a frightful mismanagement, waste, self-indulgence, disorder, chaotic self-will and disobedience. He and they faced unpopularity and hatred in order to help her to
Page 249
save it. It was the Mother who selected the heads for her purpose in order to organise the whole; all the lines of the work, all the details were arranged by her and the heads trained to observe her methods and it was only afterwards that she stepped back and let the whole thing go on on her lines but with a watchful eye always. The heads are carrying out her policy and instructions and report everything to her and she often modifies what they do when she thinks fit. Their action is not perfect, because they themselves are not yet perfect and they are also hampered by the ego of the workers and the sadhaks. But nothing can be perfect so long as the sadhaks and the workers do not come to the realisation that they are not here for their ego and self-indulgence of their vital and physical demands but for a high and exacting Yoga of which the first aim is the destruction of Desire and the substitution for it of the Divine Truth and the Divine Will.
If the Mother sanctions it means that it is her will that it should be so.
Page 250
SRI AUROBINDO ON THE MOTHER
Those who have visited other Ashrams say there is no Ashram like this one, no Guru like the Mother or Sri Aurobindo - it is beyond imagination. The freedom given here to every sadhak is really too much. And yet many here do not seem to know even what is meant by a spiritual Guru and how to respect him properly!
Certainly very few seem to realise what a possibility has been given them here - all has been turned into an opportunity for the bubbling of the vital or the tamas of the physical rather than used for the intended psychic and spiritual purpose.
In some Ashrams the disciples make too much of their Gurus. If the Gurus are just ordinary siddhas they insist on calling them Bhagavans [God incarnated], while here you and the Mother are brought down to such an ordinary level. How unintelligent must be our bright intellect!
Perhaps it is too brilliant to see the Truth.
Darshan - Mother's Birthday
In the Ashram atmosphere there are premonitions: "On this occasion of Mother's birthday, something great and high that has never yet descended on the earth is to come down." Is this true?
Let us hope so. There are some others who are feeling like that, so it may be true - at least for those who feel it.
Only two days ago I felt a great working all around as a preparatory stage for the great event of the 21st February.1 Then what is meant by these two days of constant darkness? This has brought me down to the most material consciousness. How am I to prepare myself now for the grand descent?
1 The Mother's birthday, one of the Darshan days at the Ashram.
Page 251
Let the descent come when it can, 20th or 22nd or any other day of the month or year. On the 21st only offer yourself to the Divine Mother and consecrate everything.
I wonder why the lower resistance is greater now, especially when the Darshan is approaching?
It is often so. One has to learn not to submit to the resistance.
Yesterday during the Darshan, 1 felt as if you had put a strong Force on my lower vital. I became conscious of it immediately. Is this correct?
It is correct.
After the Darshan people experience love, Ananda, exaltation -which last for a while. But is it not something greater and deeper to feel one's desires, attachments and ego fading away after the Darshan?
Yes, certainly.
On the 21st, the vital resisted in the beginning, but afterwards received what you and the Mother offered me during the Darshan. Was it not a willing acceptance by the vital?
Yes, but the acceptance must be made permanent.
When will I be able to live, not in an impersonal sense, but in the Mother's manifested physical form?
I do not know how you are going to live in the manifested physical form. To live in the Mother's consciousness down to the physical with the manifested form as the centre of this unity is possible. Perhaps you mean that? But how are you going to do that if the other parts are left to remain as they are? They will go on pulling you out of the true consciousness as they do now. And how are they to be changed if the Mother's Force is not there in them to change them?
There are not many Mothers, there is One in many forms. The
Page 252
transcendental is only one aspect of the Mother. I don't know what is meant by the embodied aspect of the transcendental Mother. There is the embodied aspect of the One Mother - what she manifests through it depends on herself.
You have written: "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 being." I do not understand.
It is rather surprising that you should be unable to understand such a simple and familiar statement; for that has been always the whole reason of this Yoga that to follow after the Impersonal only brings inner experience or at the most mukti - without the action of the Integral Divine there is no change of the whole nature. If it were not so the Mother would not be here, and I would not be here - if a realisation of the Impersonal were sufficient.
In our terminology how do you name the Purushottama and the Parashakti? Are they the Supreme and the Mahashakti as spoken of in your book The Mother?
Yes.
When I start writing to you, there comes a greater pressure, a deeper concentration of the higher Force. Why so?
I suppose it is because in the act of writing or rather beginning to write you enter into contact with the Mother and the Force.
It is simply a fact that happens - the Force comes when you begin to write.
How is it you never write to me anything unless I ask for it or make some statement about it?
I never do to anybody unless he gives me the occasion. A sadhak must become conscious and lay himself before the light, see and reject and change. It is not the right method for us to interfere and lecture and point out this and point out that. That is
Page 253
the school master method - it does not work in the spiritual change.
The disciples here are not pupils and the gurus here are not school teachers.
You often use words like "please" etc. In India at least, a Guru, not to speak of an Avatar, does not speak this way to his disciples!
They were not in the habit of writing English.
Since you and the Mother are supposed to know all that happens in us, then why do you want us to write to you about it?
It is necessary for you to be conscious and to put your self-observation before us; it is on that that we can act. A mere action on our own observation without any corresponding consciousness on the part of the sadhak would lead to nothing.
I think I know as much about the dualities, weaknesses, ignorance of human nature as you do and a good deal more. The idea that the Mother or I are spiritually great but ignorant of everything practical seems to be common in the Ashram. It is an error to suppose that to be on a high spiritual plane makes one ignorant or unobservant of the world or of human nature. If I know nothing of human nature or do not consider it, I am obviously unfit to be anybody's guide in the work of transformation, for nobody can transform human nature if he does not know what human nature is, does not see its workings or, even if he sees, does not take them into consideration at all. If I think that the human plane is like the plane or planes of infinite Light, Power, Ananda, infallible Will Force, then I must be either a stark lunatic or a gibbering imbecile or a fool so abysmally idiotic as to be worth keeping in a museum as an exhibit.
You wrote, "Openness is not reckoned merely by visions." Quite so. But to have the fusion of the Sun and Moon on each side of the body, and to feel the Mother's presence all around, is it not an
Page 254
exceptional experience and vision?
Why should it be exceptional to see the Sun and Moon on each side or to feel the Mother's presence everywhere around? There are plenty of sadhaks who have had these or equivalent experiences. What would be exceptional is to feel the Mother's presence like that always. But occasional experiences like these many have had.
Just before approaching the Mother for Pranam, I feel a rapid and powerful heart-beating. But it ceases the moment I am with her. Why so?
Many people have felt that at times - some excitement of the vital, difficult to say why.
Today during the common meditation of the Mother I could receive her help easily and spontaneously. But after the meditation I had to use effort. Does it not mean that something in me is quieted by her very physical presence?
It is not by the physical presence but by the Mother's concentration at the time of Meditation which brings that quiet to those who can receive it.
If a sadhak has a profound, self-existent and dynamic love for the Mother, he always remembers her. Even if he happens to forget her in the initial stage, something from within automatically reminds him.
Yes. In the full development, even this is not necessary - for it ceases to be necessary to remember the Divine, since one is always conscious of Her.
Outer and Inner Contact with Mother
Now that Mother has stopped giving daily Pranam, one should feel sorry that he does not receive her touch each day, as before. That would show a great and intense love for the Mother.
Page 255
Not necessarily, though it may be so with some. With others it may be only that they miss some vital force they were drawing out of the Mother.
If the sadhana goes on whether you see the Mother or not, that would rather show that the psychic connection is permanently there and active always and does not depend on the physical contact. The vital seems to think the sadhana ought to cease if you do not see the Mother, but that would only mean that the love and devotion need the stimulus of physical contact; the greatest test of love and devotion is on the contrary when it burns as strongly in long absence as in the presence. If your sadhana went on as well on non-pranam as on pranam days it would not prove that love and devotion are not there, but that they are so strong as to be self-existent in all circumstances.
It is only if one can feel the inward touch of the Mother without the necessity of the physical contact that the true value of the latter can be really active. Otherwise there is a danger of its becoming like a mere artificial stimulant or a pulling of vital force from her for one's own benefit.
Some feel that in order to prepare for the Mother's inner touch, they need her physical touch, at least in the beginning.
If they are so dependent on the physical touch that they cannot feel anything when it is not there, this means that they have not used it at all for developing the inner connection; if they had, the inner connection after so many years would already be there. The inner connection can only be developed by an inner concentration and aspiration, not by a mere outward pranam every day. What most people do is simply to pull vital force from the Mother and live on it - but that is not the object of the Pranam.
Pulling is a psychological act - people are always pulling vital force from each other though they do not do it consciously, i.e. with a purpose in the mind - it is instinctive in the vital to draw
Page 256
force from wherever it can. All contact is in fact a receiving and giving of vital forces in a small or great degree. You have yourself said that after meeting such and such person you felt empty and exhausted - that means the person drew your vital force out of you. That is what people do at Pranam, instead of being quiet and receptive, they pull vitally. It can be stopped by cutting off connection, but if the Mother did that at pranam, then the pranam would be useless.
We know that the need for a body-touch is an imperfection and defect, and yet we long for it.
It is not the need of a body-touch, but the gross misuse of the opportunity given that is the imperfection and the great defect.
Could you not tell the disciples not to pull vital force from the Mother?
Telling would make no difference - they would go on doing it so long as they are in the clutch of the vital. Besides the recommendation not to pull has been made for the last decade almost without result.
Throwing Human Desires on the Mother
The idea of unburdening desires, imperfections, impurities, illnesses on the Mother so that she may bear the results instead of the sadhaks is a curious one. I suppose it is a continuation of the Christian idea of Christ suffering on the cross for the sake of humanity. But it has nothing to do with the Yoga of transformation.
Then how can we free ourselves from desires, impurities, etc.?
They have to be rejected, but not thrown on the Mother.
All bad thoughts upon the Mother or throwing of impurities on her may affect her body as she has taken the sadhaks into her
Page 257
consciousness, nor can she send these things back to them as it might hurt them.
I never spoke of attacks on you. I spoke of attacks on the Mother and the work as the cause of seriousness - when she is really serious. At present the whole atmosphere is full of attacks and nothing else because of the attitude of sadhaks. So long as that is so Mother can take no other attitude.
What is the real cause of the Mother's illnesses?
It is due to attacks. As the material is not yet conquered, the Mother's body has to bear the attacks which come daily and to which the sadhaks freely open the doors. If she cut off her consciousness altogether from that of the sadhaks or put them outside her consciousness, these things would not happen.
The Two Atmospheres of the Ashram
There are two atmospheres in the Ashram, ours and that of the sadhaks. When people with a little perceptiveness come from outside, they are struck by the deep calm and peace in the atmosphere and it is only when they mix much with the sadhaks that this perception and influence fade away. The other atmosphere of dullness and unrest is created by the sadhaks themselves - if they were opened to the Mother as they should be, they would live in the calm and peace and not in unrest or dullness.
Page 258
LETTERS OF THE MOTHER
Que veut dire le dessin que vous m'avez envoye sur l'enve-loppe?
C'est un agneau qui veut dire "purete".
What is the meaning of the drawing you sent me on the envelope?
It is a lamb, which means "purity".
What is the significance of the picture you sent me?
This boar is the
Voulez-vous me donner la signification du cheval?
Le cheval signifie les pouvoirs de l'etre individuel qui doivent etre maitrises (tenus en bride).
Please tell me what the horse means.
The horse signifies the powers of the individual being, which must be controlled (bridled).
Le renard de l'enveloppe veut dire habilete.
The fox on the envelope means cleverness.
C'est un lievre - "prudence".
It is a hare - "prudence".
Quelle est la signification du faucon?
Vue perçante.
What is the significance of the falcon?
Keen
Je vous mets le portrait de deux oiseaux a vue percante pour vous encourager a avoir foi dans la guerison de vos yeux.
Page 259
Je vais voir ce qui peut-etre fait.
I am enclosing a portrait of two birds with keen eyesight to encourage you to have faith that your eyes will be cured.
I shall see what can be done.
Est-il bon de manger des clous de girofle?
Les clous de girofle sont une medicine pour quand on a mal aux dents. Mais il ne faut pas en abuser.
Is it good to eat cloves?
Cloves are a medicine for toothache. But they should not be misused.
Est-ce bien necessaire de prendre du the?
Ce n'est pas bon pour la sante.
Is it really necessary to take tea?
It is not
Sri Aurobindo vous a ecrit [about tea] de continuer jusqu'a ce que vous soyez assez fort pour cesser.
Je
Sri Aurobindo has written to you [about tea] that you can continue until you are strong enough to stop.
I thought
Could I get some butter from the Ashram?
You can ask Pavitra if he can give you butter. But be on your guard. There was on N a formation of fear - fear of cold, fear of bad health, etc. - take care that this formation does not jump upon you; you must reject it resolutely.
W told me, "It was a mistake on your part not to inform the Mother about your body which is so thin and weak." Kindly tell me what to do to improve it.
Page 260
Do not bother about it and increase your faith in the Divine's Grace.
Blessings.
In fact I can assure you that the pain in the stomach as well as many other discomforts are due 90% to wrong thinking and wrong imaginations - I mean that the material basis for them is practically negligible.
With love and blessings.
Je suis contente que vous vous soyez ressaisi et j'espere que semblable chose ne se repetera plus.
I am pleased that you have recovered and I hope that nothing similar will happen again.
Je vous enverrai le livre [Prieres et Meditations de la Mere] demain; mais il faut bien etudier la grammaire si vous voulez comprendre ce que vous lisez.
I shall send you the book [Prayers and Meditations of the Mother] tomorrow; but you must study grammar well if you want to understand what you read.
Voulez-vous que je dessine quelquefois des oiseaux ou des animaux?
Comme vous voudrez - mais les dessins d'apres nature sont les meilleurs pour apprendre.
Would you like me to draw birds or animals sometimes?
As you like - but drawings from nature are best for learning.
J'ai essaye de copier le dessin que vous m'avez envoye aujour-d'hui.
Pour apprendre il vaudrait mieux aggrandir le dessin afin de pouvoir montrer les details.
Page 261
I tried to copy the drawing you sent me today.
For learning, it would be better to enlarge the drawing so as to bring out the details.
Ce matin je me suis senti fatigue apres cinq minutes de travail. Il s'agit seulement de polir des meubles!
Tout travail manuel fatigue les premieres fois qu'on le fait. Mais petit a petit le corps s'habitue et devient fort. Cependant quand vous vous sentez bien fatigue, il faut vous arreter et vous reposer.
This morning I felt tired after five minutes' work. It was only polishing furniture!
All manual work is tiring the first few times one does it. But gradually the body gets used to it and becomes strong. However, when you feel really tired, you must stop and rest.
Quand il n'y a pas assez de travail au Batiment, puis-je employer ce temps a lire ou a dessiner?
Votre travail est votre sadhana et c'est en faisant votre travail avec un esprit de consecration que vous pourrez le mieux progresser.
Je crois qu'il vaut mieux ne pas trop se fatiguer a lire ou a dessiner.
When there is not enough work in "Building", can I spend my time reading or drawing?
Your work is your sadhana, and it is by doing your work in a spirit of consecration that you can make most progress.
I think it would be better not to tire yourself too much by reading or drawing.
Je voudrais bien savoir s'il n'y a pas aussi la meme sadhana dans la lecture et le dessin?
Tout peut etre fait un moyen de trouver le Divin. Ce qui importe c'est l'esprit dans lequel les choses sont faites.
Page 262
I would like to know, isn't there also the same sadhana in reading and drawing?
Everything can be made into a means of finding the Divine. What matters is the spirit in which things are done.
Quelle est la signification de la fleur [Gomphrena globosa] que vous m'avez donnee ce matin?
C'est la conscience de l'Immortalite.
What is the meaning of the flower [Gomphrena globosa] you have given me this morning?
It is the consciousness of the Immortality.
Puis-je savoir la signification de la fleur (Zinnia) que vous m'avez envoyee ce matin?
Endurance.
May I know the meaning of the flower (Zinnia) you sent me this morning?
Je veux seulement ce que vous trouvez le mieux.
Quand on me propose deux choses et qu'on me demande laquelle faire, je reponds "comme vous voudrez", quand l'une n'est pas mieux que l'autre.
I want only what you think best.
When people suggest two alternative things and ask me which one to do, I answer "As you like" when neither is better than the other.
My mind is so entirely clouded by doubts and other lower influences that I feel if my body passed away just now, it would be so much for the better! In spite of all that, as a Purusha I am indifferent to any such absurd movements.
Yes they are absurd - shake it off.
With my blessings.
Page 263
At present I am much disturbed by sex difficulty. My rejection is not of much value, and I feel confused.
You have to persevere until it is valid.
Une partie de mon etre a contracte la mauvaise habitude de devenir miserable apres le Pranam. Elle devient jalouse de cer-taines personnes, ne pensez-vous pas que je dois avoir la puissance de rejeter cet obstacle?
Certainement - mais alors il faut le faire en toute sincerite et n'admettre d'aucune facon les mouvements de jalousie.
A part of my being has developed the bad habit of feeling miserable after Pranam. It gets jealous of certain people. Don't you think I should have the strength to reject this obstacle?
Certainly - but then you must do it in all sincerity and not accept these movements of jealousy in any way.
Je ne comprends pas pourquoi mon vital est toujours jaloux de X? Apparemment il n'y a aucune raison valable.
La jalousie n'a jamais de raison. C'est un mouvement tres bas et ignorant.
I do not understand why my vital is always jealous of X. Apparently there is no valid reason.
There is never any reason for jealousy. It is a very low and ignorant movement.
Est-ce que ces impulsions ont un sens?
En effet, cela n'avait aucun sens veritable - je suis heureuse de voir que vous le reconnaissez vous-meme.
Do these wrong impulses have any meaning?
No, that had no real meaning - I am happy to see that you recognise this yourself.
Quelles sont ces suggestions qui m'envahissent quelquefois? Ne viennent-elles pas du dehors?
Page 264
Elles viennent, en effet, du dehors, de quelque entite vitale qui s'amuse a vous les envoyer pour voir comment vous allez les recevoir. Je l'aie vue passer (la suggestion) au moment ou je vous ai donne la fleur. Je n'y ai pas attache d'importance parce que c'etait une sottise - mais je vois que vous l'avez reçue.
What are these suggestions that sometimes invade me? Are they not coming from outside?
They do come from outside, from some vital entity that is amusing itself by sending them to you to see how you will receive them. I saw the suggestion passing when I gave you the flower. I did not attach any importance to it because it was just foolishness - but I see that you received it.
A mistake recognised is a mistake pardoned. My blessings.
When P, a dancer, came here to see you, many sadhaks flocked around him. They insisted on his performing some dances. But he said he has come here without any dance-dresses. He did not appreciate people's desires for dances. He secretly told me that if he ever came here he would take particular care not to bring the dance-costumes. For he would come not for showing himself off but for the Yoga!
He is quite right. Too many people in the Ashram forget that they are here for yoga.
Page 265
SUPPLEMENT
THE MOTHER'S FORCE AND ITS ACTION
From the very day of my arrival in the Ashram I was hearing a great deal about the Mother's Force. Everybody was talking about this Force as if it had been synonymous with the Mother herself! When someone was sick, met with some difficulty in work, faced a problem in study or an obstruction in the inner sadhana, he invoked the Mother's Force and it usually worked. This calling and the intervention of the Force seemed so spontaneous that nobody took it as anything but natural. It assumed the form of a miracle only in some rare cases. That was when the problem had already become so complicated that it did not get solved by a mere prayer and the Mother's personal intervention had to be sought.
Being new and too young to understand all this, I asked Sri Aurobindo what exactly was this unique thing called "the Mother's Force". Was it the same thing as the divine Shakti? There came forth one of the most beautiful and comprehensive explanations on the Mother he has ever given me in a few lines:
There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother stands for all these, but she is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here - it is so that you should regard her as the Divine Shakti working here for that purpose. She is that in the body, but in her whole consciousness she is also identified with all the other aspects of the Divine Force.
The Master further explained the relationship between the Mother and Her Force:
Page 266
THE MOTHER'S FORCE
When I speak of the Mother's Force I do not speak of the force of the Prakriti which carries on things of the Ignorance but of the higher Force of the Divine that descends from above to transform the nature. The Mother's Force is the manifestation of the Mother herself. . . .
It is the Divine Force which works to remove the ignorance and change the nature into the divine Nature.
We little human beings can never fathom the full glory of the Mother's personality. Such is the case with the Mother's Force too. How much potency it must have that it not only removes the Ignorance but also changes and transforms the nature into the divine Nature, a process which was never attempted in the old Yogas. Sri Aurobindo tried to enlighten me further about the workings of this Force in my correspondence:
MYSELF: Sometimes, if not often, the Mother's Force comes down, carries on some work and disappears. When once it has descended why has it to go back and then return?
SRI AUROBINDO: So long as you cannot contain its action, there is no other way.
MYSELF: In that case, generally speaking, is not every sadhak ready to receive and contain the Mother's Force at any time and in any circumstances? Who on earth would not like to hold its constant action?
SRI AUROBINDO: It is not a question of mental wish but of capacity and whether all the parts of the being are ready and can retain it. If everybody were containing the constant action of the Mother's Force, the sadhana would be finished by now and the siddhi complete.
MYSELF: You wrote, "Ask for the consciousness of her Force ." Does it mean that 1should aspire to the Mother to know about her Force and how and where its workings are in me?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes - not to know with the mind only, but to feel them and see them with inner experience.
Page 267
Finally I may quote a most enlightening answer to a question by me:
MYSELF: When a sadhak does his work with the right attitude and calls down the Mother's Force into him freely and directly, how does it act to remove his defects?
SRI AUROBINDO: It acts by awakening the inner consciousness gradually or swiftly, by replacing the principle of ego-service by the principle of service of the Divine, by making him watch his actions and see his own defects and pushing him to rectify them, by establishing a connection between his consciousness and the Mother's Consciousness, by preparing his nature to be taken up more and more by the Mother's Consciousness and Force, by giving him experiences which make him ready for the major experiences of Yoga, by stimulating the growth of his psychic being, by opening him to the Mother as the universal Being etc. etc. Naturally it acts differently in different persons.
Page 268
Home
Disciples
Nagin Doshi
Books
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.