Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

April 1935

Manibhai is all right. A little astonishing that the eye responded so well and so soon!

With many people or in many cases it does. It depends on certain conditions either of the conscient or of the subconscient.

I was under the impression that it is quite possible to know intuitively, with the Yogic vision, the exact condition of a patient without any medical diagnosis, but from your recent remarks about some patients I find that it is not so. On the contrary you say that the Force can act better and quicker when there is a proper diagnosis. In that case you depend upon human instruments which being fallacious and ignorant mostly, will paralyse or baffle the working of the Force.

It can if you can train it to act in that field and if you can make it the real Intuition which sees the things without ranging among potentialities.

As for me, I have no medico in me, not even a latent medico. If I had, I would not need an external one but diagnose, prescribe and cure all by my solitary self. My role in a medical case is to use the force either with or without medicines. There are three ways of doing that—one by putting the Force without knowing or caring what the illness is or following the symptoms—that however needs either the mental collaboration or quiescence of the victim. The second is symptomatic, to follow the symptoms and act on them even if one is not sure of the disease. There an accurate report is very useful. The third needs a diagnosis—that is usually where the anti-forces are very strong and conscious or where the patient himself answers strongly to the suggesfions of the illness and unwittingly resents the action of the Force. This last is usually indicated by the fact that the thing gets cured and comes back again or improves and swings back again to worse. It is especially the great difficulty in cases of insanity and the likes. Also in things where the nerves have a say—but in ordinary illnesses too.

No, it is not "again expectation of miracles".

I am afraid it is.

But if Yogic vision and knowledge can at once see a man through and through, his past, present, and future, why can it not see this?

To see what is in a man is quite a different matter—it is the direct sphere of Yogic vision. As for all past, present, future, one does not see that at a glance, one comes to know little by little if one has a special faculty and cares to use it. These things are not miraculous, they are forces and faculties like others.

And if you can't say precisely, how can we ever hope to get at any direct intuitive knowledge of the matter we have to deal with?

Supramentalise—the supramental is for physical things the only "dead cert".

But how can one harmonise?

I have told you—Force from above does it.

... Really I believe that the hard crust will some day be broken miraculously, and all the energies will rush forth like snakes from a charmer's basket—poetry, prose, philosophy—everything. But I am not so sure about poetry any more, and wonder whether all that is said about Valmiki's sudden opening is true. You said about yourself that you had to plod on for a long time. How could Valmiki have it without undergoing any preparatory pangs of delivery?

Plod about what? For some things I had to plod—other things came in a moment or in two or three days like Nirvana or the power to appreciate painting. The "latent" philosopher failed to come out at the first shot (when I was in Calcutta)—after some years of incubation (?) it burst out like a volcano as soon as I started writing the "Arya". There is no damned single rule for these things. Valmiki's poetic faculty might open suddenly like a champagne bottle, but it does not follow that everybody's will do like that.

Whatever little benefit I derive from the hospital attendance, is counteracted by vital itches uprising in that atmosphere. Old nature!

Put some psychological pommade on them.

Kick it out.

What is all this about S and his finger? He has written many pages and sent messages through Nolini. He seems to think it very serious and that you are treating a dangerous injury very lightly. Facts? If it is serious, as he says, you will have to take him to the hospital. Also what are these pains of which N is complaining?

April 1, 1935

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About S's finger—without going into all his accusations, I can say that his 'facts" are bosh. I can claim, I hope, to have some understanding of serious or trivial injuries; so I gave it the importance due to it... Did he see red, by comparing himself with Suchi's condition?

Many people get alarmed by a quite ordinary injury or ailment of their own.

Yesterday I examined A's eyes. There are some definite follicles on the lower lids. It may be either follicular conjunctivitis or granulations.

Sometime ago all pimples about the eyes or on the lids were being classed in the Asram as trachoma. It was an epidemic of trachoma!

T better.

R said T was "unconscious" and restless at night wanting to go out and saying "Somebody is trying to take me out, I don't want to go". Also she speaks of something dark in the room which tries to get into her stomach and gives her the pains. Also she can't remember things—took medicine, afterwards forgot and said she had not taken—speaks to people, afterwards doesn't remember what she spoke. For information, in case he hasn't told you.

N came to me for "pricking pains" in the chest, now and then.

That's all! His description of them was rather fearsome.

April 2, 1935

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You seem to think that epilepsy and insanity are due to possession by evil spirits. [Reference to patient T.]

I don't think—I know it is so. Epilepsy however is not possession,—it is an attack or at most a temporary seizure. Insanity always indicates possession.

I read in a paper that in England a woman is curing people possessed by spirits. She claims to cure ailments caused by these spirits. Possible?

It is quite possible.

How do you then explain hereditary contributions as in epilepsy and other like illnesses?

The hereditary conditions create a predisposition. It is not possible for a vital Force or Being to invade or take possession unless there are doors open for it to enter. The door may be a vital consent or affinity or a physical defect in the being.

Is T's condition due to one of these forces?

Perhaps. It is not a possession but a pressure.

Tomorrow, we hear, is the anniversary of your arrival day. Give some blessings, please.

Plenty of them.

We shall enjoy a little innocent feast of "Khichuri"⁸⁴ by way of observing the occasion. I hope you won't mind.

I have no objection, but is it at J's that the cooking is done? K is complaining bitterly of cooking operations there and is much disturbed by them.

April 3, 1935

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How can one train oneself to have a direct Intuition? Possible?

It can be done—but I should have to write an essay on the Intuition to make any explanation intelligible.

I thought whatever is necessary will grow of itself either by growth of consciousness or by something else. Must one train oneself for things one after another? Why should they not open up like your painting vision?

It can or it may not. Why did not everything open up in me like the painting vision and some other things? All did not. As I told you, I had to plod in many things. Otherwise the affair would not have taken so many years (30).

In this Yoga one can't always take a short cut in everything. I had to work on each problem and on each conscious plane to solve or to transform and in each I had to take the blessed conditions as they were and do honest work without resorting to miracles. Of course if the consciousness grows all of itself, it is all right, things will come with the growth, but not even then pell-mell in an easy gallop.

But why should you have any latent medico in you to diagnose diseases?

Why not? I can begin to write poetry only if I have a poet either latent or suddenly introduced into me. I can lay down the law to Einstein only if I have a scientist similarly lodged inside.

I thought your Yogic vision is something like X-ray, which when applied, gets the condition on the plate; or the vision directly penetrating a subject, at once says—his kidney is wrong, her lung is weak, etc.

A slightly too simple description of it. Essay needed again.

... Above all, you have the direct Intuition to fall upon.

I haven't—not just now at any rate. I am too busy handling the confounded difficulties of Matter. The material is subconscious and I would have to be subconscious myself to get its true intuition. I prefer to wait for the supramental.

But even if you have no medico in you, it is high time that something should open up. Don't you see how so many difficult cases are rising, the nearer the Supramental is descending, if it is descending at all?

Let it open up in you then. Don't you see how all these things are coming just to make you bloom into a Dhanwantari overnight?

For me to suprarnentalise and then know definitely physical things is a "long way to Tipperary".

Why not get it like my painting vision?

I would like to know how the experiences I had are going to have any practical utility. Do they come and go simply?

No—they are first indications of an opening—but the opening has to be stabilised and enlarged. Also so long as the external mind is very much on the top they come at intervals only. Continuous experience is only possible when one gets inside and stays there.

Or do they come according to individual nature or requirement or opening?

All these are contributary determinants

We had the feast at J's. I thought of having it in the Dispensary, but felt the smell would disturb you. So I thought it is better to sacrifice K—b disturbing him than sacrificing the Supramental!

Certainly, the Dispensary is out of the question for such things. But when the Vedic or other ancient people made a বলি⁸⁵ fell they took care that the victim should not kick about or make a row. You did not take that precaution with K.

April 4, 1935

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I wonder why T has no sleep.

Lots of people are starting having no sleep. It seems to be the latest fashion.

You had Nirvana in three days. Still you say there was no spirituality in you!

None, before I took up Yoga.

You said that nothing comes in an "easy gallop", that one has to plod on and develop faculties.

No, I did not say nothing comes in an easy gallop. Some things do. But one can't count on that as a rule.

I would like to make a contact with this Intuition which, I am sure, will help me a great deal in my work. So kindly tell me how I should train myself—an essay on this subject should prove useful. Just to give you more time I shall stop now and write nothing more.

I must still say that I am too busy tonight. Things are altogether too strenuous just now for essays. You give time, but others take the given time. Just now I am fighting all day and all night—can't stop fighting to write. One day I may give not an essay but a few compendious aphorisms on intuition and how to get it.

I had a talk with J which has rather puzzled me. He said that intuitions are of various kinds and come to us from different planes.

Quite true.

So the process would depend on what one wants. There is a silencing of the mind, a kind of rapid thinking, concentration. etc.

True also, but how do they work or how are they put together or how do they avoid getting in the way of each other? And above all how to keep them pure from mixture with the ordinary mind? If he knows that and can tell you rightly, he will save me the labour of an essay.

Finally, he said that I should not worry about these things—everything would be developed in me by the Mother. I said, "Surely that's what I want; but Mother is unmother-like. Have to plod—it may or may not come! They seem to grudge our having anything for nothing because they didn't have it; they had to pay the price!"

Well, if it is impossible to get anything for nothing, why say we grudge it?

It is Nature that grudges it. A price there always is. The price is sometimes labour and tapasya, sometimes it is faith, sincerity, simplicity, openness, surrender.

April 5, 1935

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Manibhai has conjunctivitis again. I wonder if it is due to putting his dirty fingers into the eyes.

Exceedingly probable.

People are very eager to read your letters written to me. I have no objection to show them, but some people seem to misunderstand and misinterpret my discussions with you...

What is the use of showing to everybody? They were meant for you and though I have no objection to your showing to those who are helped by it, there are many who do not care for such questioning and answers.

Is it really possible to get anything simply by faith and surrender? I heard Mother said to X that if one wants to be an artist one must work hard. What is true of art, is true of everything, isn't it?

For heaven's sake, don't be so universal in your rules. Art means a technique (especially painting, sculpture, etc., music also, poetry less) and technique has to be developed. But that does not mean that there is nothing that can come by simply faith and surrender.

I wonder if I annoy you by so many questions. I have a great thirst for knowledge, I must know the inner intricate workings and the external things too.

That is all right. That is a very helpful Knowledge and there are toofew here who have it.

April 6, 1935

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Can you explain by a few master strokes what is "pulling down" which is so often used by you in connection with our sadhana? I understand by it that one goes on making mental effort without having any eagerness about it.

That is not what is meant by pulling. When one is open and too eager and tries to pull down the force, experience etc. instead of letting it descend quietly, that is called pulling. Many people pull at the Mother's forces trying to take more than they can easily assimilate and disturbing the working.

The other night while I was doing a little "easy-chair sadhana", I saw a sea most tumultuous—no gale, no clouds, but most terrific and a most magnificent view!

A sea in tumult usually indicates a vital upheaval or a period of strain and stress and struggle.

April 7, 1935

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I want to love and love completely and lose myself in love. If one can think of losing oneself for mortal love, why not for the love of the Divine? ...

Well, why not? But it must be done in the divine way, not in the mortal. Otherwise—

Let me then say definitely that I love you and you love me a little. Then let us meet somewhere in this real matter. You may remark, "This man has gone mad, otherwise why all these asthmatic gaspings?" Yes, I am mad, Sir, and impatient too; and who can be and remain otherwise unless and until one is divine oneself?

Ummm! don't you think there are enough people in that condition already here without the Asram doctor adding himself to the collection?

Unfortunately, experience seems to show that one must be divine oneself before one can bear the pressure of divine love.

Come down, Sir,—for heaven's sake give us something and make life more substantial and concrete. I am really beginning to doubt if things like divine Love, Knowledge, etc. can be brought down in me!

In the old days long before you came plenty of things were brought down—including the love. Hardly one could bear it and even then only in a small measure. Is it any better now, I wonder? it does not look like it. That is why I want the supermind first,—and especially the peace, the balance in an intensity unshakable. There are several who have been trying to push on with the intensities, but—Well, let us hope for the best. For God's sake, peace, balance, an unshakable supramental poise and sanity first. Ecstasies and intensities of other kinds can come afterwards.

X says that my depression is due to the general atmosphere which is rather hostile since yesterday. He adds that it is in a way good, for it proves that one is open.

[Sri Aurobindo drew an arrow indicating "for it proves that one is open".]

Open to the general atmosphere? Considering what the general atmosphere is just now, that is hardly a desirable aperture.

April 8, 1935

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The Divine writing, not the Divine Love, has made me a little peaceful. But the way you are hammering the "Supra-mental" on us in everything, in every problem, in every difficulty, as the solution to all riddles, panacea to all ills, one almost thinks that its descent will make all of us "big people" overnight... Without it, there is absolutely no chance of any achievement, it seems!

My insistence on the supramental is of course apo-diaskeptic. Don't search for the word in the dictionary. I am simply imitating the doctors who when they are in a hole protect themselves with impossible Greek. Peace, supramental if possible, but peace anyhow—a peace which will become supramental if it has a chance. The atmosphere is most confoundedly disturbed, that is why I am ingeminating "peace, peace, peace!" like a summer dove or an intellectual under the rule of Hitler. Of course, I am not asking you to become supramental offhand. That is my business, and I will do it if you fellows give me a chance, which you are not doing just now (you is not personal, but collective and indefinite) and will do less if you go blummering into buzzific intensities. (Please don't consult the dictionary, but look into the writings of Joyce and others).

You say that peace is absolutely necessary for bringing down Love, Knowledge, etc.,—but don't you think purity is also required? And if peace and purity are to be established, a complete opening of the inner being is essential, and the bringing forward of the psychic. This will naturally take years—so we have to go on starving for Love and Knowledge and other things divine.

That is logical and orthodox; but the supramental, once it is down (O lingering once!) is supposed to bring these things up generally and induce an aeroplanic tendency to accurate swiftness in all who are on the road to it.

Can't they visit us now and then, and keep us going?

They can if you keep the doors open.

And if you have to wait for absolute purity of nature before the Supramental can come down, I should say that you will have to go on waiting and waiting!

Whose nature? It is I who have to bring it down. Do you mean to insinuate that I am impure? Sir, I raise my blameless head in dignified remonstrance.

Can't it accept the conditions and come down and alter them? In "The Synthesis of Yoga", in Chapter VI, you seem to say that after the descent those which don't change have to disappear.

"Those"? what "those"? (I can't be referring to my own blessed writings all the time, so I don't know what you mean or what I meant either). And in whom?

By the way, I have to complain about the lack of some essential instruments. Since a general practitioner has to be ready for all "blessed conditions" and cure them, many apparatus are necessary...

You can consult Pavitra. Mother has already spoken to him about ordering instruments from France—here they are too costly, many of them.

April 9, 1935

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About patient Z, confidentially, I hear she bothers herself with environmental influences, e.g., maltreatment from Y. But doesn't she say that she already feels much better?

Yes, she was almost, indeed quite alright—but there have been dramas in which she is sometimes party, sometimes confidante (confidential information this!), so her sleep these two nights was not so good. I put strong force on her for several days and got her into excellent condition, but when these things come across

See, please, how you have understood my "impurity of nature". No wonder people will abuse me, curse me when they see that. They will say that you could not have written in that way unless I "insinuated" you.

Why should they see it? It was a private "goāk"⁸⁶ between us.

It is you who will bring down the Supramental, certainly. But my question was whether it will come anyhow, in spite of all our resistance.

I presume it will come anyhow, but it is badly delayed because, if I am all the time occupied with dramas, hysterics, tragic-comic correspondence (quarrels, chronicles, lamentations,) how can I have time for this—the only real work, the one thing needful? It is not one or two, but twenty dramas that are going on.

I couldn't quite catch the meaning of your phrase, "if you fellows give me a chance..." Nowadays we don't see many vital outbursts in the atmosphere.

[Sri Aurobindo drew an arrow from the word "atmosphere".]

O happy blindness! N.B. (confidential again).

What is happening to me? I like to lie down quietly at night and go on looking at the sky or hear the rustling of leaves. Then I wake up and say "time is gone, no reading at all!"

What harm? "The sky's my book and rustling leaves my poems."

April 11, 1935

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Z's error of refraction though very slight may account for the headache. Is he, by any chance, given to any malpractice? I heard that he was passing through some lower vital trouble. If he does that it will be the worse for him.

Unluckily even the knowledge of that "worse" doesn't stop people from malpractices.

I think (?) it is that largely. Is it possible for you to give him some medical knowledge hinting darkly at least and speaking of the ill effects on nerves and eyes? He does not want to wear glasses, so that fear might act as a check.

I don't need to be a practitioner any more... When the Supermind descends, our knowledge of it will do everything correctly without any scientific knowledge of the disease!

What a lazy lot the Supramentals will be!

I keenly realise that I have no scientific element in me, I can't be a good doctor.

Medicine is not exactly science. It is theory + experimental fumbling + luck.

Perhaps you will console me by saying, "Never mind, have faith." Well, then why should I study all these diseases or go to the hospital? Can't I leave all that to Yogic force?

Yogic force is all right when one is in a Yogic condition, and when it acts. But when it does not, medicine is handy.

... Will these quarrels and lamentations go on for ever, or will your fight end in the near future? People say there is one century, if not more, for the Supramental to descend!!

One day, one week, one month, one year, one decade, one century, one millennium, one tight year—all is possible. Then why do people choose one century?

One material point. Can you sanction 3 pice worth of milk from the dairy, for an afternoon cup of tea?

Very revolutionary and hair-raising proposal, but you can do it and risk the loss of hair.

April 12, 1935

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I wonder how Z will take the hint about his malpractice. He may flare up in indignation. Still I shall try.

Don't tell him that you know or that he is doing it. Try to bring it in obliquely.

What is this revolutionary invention of yours? Tea a cause of loss of hair? I am sure all the tea plantations over the world will send up loud lamentations if this theory be true! But, how can one accept it?

It was not the tea but the 3p milk and the cause and effect were psycho-physical, so there is no difficulty in accepting the theory.

J says that I have in me some capacity for "intuitive criticism"—whatever it may mean. I don't think I have got the right type of mind for criticism, or enough knowledge. Behind my "bad logic", do you see any signs of a budding critic—intuitive or otherwise?

It is the easiest thing in the world to be a critic. Just look wise and slang the subject in grave well-turned sentences. It does not matter what you say.

What are the things, if any, that have a chance of getting manifested in me—poetry, prose, philosophy, etc., or medicine? I am asking for a yogic prophecy.

Why bother your head? When the supramental comes, and you bloom into a superman, you will just pick up anything you want and become perfect in it with a bang.

By the way Mother told D, it seems, that she would look as young as a girl of 16 in ten years time. That would obviously mean the descent of your Supermind in the physical and its transformation.

I don't know. As you know Time has only one lock of hair (too much tea drinking?) and the difficulty is to catch it.

April 13, 1935

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I had a dream last night: I had gone for Pranam, saw that Mother was in a playful mood with me. She took a flower, gave it and took it back. Then she took another flower and did the same thing. It was "Power over sex-centre". I don't remember whether ultimately she gave it or not. But why this hesitation?

The playing in that way simply means a gradual working. The offering of the flower indicates a play of the force e.g. in the sex-centre. The taking of the flower away means that the sex-centre is not yet ready—but the play of the flower is not without effect, i.e. something has been done to prepare the centre.

I don't know how to take this "bloom into a superman", except as a great sarcastic joke—striking me with my own rod, so to say. Have you not so often silenced and ridiculed my easy and lazy reliance on you to open up everything as the opening of a flower, by repeated examples of yourself, your plodding, your labour, your tapasya?...

It is a joke and not a joke. One must rely on the Divine and yet do some enabling sadhana—the Divine gives the fruits not by die measure of the sadhana but by the measure of the soul and its aspiration. Also worrying does no good—I shall be this, I shall be that, what shall I be? Say "I am ready to be not what I want, but what the Divine wants me to be"—all the rest should go on that base.

Your "superman" reminds me of an interesting argument I had with K. He contended that our aspiring for the Supermind was not something sober—that we should aspire for the Divine realisation only.

By Divine realisation is meant the spiritual realisation—the realisation of Self, Bhagawan or Brahman on the mental-spiritual or else the overmental plane. That is a thing (at any rate the mental spiritual) which thousands have done. So it is obviously easier to do than the supramental. Also nobody can have the supramental realisation who has not had the spiritual. So far your opponent is right.

K said that one must see what one is aspiring for. With the movements and consciousness externalised, where is the sense of such an aspiration for the Supermind?

It is true that neither can be got in an effective way unless the whole being is turned towards it—unless there is a real and very serious spirit and dynamic reality of sadhana. So far you are right and the opponent also is right.

I told him that it was you who wanted the Supermind for the earth, not we.

I don't see what is wrong in my aspiring for the Supermind in spite of knowing all my weaknesses. The Divine Grace is there on which we rely at every moment, and if the central sincerity is there, there is nothing wrong, I think, in entertaining such an aspiration.

It is true that I want the supramental not for myself but for the earth and souls born on the earth, and certainly therefore I cannot object if anybody wants the supramental. But these are the conditions. He must want the Divine Will first and the soul's surrender and the spiritual realisation (through works, bhakti, knowledge, self-perfection) on the way. So there everybody is right.

The central sincerity is the first thing and sufficient for an aspiration to be entertained,—a total sincerity is needed for the aspiration to be fulfilled. Amen!

April 15, 1935

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I am sorry I was the cause of Y's "terrible upsets". It is because he made some contemptuous remarks about me and J regarding our feast. Both of us attacked him in the D.R., indirectly, which made him very furious.

Why attach any importance? If one gets angry at other people's criticisms, one would need to be angry all the time—for all the time there is criticism going on.

I don't quite follow what you mean by "measure of the soul and its aspiration".

I mean by it the measure of the soul's sincerity in yearning after the Divine and its aspiration towards the higher life.

The soul aspires for union with the Divine. Poetry, literature, music, etc., do they have then any place in that aspiration? Still the Divine gives these things.

They are first in life a preparation of the consciousness—but when one does Yoga, they can become a part of the sadhana if done for the Divine and by the Divine Force. But one should not want to be a poet for the sake of being a poet only, or for fame, applause etc.

From your statement I conclude that tendency does not matter much; I can go on as lain doing, today this, tomorrow that, so on. The Divine will do whatever is necessary.

Yes.

Certainly I would like to be what you want, only I don't know what you want me to be.

I want you [to] be open and in contact with the Peace and Presence and Force. All else will come if that is there and then one need not be troubled by the time it takes in the peripeties of the sadhana.

April 16, 1935

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I find, Sir, that you have most skilfully steered clear between two troubled seas of argument. Allow me to bring the discussion back to the point from where it started.

I have seen K's letter. By transformation, I find, you mean living wholly in the Divine. Then where is the difference between the Divine realisation as you define it, and the transformation you are yourself seeking for us? Did not persons like Ramakrishna, for example, who had this realisation, merge their consciousness entirely in the Divine, thus having this kind of transformation? I think there is a difference, because you speak of a complete transformation—of mind, life and body. Obviously then, those whose realisation of the Divine was on the mental-spiritual plane did not have the physical consummation.

There are different statuses (अवस्था) of the Divine Consciousness. There are also different statuses of transformation. First is the psychic transformation, in which all is in contact with the Divine through the psychic consciousness. Next is the spiritual transformation in which all is merged in the Divine in the cosmic consciousness. Third is the supramental transformation in which all becomes supramentalised in the divine gnostic consciousness. It is only with the last that there can begin the complete transformation of mind, life and body—in my sense of completeness.

But can we say that their mind and life were not transformed?

Answered above.

Can there remain any impurity in these domains, after the Divine realisation?

It is not a question of impurity.

Some say there can be, but I doubt. Krishna, Ramakrishna, Chaitanya, Bejoy Goswami, Buddha—did they have any impurity at all? Of course their body was subject to illnesses, coughs and cold.

Well, that's an impurity.

And here comes in the great difference, great advance, novelty of your Yoga, I should say. Is it not also for the possibility of this great achievement among others, that your Supramental stands unique? For to my thinking, plenty of people have lived in the Divine Consciousness, but none could "divinise the body", which means that none of them had a complete mastery over the laws of physical nature, e.g. age, decay, illness, etc.

You are mistaken in two respects. First, the endeavour towards this achievement is not new and some Yogis have achieved it, I believe—but not in the way I want it. They achieved it as a personal siddhi maintained by Yoga-siddhi—not a. dharma of the nature. Secondly, the supramental transformation is not the same as the spiritual-mental. It is a change of mind, life and body which the mental or overmental spiritual cannot achieve. All whom you mention were spirituals, but in different ways. Krishna's mind, for instance, was overmentalised, Ramakrishna's intuitive, Chaitanya's spiritual-psychic, Buddha's illumined higher mental. I don't know about B.G.—he seems to have been brilliant but rather chaotic. All that is different from the supramental. Then take the vital of the Paramhansas. It is said their vital behaves either like a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like something inert cf. Jadabharata. Well, there is nothing supramental in all that. So?

And who will deny that complete divinisation of the body is necessary to be a fit instrument for the Divine?

One can be a fit instrument for the Divine in any of the transformations. The question is, an instrument for what?

My main contention was that we can aspire for the Supermind since you had so emphatically stated that its realisation and the subsequent transformation of our entire existence was the ideal you stood for. Hence anyone ridiculing such an aspiration was arguing against our ideal. Of course, I admit that the necessary conditions must be fulfilled.

K ridicules them because they are not yet fit for the spiritual realisation, some not even for the psychic and yet say they are aspirants for the supermind. He says let us sincerely try for and achieve the spiritual and not talk big about the greater thing still much beyond us. A rational attitude.

I feel that your reply is too conciliatory; otherwise, I don't see why the supramental realisation should be looked upon as a secondary thing or a by-product especially as you also say that the divinisation of the body cannot be done without it.

Not secondary or by-product at all, but ultimate.

[Against the last part of my sentence he wrote:] Not in the sense I want.

In your letter of the 15th you said I want the supramental not for myself but for the earth and souls born on the earth, and certainly therefore I cannot object if anybody wants the supramental"—the tone seems again a little conciliatory. "I cannot object" sounds also feeble.

I put it like that because a premature ambition for the supramental may be disastrous (e.g. B, N etc.).

Either you have become wiser (excuse me!) or you want to make us wiser...

If you mean that I did not realise the difficulties before, you are mistaken.

R is complaining of increasing headache—it can't be the slight astigmatism that is the cause of such intense aches. So will you dive into possibilities and bring up the pearl of knowledge?

April 17, 1935

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It seems something has happened today. You have achieved some great victory: the Mother had, at the evening meditation, an appearance sparkling like gold. On other days she looked as if she were tired of the job, and would like to give it up saying, "Oh, you sadhaks, you are all hopeless!" ...

It would be very natural if Mother felt like that! Never has there been such an uprush of mud and brimstone as during the past few months—However the Caravan goes on and today there was some promise of better things.

April 19, 1935

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Why does K refuse to admit that there are greater possibilities here than elsewhere? Is it not obvious that because we are most fortunate to have such a Master as you are (I don't add epithets), our chances and possibilities are immensely greater than if we had some other guru?

That is not a question for me to answer.

He says we are fit to aspire for the Divine realisation, but not for the Supermind. Is this realisation so easy that without fulfilling the conditions, one can aspire for it? Isn't it a fact that so many lives pass away without even a glimpse of the Divine? ...

It depends on persons

... However I was surprised to hear that such a bad time was, all the time, hanging over our head. But surely it means that the greater the light descending, the greater the velocity, the greater the resistance—law of physics—isn't it?

In a certain sense it is true, but it was not inevitable—if the sadhaks had been a less neurotic company, it could have been done quietly. As it is there is the Revolt of the Subconscient.

In one letter you wrote that you were able to push on; in another that the hostile forces were out of date. That was a year ago. When we read this we thought that it would be merry Christmas henceforth. But now I again feel a bit despondent because you speak of "the confounded atmosphere", "the uprush of mud" and the attacks.

When I said "out of date", I did not mean that they are not going on, but they ought not to be going on—they were only kept up by the sadhaks opening themselves to them and so retaining them in the atmosphere. I thought that was clear from what I said—but the sadhaks seem always to put a comfortable interpretation even on uncomfortable statements.

I have heard that even N had a terrible attack recently. He almost left the Asram! D wanted to commit suicide, and H is in revolt! How many underground tragedies! ... And all these despite your continuous day and night fight.

There are only 2 or 3 in the Asram to whom this word "even" would apply. I won't mention their names lest the devil should be tempted to try with them also. A solid mind, a solid nervous system, and a steady psychic flame seem to be the only safeguard against "terrible attacks".

If such things did not happen, there would be no need of a fight day and night. You put the things in an inverse order. (I take no responsibility for the statements you make, of course—They stand on the credit of the reporters).

Since the descent of the Supermind will quicken up all the processes, why not take an axe of retrenchment and cut off all impeding elements ruthlessly so that among a very few chosen disciples, the whole work may go on most concentratedly and rapidly? When the miracle is achieved, all of us will flock again and achieve everything as by a miracle!

How? I am not Hitler. Things cannot be done like that. You might just as well ask the Mother and myself to isolate ourselves in the Himalayas, get down the supramental, then toss everybody up in a blanket into the Supreme. Very neat but it is not practical.

Won't it be very practical and useless spending so much time on individual dramas and hysterics?

[Sri Aurobindo underlined "useless".]

You mean practically useless?

April 20, 1935

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Regarding the vital of the Paramhansa, the three signs you spoke of may not be those of the supramental, but they are indications of a divinely realised person—at least Ramakrishna used to say so. But I don't suppose you would very much approve of strong eruptions of vital bhakti and constant emotional outbursts.

What three signs? If you refer to the four conditions (child, madman, demon, inert), it is not Ramakrishna who invented that. It is an old Sanskrit sloka बालिन्मादपिशाचजडवत्⁸⁷ describing the Paramhansa or rather the various forms of Paramhansahood. The Paramhansa is in a particular grade of realisation, there are others supposed to be lower or higher.

I have no objection to them in their own place. But I must remind you that in my Yoga alI vital movements must come under the control of the psychic and of the spiritual calm, knowledge and peace. If they conflict with the psychic or the spiritual control, they upset the balance and prevent the forming of the base of transformation. If unbalance is good for other paths, that is the business of those who follow them. It does not suit mine.

We read that among some advanced types of sannyasis barometric rise and fall of temper is quite the usual thing! Sometimes they don't mind a display of their temper if they can preserve a complete inner calm. They say that only a real sannyasi can rise up in anger at one moment, and become as cool as ice the next,

I thought a Sannyasi in the ideal at any rate was supposed to become জিতক্রধঃ জিতেন্দ্রিয়ঃ⁸⁸. That a bad temper should be a sign of fulfilment in the Brahman, is a revolutionary doctrine.

That is a particular stage in the growth in or towards the cosmic consciousness. But it is surely not the last stage of siddhi.

How is it that later Avatars often find fault with the actions and movements of their predecessors? Avatars are supposed to be infallible, they are supposed to have Knowledge directly from above!

Who finds fault with whom? I have not found fault with any Avatar To discern what they expressed and what they did not express is not to find fault.

What is infallible? I invite your attention again to Rama and the Golden Deer. The Avatar need have no theoretical "Knowledge" from above—he acts and thinks whatever the Divine within him intends that he should act and think for the work. Was everything that Ramakrishna said or thought infallible?

If Buddha was an Avatar, his denial of the existence of God amounts to the cutting of the very branch on which he was sitting; he makes man the sole arbiter of his destiny!

Why so? On what branch or what tree was he sitting? He affirmed practically something unknowable that was Permanent and Unmanifested. Adwaita does the same. Buddha never said he was an Avatar of a Personal God, but that he was the Buddha. It is the Hindus who made him an Avatar. If Buddha had looked upon himself as an Avatar at all, it would have been as an Avatar of the impersonal Truth.

You say Buddha achieved Illumined Mind and Ramakrishna the Intuitive. According to your explanation, Intuitive plane appears to be on a higher level than the Illumined. How is it then that Buddha's works and manifestation of realisation greatly superseded that of Ramakrishna's?

He had a more powerful vital than Ramakrishna, a stupendous will and an invincible mind of thought. If he had led the ordinary life, he would have been a great organiser, conqueror and creator.

If a man rises to a higher plane of consciousness, it does not necessarily follow that he will be a greater man of action or a greater creator. One may rise to spiritual planes of inspiration undreamed of by Shakespeare and yet not be as great a poetic creator as Shakespeare. "Greatness" is not the object of spiritual realisation any more than fame or success in the world—how are these things the standard of spiritual realisation?

I find that people are greatly fortunate who can approach the Mother often.

If they know how to approach her which hardly any do.

I have realised it myself whatever you may say for the suppression of our desire for the Mother's nearness.

If one has the desire or the claim, one brings in all sorts of demands, anger, jealousies, despairs, revolts, etc., which spoil the sadhana and do not help it. To others the nearness becomes a mixture.

If you say that there is always an interchange going on between people, surely one who often comes to Mother, will automatically take something precious from her.

A vital. interchange. But there is a difference between the interchange of "people" and interchange with Mother.

And what if their condition is such that it merely passes or is spilt or spoilt by their reactions?

And this is the easiest way of receiving.

If they know how to receive.

The Mother was giving freely of her physical contact in former years. If the sadhaks had had the right reactions, do you think she would have drawn back and reduced it to a minimum? Of course If people know in what spirit to receive from her, the physical touch is a great thing—but for that the constant physical nearness is not necessary. That rather creates a pressure of the highest force which how many can meet and satisfy?

April 22, 1935

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I see that you have found fault with my expression 'find fault". I didn't use it in the sense offinding fault with others. This was my meaning: Buddha, as an apostle of love, preached Ahimsa and held it as the only dharma in any circumstance of life.

The only Dharma? What becomes of the eightfold Way?

You set aside the whole doctrine and say that one can kill, massacre with absolute Ahimsa within, if called by the Divine to do so. Buddha laid stress on complete abstinence in spirit and action, from any killing. That's why, perhaps, he is looked upon as the greatest man of compassion.

Did Buddha preach absolute Ahimsa? I thought it was a Jain teaching. What Buddha taught was compassion. And compassion—well, is it not written that Durga is full of compassion for the Asuras when she is exterminating them?

Now, even if he be an Avatar of impersonal Truth, how can a doctrine descend from a Truth-plane to an Avatar, which could be set aside by the later Avatar? The same I say about Ramakrishna.

The impersonal Truth, precisely because it is impersonal, can contain quite opposite things. There is a truth in Ahimsa, there is a truth in Destruction also. I do not teach that you should go on killing everybody every day as a spiritual dharma. I say that destruction can be done when it is part of the Divine work commanded by the Divine. Non-violence is better than violence as a rule, and still sometimes violence may be the right thing. I consider dharma as relative; unity with the Divine and action from the Divine Will, the highest way. Buddha did not aim at action in the world, but at cessation from the world-existence. For that he found the eightfold Path a necessary preparatory discipline and so proclaimed it.

My contention is that not everything they said was infallible... Of course if you hold that all their movements were guided by the Divine, I have nothing to say. Then I'll have to infer that Buddha's doctrine of Ahimsa was the only one needed by the then Yuga. This Yuga needs another, so the doctrine has to be changed or set aside.

It had nothing to do with the Yuga, but with the path towards liberation found by Buddha. There are many paths and all need not be one and the same in their teaching.

When yesterday you gave the example of Rama and the Golden Deer, did you suggest by it that what an Avatar does, he does absolutely consciously? If he follows a golden deer, he knows that it is a golden deer?

No, I did not suggest that. I suggested that if it is necessary to veil his consciousness so that the work may be done, the Avatar does it or rather the Divine in the Avatar does it. The other thing is also quite possible. Krishna could have killed Jarasandha as he did Kansa. Why did he not do it instead of fighting eighteen unprofitable battles, running away to Dwarka, and then getting J killed by others?

About the wrath of the sannyasis, I also meant that they didn't mind a display of their temper while they preserved a complete inner calm. But I don't know whether that would be called conquest of anger or a permissible or laudable thing either.

Of course it does happen like that—because at a certain stage the consciousness gets cut up into two and the outer may do things which the inner observes but does not participate in that movement. My only objection was to regarding this outward bad temper as a proof of the highest spiritual siddhi. One can also act with the Rudrabhava, but without anger, though people may mistake it for anger. That is a higher stage. There there is no disturbance even in the outer being, only a mass of very calm, but intense divine force in action.

A few Blessings—24th.

Many

April 23, 1935

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Lack of interest and energy, disinclination to go to the hospital—this is my condition for the last few days. Curiously enough, whenever I take a cup of tea in the morning, these symptoms disappear. The whole system seems to buck up and I can do my work with full vigour. But if one has to rely on tea for such results!

Sympathise with you. There was a time when I was like that. Teaified cells—instead of deified.

But what's the reason? Vital resistance, physical inertia or fatigue or what?

Gandhian non-cooperating passive resistance of the vital disgusted to have to do the same thing regularly? Objection to rules—what? Discipline it.

The whole thing came to a climax. I wanted to go out for a walk by way of diversion but J said that the Mother takes away something from the vital.

Why on earth should she?

Everybody else seems to be working with so much interest, and look at me. What a curious mixture am I!

Too many ingredients in too small and unstable proportions?

In any case, break this old being, Sir, and let something emerge, whatever it be!

All right; let's have a try. Hammer, hammer, hammer! Only the being in question is a little—shall we say, solid?

April 25, 1935

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S had no more motions, but has slight heaviness in the abdomen, and pain also. He vomited 2 or 3 times some blood too. The cause of this recrudescence is, I think, again dietetic indiscretions. But he seems to think that his work to the point of fatigue, was more responsible...

The main cause was certainly some serious "indiscretions" about food. You have to keep a very strict eye on him as to diet, otherwise—

Just now an outburst with Champaklal. I am sure he will tell you about it. I hate to trouble you with these trifles.

Champaklal does not usually tell Mother about these things outbursts of that kind are too common with him. And when heat meets heat—It is almost midsummer now.

April 26, 1935

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I don't know if Buddha would have anything to do with Durga's or your principle of compassion with regard to killing.

No, of course not. I only put that in on my account, as to compassion.

I don't think that Buddha would ever give his assent to killing of animals or taking any life.

I don't know. People used to say he died of eating too much pork. Now they say that this particular pig was a vegetable.

Personal and Impersonal are two aspects of the Divine, aren't they? How is it possible for one who realises the Impersonal to be in darkness about the existence of the Divine from which his truth is coming? And why do you say that Impersonal does not guide or help, that one has to rely on oneself absolutely?

Whatever impersonal Truth or Light there is, you have to find it, use it, do what you can with it. It does not trouble itself to hunt after you. It is the Buddhist idea that you must do everything for yourself, that is the only way.

Since it is the Truth one is seeking and the Impersonal also is one aspect of the Divine why should the Divine keep himself aloof from the seeker? Is it simply because one is guilty of seeking his impersonal aspect?

You speak of the Impersonal as if it were a Person. The Impersonal is not He, it is It. How can an It guide or help? The Impersonal Brahman is inactive, aloof, indifferent, not concerned with what happens in the universe. Buddha's Permanent is the same.

People say that Buddha's Ahimsa was the main cause of India's falling an easy prey to foreign invasions, for it made her absolutely devitalised, inert, passive.

Rather doubtful. Buddhist kings generally did not hesitate to fight or to take life.

Though I don't believe in Ahimsa, Buddha's or Gandhi's, I feel a shrinking when I go to kill anything or see others doing it. Ahimsa in blood?

Nerves.

S's story is out. In addition to green mangoes he had some rasagollas too. This food business is almost a possession with him.

So I heard. Why almost?

We have decided to remove his stove for good. Rather childish, but what else can be done?

Quite right. The Doctor said that he was surprised by the relapses of S's health until he found that when he was not there, S used to get up and secretly cook food for himself on the stove! Palate satisfaction seems to be more precious to him than his life.

R says he has still headache although the "cause" is not there. Some investigations? I wonder whether he needs a regime? The difficulty is to keep him to anything Tried eggs—excellent effect, he got tired, we had to drop it. Next tried Nergine, next cod-liver oil—each thing had a good effect, then he dropped it.

I think there is something in his vital clinging to the illness, while the other parts grumble about it.

April 27, 1935

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You have heard that M in the Smithy has recurrence of his eye-disease; more virulent this time. He has to stop his work, but he will die, he says, without it. Why this recurrence?

Pavitra says he saw him all the time touching his eye with his dirty hands and expostulated with, but to no result. what is to be done with all these superrational men? He was doing the same thing with his eczema and that was why it lasted for months. Except tying his hands behind him, I don't know what is to be done.

I am plunged in a sea of dryness and am terribly thirsty for something. Along with it, waves of old desires. Any handy remedy?

Eucharistic injection from above, purgative rejection below; liquid diet, psychic fruit juice, milk of the spirit.

April 29, 1935

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Your prescription, Sir, is splendid, but the patient is too poor to pay. I feel I am the least fitted for the path. The God-seekers whose lives I have read reveal what a great thirst they had for the Divine!

And what deserts they had to pass through without getting their thirst satisfied? The lives left out that?

Whatever you may say, Sir, the path of Yoga is absolutely dry and especially that of Integral Yoga!

One has to pass through the desert sometimes—doesn't follow that the whole path is like that.

For this Yoga, one must have the heart of a lion, the mind of a Sri Aurobindo and the vital of a Napoleon.

Good Lord! Then I am off the list of the candidates—for I have neither the heart of a lion nor the vital of Napoleon.

You may say that when the psychic comes to the front, the path becomes a grand Trunk Road of Roses. But it may take years and years!

Does not matter how long it takes—it crops up one day or another.

And who knows one may not simply pine away in the dry, desert before that?

No necessity to carry out any such disagreeable programme.

Have I the necessary requirements for the sadhana? The only thing I seem to have is a deep respect for you, which almost all people have today.

It is good that, for accuracy's sake, you put in the "almost".

I made the unhappy discovery that it is surely from a financial pressure outside that I jumped for the Unknown and the Unknowable.

It must have been a stupendous pressure to produce such a gigantic leap.

No escape now. Let me be roasted for somebody's toast. Pardon my vagaries.

All this simply means that you have, metaphorically speaking, the hump. Trust in God and throw the hump off.

April 30, 1935

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