Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

May 1933

S writes to me that he is suffering from urinary trouble and he refuses to have any treatment except your blessings.

You can send blessings—but he ought to use every means to get rid of his illness. It is only if he has a calm mind and a sound body that he can do Yoga. His present state is too disorganised to bear any pressure.

May 1, 1933

I read in "The Synthesis of Yoga" that every act, movement etc. must be done as an offering, even if by a mental effort. This mental discipline is easy in acts of mechanical nature but not so easy in those of concentrative nature where the attention gets divided.

It is because people live in the surface mind and are identified with it. When one lives more inwardly, it is only the surface consciousness that is occupied and one stands behind it in another which is silent and self-offered.

What is meant exactly by "opening oneself'? Calling you, praying to you, remembering you, etc.?

These are acts of the mind, openness is a state of consciousness which keeps it turned to the Mother, free from other movements, expecting and able to receive what may come from the Divine.

I hear you have some special hours when you work for us?

No, it is not so.

May 4, 1933

Mother, today after pranam as I raised my eyes, I could not but mark something different in your look, as if some surprise, some concern, even the suggestion of a reproach, was trying to express itself.

Not at all.

I feel it may be due to one of two reasons. First, I have been having vital thoughts. But when I realised they may be due to yoga, my mind settled down.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined "due to yoga" and put a question mark in the margin.]

Second, I had to go to the pier⁵ with X as she was not feeling well and I came back depressed.

The pier itself has a very bad atmosphere nowadays.

For which of the two reasons did you give me that searching look?

For neither. You looked depressed, so Mother looked at you,—there was no other search.

I feel much better when alone but sometimes I have to attend to X in her illness or I have to go to market with her. I wish I could do all this with a calm mind. I hope lam clear.

Quite and you are right—but I don't see the way out for the moment—unless you can separate yourself within and put a guard of calm aloofness around you.

May 6, 1933

Mother, one mistaken idea seems to trouble me for some time. I feel that in the evening whenever my eyes catch your look, you suddenly turn it away. I come to see you with some misapprehension lest you do not look at me. I am sure there is no truth in my imagination.

No, there is no truth in it. It is your own idea your apprehension and misapprehension that produce in you the misconception that Mother does not want to look at you!

May 7, 1933

Last night I had a funny dream: my sleep suddenly broke off and I heard somebody saying to me, standing near my head, that Sri Aurobindo has asked him to use my soap and I had the distinct sweet smell of the soap. I was frightened and trembled all over. Any significance

In itself the dream was absurd and has no significance—but it may be the transcription made by the mind was false and the man standing at the head was a vital force approaching. That alone would explain the fear. But this kind of fear ought to be got over. The sadhak has to be able to face the vital world, in waking or in sleep, with courage, calm and confidence in the protection.

May 9, 1933

I hear that many people have been on the point of going away due to the pressure of Yoga.

It is not due to the pressure of Yoga, but to the pressure of something in them that negates the Yoga. If one follows one's psychic being and higher mental will, no amount of pressure of Yoga can produce such results. People talk as if the Yoga had some maleficent force in it which produces these results. It is on the contrary the resistance to Yoga that does it.

May 11, 1933

The Mother, in "Conversations", says that the first effect of yoga is to take away the mental control so that the ideas and desires which were so long checked become surprisingly prominent and create difficulties.

They were not prominent because they were getting some satisfaction or at least the vital generally was getting indulged in one way or another. When they are no longer indulged then they become obstreperous. But they are not new forces created by the Yoga—they were there all the time.

What is meant by the mental control being removed, is that the mental simply kept them in check but could not remove them. So in Yoga the mental has to be replaced by the psychic or spiritual self-control which could do what the mental cannot. Only many sadhaks do not make this exchange in time and withdraw the mental control merely.

I find already that at certain moments this life seems distasteful, dull and dreary.

What is meant by dull and deary is that the ordinary preoccupations and amusements of the vital are not there. The whole of one's life and action has to be turned into sadhana and then it is not dull.

I hear you do not like the gate-keepers to do any writing, reading, etc., when on duty. Is it true?

It was because people were neglecting their duty in the absorption of reading and writing, allowing undesirable people to enter etc. If that does not happen, one can read or write—only when one is on duty, the duty comes first.

May 12, 1933

Mother, after raising my hopes, you have dashed them to the ground! With much expectation, I waited for a flower from you this morning, but got none. Is it because I hadn't asked for it? I have been upset all day because of it.

It was not at all intentionally that the flower was not given—it was due to an oversight committed when Nolini was counting the number of flowers to be distributed.

SRI AUROBINDO
May 18, 1933

N says you have arranged Budi House for P. I suppose, no nearer house is available.

There is another house less breezy and almost as far.

May 21, 1933

Mother, in the pranam your looks vary so much from day to day that one cannot but realise at once that they have a significance. Today, I could make out that you wanted to tell me something but I could not understand what it was. I went over all the incidents of the day—no result.!

It was only to keep your self clear from all influences except the Mother’s.

Can I have tea at Dilip's place, in the morning?

Yes.

I hope there won't be any "encouragement of cravings". Of course, I have not been able to trace any outward bad effects from such occasional indulgence.

If it is occasional and you have no attachment, it is all right.

I am trying, as you asked me, to give Sanjiban, a general idea of the surface of the body to help him in his painting.

Yes, that is it; especially the proportions and forms and the deformations coming by movement e.g. contraction of muscles in different positions etc.

May 24, 1933

Sometimes I think that you are giving me a taste of the cup of bliss in very small drops, and at long intervals, but I do not at all despair.

There is no reason certainly for despair. The bliss always comes in drops at first, or a broken trickle. You have to go on cheerfully and in full confidence, till there is the cascade.

May 28, 1933

B writes that one can receive forces even unconsciously. Many people who were once hostile or had no opening to yoga had a sudden change. At the same time I've heard you say that one receives when one opens oneself—which is true?

It is more complex than that. Of course a hostile mind can be changed by a sudden experience, but the experience shows that something in him was open though not on the surface.

How to remember the Mother during work? I have tried to follow a mental rule, without success. Perhaps it is the inner consciousness that remembers while the outer is busy?

One starts by a mental effort—afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her.

May 31, 1933