Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

September 1935

What is happening really, Sir? Have you stirred sleeping snakes and monsters that are rushing up now?

Excuse me, they were not sleeping at all; they are simply coming into light.

Now I hear that Y is leaving you to go to Raman Maharshi. What next?

You are astonished? Really, you seem to be living like a cherub chubby and innocent with his head in the clouds ignorant of the wickedness of men. I thought by this time the revolts of Y were common knowledge.

Not only that, he is hurling abuses, threats, most offensive words at you!

In his "periods" he was doing that all the time privately among his friends. Now it is publicly that is all. Afterwards he puts on the airs of a saint and howls reproachfully at us for having believed lying reports. Another specimen of humanity.

He had said that he'd die if he went away from here—he's united with you for ever. Are all these mere words? Really have you touched some Frankenstein monster?

My dear sir, he was much worse than that before he came to Pondicherry. I have not touched anything, for the Frankenstein was already there, not of my creation.

No, Sir, I am not reproaching you, but this is an absolutely inconceivable and unimaginable phenomenon, and makes my head reel...

O dear me! Cherub! cherub!

A vast abyss has opened its jaws to swallow Y for ever.

Do you mean Raman Maharshi? He is not an abyss and he has no desire to swallow.

I tell you, Sir, it will be a pathetic failure on the part of the Divine!

Rubbish! It will be a failure on the part of Y. I don't profess to transform men against their will.

Is all this fury not excusable?

Very ignorant at least. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is not a defence or excuse.

On the planes that are above the mind (Overmind and those above it), do the forms exist as we have them on the planes relating to the material creation? The forms of gods we have here in icons etc., do they actually exist on the higher planes? My question is: Do the forms actually exist in those planes, or is it the creation of the mind which gives the forms to those powers, in the sense that it is half the creation of the mind and half the acceptance of our forms by the God-powers?¹⁰⁶

There are no planes of manifestation without forms—for without form creation or manifestation cannot be complete. But the supra-physical planes are not bound to the forms like the physical. The forms there are expressive, not determinative. What is important on the vital plane is the force or feeling and the form expresses it. A vital being has a characteristic form but he can vary it or mask his true form under others. What is primary on the mental plane is the perception, the idea, the mental significance and the form expresses that and these mental forms too can vary—there can be many forms expressing an idea in different ways or on different sides of the idea. Form exists but it is more plastic and variable than in physical nature.

As to the Gods, men can build forms which they will accept; but these forms too are inspired into men's mind from the planes to which the God belongs. All creation has the two sides, the formed and the formless,—the Gods too are formless and yet have forms, but a Godhead can take many forms, here Maheshwari, there Pallas Athene. Maheshwari herielf has many forms in her lesser manifestations, Durga, Uma, Parvati, Chandi etc. The Gods are not limited to human forms—man also has not always seen them in human forms only.

September 1, 1935

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Of course Y's revolt was quite evident. But the fact of his leaving "W" came as a shocking surprise.

No doubt, though not to all. But since then there is no reason for surprise.

One could never imagine that he would call back his old self, so suddenly.

The old self was always there, but for the first year he was always holding it down. It was when Mother began to press for him to get rid of it that the revolts began.

You can't deny that he had bright periods of sadhana, and was going very well until this "monster" caught him by the throat.

Of course he had periods. So had B for a very long time. But after his first outbreak they were never harmonised¹⁰⁷ with the other self.

We were not quite prepared to see him bid good-bye for ever, for we had confidence in your Force and thought you would succeed in bringing him round. This is the reason of our astonishment.

When he went from the W it was distinctly understood that he must settle his problem himself. He did not want any farther influence because that was not consistent with his independence. Under such circumstances he could get help only in proportion as he was sincere.

But do you call this "will" in Y? How can an insane person—for it is nothing but insanity, have any will?

Certainly—the will to be independent, the will to follow the call of his nature—the belief that he had the Light and the realisation sufficiently to follow his own path, as one already almost the equal of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

He gave you his will, his inner sanction, when he came here.

You have never heard of a double being?

If I want to hang myself, would you say, "I can't help him against his will"?

If that were your will and not merely an impulse of the vital being, nobody could stop you.

This is what, perhaps, a human being would say, who has no knowledge of the play of forces?

If I have knowledge of the play of forces, why do you want me to ignore the play and work by violence or a miracle beyond the play of forces? It is precisely the play of forces in Y which brought him where he is.

Another point—you knew that he had the monster in him, and yet you accepted him? Why? Weren't you confident about the success or was it only to give him a chance?...

Practically, D threw him in through the window in spite of Mother's refusal. After that he pleaded and got his chance on conditions, not unconditionally—conditions which he broke after the first year. Still we gave him his full chance, beyond what we had atfirst promised because there was a possibility that he might go through—even if he allowed us to guide and influence, a certitude. But he wanted no more guidance and influence. Hence these tears.

The departure of a person with extraordinary powers is serious.

And what a pathetic and tragic end for him! All the world will laugh at him and won't you share in the laughter?

Pooh! a sincere heart is worth all the extraordinary powers in the world. And why a tragic or pathetic end! He is as merry as a Brig and as sure of himself as a god. He says he has only one step to make and he is going to make it no matter whatever happens or who does what.

Do you think I care? What a very human mind you have! But why want me to share in it? What is in the mind of the sadhaks matters because that is part of my work, but what you call all the world (meaning the small part of it interested in Y outside) can laugh or not—what difference does it make? My bringing down of the supramental does not depend on the নিন্দাস্তুতি¹⁰⁸ or মানঅপমান¹⁰⁹ dealt out from there. And is care for these things part of the ordinary spiritual consciousness even? and if I am to be inferior in these matters to a spiritual man, R.M. for instance, how am Ito be not only supramental and superman but supramentalise others? Have you never thought of these things and will you and the others live always in the ordinary mundane social consciousness and feeling and ideas and judge me and my work from that sorry standpoint?

I hear A.P. House has been taken over by the Mother. There is no chance than for J's book being published there.

None. I asked the Mother, but she is categorical. The A.P.H. will remain the A.P.H. and not become an ordinary publishing house.

September 2, 1935

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R and self are invited for tea to the oculist's place—there's some function. I suppose it'll be rude not to go. Again social consciousness?—you may say. But say it again then, Sir!

Of course, social consciousness—according to S.C. it is certainly rude not to go. What it may be from another S.C. (spiritual consciousness) is another matter.

September 4, 1935

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R's pleurisy is much better. The remaining signs are of no importance, only he must not expose himself to cold, neither smoke much nor take wine.

Jehovah! You are recommending him a little smoke and wine? What next? All right except for the last ominous touch.

September 5, 1935

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You remember once you made a prophecy that Y would turn out a spiritual poet. Has it been fulfilled? Now that he has left the Asram, what becomes of your prophecy? I am asking as a perplexed man, not as a 'broken spiritual pot".

As a spiritual poet he is not a failure, it is as a spiritual pot that he is a failure.

You told him also that you would never leave him. Well? How shall we then interpret the promises you have made to others, to me for instance?

I don't propose to leave him, any more than I have left Rene. What I propose is that he should not stay here to play the humbug any longer—he must take one course or the other with his lower nature.

From this I come to a big philosophical question: Why are there failures in Sadhana?... A ready answer to the cause of these failures is—revolt of lower nature, refusal to undergo transformation. Apparently it is so, but is it the root cause? When we go to the origin of creation we find you saying that the soul or the central being came down into evolution for the sake of experience, call of the Unknown and through the depth of the abyss to establish the possibilities of the Divine in the Ignorance and Inconscience.

As you put it, this is not at all my statement of things. One cannot establish the possibilities of the Divine through the depths of the abyss. It is only by the ceasing of Ignorance and the Inconscience that the possibilities can be established. I have never said that the object of the creation is to keep up I + I¹¹⁰ perpetually and realise the possibilities of the Divine in that tenebrous amalgam—(its possibilities of being more and more abysmally ignorant and inconscient?).

If this theory be true, can it be said that when one fails in sadhana due to the lower nature's revolt, the soul has sanctioned it for further experiences of life?

That is only another way of putting the revolt of the lower nature. For it is not the soul, the psychic being, but the vital and the physical consciousness that refuse to go farther.

For those who are running after petty pleasures, doesn't the same answer hold true? When their soul is fully rich and satisfied with its chequered experiences, it will turn towards its ultimate purpose?

How can petty pleasures be rich? Chequered is all right. But it is not when the soul is satisfied, but when it is dissatisfied that it turns towards its ultimate purpose.

Of course when the soul no more wants the Ignorance, it will turn to the Light. Till then it can't. That is what I have always said as the reason why I reject the idea of converting the whole of mankind—because they don't want it.

It can also be said that people really don't know that a greater Ananda, Bliss, etc. can be had, and if they are told this, they don't believe it or, even if they do, they are not ready to pay the price.

Of course they don't, but even if they did, it does not follow that they would prefer to follow it rather than their accustomed round of pain and pleasure. Many deliberately prefer that and say the other thing is too high for human nature—which is true, because you have to want to grow out of human nature before you can have the Ananda.

Many struggle towards the Ananda but cannot reach it because though the soul and even the thinking mind and the higher vital want it, the lower vital and physical want something else and are too animal and strong in them for control. [That is the case at least with some in the Ashram.]¹¹¹ Or the ego wants something that is not that or wants to misuse the Power for its own satisfaction.

All this about man being imprisoned in Maya, and going on swirling in its whirl, seems to me due to the soul clinging to the Ignorance for the sake of experience, if what you say about the origin of creation is true.

What has the origin of creation to do with it? We are concerned with the growth of the soul out of the Ignorance, not its plunge into it. The lower nature is the nature of the Ignorance, what we seek is to grow into the nature of the Truth. How do you make out that when the soul has looked towards the Truth and is moving towards it, a pull-back by the vital and the ego towards the Ignorance is a glorious action of the soul and not a revolt of the lower nature? I suppose you are floundering about in the confusion of the idea that "desire-soul" in the vital is the true psyche of man. If you like—but that is no part of my explanation of things; I make a clear distinction between the two, so I refuse to sanctify the revolt of the lower nature by calling it the sanction of the soul. If it is the soul that wants to fail, why is there any struggle or sorrow over the business? it would be a perfectly smooth affair. [The soul would lift its hat to me and say "Hallo! you've taught me a lot, I'm quite pleased but now I want a little more fun in the mud. Goodbye," and I too would have to say, "O.K. I quite agree. I was glad to see you come, I am equally glad to see you go. All is divine and A.I.¹¹²—all has the soul's sanction; so go and mud away to your soul's content."]¹¹³

September 6, 1935

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I send the poem at last, as your Sunday exercise! Dilipda says that it is good; but it is still incomplete.

From what I have seen of it (first page), Dilip is probably right. However let's gulp the whole whale before pronouncing on the quality of its oil.

What does the abbreviation "Al." mean in your letter of yesterday?

I'm hanged if I know—I was referring to something that had cropped up in the course of the debate, but I must have put the wrong initials and, probably, also failed to finish the sentence. I think I had meant to write "I.I. (Ignorance and Inconscience) is the law" or something to that effect. But it is better to drop it.

September 7, 1935

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A strange incident occurred today. Dr. Becharlal and I worked as usual in the dispensary. After the day's work we shut the doors and went out—Dr. Becharlal to the pier for his habitual walk, and Ito X's place. J also went to the pier at this time. But he somehow did not enjoy his stroll and instead had, what he called, "a very repulsive feeling" when he arrived at the pier, and distinctly felt that he should go back to the dispensary. When he went there, he found a number of people collected near the entrance, knocking at the door; they were waiting for me. J inquired what had happened, and was told that B.P. had been stung by a scorpion and required immediate-medical help. He at once hastened to fetch me. I asked him to find Dr. Becharlal, and bring him also to the dispensary. He went towards the pier looking for the doctor. After going a little distance he met Dr. Becharlal, who was returning without finishing his walk; he said that somehow he did not feel like going to the pier that day. I am a little baffled by the whole incident. Are these just accidents?

No, of course not. But they seem so to all who live in the outward vision only. "Coincidence the scientists do them call." But anyone with some intelligence and power of observation who lives more in an inward consciousness can see the play of invisible forces at every step which act on men and bring about events without their knowing about the instrumentation. The difference created by Yoga or by an inner consciousness—for there are people like Socrates who develop or have some inner awareness without Yoga—is that one becomes conscious of these invisible forces and can also consciously profit by them or use and direct them. That is all.

These things manifest differently, in a different form or transcription, in different people. If it had been Socrates and not Becharlal who was there,—which would have been useless as he was no doctor and highly inconvenient to you as he would certainly have turned the tables on you and avenged me by cross-examining you every day and passing you through a mill of philosophical conundrums and unanswerable questions—but still if he had been there, he would have felt it as an intimation from his daemon, "Turn back, Socrates; it is at the Asram that you ought to be now". Another might have felt an intuition that something was up at the Asram. Yet another would have heard a voice or suggestion saying "If you went back at once it would be useful"—or simply "Go back, back; quick, quick!" without any reason. A fourth would have seen a scorpion wriggling about with its sting ready. A fifth would have seen the agonised face of B.P. and wondered whether he had a toothache or a stomachache. In Becharlal's case it was simply an unfelt force that changed his mind in a way that seemed casual but was purposeful, and this obscure way is the one in which it acts most often with most people. So that's thus.

Have you had time and appetite enough to gulp the little whale? If you had I hope it wasn't nauseating!

The whale taken as a whole tasted very well; its oil was strong and fattening, its flesh firm and full and compact and whalish. Not quite so exquisite as the sonnet minnows, but the quality of a whale can't be that of a minnow. As a whale, it deserves all respect and approbation.

Krishna Ayyar has a cold and slight fever. Given aspirin. Requires Divine help.

One tablet of aspirin and another of aspiration might do.

September 8, 1935

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C has developed ringworm. He wants me to inform you. I hesitate to report these small things, but the general belief is that once they reach your ears they'll be quickly done with. Am I then making a mistake in my refusal?

No. For small things the general force (+ or — the doctor) ought to be sufficient since it is always there. If it is something serious or if it is something obstinate, then it is another matter. Of course if they insist, you can drop a word in passing.

I have three letters of yours before me, and all three require some elucidation. I think and think, but can't get anywhere. Perhaps you will say, "Make the mind silent"! But Descartes says, "Je pense, donc je suis."¹¹⁴

Descartes was talking nonsense. There are plenty of things that don't think but still are—from the stone to the Yogi in samadhi. If he had simply meant that the fact of his thinking showed that he wasn't dead, that of course would have been quite right and scientific.

I forgot to tell you that C has gone back to his old habits.By the way, X has been sending Rs. 2 every month. He doesn't take any other interest in the Asram. Is it of use to correspond with him?

I don't know. Some people say that everything one does in this world is of some use or other known or unknown. Otherwise it wouldn't be done. But it is doubtful. That by the way would apply both to X's lack of interest and C's inconclusive ferocities.

September 9, 1935

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I am going to riddle you with a volley of questions and I am prepared to receive the return-shots.

I was not at all 'floundering about" between "desire-soul" and the "true psyche".

Well, if you were not, why did you represent the experience of the lower nature as such a rich and glorious thing? It is the desire-soul or the life-being which finds it (sometimes) like that.

If failures are due to the revolt of the lower nature, why should that revolt occur in A's case and not in B's? Past Karma? And by what is this Karma decided?

Because A is not B and B is not A. Why do you expect all to be alike and fare alike and run abreast all the way and all arrive together?

[Sri Aurobindo drew an arrow from "what" to his reply.]

It is Prakriti and Karma, so long as the Ignorance is there. The hen lays an egg and the egg produces a hen and that hen another egg and so on ad infinitum—till you turn to the Light and get it.

And this Karma has its past and this past its own past and so on till we come to a state where there is no Karma but only the central being. This central being, it seems, chooses its particular sheath—mental, vital etc.—and upon that choice depend the evolutionary consequences. Is that correct?

What is this central being you are speaking of—the Jivatma or the psychic being? or an amalgam of both?

I don't quite understand. The psychic being is supposed not to choose, but rather to form in accordance with its past and future evolution a new mental, vital and physical sheath each time it is born. But the placid or tacit observation does not seem to apply to the psychic being, but to the Jivatman. Moreover you seem to say this is done at the beginning of the evolution and determines the whole evolution. But that has no meaning since it is through the evolution that the psychic does it. It has not got one fixed mental, vital, physical which remains the same in all lives.

My point then is that because the chicken-hearted central being—I suppose there is a hierarchy of these beings, some lion-hearted, some worm and some chicken—selected or had to select according to its own standard, that I have my own failures.

These words don't apply to the members of the hierarchy.

Since the soul descended into Ignorance through a process of devolution, it has to go back through evolution.

What is this devolution? Let me hear more about it,—for it is new to me. I know of an involution and an evolution, but not of a devolution.

Though the soul may repent for its misadventure, it can't take a leap into the Kingdom of Light or walk straight to its Father like the Prodigal Son...

A leap, no! But if it has got thoroughly disgusted, it can try its chance at Nirvana.

Again the soul gathers the essential elements of its experiences in life and takes up with the sheaths as much of its Karma as is useful for further experience in a new life.

This time it is all right—but what the deuce has that got to do with the original sin?

Now if I say that the soul has failed this time because it took "so much of its Karma" and requires farther evolution through farther experience before it can turn completely, how am I wrong?

Excuse me,—if it goes on with its Karma, then it does not get liberation. If it wants only farther experience, it can just stay there in the ordinary nature. The aim of Yoga is to transcend Karma. Karma means subjection to lower Nature; through Yoga the soul goes towards freedom.

It seems to me that the soul is searching, analysing, experimenting, through contraries and contradictories and thus proceeding by steps and stages. It will move towards the Light and retrace its steps again and by a series of ups and downs finally arrive at its Home. And so the revolts are only steps and stages on the way.

You are describing the action of the ordinary existence, not the Yoga. Yoga is a seeking (not a mental searching), it is not an experimenting in contraries and contradictories. It is the mind that does that and the mind that analyses. The soul does not search, analyse, experiment—it seeks, feels, experiences.

This is how I look at it. Is that all rot? No grain of truth in it?

Logical rot! The only grain of truth is that the Yoga is very usually a series of ups and downs till you get to a certain height. But there is a quite different reason for that—not the vagaries of the soul. On the contrary when the psychic being gets in front and becomes master, there comes in a fundamentally smooth action and although there are difficulties and undulations of movement, these are no longer of an abrupt or dramatic character.

You say that when the soul no more wants the Ignorance, it will turn to the Light; till then it can't.

Perhaps the better phrase would be "consents to" the Ignorance. The soul is the witness, upholder, inmost experiencer, but it is master only in theory, in fact it is not-master, অনীশ¹¹⁵, so long as it consents to the Ignorance. For that is a general consent which implies that the Prakriti gambols about with the Purusha and does pretty well what she darn well likes with him. When he wants to get back his mastery, make the theoretical practical, he needs a lot of tapasya to do it.

This is very significant because, if so, I should say that the soul is the Master of the House and if it says categorically—"No more of Ignorance, vitals and mentals have no go"—it can refuse to go farther. Because the soul wants more fun in the mud of Ignorance, people follow their "round of pleasure and pain".

That is contrary to experience. The psychic has always been veiled, consenting to the play of mind, physical and vital, experiencing everything through them in the ignorant mental, vital and physical way. How then can it be that they are bound to change at once when it just takes the trouble to whisper or gay "Let there be Light"? They have tremendous go and can refuse and do refuse point-blank. The mind resists with an obstinate persistency in argument and a constant confusion of ideas, the vital with a fury of bad will aided by the mind's obliging reasonings on its side; the physical resists with an obstinate inertia and crass fidelity to old habit, and when they have done, the general Nature comes in and says "What, you are going to get free from me so easily? Not WI know it," and it besieges and throws back the old nature on you again and again as long as it can. Yet you say that it is the soul that wants all this "fun" and goes off laughing and prancing to get some more. You are funny. If the poor soul heard you, I think it would say "Sir, methinks you are a jester" and look about for a hammer and break your head with it.

Even their disbelief, lack of faith in Divine Ananda. etc., is due to that!

Due to the soul's sense of fun? It seems to me more probably that it is due to the obstinacy of mental and vital sanskaras. Perhaps that is why the Buddhists insisted on breaking all sanskaras as the seeker of liberation's first duty.

But if you ask me, as you do, "Why then is there so much struggle and sorrow?" well, I am floundered, unless one can say that though the soul has given the last kick, still a longing, lingering look is bound to be there.

You call that a mere look! I suppose that if you saw an Irish row or a Nazi mob in action, you would say "These people are making slight perceptible gestures and I think I hear faint sounds in the air."

My dear Sir, be less narrowly logical (with a very deficient logic even as logic)—take a wider sweep; swim out of your bathing pool into the open sea and waltz round the horizons! For anything that happens there are a hundred factors at work and not only the one just under your nose; but to perceive that you have to become cosmic and intuitive or overmental and what not. So, alas!

September 10, 1935

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Shall I continue attending the hospital?' think I have learned enough about the common eye diseases.

The Mother wants you to go on; she thinks it important.

With great difficulty I have deciphered your Supramental writing. Now it requires to be metabolised. But one point remains to be clarified.

Which diabolical point was that? Some point of a pin on which the whole universe can stand?

September 11, 1935

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I'm thinking why it is so important to go on attending the hospital. When R asked, you replied, "If you feel the need". Why a different decision for me? For my personal profit? For my sadhana or an impersonal play behind?

That was before circumstances took a certain shape. At that time the forces had not so arranged themselves as to make it important. Afterwards when things came to the necessary point, then Mother told R he must continue and it is for the same reason that she asks you to continue. When I say important I don't mean that it is a big thing, but it is a small point in the game (play of forces) and small points, like pawns in chess, can be important—even very important.

It appears the Mother is turning towards manifestation viz. the Town Hall decoration, A.P. House, Art Exhibitation in Paris, etc. I heartily like it, Sir. Many, many valuable years have passed by!

Why valuable years? Are some years valuable and others non-valuable? There is no question of Art Exhibition in Paris before 1937 which may be a valuable year but is still far off.

During the hospital work, I feel myself submerged in Inconscience. No remembrance of the Mother at all

It does not matter. This is not the supramental manifestation—it is simply a little game on the way.

Do you work on those people also and can your Force be invoked in aid of that suffering populace?

What people? Which suffering populace? Mother is not taking up or decorating Town Hall for the sake of any suffering populace.

Apropos of that scorpion incident on the 8th, you explained Dr. B's case, but avoided mentioning J; yet he was an important link. And if the incident could have manifested in so many ways, then surely the whole thing must have appeared before your vision as soon as it happened.

What is this logic? There is no connection between the premiss and the conclusion.

Finding J a receptive fellow, you acted through him. What do you say?

It was not speaking of any personal action but of the play of forces which happens everywhere, but is of course more marked here because of our presence and the work done.

Then it means that there is no such thing as accident, chance, or coincidence; all is predetermined—all is a play of forces. Sir C.V. Raman once lectured to us that all these scientific discoveries are games of chance.

I have not said that everything is rigidly predetermined. Play of Forces does not mean that. What I said was that behind visible events in the world there is always a mass of invisible forces at work unknown to the outward minds of men, and by Yoga, (by going inward and establishing a conscious connection with the cosmic Self and Force and forces) one can become conscious of these forces, intervene consciously in the play, to some extent at least. determine things in the result of the play. All that has nothing to do with predetermination. On the contrary one watches how things develop and gives a push here and a push there when possible or when needed. There is nothing in all that to contradict the great Sir C.V. Raman. Only when he says these things are games of chance, he is merely saying that [...]¹¹⁶ human beings don't know how it works out. It is not a rigid predetermination, but it is not a blind inconscient Chance either. It is a play in which there is a working out of possibilities in Time.

From the falling down of the bottle—Simpson's discovery of chloroform—to the Irish sweepstake, everything seems to be this blessed play of forces, but not Chance! The bottle had to fall for the great discovery!

Why shouldn't it fall? Something had to happen so that human stupidity might be enlightened, so why not the agency of a bottle?

Your old colleague B says that if there were such a thing as "accident", then one can no longer say that there is a perfectly uninterrupted order in this world. Order means a regular sequence. An accident can only happen by disturbing this sequence.

That's nineteenth century mechanical determinism. It is not like that. Things can be changed without destroying the universe.

I suppose I am once again knocking my head against a cosmic problem?

Very much so, sir.

September 12, 1935

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Instead of saying "shut up" you have devised a very nice trick of evasion, Sir! for everything "a play of forces". Therefore no more questions. Long live the play of forces!

It is the truth. Why get wild with the truth? It is like knocking your nose against one of Epstein's statues in the hope that it might turn out to be unreal or change into a faery beauty.

What I am writing now is not about the play of forces, but about confusion, conflict and despair in me.

O Lord God! again despair!

The confusion and despair are because I don't seem to have any go at all.

Pshaw! Pooh! Rubbish!

Not a day has gone when I could say I have aspired strongly for anything.

Well then, aspire weakly and phantasmally—but anyhow aspire..

Of course, I find that after this Darshan the desires and impulses aren't as acute as before, but that's not enough.

Well, well, that's an admission. It is not enough, but it is something.

I am as unconscious as before about the Force and its working.

Doesn't matter. Let the force work anyhow—in time it will have its result.

What most upsets me at present is that there is no current of aspiration.

Low current of electricity? Well, well, let us see to the dynamo.

Is that a very satisfying state or is there any future ray of hope?

Any number of rays—a whole sun.

What I would like to have is something stabilised: peace, force, purity or Presence.

So would I, so would anybody. It is not enough to like, you must get the thing done and peg on till it is done.

Neither can I fix my aspiration on any particular aspect. Now I want peace, now force, now Ananda...

That's the confounded wobbling mobility of your mind.

Isn't it a confusion and isn't it despairing?

It may be a confusion but it is not désespérant. (Despairing in this sense is bad English, by the way.) Plenty of people have had that before you and yet arrived all right.

Once you gave me the formula of Peace, Force and Presence. Shall I try to stick to it?

For mercy's sake, do. Peace first, Force tumbling into the Peace, the Presence at any stage.

But really, Sir, how long to stagnate in this passive pool of the Immobile? Is there no chance of being as dynamic as a flood?

Not so long as you merely ratiocinate and wobble—unless the dynamo begins to work in sheer exasperation at your foolishness—which is quite possible.

When a sincere aspirant like K took so many years to draw in all his limbs into his shell and do what may be called real sadhana, our expectation and hankering is sheer madness.

And who did that feat in a few days, weeks or months, I should like to know? I am sure I didn't.

Real sadhana, he has been doing for a long time. That is why he is now able to draw in his limbs.

Well, expecting to do it in a record time or shouting sorrowfully because that doesn't happen, is rather windy.

I suppose we have to go on dreaming that one day, one year, one Yuga, we shall also come to such a blissful height. Till then, Man of Sorrows is my companion, alas I

No need at all! Call in the Man of Mirth and dismiss the other Applicant.

Another confusion about poetry. I haven't been able to find out any "dissolvent" and I take it that the Muse is treating me in the same way as the Yogi is doing.

Well, it seems to me that the Muse has done a good deal for you already, considering that you did not start with the vocation. O favoured unappreciative!

Since there is no inspiration, the call of the moon, the sky, the sea and the Unknown takes me away to the pier at night.

Absorb the moon, sky, sea and the unknown and trust to the inner alchemy to turn them into poetry.

I am so tired with this "play" of yours, Sir, that sometimes I have a longing to jump into the silence of Nirvana.

Not so easy to do it as to write it.

However, what shall I hear from the mighty pen as a remedy to my chronic despair and impatience?

Now look here, as to the Yuga, etc., if I can be patient with you and your despairs, why can't you be patient with the forces? Let me give you a "concrete" instance. X is a sadhak of whom it might be said that if anyone could be said to be incapable of any least progress in Yoga, X was the very person, blockishly absolute and unique in that respect. Mulish, revolted, abusive. No capacity of any kind, no experience, not a shadow, tittle or blessed pinpoint of it anyhow, anywhere or at any time for years and more years and still more years. Finally some while ago X begins to fancy or feel that X wants Mother and nothing and nobody else. (That was the result of my ceaseless and futile hammering for years). X makes sanguinary row after row because X can't get Mother, not a trace, speck or hint anywhere of Mother. Threats of departure and suicide very frequent. I sit mercilessly and severely upon X, not jocularly as I do on you. X still weeps copiously because Mother does not love X. I sit on X still more furiously but go on pumping force and things into her. X stops that but weeps copiously because X has no faith and does not love Mother. (All this goes on for months and months). Finally one day after deciding to stop weeping for good and all X suddenly finds X was living in barriers, barriers broken down, vast oceanic wideness inside her, love, peace etc. rushing in or pressing to rush; can't understand what on earth all this is or what to do—writes for guidance. Now, sir, if my yugalike persistence could work a miracle like that with such a one, why can't you expect an earlier result with you, O Nirod of little faith and less patience? Stand and answer.¹¹⁷

September 13, 1935

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From what I could make out of your mysterious handwriting about this mysterious X, she must be a plucky girl. With that thrashing—if you are really capable of it—and the Mother's "hard looks" to boot, if she has stuck to you, I must say that she is exceptionally enduring too.

I suppose X was able to stick because X had no brains. It is the confounded reasoning brain that is the ruin of you. For instead of taking the lesson of things it begins reasoning about them in this futile—shall I say asinine—way. My idea however is that X stuck because X had nowhere else to go. Of course that is the outward reason—the real one being that something unknown pinned X down here.

One word about this "patience", Sir, I am afraid there is a big fallacy in that. You can take 50 years to make me at least a supramental ass. And this would still be a short period for you, since in the supramental time-scale 50 years will be 50 days of ours.

If that is so, then you will become a Supramental ass in 50 days—since my years are supramental, that follows. So what's the row about? With this glowing prospect before you!

So I have stood and answered: But no amount of standing and answering will serve the purpose. I shall now learn to "stand and wait" as "they also serve who only stand and wait", says Milton.

Thank God! A most comforting resolution—for me at any rate. Doctor Saheb

I am sending to the dispensary two cases—

1) P—she had tuberculosis? at 19 for six months, she says, and at 25 for a short time, but cured quickly. Sounds queer, for tuberculosis at that age usually gallops, doesn't it? Anyhow she has symptoms which need elucidation by medical authority. To be examined and reported.

2) B.P.—says he "fell from chastity" 7 years ago and had an illness of the organ (sores?) which the Panjab Doctors called by some outlandish word I don't recognise—bedridden 2½ months, cured by injections—twice recurred, but healed of itself—nothing for the last 3 years—coming here cropped up again. (Thanks to the forces at play for that!!). Apprehends. Cross-examine and examine. Does not know English, don't know if you know Hindi. Anyhow Becharlal is there.

Feel inclined to swear, but refrain.

N.B. Keep quiet about the affair, please—strict medical discreetness needed!

SRI AUROBINDO
September 14, 1935

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We questioned, cross-examined and examined B.P....

Syphilitic sores or ulcers don't recur in genital parts even if the disease remains untreated or partially treated. And these sores have characteristics which are missing in this case...

As for his previous affection and its existence in the system, well, if it were syphilis, 4 or 5 injections could not have cured him. But there's only one way of being sure about it—blood-exam. But for such things I fed hesitant and ashamed for they reflect upon the reputation of the Asram, don't they? Of course, people don't know that these things are contracted outside and come in...

Where would the blood-examination be made? But I suppose it is better to avoid it if possible. What do you propose to do for his sores if they are not syphilitic, as we must assume since they have not the characteristics?

P hasn't turned up. She doesn't seem to have much faith in medicine.

This is not a question of faith, but of fact.

She has written to me saying Becharlal had already once examined her and found nothing. Will you ask Becharlal about it?

I seize the golden opportunity to ask you to deliver about the Supermind as you had promised. I hope you remember it; if not, the question was: What is exactly the significance of 24th November? Overmental, supramental realisation or what? You say that it was something like the descent of Krishna in the material. Some say that the descent took place in you. But you are not matter, are you? Not very clear.

Why not? Why can't I be matter? or represent it at least? At least you will admit that I have got some matter in me and you will hardly deny that the matter in me is connected or even continuous (in spite of the quantum theory) with matter in general? Well, if Krishna or the Overmind or something equivalent descended into my matter with an inevitable extension into connected general Matter, what is the lack of clarity in the statement of a descent into the material? What does logic say?

By your "trying to get the supermind down into the material", we understand that the ascent is done and now the descent has to be made. Something like one going up to you at Darshan and getting all the bliss, joy, etc. and trying to bring it down and not lose it as soon as one steps out. And what is this again? You say you are in contact with it and then again that you are very near the tail of it! Sounds funny! Contact and no contact?

But, supposing I reached supermind in that way, then under such conditions would it be probable that I should come down again at the risk of losing it? Do you realise that I went upstairs and have not come down again? So it was better to be in contact with it until I had made the path clear between S and M. As for the tail, can't you approach the tail of an animal without achieving the animal? I am in the physical, in matter—there is no doubt of it. If I threw a rope up from Matter, noose or lasso the Supermind and pull it down, the first part of Mr. S that will come near me is his tail dangling down as he descends, and that I can seize first and pull down the rest of him by tail-twists. As for being in contact with it, well I can be in contact with you by correspondence without actually touching you or taking hold even of your tail, can't I? So there is nothing funny about it—perfectly rational, coherent and clear.

Another point: Have you written anywhere what would be the nature of the physical transformation?

I have not, I carefully avoided that ticklish subject.

What would it be like? Change of pigment? Mongolian features into Aryo-Greco? Bald head into luxuriant growth? Old men into gods of eternal youth?

Why not seven tails with an eighth on the head—everybody different colours, blue, magenta, indigo, green, scarlet, etc; hair luxuriant but vermilion and flying erect skywards; other details to match? Amen.

Now you can't say surely that al your points have not been cleared?

September 15, 1935

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By the way, vomiting seems to be a very common complaint at present.

I notice that these things come by epidemics in the Asram. One starts, others follow suit.

H is having vomiting too. Yogic force on the brain?

Jehoshaphat! What has the brain got to do with vomiting? Throwing up excess of Yogic knowledge? That might be with H the philosopher, but it does not fit the others.

I propose, if you approve, to take the three ladies P, K and Sh to the hospital for a screen-examination.

Not advisable. I believe if you could give these people (P, Sh etc.) some nervous balance, their ailments would walk off into blazes.

B.P.'s blood-exam has to be done in the hospital, but it doesn't seem necessary now. He has no other complaints. His sores seem to me like scabies, so we'll try sulphur ointment, otherwise calomel ointment.

All right.

Now, lend your ears, Sir, to my ailment! I was disappointed by your answer yesterday about the Supermind, for it is far from what you had in your mind when you made the promise...

I am disappointed that you could not appreciate the splendidly coloured prospects held out there. But what had I in my mind and what was this promise? Apart from the colours, my two other answers were, though figurative, yet very much to the "point".

Today I caught sight of an atrocious incident in the paper, at Rajshahi, Bengal. I am sure you have read it.

Didn't. Have no time to read Bengal papers.

... You know very well that it is the confounded Raj that is behind and has fomented this communal incident.

It looks as if it were going to be like that everywhere. In Europe also.

I won't say a word about this race, you know my feelings.

Which race?

With the coming of independence I hope such things will stop. Now I would like to ask you something. In your scheme of things do you definitely see a free India? You have stated that for the spreading of spirituality in the world India must be free. I suppose you must be working for it! You are the only one who can do something really effective by the use of your spiritual Force.

That is all settled. It is a question of working out only. The question is what is India going to do with her independence? The above kind of affair? Bolshevism? Goonda-raj? Things look ominous.

Supposing you were able to create a race of Supermen, then there would be two strata: Supermen and men.

There will also be cats. Look at the Asram!

Then the Supermen will no longer concern themselves with the lives and histories of men just as men are at present indifferent to the lives of animals?

Men are not indifferent to lives of animals at least not in Europe. Look at the open-air zoos—hospitals for animals refuges for unwanted cats and dogs—live-farms, etc., etc.!

But what will happen when the supramental comes down is a matter for the supramental to decide—no use laying down laws for it beforehand with the mind. It is the Truth-consciousness, sir—it will act according to the divine Truth behind things.

September 16, 1935

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I am still in the slough of despondency. Really, Sir, no belief or faith in effort at all. I will choose the mulish revolting way and that would be the easiest. What do you say?

I am inclined to say "Pshaw!" Have more faith, not less.

Apart from this, I have observed that whenever I communicate an experience to you, the next moment it stops. What's the truth of it?

That is a thing that we used often to note formerly when sadhana was in the early stages—viz. to speak of something experienced was to stop it. It is why many Yogis make it a rule never to speak of their experiences. But latterly it had altogether ceased to be like that. Why are you starting that curious old stunt all over again?

I remember a story of my childhood. I was dining with my father when I was obliged to go out. I turned round and said, "Papa, see you don't eat my fish!" Well, fathers may not, but Gurus?

No, Sir, I don't eat your fish. I have oceans of fish at my disposal and have no need to consume your little sprats. It is Messrs. H.F. (hostile forces) who do that—the Dasyus or robbers. You display your fine new penknife and they say "Ah! he's proud of his fine new penknife, is he? We'll show him!" and they filch it at the first opportunity.

Do tell us how the Supermind will make us great sadhaks overnight. We are hanging all our hopes on its "tail", which you said was descending.

If you expect to become supramental overnight, you are confoundedly mistaken. The tail will keep the H.F. at a respectful distance and flap at you until you consent to do things in a reasonable time instead of taking 200 centuries over each step as you seem to want to do just now. More than that I refuse to say. What is a reasonable time in the supramental view of things I leave you to discover.

Your Overmental Force seems to have utterly failed in the case of idiots like us. Where then is the chance of this Mr. Supramental who is only a step higher?

Overmind is obliged to respect the freedom of the individual—including his freedom to be perverse, stupid, recalcitrant and slow.

Supermind is not merely a step higher than Overmind—it is beyond the line, that is a different consciousness and power beyond the mental limit.

Please don't think of what India is going to do with her independence. Give her that first, and then let her decide her fate for herself. Independence anyhow—your Super-mind will do the rest.

You are a most irrational creature. I have been trying to logicise and intellectualise- you, but it seems in vain. Have I not told you that the independence is all arranged for and will evolve itself all right? Then what's the use of my bothering about that any longer? It's what she will do with her independence that is not arranged for—and so it is that about which I have to bother. To drag in the Supermind by the tail here is perfectly irrelevant. We have been talking all the time on an altogether infra-supramental basis—down down low in the intellect with an occasional illumined intuitive or overmental flash here and there. Be faithful to the medium, if you please. If you do not become perfectly and luminously logical and rational, how can you hope to become a candidate for the next higher stage even? Be a little practical and sensible.

September 18, 1935

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You have admitted your failure in intellectualising me; now I am waiting to hear at any time the admission that all your attempts to make me a yogi seem to be in vain!

Perhaps that is because for the sheer fun of it I tried the impossible, intending not to succeed—because if you had really become luminously intellectual and rational, why, you would have been so utterly surprised at yourself that you would have sat down open-mouthed on the way and never moved a step farther.

But when did I tell you, Sir, that I expect to become supra-mental overnight? All I asked was whether this Mr. S is going to make us great sadhaks overnight, if so, how? By what supramental logic or intuition, do you heap this great ambition on my head, my human logic fails to comprehend...

You said "overnight", sir, "overnight". It was a logical inference from your desire to become a great sadhak overnight. In this remarkable correspondence I am not using intuition—I am proceeding strictly by mental (not supramental) reason and logic. A "great sadhak" in the supramental Yoga means a supramental—or ought to according to all rules of logic.

Being an ass myself I quite realise that to cross the "asses' bridge" is neither in my power nor do I cherish, harbour, rear any such phantasms.

Asses seldom realise that. If they see a thistle on the other side, they try at once to go after it—so here again your logic fails.

I don't even project my myopic vision towards the splendidly coloured horizon of the Absolute... I want only peace... If the blessed outer nature is on blazing fire, the inner would be calm, terribly calm, in a calm Pacific peace which no Atlantic aggressions can disturb...

And yet you say you are not after the Absolute!!!

About the Supermind, I only wanted to know how this gentleman is going to help us. Minimising our depressions? Breaking our difficulties? Keeping off the waves of the subconscient, etc., etc.?

He can do any or all of these things. But we can leave him to fix his programme after he has got on his feet (subsequent to the bump of the descent) and has had time to look about him.

I know my nature too well to hope for any Supermind, Overmind or any other Mind—overnight. Still you say that I am an irrational, illogical, impractical creature?

Well, but you talked of becoming a great sadhak (if not supra-mental) overnight. So unless you withdraw that—

Some people say that Supermind will establish a direct connection with the psychic and spur it to come to the front quicker.

Well, it can do that, but it is not bound to do that only and take no other way.

In your Yoga the main issue seems to be to bring out the psychic to the front, after which everything becomes an easy walkover.

Not quite that. The psychic is the first of two transformations necessary—if you have the psychic transformation it facilitates immensely the other, i.e. the transformation of the ordinary human into the higher spiritual consciousness—otherwise one is likely to have either a slow and dull or exciting but perilous journey.

You said yesterday that the Overmind is obliged to respect the freedom of the individual. Do you imply then that the Supermind will do no such thing?

Of course I do! It will respect only the Truth of the Divine and the truth of things.

When I said apropos of India's independence, that your Supermind will do the rest, I only meant that before India has any chance of becoming free, the Supermind will descend and guide India's destiny.

How do you know it will do that? It may simply look on, twirl its mustache and say "Ahem"!

I would like to report that my head is very heavy, painful, body feverish and a painful boil in the nose.

Is it the result of your mind bumble-beeing too much around the tail of the Supramental?

I send you a photograph of mine along with the note-book. What do you think of this snap—a Mussolini gone morbid? Anyhow, it looks as if you have at last succeeded in putting some intellect in this brain-box of mine!

Good heavens, what a gigantic forehead they have given you! The Himalaya and the Atlantic in one mighty brow! also, with the weird supramental light upon it! Well, well, you ought to be able to cross the Ass's Bridge with that. Or do you think the bridge will breakdown under its weight?

September 19, 1935

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When one has a mighty pen, Sir, one can wield it in any way one likes. However, I hope you intend to succeed in making me a yogi—not out of sheer fun!

I hope so.

But, really, Sir, I never expected you to take my "overnight" as overnight.

Don't understand your deep expressions—you did not mean that it would happen rapidly and suddenly? "Overnight" in English means that, but if you had some extraordinary supramental meaning (beyond the mental and out of the human time-sense) in your mind—it is a different matter, and then I express my awe-struck, heartfelt, flabbergasted regrets, pleading only as excuse my inability to grasp such a deep and novel use of the language. May I ask, very humbly, what you did mean, if not a sudden and rapid development into great sadhaks?

Is it because you use only the mental? Suppose we use your expression "very near the tail of the Supramental" in our human time-sense?

I supposed that you would take it as a metaphor or as anyone reading English in the ordinary way, would do. No need of a superhuman time-sense or timeless sense to interpret the phrase, although it seems it is needed in order to understand your "overnight".

I am not very clear about the transformation of the psychic. Doesn't it mean a process of change from a gross lower nature to a fine and higher one? But the psychic is a part of the Divine and hence always pure, noble and high. Do you mean a greater evolution?

I fear, I shall have to stop writing altogether, since even the simplest things I write are so unintelligible even to the few "intellectuals" of the Asram. I never said anything about a "transformation of the psychic". I have always written about a "psychic transformation" of the nature which is a very different matter. I have sometimes written of it as a psychisation of the nature. The psychic is in the evolution, part of human being, its divine part—so a psychisation will not carry one beyond the present evolution but will make the being ready to respond to all that comes from the Divine or Higher Nature and unwilling to respond to the Asura, Rakshasa, Pisacha or Animal in the being or to any resistance of the lower nature which stands in the way of the divine change.

You have said that the psychic being is at this stage a flame not a spark. Does it apply to the human species as a whole?

I simply meant that there was a psychic being there and not merely a psychic principle as at the beginning of the evolution.

And is there a difference between the psyche of one man and that of another? Since they are portions of one Essential Divine, they should be the same in all, only the difference being that of evolution.

The difference is one of evolution. The psychic being is more developed in some, but the soul-principle is the same in all.

By the way, can't you be a little less indefinite than saying "evolve itself out" regarding India's Independence? When the Yogi B. Babu was asked about the date of India's Independence he replied, "Not within 50 years." Good Lord! Can you give a more definite date or is it again a "play of forces"?

I am not a prophet like B. Babu. all I can say is that the coming of independence is now sure (as anyone with any political sense at all can see). As you do not accept my "play of forces" explanation of things, I can say no more than that—for that is all that can be said by the "human time-sense".

I had a temperature of 100° all day. Arjava threatens that people will lose all faith in doctors unless I cure myself quickly. I fear the Supramental gave me some severe lashes with its tail!

Not at all. You are simply "not well"—the reason you as a doctor ought to discover. Unless you have committed a secret sin (of one kind or another) and the temperature is a foretaste of the heat hereafter. But that also is for you to see.

P doesn't seem to be willing to oil her machine with olive oil!

She wants, I suppose, to rely "only on the Mother's force". I suppose she does not like medicines.

September 20, 1935

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... Just see what you wrote—"The psychic is the first of two transformations necessary—if you have the psychic transformation it facilitates immensely the other, i.e. of the ordinary human into higher spiritual consciousness—..." Evidently then, you speak of two transformations—one psychic, and the other human into something else.

But, hang it all, the psychic is part of the human nature or of ordinary nature,—it has been there even before the human began. So your plea does not stand for a moment.

By that accursed phrase making us "great sadhaks overnight", as I said, I didn't mean anything precise. There might have been something in the subconscious, perhaps an idea about A.B. being a great sadhak.

There you go again! "Grea sadhaks", "advanced sadhaks", "big sadhaks" like X, Y & Z!¹¹⁸ When shall I hear the last of these ego-building phrases which I have protested against times without number? And you object to being beaten!.

I regret to find that this phrase has led to so much froth. If you take such things seriously you will find many occasions for beating me and one day in sheer despondency you might utter, "Useless! useless! All pains, all efforts in vain, in vain!"

It looks like it! "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit" saith the Preacher! I fear all Preachers have to come to that in the end—especially the vanity of correspondence.

What "secret sin" did you insinuate? Joke or jest? Well, a few days ago I cooked a little "khichuri" here, but that is hardly a sin!

That's all? Only a "little" khichuri? Umph! The transformation seems to have begun already.

I am much tempted to quote to you a very fragmentary touching picture of your brother Monomohan: "Dressed in a grey suit, tall, well-built—the face mysterious like the night, dreamy and tired eyes, Monomohan came to the class and all were spell-bound. A cursed poet fallen from the heaven of beauty onto our dusty earth. He used to read poetry and his sad eyes flamed up in delight. The class would come to an end like a dream..."¹¹⁹

If any part of you has remained human, you will shed two drops of tears on reading this. But there seems to be some similarity between you and him as regards charming the students by an overwhelming personality.

Not even a fragment of a drop! Monomohan had a personality, but it was neither overwhelming nor sweetly pathetic. So even wit' this piece of honeyed rhetoric the tears refuse to rise.

September 21, 1935

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I understand your protesting against "great" or "big" sadhaks, but why against "advanced" sadhaks? It is a fact that some are more advanced than others and so we mention X as an advanced sadhak, don't mean anything else.

Advanced indeed! Pshaw! Because one is 3 inches ahead of another, you must make classes of advanced and non-advanced? Advanced has the same puffing egoistic resonance as "great" or "big". It leads to all sorts of stupidities, rajasic self-appreciating egoism in some, tamasic self-depreciating egoism in others, round-eyed wonderings why X an advanced sadhak, one 3 inches ahead of Y, should stumble, tumble or fumble while Y, 3 inches behind X, still plods heavily and steadily on, etc., etc. Why, sir, the very idea in X that he is an advanced sadhak (like the Pharisee "I thank thee, 0 Lord, that I am not as other unadvanced disciples",) would be enough to make him fumble, stumble and tumble. So no more of that, sir, no more of that.¹²⁰

September 25, 1935

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T says I leave the smell of medicine in the lap of the Mother which she has to breathe every day. Perhaps I smell of that since I come straight from the Hospital. If it is nauseating to Mother and others, I think I should change my clothes before going to Pranam.

Mother smelt the hospital fragrance in you but she does not mind at all, it does not disturb her. As for others, well, I leave it to you. Some are pernickety, some are not; but I don't know if any others go into the first category.

September 26, 1935

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S's abrasion is following quite a normal course. The wound is perfectly clean and healthy. He wants it to take a speedy, supernormal course. But unfortunately doctors can't do that... Our duty ends there and yours begins.

Perhaps S has doubts about what the Doctors may be doing with him, just as you have doubts about what the Divine may be doing with him—hence some nervousness. Better or worse? Where the deuce is the progress? When am I going to be healed? After centuries?

I had a discussion with Amal about the soul-theory. He says it is true the soul comes into evolution for the sake of experience, but once it is in Ignorance, it is divine only in name. It's imprisoned in matter. From there it slowly emerges making its very slight and imperceptible influence felt on the gross matter, then on the lower nature, while all the time a higher Force presses it forward till it becomes the Master.

An incomplete but not incorrect account of the process.

That is why the psychic takes thousands of lives to evolve and turn towards the Divine. Is the involution also a similar process, or is it one single descent all at once into the Inconscient?

No, certainly not. The involution is of the Divine in the Inconscience and it is done by the interposition of intermediate planes (Overmind etc., mind, vital—then the plunge into the Inconscient which is the origin of matter). But all that is not a process answering to the evolution but in the inverse sense—for there is no need for that, but a gradation of consciousness which is intended to make the evolution upwards possible.

What is the first experience that the soul had in its descent?

Partial separation from the Divine and the Truth—these things at the back and no longer in front and everywhere; division, diminished sense of unity with all, stress growing in separate existence, separate viewpoint, separate initiation, aim, action.

You say that if the soul goes on with its Karma, it does not get liberation. But isn't liberation a consummation of the result of Karma, at least according to Buddhism?

Not that I know of, in the ordinary theory. Karma always produce fresh karma' it is only the cut from karma that produces liberation

Buddhism seems to say that we are bound to the chain of Karma and so past Karma is always guiding our present and future. In that case would not Buddha's very attainment of Nirvana be due to his past Karma?

The only truth of that is that by the use of compassion and act of compassion one is helped to become a Bodhisattwa—just as sattwic deeds and feelings help to become less murky with the Ignorance. But it is knowledge that liberates according to both Buddhism and Vedanta, not Karma.

According to Buddhism, one can't explain then the play of forces behind any action, or would it say that even that has been arranged and determined by past Karma?

I suppose so.

But isn't it curious that Buddha did not concern himself with any play of forces?

Why should he? It was the play of sanskaras¹²¹ that interested him, the binding play of wrong ideas, and his whole aim was to get rid of that.

He seemed to have gone in for personal effort and struggle, didn't he?

Yes, because individual salvation was his aim and for him God and Shakti did not exist only the Permanent above and a mechanical chain of karma below. To undo the chain of sanskaras that create the individual is the point; the individual is a knot that must undo itself by disowning all that constitutes itself. The individual must do it, because who else is going to do it for him? There isn't anybody. All else including the Gods are only other knots of sanskaras and no knot can undo another knot—each knot must undo itself. Comprenez?

September 27, 1935

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If Shakti didn't exist for Buddha, and if for the individual, his own efforts must undo the "knot", then I must say that his disciples had a very uphill job—to do everything by themselves.

Buddhist Yoga is an uphill business like the Adwaita Vedanta. You have to do the whole thing of your own bat, and even Tota Puri, Ramakrishna's teacher in Adwaita, was after thirty years of sadhana far from his goal, so much so that he went off to the Ganges to drown himself there—only Ramakrishna and Kali interfered in a miraculous way; that at least is the story.

The Buddhist Church, however, as distinguished from the uncompromising theory of the thing, proved weak and admitted সরনম্¹²² in Buddha as well as in the Dharma and the Sangha.

Didn't he really "pump" his force into his disciples?

Surely not. He would have considered it a wrong thing altogether—even if he had any idea about pumping force, which he probably never had. At least I never heard of his doing this operation. He might have given enlightenment, but I think only through upadesh¹²³—not certainly by pumping light into them. An individual knot of sanskars can tell another how to dissolve itself, but where is the ground for a more direct interference? All that of course is only the conscious theory of Buddha's action. I won't swear that without meaning it he did not influence his disciples in more secret and subtle ways.

Can you tell me why two Atelier workers have been sent to the hospital for simple conjunctivitis without consulting me? I was treating them and they were improving. All on a sudden I found one of them in the hospital. He said that his master had sent him there. I take it to be a breach in medical etiquette.

It is the workmen themselves that complained the eye was worse after the medicine, paining badly and suddenly red all over, and did not want to go back to the dispensary—so of course they have to go to the hospital. You must remember we are dispensing against the law, so we can't stand on medical etiquette.

September 28, 1935

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