Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

2nd January, 1939

Disciple : I think the Mother is testing me.

Mother : That is not the habit here. It is the play of the forces, or rather the play of adverse forces, that tries to test the Sadhak. If you refuse to listen to them or remain firm, then they withdraw.  People here have plenty of difficulties already. Why, add new ones? To say that we purposely test them is not true. We never do it, never.

Mother came in for meditation and went away early at 6-45. But she did not go to the evening meditation before nearly 7-25 or 7-30.

Disciple : How far is it desirable for the Ashram to be self-sufficient?

Sri Aurobindo :  Self-sufficient in what way?

Disciple : In meeting the needs of the daily life, say for instance, preparing our own cloth here; my friend who has come from Bombay wants that we should introduce spindles and looms to prepare our clothes. Whether and how far such self-sufficiency is desirable in Ashram like ours?

Sri Aurobindo :  It is not a question of how far it is desirable, it is also a question of how far it is practicable? No objection to spinning or weaving. How would "N" like to go on spinning?

Disciple : I am already spinning away.      

Sri Aurobindo :  There are all sorts of mental ideas, or rather mental formations which can be carried out and which are being carried out at the other places but this Ashram is not the fit place for carrying them out.

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Disciple : In what way it is not fit?

Sri Aurobindo :  There are many difficulties here.

They all point out to institutions like Dayalbagh. In that case you have to direct all your energies in that channel (leaving the Sadhana on one side).

In other organizations they impose discipline and obedience from outside by rule of force. There people are obliged to take their orders from some one.

But here we don't impose such discipline, (from outside) and therefore you can hardly get people to work together. It is because of their ego and their idea of mental independence. Even if you want to do that kind of work there are two things you must guard against.

1. The tendency to degenerate into mere mechanical and commercial activity.

2. You have to guard against ambition. There is a natural tendency to cut a figure before the world, to hold that the Ashram and the Ashramites are some thing great, that must go.

Lastly there is health – unless the doctor promises to opathise them (Sadhaks) into health.

Work as a part of Sadhana is all right, but work as a part of spiritual creation we cannot take up unless the inner difficulties are overcome. It is not that we do not want to do it but here it is not mental-construction that we want but spiritual creation. It is here left to the Mother's intuition. Even then there are difficulties.

Disciple : What is the difference between peace and silence?

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Sri Aurobindo :  What do you mean?

Disciple : Is peace included in silence or vice versa?

Sri Aurobindo :  If you have silence you have peace, but the opposite is not true. That is to say, you may have peace but not silence.

Disciple : Is silence mere emptiness?

Sri Aurobindo :  No. Not necessarily. It may be full of the positive presence of the Divine.

Disciple : Is it not a dull and dry state?

Sri Aurobindo :  No. Not necessarily. As I said, it can be full of the presence of the Divine or it may be Mental peace – accompanied by a sense of emptiness which may be dull to the mind but it is the emptiness for something higher to come in and fill it.

Disciple : In that emptiness – Shunyam – there is a great release. Is it not?

SriAurobindo :  Oh yes. It is a very pleasant state. These people, like Russell, don't understand what this emptiness means. They try to go in and immediately they find themselves empty. They do not like it. They think that all that comes into the consciousness comes from outside. They have no idea that there are inner things with which the being can be filled.

Disciple : But you said in one of your letters to "D" that one must be prepared to pass through the period of dryness.

Sri Aurobindo :  There is an experience of neutral peace of mind which may be dry and dull to the ordinary man.

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Disciple : Can one act when one has the silence?

Sri Aurobindo :  Certainly; why not? When I talk of silence I mean inner silence. It is perfectly possible to hear and do all sorts of things and retain that inner silence.

Disciple : Is the silence static and dynamic both?

Sri Aurobindo :  It is not silence that is dynamic – but you can become dynamic having that inner silence. You can also remain without doing anything. It depends.

People who are dynamic can't remain without doing something. They do not realize that if they have the inner silence the effectivity of their work is increased a hundred fold.

Some Maratha came when I came to Pondicherry, inquired what I was doing :  when he heard I was doing "nothing", he said "it is a great thing if one can do it. It is a capacity to do nothing"!

Disciple : There is one gentleman who actually sealed up his lips with something so that he may not be able to speak.

Sri Aurobindo :  That is what is called Asuric Tapasya :  Titanic askasis.

Disciple : Can one gain something by Asuric Tapasya?

Sri Aurobindo :  Yes; all Tapasya can give you something.

Physical and vital tapasya can give you something. It can give you physical and vital control, though that is more a Nigraha – repressed control – rather than anything else.

Disciple : Is it not a part of Divine realization? What is Divine realization?

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Sri Aurobindo :  Experience of peace and bliss is a spiritual realization. If one gains control of the vital being by the influence of the Self – that is a divine realization.

Disciple : But one can have the necessary control by the mind – rather than try such physical and outward control.

Sri Aurobindo :  These things may be steps to the Divine; for example Hatha Yoga and Raja Yoga.

Disciple : Our friend "X", finds that Yogis have defects.

Sri Aurobindo :  It is not the defects that are important but whatever leads to the upward growth, to the Divine, adding something to his stature, is a gain to the human progress towards the Light. No upward progress is to be despised.

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