At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo

01 February 1937

(4) From your last letter it is clear that it is not your own will that pushes you to go but something that has taken hold of your mind, a clutch of some Force which is using old movements of the outward mind and vital to drive the action. All the more reason to reject this action as contrary to the soul’s and heart’s true feeling. The pride that says, “I am one of those who can break but will not bend” is a poor thing and conceals the fact that one is bending before forces and impulses that are ignorant and obscure. Its result is as you yourself have seen at the end of your letter that one bends to the lower forces of nature but refuses to bend to the Divine.

If sadhana as a struggle between the higher will and the old forces of nature brings suffering and inner torment, we do not want you to do that kind of sadhana. That is not the spirit of our Yoga. What we want you to do is to recover your quietude and go on in that. To have the basis of quietude and allow the Divine Force to work in you firmly and quietly is always the best method — it is not necessary to proceed through a big personal effort, disturbance and struggle. Come back to this — open yourself once more, as you did before, — then you could get back sleep or health in a day or two and were growing inwardly without excessive trouble — and let the Mother’s Power and Grace lead you.

I shall do all to help you and pull you out, but that which has closed itself in you must open for the help to work quickly as it did before. Otherwise too it can pull you out, but if there is this strong obstruction that has to be undone, time is needed. A central change of attitude in your mind would, I believe, make all the difference — it has done so before.

(1.2.37)