Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

42

Laying Down the Foundation

It was a singular discovery of Sri Aurobindo's that the Supermind was everywhere, even in the atoms, just as mind and life were there. The only trouble was that the Supermind was not yet a part of manifestation, in the sense that it was not the organizer of life and mind. Being an effective power, the Supramental can work its way if once it can be activated in matter. What a trouble that proved to be! His plan, you see, was to get the organizing power of the Supermind—the Truth-Consciousness—work everywhere, down to the physical plane. That was the only way to effect a radical change of the present human nature. Now, the seed of our nature is lodged in the subconscient. Therefore to cut the seed out he had to plunge into the unknown depths of the abyss. A heroic, epic battle which could be the theme of another story.

In the first flush of discovery, he was, however, full of enthusiasm.

Let us then look at some of his earliest letters available, which will also help us to get some insight into his activities as they were unfolding.

The first letter was written from Raghavan House.

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"I need some place of refuge in which I can complete my Yoga unassailed and build up other souls around me. It seems to me that Pondicherry is the place appointed by those who are Beyond, but you know how much effort is needed to establish the thing that is purposed upon the material plane—

"I am developing the necessary powers for bringing down the spiritual on the material plane, and I am now able to put myself into men and change them, removing the darkness and bringing light, giving them a new heart and a new mind. This I can do with great swiftness and completeness with those who are near me, but I have also succeeded with men hundreds of miles away. I have also been given the power to read men's characters and hearts, even their thoughts, but this power is not yet absolutely complete, nor can I use it always and in all cases. The power of guiding action by the mere exercise of will is also developing, but it is not so powerful as yet as the other. My communication with the other world is yet of a troubled character, though I am certainly in communication with some very great powers." He called them his 'guides.'

"What I perceive most clearly, is that the principal object of my Yoga is to remove absolutely and entirely every possible source of error and ineffectiveness, of error in order that the Truth I shall eventually show to men may be perfect, and of ineffectiveness in order that the work of changing the world, so far as I have to assist it, may be entirely victorious and irresistible. It is for this reason that I have been going through so long a discipline and that the more brilliant and mighty results of Yoga have been so long withheld. I have been kept busy laying down the foundation, a work severe and painful. It is only

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now that the edifice is beginning to rise upon the sure and perfect foundation that has been laid." The letter is dated 12 July 1911.

The second letter is dated 20 September 1911.

"My Yoga is proceeding with great rapidity, but I defer writing to you of the results until certain experiments in which I am now engaged, have yielded fruit sufficient to establish beyond dispute the theory and system of Yoga which I have formed and which is giving great results not only to me, but to the young men who are with me.... I expect these results within a month, if all goes well."

The third letter with uncertain date, but written from Raghavan House sometime in 1912, is addressed to Ananda Rao. Remember the boy and his mischievous tactics in the train from Deoghar to Baroda? By now, in 1912, he was a young man. Some relevant excerpts.

"Dear Anandarao,

"I cannot understand why on earth people should make up their minds that I have become a Sannyasin! I have even made it clear enough in the public Press that I have not taken Sannyasa but am practising Yoga as a householder, not even a Brahmachari. The Yoga I am practising has not the ghost of a connection with Sannyasa. It is a Yoga meant for life and life only. Its object is perfection of the moral condition and mental and physical being along with the possession of certain powers, —the truth of which I have been establishing by continuous practical experiment,—with the object of carrying out a certain mission in life which God has given me. Therefore there is or ought to be no difficulty on that score.

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"The question about the Siddhi is a little difficult to answer precisely. There are four parts of the Siddhi, roughly, moral, mental, physical and practical. Starting from December 1908, the moral has taken me three years and a half and may now be considered complete. The mental has taken two years of regular Sadhana and for the present purpose may be considered complete; the physical is backward and nearing completion only in the immunity from disease,—which I am now attempting successfully to perfect and test by exposure to abnormal conditions." In spite of a sore throat he would continually expose throat and breast to December's cold. Result? no cold, no cough. His long fast of twenty-three days when he walked eight hours a day, was behind him. Now another arduous condition he imposed on himself was copious eating and drinking without regard to satiety. "The physical also does not matter so much for practical purposes, as the moral, mental and a certain number of practical Siddhis are sufficient. It is these practical Siddhis that alone cause delay. I have had first to prove to myself their existence and utility, secondly to develop them in myself so as to be working forces, thirdly to make them actually effective for life and impart them to others. The development will, I think, be complete in another two months, but the application to life and the formation of my helpers will take some time,—for the reason that I shall then have a greater force of opposition to surmount than in the purely educative exercises I have hitherto practised. The full application to life will, I think, take three years more, but it is only for a year of that time (if so long) that I expect to need outside assistance. I believe that I may have to stay in French India for another year. I presume

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that is what the question about my future means. But on this point also I cannot speak with certainty. If, however, it refers to my future work, that is a big question and does not yet admit of a full answer. I may say briefly that I have been given a religious and philosophical mission, to re-explain the Veda and Vedanta (Upanishads) in the ancient sense which I have recovered by actual experience in Yoga and to popularise the new system of Yoga (new in arrangement and object) which has been revealed to me and which, as I progress, I am imparting to the young men staying with me and to others in Pondicherry. I have also to spread certain ideas about God and life by literary work, speech and practice, to try and bring about certain social changes and, finally, to do a certain work for my country in particular, as soon as the means are put in my hands. All this to be done by God's help only and not to be begun till things and myself are ready."

The next letter we produce here was written to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore. The date is uncertain, but I am inclined to think that the letter was written just after 15 August 1912. Here we give but a few excerpts.

"15^th August is usually a turning point or a notable day for me personally either in Sadhana or life,—indirectly only for others. This time it has been very important for me. My subjective Sadhana may be said to have received its final seal and something like its consummation by a prolonged realisation and dwelling in Parabrahman for many hours. Since then, egoism is dead for all in me except the Annamaya Atma,—the physical self which awaits one farther realisation before it is entirely liberated from occasional visitings or external touches of the

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old separated existence.

"My future Sadhan is for life, practical knowledge and Shakti, not the essential knowledge or Shakti in itself which I have got already, but knowledge and Shakti established in the same physical self and directed to my work in life.

"... I am now busy with an explanation of the Isha Upanishad in twelve chapters. I am at the eleventh now and will finish in a few days. Afterwards I shall begin the second part of the series and send it to you when finished.

"I have also begun but on a very small scale the second part of my work which will consist in making men for the new age by imparting whatever Siddhi I get to those who are chosen. From this point of view our little colony here is a sort of seed plot, a laboratory. The things I work out in it, are then extended outside. Here the work is progressing at last on definite lines and with a certain steadiness, not very rapid, but still definite results are forming."

So began his work for the earth.

In his explorative travels through the inner worlds, Sri Aurobindo saw enough to convince him that the spiritual development of the race was but a midterm step, not the final one. The evolutionary earth-consciousness must take the definitive stride forward at one time or another. Now. It was poised to do that. All it needed was a trigger. Who? What? Sri Aurobindo also needed to know how far humans could help to speeding up the process. So he cultivated his seed plot.

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