CWTVKS Volume 2

3) Conversion of Consciousness

(1)

Mother Divine,

To Sri Aurobindo and the Mother I offer my most humble and loving Pranams today, the beginning of another year for me.

The Mother's words this noon have put fresh strength into me, taking me a step forward to the goal of Her choice.

I pray for the further elucidation of the “conversion of consciousness” to which the Mother referred as distinct from the “transformation of physical nature”; the latter takes a longer time, as for “the conversion of consciousness, it is there”—She said, pointing to me.

Here, is it meant by implication that all those who have gathered round Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have “this conversion of consciousness”—perhaps in varying degrees? (1)

Can it be further explained in terms of the psychic being and its relation to the instrumental (nature) being? (2)

Or can it be said that whoever has some aspiration for the Light or Truth or God vaguely, has some sort of conversion of consciousness, for the reason that he has come to the Ashram and lives here? (3)

With Pranams,
At Thy feet
Thine,
Kapali

3 September 1937

Sri Aurobindo's Reply

(1)

(1) No. Those who come here have an aspiration and a possibility; something in their psychic being pushes and if they follow it, they will arrive; but that is not conversion. Conversion is a definite turning of the being away from lower things towards the Divine.

(2) It is certainly the psychic being turning the nature definitively Godwards, but the transformation has still to be worked out in the nature.

(3) No. Aspiration can lead hereafter to conversion; but aspiration is not conversion.

Mother spoke of three different things:—conversion, the turning of the soul decisively towards the Divine,—inner realisation of the Divine,—transformation of the nature. The first two can happen swiftly and suddenly and once for all, the third always takes time and cannot be done at one stroke, in a moment. One may become aware of a rapid change in this or that detail of the transformation, but even this is the rapid result of a long working.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Himself and the Ashram: Conversion, Realisation and Transformation

(2)

Mother,

The other day explanation was given of the three different things of which the Mother spoke—(1) Conversion of consciousness, (2) inner realisation of the Divine, (3) transformation of the nature.

May I be enlightened on a few questions connected with the same?

1) Is the first the same as inner consecration or anything more?

2) Does the second inevitably lead to the psychic being coming to the front?

3) Does the psychic being come to the front without an inner realisation of the Divine?

4) Does the inner realisation of the sublime carry with it a normal sense, if not consciousness, of the One, in all that one sees or does?

5) Is not the second indispensable for the success or even progress of the third?

With Pranams,
Kapali

6 September 1937

Sri Aurobindo’s Reply

(2)

1. “Consecration is a process by which one trains the consciousness to give itself to the Divine.” “But conversion is a spontaneous movement of the consciousness, a turning of it away from external things towards the Divine. It comes usually as the result of a touch from within and above. Self-consecration may help to open one to the touch or the touch may come of itself. But conversion may also come as the culmination of a long process of aspiration and tapasya. There is no fixed rule in these things.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Consecration and Offering

2. If the psychic being comes to the front, then conversion becomes easy or may come instantaneously or the conversion may bring the psychic being to the front. Here again there is no rule.”

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Aspiration

3. It may be either way. There is a touch and the realisation comes and the psychic takes its proper place as the result; or the psychic may come to the front and prepare the nature for the realisation.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: The Emergence or Coming Forward of the Psychic

4. It depends on the nature of the realisation which may be different in different persons.

5. Transformation is something progressive, but certainly there must be realisation before the complete transformation is possible.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Conditions of Transformation