Writings, talks, letters of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother that were preserved by Champaklal. 'These writings to devotees are most valuable..' - Champaklal
Do you remember my coming to you[Madhav], now long ago, and asking you to send photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to anyone wanting them, irrespective of whether they are in a position to pay for the photographs or not? I came to you on hearing from Mother the nice things she said of your work, the spirit in which you do it and so on. And you readily agreed to carry out my wish.
MADHAV: Ah, yes, I remember; I still send photographs free to those who ask for them but cannot pay.
C: Very good, continue it. If you fall short of copies, let me know. I shall draw from my stock and give you. But first let me tell you the story behind my wish expressed to you at that time.
It is in May, 1919 when Punamchand had come to Pondicherry (that was before I came). When he was back to Patan I asked him whether he had seen Sri Aurobindo's room inside. I put him several questions regarding the room. He said there were two rooms connected by a door in between. The inner room was his private room. In the front room there was an almirah and on it was placed a photo of Sri Ramakrishna in a dancing pose. It was framed.
After some time I came across the same photo in a special number of a journal brought out by the Ramakrishna mission. I was happy on seeing it and thought of getting one for myself. But I had no money, not even a single pie. You know that in those days youngsters were not allowed to keep money with them. My father was ready to give whatever was asked, but somehow I could not ask for money for this purpose. If I had asked, he would surely have given me the necessary money. Then I wrote to the Ramakrishna Mission saying that I was a student, I had no money, but I would like to have a print of Sri Ramakrishna in the dancing pose, that was included in their special number. I wrote that I was very eager to have it and requested them to send me one free of cost.
I waited and waited, but I am sorry, to say, there was no response. I felt it sorely at that time that such an institution following the great saint should have turned a deaf ear to the plea of a young aspirant.
Then I forgot about it.
What happened later is interesting. As I told you, when I came to Pondicherry for the first time in 1921, I asked Sri Aurobindo if we could see his room. He stretched his golden hand and pointed to his room. That sight of him, sitting on the chair and stretching out his beautiful hand still remains etched in my memory. It is unforgettable. As soon as I entered the room I remembered what Punamchand had told me about Sri Ramakrishna's photo in the dancing pose; I looked for it in every corner of the room, but I did not see it anywhere. I thought it must have been removed.
Later in 1923 when I came for good and got the privilege of working in Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's rooms, I again looked for the same photo but could not trace it. I did not ask Mother about it.
In 1927 when they moved to the Meditation house from the Library house on February 8, 1927, Mother told me to carry certain things of Sri Aurobindo to the Meditation house. She asked me to carry them myself. At that time I found this very photo in one of the drawers of Sri Aurobindo's table. I showed it to Mother. And without my asking for it she gave it to me.
So there you are! Another instance of sincere aspiration getting fulfilled one day, is it not? Now you will understand why I am particular that when anyone asks for a photograph of the Masters out of aspiration or devotion, it must be supplied to him who has no money to pay.
I was holding strong views on the subject. I had always felt that meditation was not at all necessary. When I came to Mother, this idea became stronger. One day, however, I asked Sri Aurobindo whether work was not enough and meditation was at all necessary. He replied emphatically that meditation was very necessary. He explained why it was necessary to sit in meditation. Among other things he said that when one sits quietly one can receive fully what comes from above. This habit must be formed.
I may add that my subsequent experience has confirmed what he said.
N: I hear you have said about this image of Krishna that it is very much living. What is meant by living?
Sri Aurobindo (laughing): Living means living; there is some force in it.
C: Is it a conscious force?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but the consciousness is not in the image but around it.
C: Would it mean that Sri Krishna has this form?
Sri Aurobindo: Sri Krishna is not a human being. It is a form that the sculptor has seen. I am speaking of the photograph of the image, not of the image which I have not seen.
Sri Aurobindo'S COMMENTS:
His sketches are very living and very expressive. He is certainly an artist.
Yamuna: the river is good but the figure is self-satisfied. Krishna and Vidur: Vidur is good. Kailas: not bad. Shiva with cobra: good.
GENERAL REMARK:
The artistic part is all right but he lacks in idea, that is to say, there is nothing big in the idea.
Kailas: very good.
Shiva profile: more original; there is some expression.
Dwga and Fire: good; the face of the fire is not that of fire, they seem to have benevolent, goody goody faces.
Cloud and Mountain; Manas lake: good.
He is an artist but as I said his figures ... I have not fixed my opinion yet.
Everything is all right except the faces. The faces are satisfying. There is calm, trance or sweetness in them but no deeper conception.
As you know I have always worn the sacred thread, yajñopavita. One day it occurred to me that I could do without it. But as I was thinking of removing it, the idea came: How can I remove it when Sri Aurobindo has touched it so many times?
I must explain. When, after the accident, he used to walk daily, he would support himself by keeping his hand on my shoulder, around the neck. It was at that time that his hand touched my sacred thread. Naturally only that part which came under his palm was being touched. Each day I would mark the portion that was so touched and the next day place the next portion near my neck. Thus the entire thread came to be touched by him. I had done the same with my tulasi-mālā.
To come back to the story. So, I gave up the thought of removing the thread. But again another thought arose in my mind:
Why the thread only? He has touched my body so often; and that body is going to go one day!
However, I did not remove the thread myself. It got torn by use. I have still kept it safe.
Once it happened that some photographs were before Mother' for autograph. I pointed to the photo of Sri Aurobindo (the one without the chair at the back) and said: Mother, I do not like this photo at all.
Mother looked at me with surprise and asked: What?
C: Yes, Mother, I do not like it.
Mother became a little serious in expression.
I went down and brought another photograph of Sri Aurobindo (the one with the chair in the background) and said: Mother, I like this one.
Mother held the photo in her hand, went on looking at it for a very long time. I moved away to my place at a little distance.
At that time Amrita was with Mother with some papers. She turned to him and said: There is vital force, a living life in this; that is why Champaklal likes it. In the other photo there is supramental light but no life. That is why he does not prefer it.
1923: Inmates of the Ashram
Top: Rajangam, Tirupati* Khitish*Nolinida* Satyen* Kanai* Bejoy* Purani* and Nagaratnam (a local devotee)
Centre: Punamchand* Champaben, Mrs. Kodandaraman, Mr. kodandaraman
Bottom: Champaklal, Moni* Amrita,* Manmohan.
The interesting part of the story is that when I began looking at that photograph (which I had not liked earlier) subsequently, that dislike disappeared completely.
1963-10-26
I read and liked the following sentence in an article of Maulana Azad:
I know the path, but what can I do if the robbers rob me on the way?
I took it to Mother. She wrote on the back of the slip on which I had copied that sentence:
CALL THE LORD TO CATCH THE ROBBERS.
26.10.63
One day, during the later years, Mother had not been well physically. After her sparse breakfast, she asked me: Champaklal, what shall I do? Rest or work?
C: Work, Mother.
MOTHER: Why?
C: You have come for work. Mother.
MOTHER: All right, call the people.
She said it so readily and sweetly. I rushed out and called you all who where waiting on the terrace. And she went through the whole programme as if nothing was the matter with her health.
On some other occasions when some sadhaks threw their weaknesses or ill-will on Mother, her distress was obvious when she looked at me. I would say, on such occasions, “Mother, you have come for that.” She would smile at times; at times there was no expression.
Ever since Mother left her physical body, known and unknown persons have been asking for something touched by her. Once someone came and said, “Please give me something touched by the Mother; it will help me much in sadhana.” I saw that he was sincere. I also remembered seeing him with Mother upstairs. Now, you know how devotees always wanted to place their head in Mother's lap but some lacked the courage to do it. To some of them I used to say, “Place your head in Mother's lap.” This person was one of them. So I asked him about it. He was so happy to recall that occasion and said: “Champaklaiji, I amyery grateful to you for ever. You asked me to lay my head in Mother's lap. I would never have dared to do it myself. And how she caressed me!”
I said: Oh, then you are very fortunate. But you do not have anything touched by Mother?
HE: No, Champaklaiji, that is why I am praying for it.
C: What about your head? Has it not been touched by Mother? You are always carrying it and it remains with you all the time. Nobody can take it away from you. Is it not?
HE: Yes, you have opened my eyes today. I now understand how the inner life is more important than the outer.
On a similar occasion, another person said to me:
Of course she has blessed me with both the hands. And more. First she placed her hand on her own heart and then she placed her full palm over my chest, gently pressed one finger and said:
There I AM. See there inside.
Here also I had to draw his attention to the fact that Mother's touch was stamped on his body and ask him what more he wanted. He was deeply moved, he closed his eyes and folded his hands.
The niece of our Joshi (laboratory) was bringing something special to be offered to Mother each time she visited the Ashram. On the last occasion, she brought a box containing 1,111 Blessing packets. They had been arranged beautifully in square marbled envelopes. In each envelope was a golden cover with a heart-shaped window; within that were placed flower petals. Mother was very happy on seeing it and named it GOLDEN HEART BLESSING PACKET. With a memorable expression she placed both hands over the packets and moved them from one end to the other, over and over again, saying, 'pretty', 'beautiful'.
When the girl left the room. Mother took the box near her chest and held it with her hands crossed over it. Looking at me, she said: 'pour moi' (for my use), 'pas à vous' (not for you). Then she gave me the box saying, 'Keep it very carefully, very precious, very precious. Give when I ask.'
But as you know she used them very little. She has left them for us. As I look back, I understand why “she asked me to keep them carefully and why she did not use them freely.
Speaking about Blessing packets, I am reminded about the special packets of DIVINE'S LOVE. You remember Kamala had wanted plastic boxes and you had arranged for them. Kamala would fill a box and send it to Mother or give it personally. How happy Mother was when she received the box each time! It was a great privilege for Kamala. At some stage Mother stopped using these packets. I could not understand why she was still sending the Divine's Love flowers for making packets, though she was not using them. The collection went on growing.
Then on the occasion of the last Kali Puja day, she said she would give these Divine's Love packets to people. It was on 5.11.1972. She distributed them freely.
1976-01-06
MADHAV: Champakbhai, I notice that you always sit erect, never leaning or bending. I am curious to know how you do that.
C: Ah, there is a story behind it. I will tell you.
During my childhood, even at 6 or 7 years of age, I could not sit without leaning. Once my father asked me, “Why do you sit in that way?” I replied that I could not sit otherwise; my back ached much if I sat erect. He was surprised and remarked that it was strange, for such back-ache comes only in old age. Things continued in this way till I came here to Mother (at the age of twenty).
One day I told Mother of this difficulty. She told me: Champaklal, you do what I say. Take a towel and rub your back with it, first vertically and then horizontally.
I started doing it for a short time after bath, regularly. Once I looked at the watch to see how long it took. The time taken was short though it seemed long to me. Since then I started counting the number of times I did the rubbings: I used to do the up and down movement sixty times and an equal number sideways. Nowadays I do it a hundred times each way. Sixty should suffice, but when I do more the hands also get some exercise. As you know I was twenty when I came here for good and next month I will be completing 73. This exercise has lasted all these years and helped me to sit erect.
I find that generally people do not care for such natural ways of curing things; they prefer to take pills. They do not realise that medicines bring in their own interferences.
6.1.1976
To
Punamchand
I) Separation of Purusha and Prakriti to establish tranquillity of heart and mind.
(a) Separated Purusha, calm, observing Prakriti.
(b) Prakriti in the heart and mind attending calmness.
II) Offering of all the actions, all that is done in your life as a sacrifice to the Lord.
III) Realisation of the higher Divine Shakti doing all the works.
(a) Living with the constant idea that it is the Shakti which does the work.
(b) Feeling of the Divine Shakti descending from above the mind and moving the whole being.
1921
Sri Aurobindo
As regards the amount of Rs. 500/- monthly from Vithaldas and your note in the account, I presume it is clearly understood that this sum has nothing to do with the account. It must be kept quite separate and remitted here every month as soon as it is received; it must on no account and in no circumstances be detained or used for any other purpose whatsoever.
As to the expenses shown in the account, you asked originally for Rs. 70/- a month in Bombay or Rs. 30/- in Patan; but the actual expenditure has been for months above Rs. 200/-. This is an enormous amount and, as I have already pointed out, it is swallowing up all you collect. I do not see how you expect to be able to maintain this rate of expenditure for an indefinite period or what purpose it serves.
The ornaments offered by Chandulal's mother. Certainly, you can accept and send them. I do not know why you felt any scruple in this matter. Whatever is given with Bhakti can and ought to be received and not rejected whether it is money, things of value or useful things. There may be exceptions, as for instance where the gift is of a quite unsuitable or cumberous kind, but this is obviously not the case here.
(2) The talk with Haribhai.
Think no more about it except to retain the lesson. Your mistake was to interfere with your ignorant mind in a matter which had been decided by the Mother, as if it could know better than she did. As usually happens when the physical mind acts in this way, it made wrong reasoning and foolish blunder. It was as if you gave Haribhai a choice between giving money or giving the clothes and other articles. He was to give both and there was no question of a choice between them; nor could this kind of balancing and reduction on one side or the other be good for his spiritual progress. The fact that other clothes were coming from a Mill could make no difference; that was quite another list and did not meet the same needs. As for the other possibilities you speak of, they have nothing to do with previous arrangements and present requirements; they are only a possibility of the future. I write this much only to show you how mistaken these mental movements are; but you need not worry about it any longer.
(3) The 'Four Aspects' is half written and will be finished in a few days. It has been decided to publish these four writings with the February message in Calcutta. Motilal Mehta can use them instead of the August 15th utterances.
October 3, 1927
Pondicherry 1st January 1928
Punamchand M. Shah.
I have received your letter and am sending this answer with Haribhai. I do not consider it necessary or advisable to make a public appeal for the sum of money I have asked you to raise for me in Gujarat. If a public appeal is to be made, it can only be when the time comes for my work to be laid on larger foundations and I can create the model form or outward material organisation of the new life which will be multiplied throughout India and, with India as a spiritual nucleus and centre, in other countries.
Then larger sums of money will be indispensable and a public appeal may become advisable.
At present I am making a smaller preliminary foundation, a spiritual training ground and the first form of a community of spiritual workers. Here they will practise and grow in this Yoga and learn to act from the true consciousness and with the true knowledge and power. Here too some first work will be undertaken and institutions founded on a small scale which will prepare for the larger and more definite work of the future. I need money to buy land and houses, to get equipment for these first institutions and to accommodate and maintain an increasing number of sadhaks and workers. A public appeal is not necessary to raise the sums that are at present indispensable. I prefer to make it only when I have already created sufficient external form that all can see. It will be easy for you to raise privately the money I now want if you are inspired to get into touch with the right and chosen people.
As you can judge, even this preliminary work will be a matter not of one but several lakhs, but I have named one lakh as the minimum immediately needed in order that we may start solidly and go on without being hampered at each step for want of funds. If you can raise more than the initial minimum, so much the better. The work will proceed more easily and quickly and with a surer immediate prospect. Preserve the right consciousness and attitude, keep yourself open to the Divine Shakti and let her will be done through you.
Write to Punamchand asking what are the 500/- that reached us today. Whenever he sends money, he should inform us at the same time what it is and who has given it.
Write to him also with regard to the letter he wrote about the detective's visit and his proposals. He has only to send regular accounts with details of sums, names etc. to me and he is on safe ground. He can simply answer that all monies given are accounted for and full details sent to me. If on the other hand he is loose in his accounts and dealings with money, he gives room for this kind of rumour and creates a wrong atmosphere. Nor in the absence of accounts can I myself have any ground to go upon if I am questioned whether I received or not the sums paid to him for me. In this connection note that he has not sent, as promised, the accounts for the last few months, since his arrival and return we have received nothing.
16.4.1929
Pondicherry, September 1931
He (Punamchand) can let Narayanji have Veda translations, but I do not want them 'widely circulated because they are a first draft, not final. Messages and letters he may have. But the evening talks must not get about. I have not seen these reports and therefore they are not authorised, and there must be any number of things in them which either ought not to be public or for which in the form they have there, I cannot accept responsibility.
Re: Punamchand
(1) To give up his Bombay work and stay here.
(2) To return to Bombay. If so, for what work and on what conditions?
For (1)—
I doubt whether he will be able, after the very different conditions to which he has been accustomed in Bombay, to settle down to the discipline of the Ashram which itself is very different from what it was when he was last here. And where to put them, if they stay?
For (2)—
On the other hand, if he goes back, how is he to live? It is out of the question for us to send him money and he must not even think of it. In future also we cannot make ourselves responsible for any loans he may contract; that too must be understood clearly.
If he collects money and spends all or most of what he gets on his own expenses, that is about the worst thing that can be done. It discredits him in people's eyes and discredits the collection and the Ashram. As soon as it is known people cease to give money.
Moreover, what is the meaning of a collection in which all the money realised goes to collection expenses and nothing goes to the fund for which the collection is made.
There is therefore only one possible solution, for him to fix a maximum amount for his expenses and find someone (now that Vithaldas is no more) who will give him that sum monthly. All other amounts must be strictly sent here and on no account must his expenses exceed the sum fixed. This seems to me the only solution if he goes back to Bombay.
For the work—
It seems no longer possible for him to collect money in the way he and Dikshit' first did—approaching anybody and everybody for contributions. The one thing he might possibly do, is what he has done with Narayanji and Ramanarayan—to make the acquaintance of people, get them interested in the Ashram and its work, and prepare them for coming here for us to see what can be done with them; if he can get them meanwhile to contribute, so much the better. But they must be men who can give assistance either in a large sum or as a substantial assistance to the monthly expenses.
How can he expect me to protect him if constantly he is going out of my protection?
The Mother
Champaklal
Write to Punamchand that now that Vithaldas has seen the Mother, he should communicate his experience or his difficulties direct to her. It is not desirable that in matters of the Sadhana Punamchand or anybody else should come in between, even as a channel of communication. The Mother's force must go direct undisturbed by any other influence.
December 1928
As regards the Vedic “Dictionary” write to Punamchand that I do not want anything of this kind to be made out of my unfinished work. If it is to be done, it will be in the future and must be only under my express directions and supervision. December 1928
Mother gave me the following extract from the Prayers in April 1930:
10 decembre 1914
O divin Maître, avec quel ardent amour je suis Ton serviteur! ...
april 1930
(After writing, she explained to me in English what was in French.)
11.2.52
Mother, Nolini informed me that Mother will see me on the 13th. I see that Mother is always so busy. What Mother wants to give, she can give even without seeing. Instead of giving me time on the 13th, Mother may utilise the few minutes for other important work.
I have kept some time to play1 for you (at 11 a.m.) and I will do it.
26.6.32
I pray to the Mother for the book of Prières et Meditations, if possible.
A rule has been made that the book is to be given only to those who know French or are studying French. The Mother cannot make an exception for you, for then she would have to make an exception for everybody.
27.6.1932
(However, I was to receive the book a few months later even though I did not know French even then. What was interesting was that she had numbered my copy 5 and kept it for me.2 The inscription read:
21-9-32
No. 5 à Champaklal
Mira
During meditations I find that my head and trunk bend down again and again. I am conscious but I cannot help it. Should I stop coming for meditations?
It does not matter.
You must not stop coming to meditation.
I have learnt that Mother does not like people coming for Pranam without taking their bath. Is that true?
No. People say all sorts of nonsense.
Three oil paintings are at present kept on the floor. Can I have them hung up on the walls?
Mother thinks you should leave them where they are. Mother does not like to have new nails in the wall.
28.4.34
P. was telling me that if the portrait3 is left as it is, it may fade away and that it would be better to have it fixed with fixing solution. I like to know from Mother what she would like me to do.
No, it will not fade—it is pencil, not charcoal and there is no need of fixing it.
4.2.35
I once received a telegram from some one who was in great difficulty. I sent it to Mother for reply. Sri Aurobindo wrote:
Keep faith quietude openness to divine power. Ashirvada.
Do not worry about what has been done.
Let the past pass away.
From today you are reborn.
13.4.29
From today
... will be perfectly
Strong, Sincere, Straightforward
21.4.29
I certainly cannot sanction your departure on so wrong and trivial a ground. You must be aware, as you admitted at first, that you are yourself to blame. When the Mother after a long and exhausting morning's work still gave you time, it was very wrong of you to reward her by speech of an insulting character. And it was wrong of you to resent her kind letter and her reference to the adverse force which you yourself have called the “devil” and from which you have prayed insistently to be delivered. I shall add that if you allow yourself to be ruled in this way by self-will and an abnormal sensitiveness, you will always create trouble for yourself, no matter where you go.
I could only sanction your departure if I came to the conclusion that you are still too young and raw and ill-balanced to bear the pressure for change which is inevitable in the atmosphere of the Ashram. But before this attack, you were progressing very well with a rapid growth in consciousness and character. It ought not to be difficult for you to get over this attack and settle down to a self-development of your undoubted possibilities on the right line. It would be a pity if you threw away the chance by obstinate persistence in the result of a moment's pique.
I prefer not to give any decision till after the 15th. You will do well to wait till then and see if your present feelings do not change.
August 4, 1929
I did not agree to your going for the same reasons as the last time. First, there was no good reason why you should go; a fit of quite causeless jealousy and pique could not be considered a sufficient ground for your wanting to leave us. You started your “revolt”, as you call it, because the Mother took D. to a private sale to buy things for her: you continued it because the next day (it being the first of the month) and the day after she was too busy with accounts and other affairs to occupy herself with you as you wanted. There could not be more absurd ground for wanting to go away.
What you seem to claim from the Mother is impossible. No one can be given the right to control or question her actions and decisions or to dictate whom she must or must not take with her or what time she shall give to one or another. The Mother can do her work only if she is free always to do what she sees to be right and her decisions are accepted by all concerned. This is now generally understood in the Ashram and no one makes this kind of demand; it is not possible that you alone out of eighty people should have the right to do it.
In fact, you have been given privileges of close daily personal contact with the Mother which very few in the Ashram have and which all would be only too glad to have. It is not because you have a greater claim than theirs. If it were a matter of ordinary claim, there are many who would precede you. Some have been here since the beginning; some are more advanced than most in the spiritual life; some occupy a responsible position in the work of the Ashram; yet many of them cannot come to the Mother separately every morning or meet her again in the afternoon as you have been allowed to do. This privilege was given you because she felt that you had a special need other care and of help and support from her. For she does not act for her personal satisfaction or decide out of personal preference, but according to the necessities of the work and the true need of each one in the Ashram. And she gave you as much as she could consistently with the call of her work and the time at her disposal. But instead of being satisfied and happy, you create in your mind flimsy grounds for “revolt” and “quarrel”. You did this once and it was excused as a mistake which you recognised and would try not to repeat. It is discouraging to see you start the same folly, all over again as if you had understood and learned nothing.
You have not been asked to do any yoga; you were too young and unripe for that. You have therefore no reason to complain of being asked to do something beyond your power. But, without doing any yoga, it was quite possible for you, merely by your work and by daily contact with the Mother and her silent influence, to grow quietly and easily and happily in consciousness and character and capacity until you were ready. But if you refuse to learn self-control and discipline, (these are not matters of yoga, but what everyone has to learn unless he wants to waste his life and bring his capacities to nothing,) and if you cannot be content and happy with the much that is given you, you yourself will make your own life here impossible.
My second reason for not agreeing to your departure was that I did not believe that you really wanted to go or that what spoke of going was the true.... But if your desire to go is serious and deliberate, if you cannot be happy here with us, then it would not be right for me to keep you against your will. That is a thing which I never do with any one.
My third reason was that I could only sanction your going if I saw that you were too young or otherwise unfit to bear the pressure of the Ashram atmosphere. I know that there is in you the capacity if you choose to exercise it. But a certain attitude towards this life and towards the Mother is needed which you seem unwilling to keep. If you cannot be satisfied, if you are constantly revolting and discontented and unhappy, if you again and again violently insist on going away, if you are constantly driven by something in you into these outbreaks which might have been excusable when you were a young child but are no longer proper to your age, it will be difficult for me to avoid coming to the conclusion that, as yet at least, you are not ready, not for the Yoga, but even for living here.
One thing I wish to make clear. Neither myself nor the Mother wish you to leave us. I do not approve or sanction your going, still less do I decide that you must go. But if your desire to go is real, insistent and imperative, if you cannot be happy here and feel that you would be happier elsewhere, then I shall be obliged to withdraw my refusal.
This is the situation. Try to get back to your self, your real self, the real ... and see if he wants to go, if it is true that he cannot be satisfied by what the Mother gives him. It is upon that that the decision will rest.
Pondicherry
September 3, 1929
I shall answer your letter, but meanwhile do not allow these things to worry you. Don't allow them to run in your mind or to get on your nerves. And don't let unpleasant feelings last in you; throw them away. After all, these incidents are very small things in themselves, and it is only when one gives them too much importance that they can take hold of the mind and give trouble.
The important point is not who was in the right or in the wrong; when these things happen, there is always some mistake or a wrong feeling on both sides. The one important thing is your inner condition. You have the Mother's love and my help and spiritual support; why should anything said or done or not said or not done by others disturb you? I want you to be, whatever happens, calm and at peace within and happy. It is the only way to keep the devil at a respectful distance.
9.10.29
In answer to your letter about your clash with P.
If anybody in the Ashram tries to establish a supremacy or dominating influence over others, he is in the wrong. For it is bound to be a wrong vital influence and come in the way of the Mother's work. If you feel anything of the kind in anybody, your are quite right to resist it and throw off the influence; to accept it would be bad both for him and you.
But there should be no quarrel or ill-feeling or keeping up of resentment or anger; for that too is not good for either.
Certain things must be said in fairness to P. He can have had no conscious intention of injuring you with the Mother; for, if it were there the Mother would have seen it. And you may be sure that nothing of the kind could shake her confidence in you; she has seen your work, she knows your capacity, and she can judge it for herself without being swayed by the words of others.
He may not be very communicative about the contents of the “magic cupboard”, but he did not intend to keep you in ignorance.
Once he showed you in the Mother's presence the things that came from Europe and he must have thought that you knew already what was there.
He says that he never intended to order you about, and I am sure he thinks what he says. If you felt something wrong of this kind in his manner, it is evidently something of which he was not himself conscious.
As to the work, part of what you ask is quite just and reasonable. You must be kept informed of what is there with P.; otherwise you will be hampered in your work. You should also be consulted as to your requirements when an order is sent. As to the plans, the Mother, as you know, arranges them with you whenever any work has to be done. But I suppose you are thinking of the plans for the new house of which P. showed you a map. These are his suggestions and, as his rooms and offices and the electrical installation for his work with the motors will all be there, he has a voice in the matter. Nothing is definitely settled and nothing can be till the house is ready; then it will be the Mother who will decide everything and you will certainly be taken into confidence.
On the other hand, all orders must actually be drawn up and sent by P.; for it is part of the business with France and that is his department; none else can do it. Moreover, you are not right in asking that you alone should draw up plans, for that would be to prevent the Mother from taking advantage of P's scientific training and knowledge and his long experience.
You must remember that just as the Mother uses your capacities and gives them their field, she must be able to do the same with the capacities of others. If she gives charge of a department of work to one, that must not stand in the way of her consulting or using others. Thus Benjamin and Chandulal are in charge of the building work, but the Mother consults P. too because of his scientific knowledge as an engineer and he has the right to make suggestions or criticisms or indicate any possible improvements, although he is not in charge. So too the Doctor is not in charge of the dispensary, but he is associated with the medical work and the Mother makes use of his expert knowledge and experience, whenever necessary or puts in his hands the treatment of a case of illness. It must be the same between you and P.
It will be best if you fix in your mind and keep to the true rules
1928-09-21
I belong to no nation, no civilisation, no society, no race but to the Divine.
I give obedience to no master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but to the Divine.
To Him I have surrendered all, will, life and self; for Him I am ready to give all my blood, drop by drop, if such is His will, with complete joy; and nothing in His service can be sacrifice for all is perfect delight.
”“Ah! since India is the cradle of religion, since all the Gods preside over her destiny, what is he who will accomplish the miracle of resuscitating this city ...!” (A. Chaumel)
Blinded by false appearances, deceived by calumnies, held back by fears and prejudices, he has passed without knowing it by the side of the god whose intervention he implores; he has come close to the forces which will accomplish the miracle he demands but without waiting to recognise them; and thus he has missed the most beautiful chance of his life—a unique chance—of entering into contact with the mysteries and marvels the existence of which his mind guesses and to which his heart dimly aspires...
In all ages, before receiving initiation the aspirant had to pass through many tests. In the ancient schools these tests were artificial and hence lost the greater part of their value. Now it is no longer the same; the tests are hidden behind the most ordinary daily circumstances and they have a little innocent look of coincidence or chance which makes them so much the more difficult and dangerous.
So it is that India does not reveal the mystery of its treasures except to those who can conquer within themselves the mental preferences and prejudices of race and education. Others go away disappointed ... not having found what they were in search of—because they looked wrongly for it, because they did not agree to pay the price of the Divine.
Pondicherry 21 September 1928
1931-05-23
C. sitting on the floor at the feet of Sri Aurobindo and giving the “surrender of falsehood”.
(Sri Aurobindo's remark on the above:
Seen in the night and written down early in the morning; the offering of the flowers took place later in the morning without C. being told of the prevision.)
23.5.31
1932-03-24
Psychic beings
The quantity is definite but the number is undetermined.
24.3.32
1932-05-04
It is always the same old story of “selling the birthright for a mess of pottage” (I understand the “birthright” as the possibility or capacity to be the first to reach the Divine Realisation).
4.5.32
1932-05-16
I feel inclined to reply:
I live so far from all these conventions that I had not even thought of that.
16.5.32
1932-06-14
Today at Pranam, for the first time I could enter D.'s heart and an emanation of mine settled there.
14.6.32
1934-03-02
We live only because Thou wiliest it. We do not die unless Thou wiliest it.
2.3.34
1937-04-24
The anniversary of my return to Pondicherry which was the tangible sign of the sure Victory over the adverse forces.
24.4.37
1937-10-23
What I want to bring about in the material world, upon the earth.
1) Perfect Consciousness.
2) Integral Knowledge, omniscience.
3) Power Invincible, irresistible, ineluctable (Power), omnipotence.
4) Health, Perfect, constant, unshakable (Health), perpetually renewed energy.
5) Eternal Youth, constant growth, uninterrupted progress.
6) Perfect Beauty, complex and total harmony.
7) Inexhaustible unparalleled Riches, control over all the wealth of this world.
8) The Gift of healing and giving happiness.
9) Immunity from all accidents, invulnerability against all adverse attacks.
10) Perfect Power of expression in all fields and all activities.
11) The Gift of tongues, the power of making oneself understood perfectly by all.
12) And all else necessary for the accomplishment of Thy work.
23 Oct. 1937" }, { mo: 1, yr: 1950, txt: "Silence all outside noise, aspire for the Divine's help; open integrally to it when it comes and surrender to its action, and it will effectively bring about your transformation.
D.'s belief:
The Divine (as manifested in me) is all irony and deceit. It thinks only of playing tricks. When it laughs it mocks; when it says to do something it makes this very thing impossible to do etc.
I was told that our boys (young or old) like to play with me (the exact words were “to give me a game”) for some reason or another, but to play truly and to learn to play they must play among themselves.
You have this extraordinary opportunity of being able to play a game and to take exercise in an atmosphere filled with Divine Consciousness, Light and Power in such a way that each of your movements is so to say permeated by the consciousness and the light and the power which is in itself an intensive yoga; and your ignorant unconsciousness, your blindness and lack of sensitiveness is such that you believe you are giving a game or even helping to play a good old lady for whom you feel a little gratefulness and some kind of affection!
(In the night of the 4th to the 5th of June 1949)
French is indeed the most precise and clearest language. But from the spiritual point of view it is not true that French is the best language to use; for English has a suppleness, a fluidity which French does not have, and this suppleness is indispensable for not deforming what is vaster and more comprehensive in the experience than what mental expression can formulate.
Jan. 1950
1951-01-03
Au revoir, my children, I wish that life may prove happy for you, and that one day you may be born into the Light and Truth.
Au revoir, my child, never forget what your experience was, and do not let any external darkness penetrate and veil your consciousness.
I am with you.
To my child of today and always in remembrance of our new meeting. A prayer for August 15, 1950
Lord,
Give me the strength of a total and perfect sincerity that I may be worthy of Thy Realisation.
Lord, give us the strength to live integrally the ideal we proclaim.
Palmistry is a very interesting art but it depends for its exactitude and truthfulness almost entirely upon the real ability of the one who practises it. Moreover, it relates only to the material destiny and this destiny can be altered by the intervention of the higher forces.
3.1.1951
1952-03-25
Do not take the sorrows of life for what they seem to be; they are in truth a way to greater achievements.
(Music of the 2nd December,'51)
“Who are you?” says the adverse force.
“I am the impartial and truthful Mirror in which everyone finds his own real image.”
25.3.52
1952-10-03
It is a fact that the Godhead has always taken a physical body with the intention of transforming that body and making of it a fit instrument for His manifestation upon earth. But it is a fact also that, until now. He has failed to do so and for one reason or another, He had always to leave that physical body with the work of transformation unfinished.
In order that the Divine may keep till a total transformation takes place, the body through which He is manifesting upon earth, it is necessary that at least one individual, if not more, fulfilling the required conditions of harmony, strength, sincerity, endurance, unselfishness and poise in the physical, should consider the body in which the Divine incarnates, not only as the most important thing, but as the thing exclusively important, more important than the Divine's work itself, or rather that this body should become for him the symbol and the concretisation of the Divine's work upon earth.
3.10.52
1953-07-04
The Lord has said: The hour is come and all the obstacles will be surmounted.
A vision repeated for the third time.
A small mountain train (funiculaire) open, without sides or roof, just seats in rows close to one another, arrives and stops at its terminus. There is only one passenger and no visible driver.
When the train stops, the passenger stands up and steps out of it, on the platform outside. Nothing can be seen of the landscape outside; yet there is a strong feeling that it is the top of a very high mountain covered with ice and snow; beyond it there is only a very clear pale blue sky.
When the passenger stands outside the train he becomes clearly visible. It is Sri Aurobindo, but clean-shaved, no hair, no moustache, no beard, his complexion is pale and ivory, almost translucid. He stands for a second on the platform, and then comes back, sits once more at the same place in the train and says quietly but very decidedly: “No, I will go further”.
And the vision stops abruptly.
4.7.53
1953-10-18
... very few, in fact, specially in an age like ours in which success alone counts and the material satisfactions it brings. However, an ever-increasing number of dissatisfied people are seeking to know the reason of life. And, on the other hand, there are sages who know and strive to help suffering humanity and to spread the light of knowledge. When the two meet, he who knows and he who wants to know, there springs up a new hope in the world, and a little light penetrates the prevailing darkness.
I dream at times of this wonderful thing we could have done together ... but for that I ought to have been beautiful and you a sage! ...
Today was truly a day of victory, victory over all that yet remained human in the physical consciousness.
0 Nature, I bring to thee force and light, truth and power; it is for thee to receive and utilise them. It is thou who wilt be receptive in the fruit of thy creation, man, and open the doors of his understanding; it is thou who wilt give him the energy of progress and the will of transformation; and, above all, it is thou who wilt make him accept the Presence and aspire for Realisation.
18.10.53
1954-05-16
This experience followed conclusively the one I had last night whilst seeing Pranab's film. I felt very strongly that my children were emancipated and that they no longer need my physical intervention to do their work well. It is enough that my presence among them is an inspiration and guide for them to keep a clear vision of the goal and not to go astray on the way. This leads quite naturally to a physical withdrawal into oneself so as to concentrate materially upon the work of transformation of the body. I can now leave them externally to do things according to their own ideas of execution, reducing my presence to a more or less invisible role of creative inspiration and consciousness. 10th May 1954
Spirit of service has gone away from this place.
16.5.54
1954-06-11
When I say that I have initiated someone, I mean that I have revealed myself to this person, without words, and that he was capable of seeing, feeling and knowing What I am.
It is their mental and vital formation of me that they love, it is not myself. More and more am I faced with this fact. Everyone has made for himself an image of me in conformity with his needs and desires; and it is with this image that he is in contact, it is through this that he receives what few universal forces and still less supramental forces succeed in filtering through all these formations. Unfortunately these people cling to my physical presence, otherwise I could withdraw into my inner solitude and, from there, do my work quietly and freely; but this physical presence is for them a symbol and that is why they cling to it, for, in fact, they have very little real contact with what my body truly is, and with the formidable accumulation of conscious energy it represents.
And now, O supreme Force, now that you descend into me and penetrate more and more totally all the atoms of my body, the distance between me and everything around me seems to increase more and more, and more and more do I feel as though I were floating in an atmosphere of radiant consciousness which completely escapes their understanding.
11.6.54
1954-09-08
The body repeats constantly and with a poignant sincerity: “What am I to demand anything whatsoever from anyone at all? Left to myself I am nothing, I know nothing, I can do nothing. Unless the truth penetrates into me and directs me, I am incapable of taking even the minutest decision and of knowing what is the best thing to do and to live even in the most insignificant circumstance. Shall I ever be1 capable of being transformed to the point of becoming What I ought to be and of manifesting What wants to manifest upon earth?” But why does this answer always come from the depths, from You, Lord, with an indisputable certitude: “If you cannot do it, no other body upon earth can do it.” There is but one conclusion: I shall persist in my effort, without giving in, I shall persist until death or until victory.
8.9.54
1954-11-19
Since I love only You, 0 Lord, it is You alone whom I love in all and in each one; and by dint of loving You in them, I shall end up by making them a little conscious of You.
For them, the real thing is to know how to let themselves be loved without any preference and obstruction. But, not only do they not want to be loved except in their own way, they do not want also to open themselves to love unless it comes to them through the intermediary of their choice ... and what could be done in a few hours, a few months or a few years takes centuries to be accomplished.
When a child lives in normal conditions, it has a spontaneous confidence that all it needs will be given to it.
This confidence should persist, unshaken, throughout life; but the limited idea, ignorant and superficial, of its needs which a child has must be replaced progressively by a wider, deeper and truer conception which culminates in the perfect conception of needs in accordance with the supreme wisdom, until we realise that the Divine alone knows what our true needs are and rely upon Him for everything.
November 19, 1954
1955-04-26
The Avatar
The supreme Divine manifested in an earthly form—generally a human form—for a definite purpose.
They have a disastrous atmosphere. They are pessimistic, dissatisfied. shrivelled up—out of tune with both sides at once, with the soul and with physical nature, which makes their life very miserable.
Yesterday morning I distributed petals of “Divine's Love”. The previous night was, here, the darkest of the year and in India it is a great festival. Its true significance is that the Divine's Love is at the base and core of all manifestation even where it seems most completely inconscient.
There is JUSTICE INELUCTABLE
There is here a Consciousness working. Each one when he goes against this divine Consciousness loses something of his consciousness every time he does so. He goes down each time he does something against it. Each one gains in his consciousness every time he acts according to this divine Consciousness.
The world goes on as it is. When there is nothing you or I can do to change it, we can only keep quiet, silent witness like Brahman. As in the world so here also. So many things go on: each one tries to prove his superiority; there is politics of all kinds, propaganda. I only witness like Brahman; I am neither for nor against, neither approve nor condemn.
26.4.55
1956-09-19
There we are, Lord, it is those very people to whom you have shown most love who make you responsible for their difficulties.
My Lord, Thou hast given me tonight this supreme knowledge: We are living only because such is Thy will. We shall die only if it be Thy will.
Thou hadst decided to submit our faith to Thy test and pass our sincerity to Thy touch-stone. Grant that from this ordeal we come out greater and purer.
It is indispensable to observe the lower movements in one's being in a detached and scientific way, like a clear-sighted and perspicacious witness; but one should never allow these movements to express and assert themselves as though they had the right to exist and govern the rest of the being. That is to say, one should never act under the impulsion of these movements, never translate physically their promptings into words or actions, never let their orders be expressed in inner or outer gestures.
19 Sept. 1956" }, { mo: 11, yr: 1957, txt: "And yet there is an analogy. Just as for the piano you may read all the books possible on the art of playing it, if you do not play it yourself you will never be a pianist, so too you may read everything that has been written on occultism, if you do not practise it yourself, you will never be an occultist.
Nov. 1957
1958-02-15
Last night I had the vision of what this supramental world could become if men were not sufficiently prepared. The confusion existing at present upon earth is nothing in comparison with what could take place. Imagine that very powerful will has the power to transform matter as it likes! If the sense of collective unity did not grow in proportion to the development of power, the resulting conflict would be yet more acute and chaotic than our material conflicts.
15.2.1958
1958-03-29
Every outer change must be the spontaneous and inevitable expression of an inner transformation. Normally, every improvement of the condition of physical life must be the flowing out on the surface of a progress realised internally.
29.3.58
1958-07-23
In the final analysis, seeing the world such as it is and seems meant to be irremediable, human-intellect has decided that this universe must be an error of God and that the manifestation or creation is certainly the result of a desire, the desire to manifest, know oneself, enjoy oneself. So the only thing to do is to put an end to this error as soon as possible by refusing to cling to desire and its fatal consequences.
But the Supreme Lord answers that the comedy is not entirely played out, and He adds: “Wait for the last act; undoubtedly you will change your mind.”
23.7.58" } ] }, { t: "About Peace
It is only by the growth and establishment of the consciousness of human unity that a true and lasting peace can be realised upon earth. All means are welcome although the exterior ones have a very limited effect. But the most important, urgent and indispensable of all is a transformation of the human consciousness itself, an enlightenment and a conversion in its workings.
Meanwhile some exterior steps may be taken usefully and the acceptance of the principle of double nationality is one of them.
The main objection to it has always been the possibility of war and the awkward position in which those who have adopted a double nationality would be in case these two countries were at war. But all those who sincerely want peace must understand that the first indispensable step towards it is not to foresee war; any action taking measures in prevision of a possible war is already a step taken towards its outbreak. On the contrary the larger the number of people who have a vital interest in the abolition of war the more effective the chances towards a stable peace until the advent of a new consciousness in man makes of war an impossibility.
Sri Aurobindo's Bust by E. Frankel:2
From the artistic point of view, it is certainly a masterpiece. It is also an inspired work, inspired by an inner contact with Sri Aurobindo or rather with one of his aspects, with one side of his being, the intellectual side, that of knowledge, the Seer.
My Lord, what Thou hast wanted me to do I' have done. The gates of the Supramental have been thrown open and the Supramental Consciousness, Light and Force are flooding the earth.
But as yet those who are around me are little aware of it—no radical change has taken place in their consciousness and it is only because they trust my word that they do not say that nothing has truly happened. In addition the exterior circumstances are still harder than they were and the difficulties seem to be cropping up more unsurmountable than ever.
Now that the supramental is there—for of that I am absolutely certain even if I am the only one upon earth to be aware of it—is it that the mission of this form is ended and that another form is to take up the work in its place? I am putting the question to Thee and ask for an answer—a sign by which I shall know for certain that it is still my work and I must continue in spite of all the contradictions, of all the denials.
Whatever is the sign, I do not care but it must be obvious.
There is nobody here, even among the best, who is ready to give up all his habits, conveniences and preferences to win the final victory, even if he is to break his neck on the way.
One loses most of the advantage of being here if one is not convinced that I can foresee better the consequences and the results of things and actions.
For those who are afraid of a word.
This is what we mean by “Divine”: all the knowledge we have to acquire, all the power we have to obtain, all the love we have to become, all the perfection we have to achieve, all the harmonious and progressive poise we must make manifest in light and joy, all the unknown and new splendours that are to be realised.
This is destined for all those who are working for the organisation and immediate future of human life upon earth, and who see that the only solution of this problem is the concrete and effective realisation of Human Unity.
At the moment, in the physical consciousness, the heart is with X, the lover, and the spiritual confidence with Y, the Guru.
I do not see very well what I have to do in this tableau if it is not as a Will that puts spokes in the wheels of the cart... of the truth of the Ego.
I prefer to withdraw and be the impartial and unseen witness.
I am always happy to receive and to help those who wish for harmony and conciliation, and are ready to correct their mistakes and to progress. But I can be of no help to those who throw all the blame on the others for they are inapt to see the truth and to act accordingly.
But it goes without saying that those who are here and are ready to face some difficulties in order to remain here, will always be welcome.
As usual my words have been completely changed and their meaning quite distorted.
I said that this coming year may prove quite a difficult one.
On the road of the ascending evolution, every one is free to choose the direction he will take: the swift and steep climb towards the summits of Truth, to the supreme realisation or, turning his back to the peaks, the easy descent to the interminable meanders of endless incarnations.
Solution of the economic problem. Arriving at the synthesis of two problems:
1) adjusting the production to the needs 2) adjusting the needs to the production
For me everything in human life is mixed, nothing is completely good, nothing completely bad. I cannot give my entire and exclusive support to this idea or that idea, to one cause or another. The only important thing for me, in action, is Sri Aurobindo's work, automatically my conscious support is with all that helps that work and in proportion of the help. And for the work to be carried on as it must be I need all collaborations and all helps, I cannot accept only this one or that one and reject the others. I cannot belong to this party or that party. I belong to the Divine alone and my action upon earth is and will always be for the triumph of the Divine, irrespective of all sects and parties.
A short explanation will surely increase the interest of the picture shown to you tonight.
You will notice that it is in three sections, two black and one, the most extensive, in colour; the two black sections (first and last) show how things appear in the physical world, the coloured one expresses a similar sequence of events in the vital world, the world where one can go in deep sleep when one gets out of the body. So long as you have a body no true harm can happen to you in the vital world for the physical body acts like a protection and you can always return into it at will.
This is expressed in the picture in a classical way. You will see that the little girl wears on her feet some magic red slippers and that so long as she keeps the slippers on her feet, nothing wrong can truly happen to her. The ruby red slippers are the sign and the symbol of the connection with the physical body and so long as the slippers are on her feet she can at will return to her body and take shelter therein.
Two other details can be noted with interest. One is the snow shower that saves the party from the influence of the wicked witch who by her black magic has stopped their advance towards the blue castle of knowledge and intellectual power. In the vital, snow is the symbol of purity itself. It is the purity of their feelings and intentions that saves them from the great danger.
Note that to go to the castle of the good wizard they must follow the big path of golden bricks, the path of luminous confidence and joy.
The second is when Dorothy throws water on the straw man to save him from burning, some water falls on the face of the wicked witch who at once gets dissolved and dies. The water is the symbol of the power of purification and no hostile being or force can resist this power handled with good will and sincerity.
Finally when the good fairy teaches to the little girl, on knocking her two red slippers one against the other, how to go back home, by home she means the physical world which is the place of protection and realisation.
As you see the subject of this picture is interesting and not altogether deprived of knowledge; unhappily the whole set up is not as beautiful and harmonious as it could have been. There are some serious mistakes of taste and many regrettable vulgarities.
There is only one thing of which I am absolutely sure, and that is who lam. Sri Aurobindo also knew it and declared it. Even the doubts of the whole of humanity would change nothing to this fact.
But another fact is not so certain—it is the usefulness of my being here in a body doing the work I am doing. It is not out of any personal urge that I am doing it. Sri Aurobindo told me to do it and that is why I do it as a sacred duty, in obedience to the dictates of the Supreme.
Time will reveal how far earth has benefitted through it.
A self-willed man can not be grateful, because when he gets what he wants he gives all the credit for it to his own will, and when he gets what he does not want he resents it badly and throws all the blame on whoever he considers responsible. God, man or nature.
Compassion and gratitude are purely psychic virtues. They appear in the consciousness only with the participation of the psychic being in active life. The vital and physical feel them as weaknesses because they put a check upon the free expression of their impulsions based on the power of force.
As usual, the mind, when it is not sufficiently educated, is the accomplice of the vital being and the slave of the physical nature whose crushing laws it does not know well through their half-conscious mechanism. When the mind awakens to the consciousness of the first psychic movements, it deforms them in its ignorance and changes compassion into pity and gratitude into the will to recompense which is transformed gradually into the capacity to recognise and admire. It is only when the psychic consciousness is all-powerful in the being that compassion for all that is below it on the evolutionary ladder and gratitude for all that is higher than it, in whatever form, manifest in their initial and luminous purity, not containing any vestige of the sense of condescension in the compassion or of inferiority in the gratitude.
In the Bible, God calls Cain and asks him: 'What have you done with your brother?'
Today I call man and ask him: “What have you done with the earth?”
You have brought down upon earth Peace and Freedom.
Now Freedom and Wisdom must manifest in the heart of every man.
Have you never been mistaken in any of your decisions? Yes, you have been mistaken, haven't you? and many a time.
Then, by what right do you think that when my decision is not the same as yours, it is I who am mistaken?
'... stand at street-corners, hat held out for alms. Had we diplomatically sided with a religious or political body, we would be nourishing, but the divine white radiance must have no stain.
Selfless work, the self-giving to the realisation of an ideal is for ordinary men something so unthinkable that they hasten to sully it so as not to have to admire it.
... are at one in vilifying the Ashram and bespattering it with their mud. It is the old story that repeats itself.... The worst enemies come together when it is a question of stoning a prophet, crucifying God or condemning a sage to death.
To do good work one must have good taste.
Taste can be educated by study and the help of those who have good taste.
To learn, it is necessary to feel first that one does not know.
15.12.65
Never I sit in meditation—there is no time and no necessity for it because it is not through meditation that one gives oneself to the Divine, it is through consecration and surrender and it is through all activities of life that consecration and surrender are to be made.
26.11.67
Until now, my spontaneous attitude was that of the supreme Mother who carries the universe in her loving arms, and I was dealing with each one as with the child from whom she tolerates everything equally; and all what the people here were doing to please me I was taking as a token of their love and I was very grateful for it. Today I have learnt that many, if not most/are looking at me as their Guru and that they are eager to please me because to please the Guru is the best way to acquire merit on the path. And then I have understood that the duty of the Guru is to encourage from each one only that which can lead him quickly to the Lord and serve His Divine Purpose,—and I am very grateful for the lesson.
In our way of working we must not be the slaves of Nature; all these habits of trying and changing1, doing and undoing and redoing again and again, wasting energy, labour, material and money, are Nature's way of action, not the Divine's. The Divine Consciousness sees first the truth of a work, the best way of doing it according to given circumstances, and when She acts, it is final, She never comes back on what is done, She goes forward, using failure as well as success for a new progress, one more step towards the goal.
In order to progress, Nature destroys while the Divine Consciousness stimulates growth and finally transforms.
We have faith in Sri Aurobindo.
He represents for us something we formulate to ourselves with words which seem to us the most exact for expressing our experience. These words are evidently the best according to us for formulating our experience.
But if, in our enthusiasm, we were convinced that they are the only appropriate words to express correctly what Sri Aurobindo is and the experience he has given us, we would become dogmatic and be on the point of founding a religion.
He who has a spiritual experience and a faith formulates it in the most appropriate words for himself.
But if he is convinced that this expression is the only correct and true one for this experience and faith, he becomes dogmatic and tends to create a religion.
Forward! towards a better future, the realisation of tomorrow.
To cure oneself: [of] a critical judgment expressing itself through an incontinence of speech
1) When one is in this state to refuse absolutely to speak—if need be to make it physically impossible for oneself to speak.
2) To study oneself pitilessly and become aware that one carries in oneself precisely all the things one finds so riduculous in others.
3) To discover in one's nature the state contrary to this (benevolence, humility, goodwill) and insist on developing it to the detriment of the opposite element.
In all religious and specially occult initiations, the ritual of the different ceremonies is prescribed in all detail; all the words pronounced, all the gestures made have their importance and the least infraction of the rule, the least fault committed can have fatal consequences.
It is the same in the material life and if one had the initiation into the true way of living, one could transform the physical existence.
This body has neither the uncontested authority of a god nor the imperturbable calm of the sage. It is yet only an apprentice in supermanhood.
On the choice of a motor-car:
Do you want to go from one place to another without getting tired and without spending much time on the way, or do you want to be smart and look like an important man?
And the body says to the Supreme Lord: “What You want me to be, I shall be, what You want me to know, I shall know, what You want me to do, I shall do.”
And you want to make me speak and mentalise the experience until a new “system” is established and you can sit down comfortably in your new mental construction.
By definition the Ashramite has resolved to consecrate his life to the realisation and service of the Divine.
For this four virtues are indispensable, without which progress is uncertain and subject to interruptions and troublesome falls at the first opportunity:
Sincerity, faithfulness, modesty and gratitude.
... substitute the spirit of rivalry and competition by the goodwill of collaboration and mutual understanding.
liberty and order fraternity and independence equality and hierarchy unity and diversity abundance and scarcity effort and repose power and compassion discernment and benevolence generosity and economy wastage and avarice
Obey your soul, it alone has the right to govern your life.
In their blindness men leave the Light and go to the darkness to obtain knowledge! ... so that his life may be governed by a true splendour of soul, so as to face his responsibilities with a noble and generous heart.
And the radiant bliss of this splendour was felt in a perfect peace.
Transformation and intimacy with my blessings full of love and energy.
21.6.70
Consciousness is a state and a power. Love is a force and an action.
When Consciousness separated from its Origin and became inconscience the Origin emanated Love to re-awaken Consciousness from the depth of the inconscience and bring it back into touch with its Origin.
It may be said that at its origin love is the supreme power of attraction which awakens, in response, the irresistible need of an absolute self-giving, they are the two poles of the urge towards complete fusion.
No other movement could, better and more surely than this, throw a bridge across the abyss dug by the sense, of separation that comes from the formation of the individual. It was necessary to bring back to itself what had been projected into space without destroying for this purpose the universe created thus.
That is why love sprang up, the irresistible power of union.
This world is a chaos where darkness and light, falsehood and truth, life and death, hatred and love are so closely enlaced that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from one another and still more impossible to decide between them and undo a grip which has all the horror of a merciless struggle, so much the more intense the more veiled it is, above all in the consciousness of man where the conflict changes into the anguish of knowing, of ability, of conquering—a dark and dolorous battle, the more atrocious because it seems without any issue, but which can be resolved above all sensations and feelings and ideas, beyond the worlds of the mind ... in the Divine Consciousness.
The integral yoga is constituted of an uninterrupted series of examinations which one must pass without being warned about them beforehand—which puts you under the obligation of being always vigilant and attentive.
Three groups of examiners set these tests. Apparently they have nothing to do with one another and their procedures are so different, at times even they seem so contradictory that they do not appear to be able to move towards the same end, and yet they complete one another, they collaborate for the same purpose and are indispensable to the integrality of the result.
These three categories of examinations are those set by the forces of Nature, those set by the spiritual and divine forces, and those set by the hostile forces. These latter are the most deceptive in their appearance and in order not to be taken by surprise, unprepared, demands a constant state of vigilance, sincerity and humility.
The most banal circumstances, the events of everyday life, people, things,—apparently the most insignificant, all belong to one or other of these three categories of examiners. In this great and complex organisation of tests it is the events usually considered the most important in life which constitute the examinations easiest to pass for they find you on your guard and prepared. One stumbles more easily on the little pebbles on the road because they do not draw attention.
Endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and intrepedity are the qualities more specially required for the examinations of physical Nature.
Aspiration, confidence, idealism, enthusiasm and generosity in self-giving for the spiritual examinations.
Vigilance, sincerity and humility for the examinations set by the adverse forces.
And do not think that on one side there are those who pass exams and on the other those who set them. At the same time, according to the circumstances and moments, one is both examiner and examinee and it may even happen that one is simultaneously,
all at once, examined and examiner. And the profit drawn from this depends upon the quality and degree of intensity in one's aspiration and the awakening of one's consciousness.
And, finally, a last recommendation, never pose as an examiner. For, whilst it is very well to remember constantly that one is perhaps fairly in the course of passing a very important exam, it is on the contrary extremely dangerous to think oneself appointed to set tests for others, for this is opening the door to the most ridiculous and disastrous vanities.
The overmind is the age of the gods and consequently of religions; the idea of the unity of religions is one of the principal ideas of the age of the overmind.
In the supramental creation there will no longer be any religions, the whole of life will be the expression, the flowering into forms of the divine Unity manifesting in the world, and there will no longer be any gods. The great divine beings who will choose not to manifest physically will be friends and collaborators on a footing of equality.
When the physical substance is supramentalised, to be incarnated upon earth will not be a cause of inferiority; on the contrary, one will gain from it a plenitude which could not be had otherwise.
The whole of humanity should be organised upon these bases. But the organisation will not be true and viable unless at its centre and at its head there is the supramental Truth-Consciousness manifested in an. individual or a small group of individuals who will be the representatives of the new race, the incarnation of the supramental consciousness upon earth.
During the last lesson we learnt how to detach ourselves from our thoughts so as to be able to observe them like an attentive spectator.
Today we must learn how to watch these thoughts, look at them like an enlightened judge so as to discern between the good ones and the bad, between thoughts which are useful and those which are harmful, between constructive thoughts which lead to victory and defeatist thoughts which take us away from it. It is this power of discernment which we have to acquire now.
Second stage—discernment—discerning between good and bad thoughts, useful and harmful thoughts, thoughts which help progress and defeatist thoughts.
This is the counterpart of what we read last time. But note that here it is a question only of the thoughts which produce resentment. It is because rancour as well as jealousy are among the most widespread causes of human misery.
“But how to get rid of rancour”? A vast and generous heart is surely the best means, but it is not within everybody's reach. The control of one's thought may be more commonly used. Thought-control is the third stage of our mental discipline. After the en-lightened judge of our consciousness has discerned between the useful thoughts and the harmful ones, there comes the inner policeman who will let only the accepted thoughts pass and refuse admission strictly to every undesirable element. With a magisterial gesture this policeman will close the entry to every bad thought and push it away as far as possible.
It is this movement of admission or refusal which we call the control of thought and this will be the object of our meditation this evening.
He pushed on the table before me a scrap of paper which seemed to have been torn from an exercise-book page, without any letterhead or anything official, on which he had written for me in a clumsy hand that I was promising to pay for the extra stamps if they were necessary.
I felt like a poor traveller accosted in the corner of a wood by a band of brigands, pistols in hand, asking you to empty your pockets before letting you pass. I hesitated for a moment, but I am a sport and I signed, thinking 'We shall see how far they dare to go...
In this world one pays dearly for wanting to be unselfish!
In a severe tone:
“Madam, you are pledging your word.”
Very quietly:
“I know it, sir, and when I make a promise, I keep it. But for me these things don't have much importance. I have no attachment for any religion, and when one has no attachment, one has no aversion either. For me religions are forms, much too human, of spiritual life. Each one expresses one aspect of the single and eternal Truth, but in expressing it exclusively of the other aspects it deforms and diminishes it. None has the right to call itself the only true one, any more than it has the right to deny the truth contained in the others. And all of them together would not suffice to express the Supreme Truth which is beyond all expression, even whilst being present in each one.”
In a dry tone:
“I am sorry, madam, but in this field I cannot follow you.”
Smiling and peaceful:
“I know that very well, sir, and I told you all this only to explain to you why I did not reply very seriously to the promise you were demanding from me.”
[ST]
Abhi (the bold) Narottam's son The Mother
Abhinava (The new one) Son of Mangal Sikka 1.7.59 The Mother 9.11.60
Ahuta (The called) Son of Srikrishnaprasad The Mother
Antarjyoti (Inner Light) Mahabeer 2.10.61 The Mother
Anurakta (Lovingly devoted) Tony Scott 16.11.61 The Mother
Ashatita (Unexpected) (The son of Amolokchand) 16.7.59 The Mother
Astha (Trust) Mounnou's sister 13.7.60 The Mother 8.48 P.M.
Astu (Son of Sourin Ganguli) The Mother
Atmavadan (The face of the Self) Chandra's son born on the 14th September 1960 at 12.55 The Mother
Avadhani (Careful) The Mother
Avi (Square, manifestation of balanced) Born on 6.6.66 The Mother
A visesha. (Beyond the definite) Ajay The Mother
Ayati (l'avenir) The Mother
Bhagavata Jiveshwara 22.11.59 The Mother
Bhupriya A name for Murakoshi (Paul) 9.7.56 The Mother
Chand (Moon) Chhotanarayan's son The Mother
Cheta (awake) Madan's Baby 9.6.57 The Mother
Chinmayi Chit, the pure spirit consciousness. Chinmayi, one who is full or all made of the pure spirit consciousness. Sri Aurobindo
Chintan (Pensif) Son of Shyam Sundar The Mother
Dara A name borne in ancient times (Given to Ibrahim)
To Dara
There were two Emperors of Persia named Darius (Dara). The first was Darius Hystaspes, the greatest of his dynasty, and the other Darius Codomanus, the last of the line who was conquered by Alexander.
It is the first whose name you bear.
Datta (The dedicated) Grandchild of Rassendren The Mother
Datā (The dedicated) Grandchild of Rassendren The Mother
Devdutt (Offered to the Divine) Byankatraman The Mother
Dhimati Udar's aunt The Mother
Dwija (The twice-born) Tarachand 11.5.58 The Mother
Dyuman (Luminous one) Sri Aurobindo
Harsha (Happiness) Rini's daughter 17.1.61 The Mother
Hutā (The offered one) Savita The Mother
Ishit (Willed for) Urmi's child 20.11.62 The Mother
Iti (The last) 17.11.54 The Mother
Jyotipriya (The lover of light) Sri Aurobindo
Kanishtha (The youngest) Ananda Umachigi The Mother
Kim Babu Lakshman Reddy's son 23.10.59 The Mother
Komal (Delicate) Ramakrishna Jain's daughter 20.11.60 The Mother
Lalita (Beauty of refinement and harmony.
This is the idea underlying the word. It is also the name of one of the companions of Radha.)
Napta (Grandchild or protector) Mamata's grandchild 1.11.60 The Mother
Navajāta (The new born) 12.9.54 The Mother
Nirata (Dévouement sincère) 4.6.51-4.6.61 The Mother
Nishtha (The name means one-pointed fixed and steady concentration devotion and faith in the single aim—the Divine and the Divine Realisation.) 5th November 1938 Sri Aurobindo
Prapatti (Surrender) K. C. Pati I.5.60 The Mother
Pulakā (Cheerful) Kabi Sicka 13.9.61 The Mother
To Patricia Rijuta (Straightforward) 21.5.60 The Mother
Sahadja (Spontanée) Christiane 26.11.56 The Mother
Sahaya (Helpful) Toshiko 8.1.57 The Mother
Saphala (The successful) Shyamsundar's son 11.5.58 The Mother
Saraswaty The Mother
Satprem (The true love) Bernard 3.3.57 The Mother
Saumitra Werner Blessings 22.10.58 The Mother
Shantikama (Aspiring for peace) 8.2.60 The Mother
Shantikar (2nd son of Dayakar) June 1955 The Mother
Srimayi (Toute-beauté) Varvara 8.12.58 The Mother
Subodha (Awaken) with blessings, Gertrude 3.7.58 The Mother
Sudhira
The name means one who is quiet, serious in mood, firm-willed and steadfast in action and purpose.(To Zahara, Ibrahim's sister is given the name Sudhira.)
Sukhi (Happy) Rambhai's grandson 5.4.60-61 The Mother
Sukhita (Comfortable) 18.9.62 The Mother
Sukriti (Fulfilment) Grand-nephew of Madanlal Himatsingha The Mother
Swagata (“Welcome”) Bam's son 2.10.57 The Mother
Swagata (pour Rassendran) The Mother
Swagatā (pour Rassendran) The Mother
Tanmaya (Wholly His) Jean Raymond 23.8.62 The Mother
Udara Noble, generous, upright and sincere. 26 April 1938 Sri Aurobindo
To Udar with blessings Sri Aurobindo The Mothert
Ujjvala (Bright) Sita's son... 15.7.57 The Mother
Utsuka (Curious) Son of Bijon's daughter The Mother
Uttamā (The ultimate, the last, the best) Kishori's youngest daughter 28.5.60-61 The Mother
19-1-33 Vijaya “Conquest” Sri Aurobindo
Yatanti (Persevering) Tony 6.5.60 The Mother
1960-01-21
The four S. that Subhadra must develop:
Sincerity Simplicity Silence Steadiness
Satyen The four S— I propose to your realisation:
Sincerity Simplicity Straightforwardness Steadiness
Chinmayi's C:
Consciousness Courage Cheerfulness Continuity
Pavitra's P:
Peace Purity Patience Perspicacity
My blessings are very dangerous. They cannot be for this one or for that one or against this person or against that thing. It is for, or well I will put it in a mystic way:
It is for the Will of the Lord to be done, with full force and power. So it is not necessary that there should always be a success. There might be a failure also, if such is the Will of the Lord. And the Will is for the progress, I mean the inner progress. So whatever will happen will be for the best.
21.1.60
There are some petals, inside, but they are charged with force, and if you keep them upon you, the contact with me is kept. So if you refer inside, you can establish the contact and have even an answer.
Let him keep this envelope in his pocket and look at the picture when he feels depressed.
Blessings
Mother used to write the full name only on documents etc. where it was so required. She wrote:
(For N.)
Let this year that begins for me, be the beginning of a new life made of unshakeable faith and trust in the Divine and of a constant aspiration.
February 1934
(Mantram for Pandit)
In the name of my Lord, for the sake of my Lord, with the will of my Lord, by the power of my Lord, stop immediately harassing us.
(Prayer given to children of Dortoir Boarding)
We all want to be the true children of our Divine Mother.
But for that, sweet Mother, give us patience and courage, obedience, good will, generosity and unselfishness, and all the necessary virtues.
This is our prayer and aspiration.
15 January 1947
(Madanlal)
My Lord, make me entirely thine.
(K)
Grant me a quiet trust, a peaceful strength, an ardent faith and devotion.
(S.A.)
My Lord, my Mother,
You are always with me with your blessings and your grace Your Presence is the supreme protection
“My Lord, grant me this quiet trust in Thee which overcomes all the difficulties.”
A prayer for Gunvant, with love and blessings
“Lord, give me this Grace to never forget you.”
17.12.58
“Lord, give me perfect sincerity, that sincerity which will lead me straight to Thee.”
August 1962
A grain of practice is worth a mountain of theories.
Lord, on this anniversary day of my birth, grant that the power to know changes in me into a power to transform myself integrally.
Lord, grant that my vision of things may be direct and objective and my acts be completely transformed by it.
Remember that the Mother is always with you. Address Her as follows and She will pull you out of all difficulties:
“O Mother, Thou art the light of my intelligence, the purity of my soul, the quiet strength of my vital, the endurance of my body. I rely on Thee alone and want to be entirely Thine. Make me surmount all obstacles on the way.”
Lord, grant that a stupidity once committed and recognised may never be repeated.
(Dahyabhai)
Let this new house be filled with an ardent aspiration for the Divine Realisation and in answer to the call the Divine Presence will be there.
7.10.51
When writing materials like fountain pens, ball-pens, pencils were offered to her, Mother would often try them immediately. Here is a specimen of a few pencils tried out on a piece of paper:
the good pencil a nice pencil another nice pencil a still better pencil the perfect pencil
MOTHER'S SYMBOL
Centre and 4 powers white. The 12, all of different colours in three groups (1) top group red passing through orange towards yellow, (2) next group yellow passing through green towards blue,(3) blue passing through violet towards red. If white is not convenient, the centre may be gold (powder).
20.3.1934
Sri Aurobindo'S SYMBOL
SYMBOL OF CENTER OF EDUCATION
(From time to time, especially in the early years of the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo used to issue general instructions to the inmates. Here are a few of them)
It has been found necessary to change some of the forms and methods hitherto used to help by external means, the individual and collective sadhana. This has to be done especially in regard to the consecration of food, the collective meditation and the individual contact of the sadhak with the Mother. The existing forms were originally arranged in order to make possible a spiritual and psychic communion on the most physical and external planes, by which there would be an interchange of forces, a continuous increase of the higher consciousness on the physical plane, a more and more rapid change of the external nature of the sadhaks and afterwards an increasing descent of the supramental light and power into Matter.
Meditation at 7 a.m. on all days of the week except Wednesday and Friday.
Flower offering on Tuesday and Thursday, none on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
All fixed or daily times for sadhaks seeing the Mother are cancelled. Every day the Mother will call those whom she wants to see. Any others who need to see her, will inform Nolini early in the morning or the night before, and write the reason for their request which will be acceded to or otherwise dealt with, according to circumstances and possibilities.
The soup will be distributed in the evening in the downstairs verandah of Sri Aurobindo's house. All who taste it must be present at 8.30 and remain seated in silence till the Mother comes. Before the distribution there will be a few minutes concentration all together.
The night meditations are cancelled for a time.
On the first of each month, the distribution from the stores will be made in the store room, in the presence of the Mother, at 8 p.m.
The Ashram is meant for Yoga, not for musical entertainments, or other social activities.
Those that live in the Ashram are requested to live quietly and noiselessly, and if they are not capable themselves of meditation, they must at least leave the others to meditate.
1) Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is indeed, always present.
2) All new-comers and persons connected with them are hereby informed that every new arrival to the Ashram is to be reported to Purani on the same day in order to furnish information for the Police.
3) There have been several instances recently in which members of the Ashram have been rude and over-bearing in their behaviour to the French Police when they come to the Ashram in connection with the registration of new arrivals. There can be no possible excuse for this kind of conduct, especially as the police authorities have agreed to our own proposals in the matter and we have undertaken to help them with all necessary informations. Sri Aurobindo has already given a warning against making trouble for the Ashram with the authorities; it ought not to be necessary to repeat it.
Especial care must be taken during these days when many are arriving from outside. If the police come for information, they must not be sent rudely away; they should be asked to wait and information be given to Purani who will deal with the matter.
4) Food and other requirements are given in the Ashram to those who have made a complete surrender of their means to the Mother and receive only what she gives to them. If anyone receives money from outside and keeps it, it will be understood that he wishes to live on his own independent means and does not need anything from the Ashram and arrangements will be made accordingly.
5) Furniture purchased by a temporary inmate for personal use remains a property of the Ashram when he leaves the place. He cannot take it with him nor claim it back when he comes again.
6) Nothing should be sent out for publication (contributions to newspapers and Magazines or books) without having been first submitted to Sri Aurobindo for approval.
7) Sri Aurobindo's work is purely spiritual. Anyone entering the Ashram as a member must abstain from political connections or activities.
8) The moment one enters the life of the Ashram and takes up the Yoga he ceases to belong to any creed or caste or race; he is one of Sri Aurobindo's disciples and nothing else. Race prejudices, caste feeling, pride of sect or contempt of other religions have no place here. Every sadhak should remember this in his thought and speech and dealings with the others.
9) Visitors from outside should not be received in the Ashram by the sadhaks except under special circumstances and by permission. Infringement of this rule may have very inconvenient consequences for the work.
10) Nothing should be spoken to outsiders as to what passes in the Ashram without special permission from the Mother.
11) Outsiders should not be allowed within the precincts of any of the houses of the Ashram. If anyone wishes to see the Ashram, it can be done only after special permission from the Mother.
12) Rule No. 4 applies only to permanent members of the Ashram. Those who stay only for a time must contribute to the expenses a monthly sum to be fixed by the Mother.
13) Permanent members of the Ashram are expected to undertake some part of the work necessary for its organisation and maintenance. The nature of the work to be given to them will be decided by the Mother. Those who reside temporarily may also assist while they are here.
14) This Ashram, maintaining almost a hundred people, has to be run at a heavy expense; it is therefore the understanding that while those who have nothing (the majority) are admitted free and nothing is asked from them, the few who have something are expected to give what they have. If they wish to have the charge of their whole spiritual and material future taken over by us, it is at least fair that they should make the offering of all their possessions.
December 1, 1929
After a careful study of the Ashram, nothing short of spiritual intensity is needed for the conquest over the greed of food.
27.11.29
Why burnest thou, O fire, within my soul? Cheated by hope I sink beneath the strain Of thy divinity that has allured With its huge promise of unearthly goal This human, yea, too human self of mine! Too long have I thy scorching bliss endured, Too long the ecstasy of godstruck pain! Madden not thus my failing flesh and mind— For mercy's sake, tell me what Might divine Has blown the blaze of thy effulgent wind Into my life? What immortality Beckons thee forward, guides thee from behind, O Shining Shadow of Dark Mystery?
Poem as corrected by Sri Aurobindo:
1) Why burnst thou thus, O fire, within my soul?
2) Baulked of my hope I sink beneath the strain
3) Of the divinity that has allured
4) With the vast promise of its far off goal
5) This human, O, too human self of mine!
6) Thy scorching bliss I have too long endured, Too long this ecstasy of godstruck pain! Madden not thus my failing flesh and mind—
7) Have pity, let me feel the Might divine
8) That blew thy blaze on some effulgent wind Into my life. What immortality
9) Beckons thee on or guides thee from behind,
10) O Shining Shadow of that Mystery?
Sri Aurobindo's comments written below the corrected poem:
1) Rhythm weak.
2) “Cheated” is too common and violent to be in tune with the style ((of the)) poem.
3) “The” gives a larger idea than “thy” and avoids a rather awkward construction of the syntax.
4) “promise of unearthly goal” is not English. “An” or “its” is needed before the adjective—in the latter case the first “its” has to go. “Huge” gives a sense of uncouthness which it is not your intention to give.
5) yea is archaic and rhetorical.
6) I alter the order both to get rid of an awkward inversion and to give a more natural turn to the repetition of “too long”. To put the object between the subject and the verb should be avoided—it can only rarely be used and then only in order to get an unusual and powerful effect. On the other ((hand)) to put the object at the beginning for the sake of emphasis is permissible.
7) “For mercy's sake” is impossibly colloquial,—it cannot be used in poetry.
8) You cannot speak of “the blaze: of a wind”—the phrase is too violent.
9) “Or” is indispensable here for smoothness in the sense.
10) “Dark” is out of place, it gives a sense of something sad and adverse. “That” referring back to “Might Divine” and indicating some supreme rahasyam would be much more poetic and profound.
1961-09-08
The stars have no decisive influence. It is only if one does not believe in the Divine that one unnecessarily suffers by believing that they determine one's life.
I have known many astrologers both in Europe and India. So far, nobody has been able to read the future correctly. There are three reasons for the failure. First; the astrologers do not know how to read the future properly. Secondly, the horoscope is always incorrectly made—unless a man is a mathematical genius. And even for such a person it is very difficult to make a correct horoscope. Thirdly, when people say that the stars in this or that house at the time of birth rule your life, they are quite wrong. The stars under which you are born are only “tape-recorders” of physical conditions. They do not rule the future of the soul. There is something beyond; which rules the stars themselves and everything else. The soul belongs to this Supreme Being. And if it is doing Yoga, then all the more it should never believe in the power of the stars or in any other power.
An astrologer who predicts a catastrophe for you is like a joker. Many jokers say things like “Today you will break your neck!” But in spite of the joke nothing happens.
Only a great Yogi can tell you your future correctly. But even then there is the Supreme Will which alone controls and decides everything.
8.9.1961
1968-09-16
X. is a very refined girl, and she is extremely sensitive, easily hurt. Never scold her or speak harshly to her or force her to do anything. I find her very nice. But she looked so frightened—I don't know who could have told her about me that she should feel like that. Tell her that I found her very nice. She is very refined but somehow she has been living all tightened up. Let her feel quite free, don't try to put any ring around her. Let her feel completely relaxed and free here, and tell her that she should relax and just feel as if she were all the time in sunshine.
16.9.68
The Mother listening to music
The Mother, Madhav, Champaklal
It may be said that perfection is attained, though it remains progressive, when the receptivity from below is equal to the force from above which wants to manifest.
3.1.51
1954-08-11
Collaboration and reciprocal goodwill are indispensable for good work.
11.8.54
1955-08-15
The closer you come to the Divine the more you live under a shower of overwhelming evidences of His immeasurable Grace.
15.8.55
Before getting angry for the mistakes of others one should always remember one's own mistakes.
It is by combined and patient effort that. all good. work is done.
When you start a quarrel it is as if you were declaring war to the Divine's work.
For the work steadiness and regularity are as necessary as skill. Whatever you do, do it always carefully.
If mistakes were not to be effaced, then never the world could reach salvation.
There is no fire that can be compared with passion, no misfortune equal to hatred, no misery comparable with the agitation of the mind.
He who follows the steep path that climbs the heights can easily slip down into the abyss.
Divine solicitude is supporting you in the disinterested work through which you will attain transformation.
Open to the New Light that has dawned upon Earth and your path will be illumined.
To be always happy, with an unclouded, unfluctuating happiness—of all things this is the most difficult to accomplish.
Our faith in the omnipotence of the Grace is never equal to what the Grace itself is.
July 1956
There is nothing which, in the last analysis, is not an instrument leading to the integral Victory of the Divine.
July 56
September 1956
**Be always ready to receive the Divine for He may come to you at any moment at all.
And because He has kept you waiting at the rendezvous, that is not a reason for you to be late.
Sept. 56
1957-05-07
In order to be able to conquer death and win immortality, one must neither fear death nor desire it.
To seek for pleasure is to ask for pain, for they are the obverse and reverse of the same thing.
It is a mistake or a superstition to believe that a thing or an outer circumstance can be the cause of anything whatsoever. All things and all circumstances are the concomittant effects of a Force which acts from behind the veil.
The Force acts and each one reacts according to his own nature.
Unless your goal is the Divine Realisation upon earth, at whatever cost, take good care, do not come too close to the divine messengers for their action is like a hurricane that sweeps away all established things.
7.5.57
1957-08-09
Every word spoken uselessly is a dangerous gossiping. Every malicious word, every slander is a degradation of the consciousness.
And when this slander is expressed in a vulgar language and gross terms, then that is equivalent to a suicide—the suicide of one's soul.
9.8.57
1957-10-02
My heart aspires to be vast enough for Thy Victory.
For those who use only their physical eyes, the victory cannot be apparent until it is total, that is to say, physical.
But this does not mean that it is not already won in principle.
2.10.57
1957-11-13
Widen yourself as far as the extreme bounds of the universe—and beyond.
Take upon yourself always all the necessities of progress and dissolve them in the ecstasy of Unity. Then you will be divine.
13.11.57
(about the gnostic supramental consciousness)
What gives the sense of a great simplicity; for ft is always when one goes down that the complications begin.
One speaks a great deal about this teaching but one does not follow it.
Human beings for the most part have the inveterate habit of deceiving themselves. They deceive themselves in hundreds of different ways, each more slyly tricky and subtle than the other, and all this with at once a perfect candour and a perfect insincerity.
1957
Love alone can overcome hate and violence.
Let the Divine Compassion express itself through you always and in all circumstances.
The divine compassion reaches out not only to the one who is eaten but also to the one who eats, not only to the one who is tortured but also the one who tortures.
1957.
1958-06-03
To give oneself to the Divine, to receive and be the Divine, to transmit and spread forth the Divine: these are the three simultaneous movements which constitute our total relation with the Divine.
It is the supreme Wisdom that decides these things and not the ignorant human will.
And yet the Divine is everywhere in the ignorant man as well as in the sage
S. is always present in our thoughts and living in our hearts.
For the thought the world is small, for the heart there is no distance.
Be faithful to your ideal and dedicate your work to the Divine.
The Lord will possess his universe perfectly only when the universe will have become the Lord.
Here is love and here the Presence, and the indestructible Wealth.
Get rid of all violence and you will no longer have any fear.
For those whose destiny it is to scale the summits, the least false step risks being a mortal danger.:
In the course of time and even in the course of your present life you can make your choice once and for all, irrevocably, and then you have only to confirm it with every new occasion; or else if you do not take a definite decision immediately,1you will have to choose anew at each moment between the falsehood and the Truth.
One of the chief functions of the physical mind is to doubt. If you listen to it it will always find a thousand reasons for doubting. But you must know that the physical mind is working in ignorance and full of falsehoods.
The Divine Love is the essence of Truth and cannot be affected by the human confusions.
In the Ashram one must do only what one may do publicly, for nothing remains hidden. As for my protection it is equally overall and not over some as against others.
You cannot expect another to be perfect unless you are yourself perfect. Now to be perfect is to be exactly what the supreme Lord wants you to be.
3.6.58
1959
Better not count upon man.
July 59
1963-03-25
It is not in man's nature to be faithful.
A Company that has no name, no business and no money, is not a Company, it is a fraud.
The only salvation is in an absolute sincerity and truthfulness.
25.3.63
1971-03-26
A gift made through vanity is profitable neither to the giver nor to the receiver.
As long as there is within any being the possibility of an inner conflict, it means that he has still some insincerity in him.
It is better to state a truth than to disregard it; but it is much better still to live it than to state it.
There must be nobility in one's nature not to bear a grudge against someone who has done you good.
To realise the progressive truth, theories must be modelled on practice and not practice adapted to the theory.
Men tolerate the presence of the Divine upon earth only on condition that He suffers there.
All that is conducive to the keeping of one's consciousness in the most material planes of the being would be criminal.
There is no greater victory than that of controlling oneself.
One must not take consequences for causes.
Goodwill for all and goodwill from all, is the basis of peace and harmony.
Whatever is your personal value or even your individual realisation, the first quality required in yoga is humility.
Mother is with all those who arc sincere in their aspiration towards a divine life.
26.3.71
1971-11-12
For each problem there is a solution that can give satisfaction to everybody, but for finding this ideal solution each one must want it instead of meeting the others with the will to enforce one's own preference.
Enlarge your consciousness and aspire for the satisfaction of all.
All quarrels in the place where food is prepared, makes food undigestible. The cooking must be done in silence and harmony.
Insincerity leads on the path to ruin.
Even within the confusion, there is the seed of the Divine order.
It is good to read a Divine Teaching.
It is better to learn it.
The best is to live it.
Indeed, the goodwill hidden in all things reveals itself everywhere to that one who carries goodwill in his consciousness.
This is a constructive way of feeling which leads straight to the Future.
Those who are ready for the transformation can do it anywhere and those who are not ready cannot do it wherever they are.
12.11.71
1972-08-29
Take the division out of the heart and then speak of no division.
Whether I see you or not makes no difference to the help. It will always be there.
In an ardent faith lies salvation.
In the final analysis, it is the Supreme Lord who does all.
We must be faithful instruments.
29.8.72
1972-12-14
I am no more living active life; if you are open, help is bound to come.
14.12.72
Let your consecration to Truth be complete and constant.
7 April 1920
7th April 1920
I have received your three letters, but up to now I have not managed to write an answer. It is a miracle that even now I sat down to write, because letter writing for me takes place once in a blue moon—especially writing in Bengali which I have not done for five or six years. The miracle would be complete if I could finish this letter and put it in the post.
First about your Yoga. You wish to give me the charge of your Yoga and I am willing to take it, that is to say to give it to Him who is moving by His divine Shakti both you and myself whether secretly or openly. But you must know the necessary result will be that you will have to follow that special way which He has given to me and which I call the integral Yoga.
What I began with, what was given to me by Lele, that was a seeking for the path, a wandering around in this and that direction touching this or that in all the old partial Yogas; lifting it up, taking it in the hands and scrutinising it and, having had some kind of complete experience of one thing, running in pursuit of another.
Afterwards, when I came to Pondicherry, this unsteady condition ceased. The Guru of the world who is within us gave me the complete direction of my path, its full theory, the ten limbs of the body of the Yoga. These ten years He has been making me develop it in experience. But it is not yet finished. It may take another two years, and as long as it is not finished, I doubt if I shall be able to return to Bengal. Pondicherry is the appointed place for my Yoga siddhi, except one part of it—that is, the action. The first centre of my work is Bengal, although I hope that its circumference will be all India and the whole earth.
I shall write to you afterwards what is the way of Yoga, or if you come here I shall tell you about it. In this matter the spoken word is better than the written word. At present I can only say that its root principle is to make a harmony and unity of complete knowledge, complete work and complete bhakti, to raise this above the mind, and to give it its complete perfection on the level of gnosis above the mind. The fault of the old Yoga was this, that it knew the mind and knew the Spirit and it was satisfied with getting the Spirit expressed in the mind. The mind can grasp only the division, it cannot completely grasp the infinite, the indivisible. In order to reach it, sannyasa, moksa, nirvana are the mind's means. One man or another can get this featureless Moksha, but what is the gain ? The Brahman, the Self, God, are always there. What God wants in man is to embody Himself here in the individual and the community, to realise God in life. The old way of Yoga would not make the harmony or union of the Spirit and life. It dismissed the world as Maya or a transient Lila. The result has been the loss of the power of life and degeneration of India. It is said in the Gita “These people would perish if I did not do works” and in fact the people of India have truly gone down to ruin. What sort of spiritual perfection is this, that some Sanyasins and Vairagis should be saintly, perfect and liberated, some Bhaktas should dance in restless ecstasy or love and emotion and Ananda and a whole race should become lifeless, void of intelligence, sunk in deep Tamas; one must first get all the partial experiences on the mental level, flood them with the spiritual delight and illumine them with the light of the spirit and then rise above. If one cannot rise above, that is, to the Supramental level, it is hardly possible to know the last secret of the world. The problem of the world does not get solved. There, the ignorance of duality between spirit and matter, the spiritual truths and life, disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the eternal Lila of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. There it becomes possible to fully know and fully possess God—as it is said in the Gita, “To know Me integrally”.
The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind and Ananda, these are the spirit's five levels. The higher we rise the nearer we get to the condition of the highest perfection of Man's spiritual evolution. By rising to the supermind it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. There is a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and Infinite Ananda. Not only in the timeless Akshara Brahman, but in the body, in life, in the world. The full Being, the full Consciousness, the full Ananda, blossoms out and takes form in Life. This is the central clue of my Yoga, its fundamental word.
This is not easy to do. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi is complete I am absolutely certain that God will through me give Siddhi of the Supermind to others with less difficulty. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for success in the work. What is to happen will happen in God's appointed time, I am not disposed to run widely and leap into the field of work in the strength of my little ego. Even if I did not succeed in my work I would not be shaken. This work is not mine but God's. I will listen to no other's call. When God moves me then I will move.
I knew well that Bengal is not really ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not real change. Still it was needed. Bengal has been awakening in itself the old Yogas and exhausting their sanskaras, extracting the essence and fertilising the soil. At first it was the turn of Vedanta: the Advaita, Sannyasa, Shankara's Maya etc. What is now taking place is the turn of the Vaishnava Dharma—the Lila, love, intoxication of the emotional delights. The merit of Vaishnava is that it keeps a connection between God and world and gives a meaning to life. The tendency to create sects which you have noticed was inevitable. It is the nature of the mind to take the part and call it the whole and to exclude all the other parts. The Siddha who brings the Bhava, although he leans on the partial Bhava, yet keeps some knowledge of the integral, even though he may not be able to give it form. The bundles will open of themselves. All these are the signs of the incompleteness and unripe condition. I am not disturbed by it. Let the spiritual power play in the country in whatever way and in as many sects as there may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy or embryonic condition. It is the previous hint, not even the beginning.
I do not want a society founded on division. I want a Sangha which is the image of spiritual unity and founded on spirit. You will say, what is the need of a Sangha I will be free and remain in every vessel. Let all become one without form, let whatever must be happen in the midst of the vast formlessness. That is true but only one side of the truth. Our business is not with the formless spirit. We have to keep life in motion. There is no effective motion of life without form. The taking of life by the formless, the assumption of name and form is not a caprice of Maya. It was needed. We do not want to leave anything of the world.
Politics, industry, society, poetry, literature, art, will all remain. But we shall have to give them a new soul and a new form.
Why have I left politics? Because the politics of the country is not a genuine thing belonging to India. It is an importation from Europe and an imitation. At one time there was a need of it. We also have done politics of the European kind. If we had not done it the country would not have risen from its sleep, and we too would not have had the gain and full development of experience. There is still some need of it, not so much in Bengal as in the other provinces of India. But the time has come to no longer extend the shadow but seize on the reality. We must get to the soul of India and make all its works in the image.
People now talk of spiritualising politics. Its result will be, if there be any permanent result, some kind of Indianised Bolshevism. To that kind of work also I have no objection. Let each man do according to his inspiration. But that is not the real thing. If one pours his spiritual power into all these impure forms—the water of the causal ocean into raw vessels—either that raw thing will break and the water be spilt and lost or the spiritual power will evaporate and only the impure form remain. In all fields it is the same. I can give the spiritual power but that power will be expended in making the image of an ape and setting it up in the temple of Shiva. If the ape is made powerful by the putting of life into it he may play the part of the devotee Hanuman and do much work for Rama, so long as that life and that power remains. But what we want in the temple of India is not Hanuman but the God, the Avatar Rama Himself.
I can mix with all, but in order to draw all into the true path keeping intact the spirit and form of our ideal. If we do not do that, we shall lose our direction and the real work will not be done. If we remain individually everywhere, something will be done indeed, but if we remain everywhere, as parts of a Sangha, a hundred times more will be done. As yet that time has not come. If we try to give a form hastily, it may not be the exact thing we want. The Sangha will be at first an unconcentrated form. Those who have the ideal will be united but work in different places, afterwards giving it some form like a spiritual commune and making a compact Sangha. They will give all their work a shape according to the growth and need of the age, not a bound and rigid form, not an acalāyatana but a free form which will spread out like the sea, take different wave-forms and surround this, over flood that and take all into itself. As we go on doing this there will be established a spiritual community. This is my present idea. As yet it has not been fully developed. All is in God's hands, whatever He makes us do that we shall do.
You write about the deva sangha: “I am not a God, I am only some much hammered and refined iron”. No one is a God but in each man there is a God and to make Him manifest is the aim of divine life. That we can all do. I recognise that there are great and small Adhars (vessels). I do not accept as accurate your description of yourself. Still whatever the nature of a vessel be, once the touch of God is put upon it, once the spirit is awake, great and small, all that does not make much difference. There may be more difficulties, more time may be taken, there may be difference in the manifestation, but even about that there is no certainty. The God within keeps no account of all these hindrances and deficiencies. He breaks his way out. Not our strength but the Shakti of God is the sddhaka of this Yoga.
Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen. My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of India is not subjection, nor poverty, nor the lack of spirituality, nor dharma but the decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the Motherland of knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to think-thought incapacity or thought-phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages this state of things is now the sign of terrible degeneration. The middle age was the night, the time of the victory of ignorance. In the modern world it is the age of the victory of knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labours most can fathom and learn the truth of the world, gets so much more Shakti. If you look at Europe, you will see two things, a vast sea of thought and the play of a high and rapid and yet disciplined force. The whole Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been swallowing up the world like the tapasvī of our ancient time, by whose power even the Gods of the world were terrified, held in doubt and subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. But these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of a new creation.
Then look at India. Except for some solitary saints, everywhere there is your “man on the street”, that is, the average man who does not want to think and cannot think, who has not the least Shakti, only a temporary excitement. In India, you want the simple thought, the simple word. In Europe they want the deep thought, the deep word; an ordinary labourer or artisan thinks, wants to know, is not satisfied with surface things but wants to go behind. But still there is this difference, that there is a fatal limitation in the strength and thought of Europe. When it comes into the spiritual field its thought power no longer proceeds. There Europe sees everything as a riddle—nebulous, metaphysical, yogic hallucination. They rub their eyes as in smoke and can see nothing clear. Still in Europe now some effort is being made to surmount even this limitation. We have already the spiritual sense owing to the merit of our forefathers and however has that sense has near at hand such a knowledge and Shakti as with one breath might blow away all the huge power of Europe like a blade of grass. But to get this Shakti one must be a worshipper of Shakti. We are not worshippers of Shakti. We are the worshippers of the easy way. But Shakti is not obtained by the easy way. Our forefathers, swimming through a sea of vast thought, gained a vast knowledge and established a mighty civilisation. As they went on their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The speed of thought diminished and with it the strong current of Shakti. Our civilisation has become an acalāyatana, our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. And so long as this sort of thing continues any permanent resurgence of India is improbable.
In Bengal this weakness has gone to extreme. The Bengali has a quick intelligence, emotional capacity and intuition. He is first in India in all these qualities. If to these were added depth of thought, calm strength, heroic courage and a capacity for and pleasure in prolonged labour the Bengali might be a leader not only of India but of mankind. But he does not want that, he wants to get things done easily, to get knowledge without big thinking, the results without labour, Siddhi by an easy Sadhana. His task is the excitement of the emotional mind, but excess of emotion, empty of knowledge, is the very symptom of this malady, after it there comes fatigue and a tamasic condition. All the time the country has been gradually going down, the life power has diminished and finally what has the Bengali become in his own country? He cannot get enough to eat, or clothes to wear. There is lamentation on all sides. His wealth, his trade and commerce, his land, his very agriculture has begun to pass into the hands of others. We have abandoned the Sadhana of Shakti and Shakti has abandoned us. We do the Sadhana of love—but where knowledge and Shakti are not there, love does not remain. Narrowness and littleness come and in a little and narrow mind, heart and soul, there is no place for love. Where is love in Bengal ? There is more quarreling, jealousy, mutual dislike, misunderstanding and faction there, than anywhere else even in India so much afflicted by division. In the noble, heroic age of the Aryan people, there was not so much shouting and gesticulating but the endeavour they began, remained steadfast through many centuries. The Bengali endeavour last for a day or two in the system, and in all its movements. In the sea of Shakti the extension of the rays of the sun of knowledge and in that luminous extension the steady ecstasy of an infinite love, delight, and oneness. I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, empty of petty egoism, who will be instruments of God. I have no faith in the customary trade of the Guru. I do not wish to be a Guru. That at my touch or at another's some wake and manifest from within their slumbering Godhead and get the divine life—this is what I want. It is such men that will raise the country.
You must not think from all this lecture that I despair of the future of Bengal. You say that what is needed is the Bhava intoxication of feeling, to excite the country with the ideal. In the time of Swadeshi we did all that in the field of politics, but what we did is all now in the dust. Will there be a more favourable result in the spiritual field? I do not say that there has been no result. There has been. Where there is movement, there will come out some result, but it is for the most part of the nature of an increase or possibility and hardly to actualise it. There is not the right method. Therefore I wish no longer to make emotional excitement, Bhava, in any intoxication of the mind the base. I wish to make a large and strong equality the foundation of the Yoga and, established on that equality, a full firm and undisturbed Shakti.
What do they say? That this time a great light will manifest itself in Bengal? I too hope, still I have tried to show the other side of the shield. Where is the fault, the error, the deficiency. If these remain, the light will not be a great light and it will not be permanent.
The meaning of this extraordinarily long letter is that I too am tying my bundle, still I believe that this bundle is like the net of St. Peter, all the catch of the infinite is crowded into it. I am not going to open the bundle now. If I do that before the time the śikār might run away. Neither am I going back to Bengal now. Not because Bengal is not ready but because I am not ready. If the unripe goes amidst the unripe what work can he do?
(Translated from the original in Bengali)
18 November 1922
Arya Office, Pondicherry. 18th November 1922.
Dear Barin,
I understand from your letter that you need a written authority from me for the work I have entrusted to you and a statement making your position clear to those whom you may have to approach in connection with it. You may show to anyone you wish this letter as your authority and I hope it will be sufficient to straighten things for you.
I have been till now and shall be for some time longer withdrawn in the practice of Yoga destined to be a basis not withdrawal from life, but for the transformation of human life. It is a “Yoga” in which large tracts of inner experience and new paths of Sadhana had to be opened up and which therefore needed retirement and long time for its completion. But the time is approaching though it has not yet come, when I shall have to take up a large external work proceeding from the spiritual basis of this Yoga.
It is therefore necessary to establish a number of centres small and few at first but enlarging and increasing in numbers as I go on, for training in this Sadhana, one under my direct supervision, others in immediate connection with me. Those trained there will be hereafter my assistants in the work I shall have to do, but for the present these centres will be not for external work but for spiritual training and Tapasya. The first, which will be transferred to British India when I go there, already exists at Pondicherry but I need friends both to maintain and to enlarge it. The second I am founding through you in Bengal. I hope to establish another one in Gujarat during the ensuing year.
Many more desire and are fit to undertake this Sadhana than I can at present admit and it is only by large means being placed at my disposal that I can carry on this work which is necessary as a preparation for my own return to action.
I have empowered you to act for me in the collection of funds and other collateral matters. I have an entire confidence in you and I would request all who wish me well to put in you the same confidence.
I may add that this work of which I have spoken is both personally and in a wider sense my own and it is not being done and cannot be done by any other for me. It is separate and different from any other work that has been or is being carried on by others under my name or with my approval. It can only be done by myself aided closely by those like you who are being or will in future be trained directly under me in my spiritual discipline.
Aurobindo Ghose
[Script Barin Kumar Ghose.]
1 December 1922
Pondicherry, 1st December 1922.
I waited for your letter in order to know precisely what portions Chittaranjan wanted to publish and why. It turns out to be as I said, but I wanted confirmation. I must now make clear the reasons why I hesitated to sanction the publication.
I should have had no objection to the publication of the portion about the spiritual basis of life or the last paragraph about Swaraj but that about non-cooperation as it stands without further explanation and amplification would lead, I think, to a complete misunderstanding of my real position. Some would take it to mean that I accept the Gandhi programme subject to modifications proposed by the committee. As you know, I do not believe that Mahatma's principle can be the true foundation or his programme the true means of bringing genuine freedom and greatness of India, her Swarajya and Samrajya. On the other hand others would think that I was sticking to the school of Tilakite Nationalism. That also is not the fact, as I hold that school out of date. My own policy, if I were in the field, would be radically different in principle and programme from both, however it might coincide in certain points. But the country is not yet ready to understand its principles or to execute its programme.
Because I know this very well, I am content to work still on the spiritual and psychic plane, preparing there the ideas and forces which may afterwards at the right moment and under the right conditions precipitate themselves into the vital and material field, and I have been careful not to make any public pronouncement as that might prejudice my possibilities of future action. What that will be will depend on developments. The present trend of politics may end in abortive unrest, but it may also stumble with the aid of external circumstances into some kind of simulacrum of self-government. In either case the whole real work will remain to be done. I wish to keep myself free for it in either case.
My interest in Das's actions and utterances apart from all question from personal friendship, arises first from the fact that the push he is giving, although I do not think it likely to succeed at present, may yet help to break the narrow and rigid cadre of the “constructive” Bardoli programme which seems to me to construct nothing and the fetish worship of non-cooperation as an end in itself rather than a means and thereby to create conditions more favourable for the wide and complex action necessary to prepare the true Swarajya. Secondly, it arose from the rapidity with which he seems to be developing many of the ideas which I have long put down in my mind as essentials of the future. I have no objection to his making use privately of what I have written in the letter. But I hope he will understand why the publication of it does not recommend itself to me.
9 December 1922
Pondicherry, 9th December 1922.
My dear Barin,
I have read carefully Jyotish Ghose's letter and I think the best thing is first to explain his present condition as he describes it. For he does not seem to me to understand the true causes and the meaning.
The present condition of passivity and indifference is a reaction from a former abnormal state to which he was brought by an internal effort not properly guided from without or from within. The effort brought about a certain breaking of the veils which divide the physical from the psychic and vital worlds. But his mind was unprepared and unable to understand his experiences and judged them by the light of fancy and imagination, and erroneous mental and vital suggestions. His vital being full of rajasic and egoistic energy rushed up violently to enjoy these new fields and use the force that was working for its own lower ends. This gave an opportunity for the hostile power from the vital world to break in and take partial possession and the result was disorganisation of the nerves and the physical system and some of the brain centres. The attack and possession seem to have passed out and left behind the present reaction of passivity with a strong hold of tamas and indifference. The tamas and indifference are not in themselves desirable things but they are temporarily useful as a rest from the past unnatural tension. The passivity is desirable and a good basis for a new and right working of the Shakti.
It is not a true interpretation of his condition that he is dead within and there is only an outside activity. What is true is that the centre of vital egoism that thinks itself the Actor has been crushed and he now feels all the thought and activity playing outside him. This is a state of knowledge, for the real truth is that all these thoughts and activities are Nature's and come into us or pass through us as waves from the Universal Nature. It is our egoism and our limitation in the body and individual physical mind which prevent us from feeling and experiencing this truth. It is a great step to be able to see and feel the truths as he is now doing. This is of course the complete knowledge. As the knowledge becomes more complete and the psychic being opens upwards, one feels all the activities descending from above and can get at their true source and transform them.
The light playing in his head means that there has been an opening to the higher force and knowledge which is descending as light from above and working on the mind to illuminate it. The electrical current is the force descending in order to work in the lower centres and prepare them for the light. The right condition will come when instead of the vital forces trying to push upwards, the Prana becomes calm and surrendered and waiting with full assent for the light and when instead of the chasm in between there is a constant aspiration of the heart towards the truth above. The light must descend into these lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical being as well as the mental thought and will.
The utility of the psychic experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other Yogic experiences is not to be measured by our narrow human notions of what may be useful for the present physical life of man. In the first place, these things are necessary for the fullness of the consciousness and the completeness of the being. In the second place, these other worlds are actually working upon us and if you know and can enter into them instead of being the victims and puppets of these powers we can consciously deal with and control and use them. Thirdly, in my Yoga, the Yoga of the Supramental, the opening of the psychic consciousness to which these experiences belong to are quite indispensible. For it is only through psychic opening that the supramental can fully descend and with a strong and concrete grasp transform the mental, vital and physical being.
This is the present condition and its value. For the future if he wishes to accept my Yoga, the conditions are steady resolve and aspiration towards the truth. I am bringing down a calm passivity and an opening upward towards the source from which the light is coming. The Shakti is already working in him and if he takes and keeps this attitude and has a complete confidence in me there is no reason why he should not advance safely in the Sadhana in spite of the physical and vital damage that has been done to his system. As for his coming here to see me I am not quite yet ready but we will speak about it after your return to Pondicherry.
30 December 1922
Arya Office, Pondicherry 30th December 1922.
First about Krishnashashi. I do not think you are quite right about him at least in idea that he is responsible for the recent undesirable manifestation at your place. He is evidently what is called psychic sensitive and one of a very high though not perhaps the first order. It is not his fault, I think, that things went wrong recently. These sensitives require a constant protection and guidance from some one, who has both power on the psychic and vital plane and knowledge of the science of these planes. There is none such among you. Especially when he is in certain psychic conditions such as these into which he has recently entered, he needs absolutely these protections. He cannot then possibly protect himself because the very nature of these conditions is an absolute passivity and openness of the psychic and psycho-vital influences. It is useless to ask him at that time to exercise his judgement or his power of rejection. For that would immediately make the condition itself impossible. If the psychic and psycho-vital influence are of the right kind, all is well and very remarkable results can be obtained. If they are bad the condition becomes dangerous. The only way to secure the exclusion of the bad influences is for someone else with psychic power to keep a wall of protection round him at the time. The sort of trance is which the breath diminishes, the tongue goes in, the body is curved upwards and psycho-physical movements begin in the body is one which I know perfectly well and there is nothing essentially wrong about it. It may be brought about by a very high influence and equally by a bad one, or being brought about by the former, it can be misused or attacked by the latter. If there had been a protection about him exercised by one who had knowledge and confidence in his own psychic and vital force, the untoward influence evidenced by the cries, grimaces etc., would not have come in to spoil this stage. Let me add that these are not forces of our lower universal but an intervention from a foreign and hostile vital world.
In the present circumstances the proper line for Krishnashashi is to postpone this kind of psychic development, I mean the latter ones, especially those of a physical character. He must understand the character of his higher psychic experiences. These including the voice are not direct from the Supramental but psychic and intuitive on the whole mental plane from the higher mind downwards. There is no reason to belittle them. Only in the transcription in his mind there is a mixture of his own mental and other suggestions which is almost inevitable at the beginning. We should now without interrupting his higher psychic development give more attention to a self controlled meditation and mental enlargement. In one letter he speaks of interrupting the reading of “Arya” from fear of growing too intellectual. This was an erroneous suggestion of his own mind. Let him by all means read and study these things. Of course in this kind of mental enlargement and self controlled meditation there are dangers and likelyhood of mistakes as in all the rest of Yoga. But I think what he needs is at the present stage. The progress would be slow but it is likely to be more safe, and he can resume the full psychic development when the necessary conditions can be provided. He should also turn his will towards mental and vital purification. There is often much misunderstanding about passivity and self-surrender. It does not mean that there should not remain in the earlier stages any kind of choices, self-control or will towards certain things which are seen to be needed rather than others. Only they must be subject to a confidence and free openness to a higher guidance, which will respond to his choice and will in us if the choice and will are right and sincere.
Next with regard to the hostile manifestations which I observe to be of a very low vital and physico-vital character. I may observe that although there is a real force behind them many of them are not of a real character, that is to say, the faces seen and touches felt were not in all cases of real vital beings but only forms suggested and created out of the stuff of your own surrounding vital atmosphere and can easily be dismissed by refusing to accept their reality or to admit their formation. It may be that some particular person in your group opened the way for them but they need not necessarily have had such a personal cause. The real cause may have been the coming together in meditation of so many yet undeveloped people carrying with them a very mixed atmosphere. When that happens or even when there is a general meditation, a chakra, hostile forces are attracted and try to break in. There ought to be some one in the group who during the meditation protects the circle. If the meditation is of a psychic character the protection must be psychic on the vital plane. Mirra's experience is that protection must take the form of a white light constantly kept round the circle. But even this is not enough as the forces will attack constantly and try to find a gap in the protection; there must therefore be round the white light a covering of dense purple light sufficiently opaque for these beings not to be able to see through it. It is not sufficient to have this light in the mental or psychic levels. It must be brought down in the vital and fill it, because it is in the vital that there is attack. Further nobody must go out of his body during the meditation (I mean the vital being must not go out, the mental can always do it) or psychically out of the circle. But there is one thing that must be noticed. That if the manifestations occur in spite of all there must be no fear in the minds of those who become aware of them. It is by creating fear through terrible forms and menaces that the hostile beings prevent the Sadhaka from crossing over the threshold between the physical and vital world and it is also by creating fear and alarm that they are able to break in on the vital being of the body. Courage and unalterable confidence are the first necessity of the Sadhaks.
I observe that in your Calcutta Centre the Sadhana seems to have taken a different turn from that in the Krishnagore centre. It seems to be marked by an immediate opening and rapid development of the psychical conscious and psychical phenomena. This turn has great possibilities but also by itself great danger. In the complete Sadhana there are two powers necessary, the masculine, Purusha or Ishwara power coming down in knowledge, light, calm, strength, wide consciousness from above, and the feminine, Nature or Ishwari power opening in receptivity, the responsiveness on all the planes of the being from below. The first by itself tends to be predominantly mental or mentalised intuitive and afterwards mentalised supramental. It is slow in action but sure and safe, only there is often a difficulty of opening up the separate psychic vital and physical being to the illumination and change. The second by itself is rapid, sensitive, full of extraordinary and striking experiences but apt in the absence of psychic or occult powers to be chaotic, uneven and open to many dangers. It is when both are present and act upon each other in the being that the Sadhana is likely to be most perfect.
I think you should insist in your Calcutta centre an attention being given to what I call the Purusha side, that is to say a basis of deep calm, strength, equality, wide consciousness and purity in the mental being, and as the vital physical opens, also in the vital and physical being. If that is attended to and successfully developed the play of the psychic vital and physical experiences will be more steady, ordered and safe.
As to the three photographs you have sent I give you Mirra's comments in inverted commas with my additions afterwards.
1) KANAI.
“An extremely interesting head, highly psychic personality but he must be careful about the physical as this type is likely to burn up the body in the intensity of its psychic developments.”
The basis of calm, strength and purity brought down .into the physical consciousness without any hasty trepidations unhealthy vibrations will secure the physical safety and is here very indispensable.
2) GIRIN.
“An intellectual and philosophic temperament but there is something heavy below.”
I think that the heaviness is in the vital being and the physical mind and may cause considerable obstruction but if these two can be cleared and illuminated there may be behind a fund of conservative energy and steadiness which will be useful.
3) JAGAT PRASANNA.
“Very dull. I do not know whether anything can be given to him.”
I seem to find behind the eyes a psychic capacity of a very low kind and in the vitality something and impure which maybe mediumistic element for the lower psycho-vital forces. If he sat in the circle or meditated in the house that might explain the interruption of the undesirable phenomena. This is my impression about the man. But I am not quite sure. If he is to do any Yoga it should be rather of the old kind and especially a discipline of self purification. Passivity of any kind in his case would be dangerous.
One or two things I should add suggested by your remark on Krishnashashi. All should understand that the true direct supramental does not come at the beginning but much later on in the Sadhana. First, the opening up and illumination of the mental, vital and physical beings; secondly, the making intuitive of the mind, the right will etc. and the development of the hidden soul consciousness; thirdly, the supramentalising of the changed mental vital and physical beings and finally the descent of the true supramental and rising into the supramental plane.
This is the natural order of the Yoga. These stages may overlap and intermix, there may be many variations but the last two can only come in an advanced state of the progress. Of course, the supramental Divine, guides this Yoga throughout but it is first through many intermediate planes, and it cannot be easily said of anything that comes in the earlier periods that it is the direct or full supramental. To think so when it is not so, may well be a hindrance to progress.
As to what you, 3ay about an unhinged and unsound element in Krishnashashi, this is a probable explanation. The nature of this kind of psychic sensitiveness is complex and is full of many delicate springs easily touched from behind the veil; hence the sensitiveness but also easily twisted owing to their very delicacy. Something may have been thus twisted in his nature. In that case great care must be taken. It must be found out what it is and the thing be put right. without any too rough handling.
I shall write to you separately about Arim's money and Sarojini.
January 1923
Pondicherry January 1923
It is unfortunate that Krishnashashi's Sadhana should have taken this turn. As things stand however a general mass in Calcutta is the worst possible place for him. If no other arrangement can be made it is better that he should go for the present to Chittagong, do his Sadhana there and write to me. It is not possible for me to have him here just now. If his Sadhana rights itself it may be possible hereafter.
As to the development of egoism in him that is the thing which often happens in the first rush of experience and with proper protection and influence may be got over. The serious features are only the psycho-vital, the danger to the body and certain suggestions which are evidently meant to put him off the right way. I still find it difficult to believe that the menacing apparitions are primarily due to him, for there is nothing in the atmosphere of his letters that suggest a medium of this kind. If a photograph of him is available that you can send or ask him to send it to me.
I see that you say in your letters that all have been frightened by these apparitions. Insist on what I have said about the necessity of dismissing fear.
Some time or other everybody will have to face things of this kind and how can they do it if they fear ? If they are afraid of these things, many of which are merely figures or nervous formations, how can they be spiritual warriors and conquerors, without which there can be no rising towards supermanhood. I presume they would be brave against physical dangers; why not then be brave against all dangers or menace.
If Krishnashashi needs the instructions I have sent in my former letter to you (They were made after consultation with Mirra) all may yet be well. If not, I shall have to try to send my mental protection and see what I can do. He is unfortunately too far away for me to put a psycho-vital protection about him. Let me know immediately what has been done and where he goes. I am sending you a letter for him enclosed to you.
As regards Arun's money, I understand that it is for the Calcutta centre and I do not understand why you want to send it here. If he can give the first monthly instalment at once that ought to lighten your difficulties there. I shall be able to arrange with Durga Dass' help and with the money coming from Madras and Gujarat for one year's expense here, just sufficient for the two houses. What I want you to do, if you can, is to raise money from Bengal for the next year and for the maintenance of your Bengal centre also for two years, so that there may be no need of hunting for funds for some time to come.
At present the main difficulty in your attempts to raise money there is that all remains as potentiality and promise and thins away before it can come to material realisation. It is possible that if you can materialise the small amounts this obstacle may break and remember that it is a psychic difficulty, a state of forces, that is the thing to be changed, because that is the real obstacle. If another balance of forces can be begun in which there is the actual materialisation even on a small scale that may well be an opening for better conditions.
I have got a fuller idea from your letter about Krishnashashi's collapse. The main cause is what I saw, the vehement and unrestrained pressure and the vital uprush overstraining and upsetting the defective physical mind. There is no evil in the physical and mental or even the vital being proper. The seat of the harm is evidently in the physico-vital and the physical being. The physico-vital dazzled by the expriences began to think itself a very interesting and important person and to histrionise with the experiences and play for that purpose with the body. This is a frequent deviation of Yoga observable even in some who are considered great Sadhakas. It is a kind of charlatanism of the vital being but would not by itself amount to madness, though it may sometimes seem to go very near it. Ordinarily if the physical mind is strong it either rejects or else keeps these demonstrations within certain bounds. But in this case the physical mind also broke down. The coarse kind of violence exhibited is due to the rough and coarse character of the physical being. So much I see but am not yet able to determine whether the disorder is only psychic or, as was suggested in my last letter, there is some defect in the brain which has come to the surface. I am concentrating daily and those in Krishnagore have to help me by remaining calm and strong and surrounding him with an unagitated atmosphere also those, who can, have to keep a quiet concentration. He, must be kept outwardly and inwardly under the control and check. If the disorder is only psychic the violence will pass away and the other signs abate and less frequently recur. But if there is some brain defect there as I said, it may be a difficult affair. I can give final instructions only after seeing how the malady goes.
As regards your own Sadhana and those of others in Bhawanipore I think it necessary to make two or three observations. First I have for some time the impression that there is a too constant activity and pressure for rapidity of progress and a multitude of experiences. These things are all right in themselves but there must be certain safeguards. First there should be sufficient periods of rest and silence, even of relaxation in which there can be a quiet assimilation. Assimilation is very important and periods necessary for it should not be regarded with impatience as stoppages of the Yoga. Care should be taken to make calm and quiet strength and inner silence, the basic condition for all activity. There should be no excessive strain, any fatigue, disturbances, or inordinate sensitiveness of the nervous and physical parts, of which you mention certain symptoms in your letters, should be quieted and removed, as they are often signs of overstrain or too great an activity as rapidity in the Yoga. It must also be remembered that experiences are only valuable as indications and openings and the main thing always is the steady harmonious and increasingly organised opening and change of the different parts of the consciousness and the being.
Among the experiences there is one paper headed “Surface Consciousness”. What is described there is the nervous or physico-vital envelope. This is the thing observed by the medium and it is by exteriorising it to a less or greater extent that they produce their phenomenons. How did Rati come to know of it? Was it by intuition, by vision or by personal experience?
If the latter, warn him not to exteriorise this vital envelope for to do so without adequate protection, which must be that of a person acquainted with these things and physically present at the time, may bring about serious physical dangers and also injuries to the nervous being and the body or even worse.
23 January 1923
Arya Office, Pondicherry 23rd January 1923
I got your telegram about Krishnashashi this morning. Yesterday I received his photograph and today his last written experiences. I have been able to form from all these and from other indications as complete an idea about him as is possible at this distance. The photo shows a remarkable soul, an idealistic psychic intelligence and the presence of a high and beautiful being internal but the part of the face showing the emotional and vital being is too delicate to support adequately the upper part of the physical and the physico-vital mould is of a poor and inferior character not easily lending itself to the higher movements or to the change demanded by the Yoga. This disparity in the being was the cause of his illness and is the cause also of his present disorder. The immediate cause, however, is his being hurried by circumstances and the eagerness of his own mind into a development too rapid for the physical consciousness which should have been subjected to a long and steady preparation.
I do not know whether Krishnashashi received Barin's letter written to him at his other address, Raja Brojendra Narayan Roy's St., which he should have got on the 14th. In this letter I suggested that he should remain in Chittagong or some other quiet place and do the Sadhana by himself turning to me for help and protection and I also insisted that the main object of his Sadhana should be the purification and calming of the mind, the vital being and the body. After returning to Bhawanipur I see that just the contrary has happened: a feverish psychomental activity and a much too eager attempt at rapid progress. Instead of calmly receiving he has been seizing at everything that came and trying to translate it and throw it out into form. He has also been pulling at realisation and trying, as Murrach has put it, to swallow the world in a minute. The result is that there has been an uprush of some undesirable kind from the imperfect vital being and the physical mind unable to bear the strain has been thrown into disorder. It is evident also that the atmosphere of the Bhawanipur centre is not favourable to him. There is there an intense mental and psychic activity and a constant push towards rapid experience and progress which are just the things that are dangerous for him and there is not yet the assured basis of calm, peace, serenity and inner silence which he needs above all things.
I hope that it is only a crisis or a passing disorder. I am doing my best to mend the breakdown, but you must help me by keeping there a firm quietness and calm concentration. This was the object of my telegram. I am of the opinion that when he recovers his balance, my original instructions (into Manni's letter) should be adhered to, and he should go to some quiet place where there will not be any high pressure. He must be instructed to put away every other object except the quieting of his mind, vital being and body and the attainment of a poise of serene calm and peace. Also it is better for him not to pass the whole day in meditation and Sadhana but to take plenty of relaxation for the relief of the physical being and do some kind of physical work not exhausting which will keep it occupied and healthy. He must be assured that this thing does not mean at all a rejection but that it is necessary to secure the proper condition for his future Sadhana. He must of course keep himself in constant spiritual connection with me and write to me from time to time.
Please keep me constantly informed of his condition until he recovers.
Since the above was written your second telegram came into my hands this morning. It is possible that Krishnagore may be a more suitable place for Krishnashashi than Calcutta. There is a more settled basis there. The place is more deliberate and the surroundings are likely to be quieter, a not unimportant consideration in his case. Besides he needs some one who can impose upon him an atmosphere of calm and influence him directly from the psychic nature and not through the mentality, the latter being always of a doubtful affectivity in dealing with psychic people, and from what you have told me about Indu, it is possible that he may be able to help him in this way. In that case it would not be necessary for him to return to Chittagong or pursue his Sadhana in isolation. All this of course after he has recovered. His case is not that of insanity in the ordinary sense but, as in J.'s case and for rather similar reasons, a psychic disorder, I should of course be kept informed of his condition. I have many things to write but as this must go without delay I postpone them to another letter.
31 January 1923
Arya Office, Pondicherry 31st January 1923
I got your letter of the 26th and intended to wire but had not your Krishnagore address. This afternoon I have received your telegram and send a reply giving permission for Krishnashashi's removal. In case the telegram should not reach I have also wired to Kanai in Calcutta. Although to cure Krishnashashi by psychic means might not be possible, the prolonged resistance and the increasing violence make the present conditions impossible. The ordinary means of restraint and medical treatment will have to be used and therefore his removal as you suggest is the only thing left open to us.
It appears from your letters that there is a strong play around you of the hostile opposition from beings of the lowest physico-vital and physical ranges. These beings are small and without intelligence but full of power to do various kinds of harm and mischief. They are similar to those that did the stone-throwing in the other house. To produce brain incoherence, freaks, absurdities, sexual disorders, nervous agitations and disequilibrium, coarse violence of various kinds is their sphere in the physical domain and in the physical to bring about accidents, illness, injuries, physical impediments and on the smaller scale little mischiefs, inconveniences and hindrances of all kinds. It is these that have taken possession of Krishnashashi's brain and nervous centres and impel his speech and movements. It is these also that pursue with accidents those who are trying to collect money. I have for some time been aware of their activities and suggestions and they are now almost the only positively hostile forces of which I am aware in the Yoga, the rest being merely obstructions of nature. In my own atmosphere I am able to make their suggestions abortive and minimise their play pending their elimination. But in your case they seem to be moved by some more powerful force which not being able to act on you directly is using them as agents. Probably you have in your Sadhana touched and awakened the plane on which they work, but are not yet able to conquer and protect as you can in the higher fields. Those entirely within your spiritual influences may resist or escape but others are exposed to their attack.
I think in these circumstances it is best to limit your creation of a centre there to those who have already begun and even with them, I mean the new comers, you should be careful. Probably the best course is to keep the centre at Krishnagore as you suggest and have only a small establishment in Calcutta. The atmosphere of Calcutta cannot be a good environment for Sadhana centre. As to money affairs you must see whether the resistance can be overcome during February and in any case I hope you will not return empty-handed or with a nominal sum, for that would mean a victory for the hostile force which will make things more difficult in the future. I understand from your last letter that Satkhari has already realised Rs. 500/-. If so get that sum and send it at once, also get in hand and send the Benares money. That will mean so much materialised and to that extent the opposing force defeated. Afterwards see whether the rest does not come in with less difficulty. If you can prevail, that means the way made clear for better success in the future. It is enough that these forces should have destroyed such fine psychic possibilities as of Krishnashashi. I do not like their being successful in other directions also.
As to Sarojini, it is out of the question that she should come here. Make it plain to her that the Yoga I am doing is now too much difficult for her. Her coming here would be waste of time and money. If she is in earnest about Sadhana she must begin with something much more easy. The first thing for her is to study these things, understand, get her mind prepared and begin with turning herself Godward, elimination of egoistic movements and perhaps doing works in the spirit of Karmayoga. A meditation active and not passive, with these things as the object is all she can safely try at the beginning. I have of course no objection to her turning to Theosophy if she is drawn that way. But for her to come into concentrated atmosphere here just now would not be good for her and it would be disturbing to us. Please stop her coming by whatever means you can.
I learn from your post card today that Kanai and the others are at Krishnagore. Please let me know your address there so that I may be sure whenever necessary of making a direct communication.
Aurobindo
2 April 1923
2nd April 1923 Arya Office, Pondicherry
First about the photographs. The mounted photograph man is fully unfit for the Yoga. The face is empty except for a great deal of pretension, not warranted by any substance behind. He had better be put off or left aside. It is no use just now bringing in people who have not a definite possibility and even among these who have the best only should be chosen.
As to the unmounted photograph, this is a much worse case. I cannot at all find what you say you see in his eyes. They seem to me rather the eyes of madness or at least monomania. The whole face is a nightmare. It seems to me a clear case either of possession or, even, of the incarnation of some vital being. Please do not meddle with him at all. It is only when we have obtained mastery over the physico-vital and all the physical planes that it will be at all safe to deal with such cases and certainly even then it will not do to begin by taking them into the Yoga.
I note from this case and from what you say in connection with Rathin that you have just now what seems to me, a rather dangerous attraction (because likely to create hindrances or misdirect the energy) towards these vital cases. What you say about the different vital worlds is no doubt interesting and has a certain truth but you must remember that these worlds, which are different from the true or divine vital, are full of enchantments and illusions and they present appearances of beauty which allure only to mislead or destroy. They are worlds of “Rakshasimaya” and their heavens are more dangerous than their hells. They have to be known and their powers met when need be but not accepted; our business is with the supramental and with vital only when it is supramentalised and until then we have always to be on our guard against any lures from that other quarter. I think the worlds of which you speak are those which have a special attraction and a special danger for poets, imaginative people and sane artists. There is, especially, a strain of aestheticised vital susceptibility or sentiment or even sentimentalism through which they affect the being and it is one of the things that has to be purified before one can rise to the highest poetry, art and imaginative creation. In the case of Krishnashashi some influences from these worlds certainly entered into the cause of his collapse. I shall write about Rathin directly to his father for I don't know how long you are staying in Gauhati. I shall only say just now that it will not be good for the boy if he merely changes the control of one kind of vital world for that of another. He must become healthy normal first and all else can only come afterwards.
As to money matters, I think you should go on trying for some time longer. I believe the obstacle is bound to break before long if we do not get tired out by the obstinacy of the resistance. I am just now very much concentrated in the effort to bring down the supramental into the physical plane which demands a very constant and sustained effort and it is for this reason that I have not been able to answer letters. I shall decide about Khitish when the time for your return draws near.
14 April 1923
1923 14th April Evening
Dictated letter about Barindra's inquiries:
We should not accept any man into the Yoga because he is rich, or at the same time we should not debar any man because he happens to be rich. But he must be made to understand the demands of the Yoga. There are three demands:
1st. The will (not mere inclination or desire) for a greater Truth.
2nd. Complete consecration to that Truth in doing all the works for that Life.
3rd. Transformation.
That means he must be able to remove to give up all motives other than that of the practice of Yoga even in the worldly pursuits.
The possession of wealth is a great obstacle and it is also a supreme opportunity. In our aim of Yoga we have to conquer the world for the Divine and if we can bring some force of wealth from the rule of vital worlds on our side, it is worthwhile. At present these forces are held by the vital world. We should win them for the Divine.
16 April 1923
Pondicherry, 16th April 1923
I answer first your letter of the 6th April. I have already let you know that I approve both the people whose photographs you have sent to me. As to Bibhuti Bhushan Datta you are right in thinking that he is a born yogin. His face shows the type of the Suffi or Arab mystic and he must certainly have been that in a former life and brought much of his then personality into the present existence. There are defects and limitations in his being. The narrowness of the physical mind of which you speak is indicated in the photograph, though it has not come out in the expression, and it might push him in the direction of a rather poverty-stricken asceticism instead of his expanding and opening himself richly to the opulences of the Divine. It might also lead him in other circumstances to some kind of fanaticism. But on the other hand if he gets the right direction and opens himself to the right powers these things may be turned into valuable elements, the ascetic capacity into a force useful against psycho-vital dangers and what might have been fanaticism into an intense devotion to the Truth revealed to him. There is also likely to be some trouble in the physico-vital being. But I cannot yet say of what nature. This is not a case of an entirely safe development, which can be assured only where there is a strong vital and physical basis and a certain natural balance in the different parts of the being. This Balance has here to be created and its creation is quite possible. Whatever risk there is must be taken for the nature here is born for the yoga and ought not be denied its opportunity. He must be made to understand fully the character and demands of the integral yoga.
Next for Kumar Krishna Mitter. He is no doubt what you say, a type of the rich and successful man, but the best kind of that type and cast on sound and general lines. There is besides indicated in his face and expression a refinement and capacity of idealism which are not too common. Certainly we are not to take people into the yoga for the sake of their riches, but on the other hand we must not have the disposition to reject any one on account of his riches. If the wealth is a great obstacle, it is also a great opportunity and part of the aim of our work is not to reject but to conquer for the Divine Self expression the vital and material powers including that wealth, which are now in the possession of other influences. If there is a man like this and is prepared with an earnest and real will to bring himself and his power over from the other camp to ours, there is no reason to refuse him. This of course is not the case of a man born to the yoga like Bibhuti Bhusan, but of one who has an opening in him to a spiritual awakening and I think of a nature which might possibly fail from certain negative deficiencies but not because of any adverse element in the being. The one necessity is that he should understand and accept what the yoga demands of him—first the seeking of a greater truth, secondly the consecration of himself and his powers and wealth to its service and finally the transformation of all his life into the terms of the truth and that he should have not merely the enthusiastic turning of his idealism but a firm and deliberate will towards it. It is especially necessary in the case of these rich men for them to realise that it is not enough in this yoga to have a spiritual endeavour on one safe side and on the other the rest of the energies given to the ordinary motives, but that the whole life being must be consecrated to the yoga. It is probably from this reason of a divided life these men like Arien singh fail to progress in spite of a natural capacity. If this is understood and accepted the consecration of which he speaks is obviously in his circumstances the first step in the path. If he enters it will probably be advisable for him to come for a short time and see me in Pondicherry but this of course has to be decided afterwards.
I may say a word in passing about Nalineswar. I have read through his experiences and they confirm what I have said about the deficient capacity of his adhar. The mental, vital and physical being are full of weakness and Tamas and the debility and torpor which he constantly experiences are the result of this deficient adhar trying to bear the pressure of the Sadhana. At this time he has one thing which can carry them through if he keeps it steadily, the persistant faith and self-surrender. If the physical lightness, which he experienced for the last four or five days before he wrote can be made permanent then probably the worst part of the difficulty is over. In any case that permanence whenever it comes will be the sign of a certain fundamental safety and the other deficiencies can be gradually rectified by the coming in of the light and the power into the mind and the vital being.
As regards Jyotish Mukerjee, the most notable thing in his photograph is the strong symmetry between the two sides of his face centered in the dissimilarity of the two eyes. This always is a sign of two sides in the nature which have not been harmonised and unified, one side perhaps of faith and devotion and another of a critical and negative mind or one side drawn to higher things and the other held down by the earth nature. This is likely to create a great disadvantage and difficulties in the earlier part of the Sadhana, for it remains even though the disparity may be suppressed by the mental effort but once the balance or unification can be created there is a compensatory advantage by the combination of two strong elements both necessary to completeness. The Sadhana he has been doing seems to have been mainly that of a preliminary mental and vital (psychological) purification and preparation of a very sound character but what is still lacking is a positive spiritual side of the Sadhana. However, the clearing of the system seems to have gone far enough for him to have had at least glimpses of psycho-spiritual experiences and a promise even of the supramental awaiting its time for manifestation. I shall, if I make time, write separately my comments on his experiences and if he understands and follows he may proceed more rapidly in his Sadhana. What you say about your Sadhana is probably the right interpretation of your experiences. The two things of which you speak are really two sides of one movement. The opening and clearing of the lower strata can only be effectively done in proportion as this relative or mentalised supramental can lay hold on the consciousness and open to and bring down the higher or intermediate from above, and this in its turn can only. settle it into the being in proportion as the psycho-vital and physical open, clear and change. The interaction must go on until a certain balance between the two movements is created which will enable the higher to hold the being without interruption, and open it more and more to the true supramental activities. The action into which you have been cast was probably necessary because it is the dynamic part of your being in which the defects of the lower nature have the greatest hold and are most prominant.
P.S.
After this letter was finished I got your last of the 12th. What you say about Kumar Krishna there is what I could already gather about him, only made precise. I do not think that these things very much matter. All strong natures have the rajasic active outgoing force in them and if that were sufficient to unfit for the yoga very few of us would have had a chance. As for the doubt of the physical mind as to whether the thing is possible, who has not had it? In my own case it pursued years and years and it is only in last two years that the last shadow of doubt, not laterly of its theoretical feasibility, but of the practical certainty of its achievement in the present state of the world and of the human nature entirely left me. The same thing can be said of the egoistic poise, the almost all strong egoistic poise. But I do not think judging from the photograph but it is of the same half bull and half bulldog nature as in B. P.Mittra. These things can only go with spiritual, development and experiences and then the strength behind them becomes asset. It is also evident from what you say about his past experience of the voice and the vesture that there is, as I thought a physical something in him waiting for and on the verge of spiritual awakening. I understand that he is waiting for intellectual conviction and to bring it some kind of assurance from the inner experience. To that also there is nothing to say. But the question is, and it seems to me the one question in his case, whether he will be ready to bring to the yoga the firm entire and absolute will and consecration that will be needed to tide him through all the struggles and crises of Sadhana. The disparity between his mental poise and his action is natural enough, precisely because it is a mental poise. It has to become a spiritual poise before the life and the ideal can become one. Have the spoiling by luxury of which you speak and the worldly life sapped in him the possibility of developing an entire Godward will? If not, then he may be given his chance. I cannot positively say that he is or will be the Adhikari. I can only say that there is the capacity in the best part of his nature. I cannot also say that he is among the “best”. But he seems to me to have more original capacity than some at least who have been accepted. When I wrote about the “best” I did not mean an Adhar without defects and dangers, for I do not think such a one is to be found. My impression is of course, founded on a general favourable effect produced by the physiognomy and the appearance, on certain definite observations upon the same and on the psychic indications which were mixed but in the balance favourable. I have not seen the man as you have.
Your fuller account of your Sadhana shows that you are seeing in the nature and power of the supramental but you are seeing it probably through the revealatory light descending into the mind. It can only fulfil itself on the conditions I have named, first the opening to the actual descent of the supermind itself which you will find something still more concrete and full of the truth power and truth substance and is penetration of the physical consciousness in all its layers.
30 May 1923
Arya Office, Pondicherry 30th May 1923
I have been obliged for some time, partly owing to the many sided storm of which you speak, to concentrate on other things and perhaps that is one reason why this stream of money collection has run dry. I shall see whether we can set it flowing again. I do not ask you to come back as yet because it is much better if possible to get this thing finished in such a way that you may not have to go running back after a time to complete it. The arrangement I thought of with regard to the debts have not taken shape or rather have postponed themselves to an indefinite future. If I remember right what you have immediately to pay is some 251 more to Kamala Palit and 600 to Arun. Besides this and the other 2000 to Arun, which if necessary can wait, there are the sums due, 1500 altogether to the Kaviraj and Pulin Mitter. I believe there is nothing else. Can the last two wait and if so how long? What is still necessary is to raise 1500 more for next year's expenses here. Next, to pay off, the more pressing debts and if there is any large opening all the debts. I would have no objection to your applying the money you can raise from the Marwaries to the latter purpose. If Basantlal Murarka can readily raise 5000 from them, the problem will be solved. I shall then be able to keep Das' money separate and if he also keeps his promise that with some help from elsewhere will prevent all necessity of thinking of these things for another two years.
As regards Kanai, the experiences of which he is afraid do not seem to me dangerous in themselves. They are such as come to all people whose Yoga runs strongly on psychic lines and those you mention and similar ones of still stronger character have been experienced by Mirra at least a thousand times during her Sadhana. The only danger, apart from any hostile interference, comes from the disturbance of the physical mind and the fear and apprehensions of the nervous and physical being, I have already written once before that the fearlessness is first necessary condition for going through this Yoga. These fears and apprehensions and the sense of weakness and insecurity come from the attachment of the physical and nervous being to its ordinary basis of consciousness and usual habits of living and its alarm at anything abnormal which forces it out of its own grooves. As for the need of immediate protection, that is only when the vital goes out of the body. The psychic being can go out without any danger if the physical consciousness does not disturb and itself create the danger. But unfortunately Kanai's physical and nervous being seems to be weak and not on a level with the powers of his mind and psychical nature. It may be better for him to concentrate first on the preparation of his physical consciousness, I have already said that what he must do is to bring down the basis of calm light and strength into the physical mind, nerves and body. Once this is thoroughly done all attacks can be met. There will be no disturbing vibrations and all kinds of psychic and vital experiences such as those now pressing upon will be welcomed as an expansion and fulfilment of the integral nature and a cause not of apprehension but of knowledge and Ananda. As to his coming here, I was not calling him because just now I am still in the concentration on the complete mastery of the physical and that prevents me from putting myself out very much at present. I could not give him the constant attention which will be needed according to your suggestion and besides as his physical being is the weakest part of him, it might not be altogether advisable for him to be here until I have established a sufficient general security against any attack which might touch on that plane. Still I shall see whether I can call him after a little time.
I have no objection to Rajani's proposal of visit here in case of his confirmation. It might be helpful to him in the present stage of his Sadhana.
I had forgotten that Poury Mohan Das and Chittagong aspirant were one and the same person. You will have to take together what was said about each in Nalini's letter. The chaotic nature of his experiences about which I spoke are probably due to some kind of difficulty or exaggeration in his vital being. It is best for him to start with getting a sure foundation of calm and quiet opening upon all the planes of his consciousness, especially the emotional and vital, so that a sound and orderly development of the Yoga may be possible.
If Kanai really gets anything of the nature of psychic trance the one thing he will have to be careful about is to meditate under such conditions that it will not be roughly broken from outside.
14 February 1924
14th February 1924 Arya Office, Pondicherry
I have received the Benares money and am sending an acknowledgment with this letter, which you can transmit to Das. Rajani's fifty has not yet reached me.
I had already written to you about Akhil and on the 10th Manmohan telegraphed and wrote to Chittagong instructing him not to go to Bhawanipur but to collect the money and as soon as he had done this and sufficiently recovered from fever, to write and he would receive a call from here. It appears from your telegram today that he started before receiving Manmohan's telegram. I can give no other instructions than these I have already given, Akhil must collect the money sufficient for his journey here and back either to Krishnanagore or Chittagong and he must not come without the sum in his hand. I have arranged things here so as to have just sufficient to meet one year's expenses under each head just that and no more. Until I am assured of the next year's expenses and more I cannot meet unexpected charges or enlarge my expenditure. Therefore it will not do for him to come and then have to wait here indefinitely for means of his return journey. An arrangement agreed upon ought to be observed otherwise there is unnecessary inconvenience and confusion.
I infer from your letter and telegram taken together that Mohini is starting for Krishnagore in order to take back Krishnashashi. Of course in that case there is no need to wait further as was suggested in Mohini's letter. I have received no news about Krishnashashi for the last three days. This kind of disregard of instructions is not at all right. It puts us in considerable difficulty in trying to help Krishnashashi. Please ask Mohini to let me know often from Chittagong about Krishnashashi and his condition. Barada Babu's letter is very interesting but does not solve the difficulty I had, as it gives me no fresh information of any importance. It had already been seen that the immediate cause of the collapse was partly sexual; for that we included in what I meant by the uprush from the vital being. Nor does it make much difference that the physico-vital force possessing him took from the form or assumed the pranic body of some dead friend. The situation remains as before. If the disorder is only psychic it will disappear in time. If there is some brain defect that has come up, the issue is more doubtful. The suggestion about the medicine may possibly be useful hereafter. Mohini had better be informed about it.
As to Rajani's difficulties you might ask him to write to me himself stating them and the precise cause of his doubts. As far as I know about his Sadhana he was progressing in a steady and sound fashion, but for long I have no further news of it. There is no reason why he should not succeed in the Yoga if he keeps the right attitude and faith and perseverance. He will necessarily have difficulties with his vital nature and physical mind which have a strong earth element, but that is the case also with several others. His development, if he preserves, is likely to be rather through knowledge and will than any great richness of psychic experience, but he must not take the absence or paucity of the latter for an inability to develop the Yoga.
The paragraph in one of your letters about the debts is very confused and I can make nothing precise out of it. What I want is to know first what were the heads and the exact sums actually met by the loan of two thousand. What for instance, is the amount still due to the Kavirajas and what the amount of the small loans. It is very necessary for me, whether in determining what to write to Amar with regard to money matters or in trying to help you, to have an exact and clear idea of the whole transaction. Where there is only a confused vague or general idea, the force I put out loses itself very largely in the void. Specially I shall have in the future to try and act more and more from the Supramental and less and less from the mind. Now the first condition of the Supramental is exactness, clearness and order both in the total and the details and their relations. Therefore it is a great advantage if there are these elements in the data upon which I have to work and great disadvantage if they are absent.
I shall await your report about Mohini. I gather from his letter that he wanted to remain sometime with me for Sadhana. My own idea is that as already written by Manmohan to Chittagong it is better for most to practice first in the elements at least the synthetic Yoga of Jnana, Bhakti and Karma and establish peace and Samata before taking up the Yoga of complete and direct self-surrender. There will always be exceptions, but this is far most the safest course.
Letter to A. B. Purani
With regard to the attacks you get there A.G. says they are bound to come as long as your entire consciousness is not transformed. Even when the higher power works in you down to your physico-vital consciousness, the attacks will find a way through the physical consciousness. Even if the power is in full action down to the physical itself, the attacks you complain of in your letter, especially those that take the form of illness can get you through, the medium of subconscious vibrations of the physical. You have to fight them out of you until your entire Adhara is completely transformed when no more attacks of any kind can trouble you. These things are always coming from the universal as you have had full experience; and now that you are no longer isolated they have the additional advantage of the people with whom you mix,—for that is always full of the perturbed human currents.
Now to your question how you should mix with people there. A.G. says you should retain and remain in your own Yoga consciousness separate from and above the consciousness of those who are around you. But you need not show them that you are in a different plane of being. It is enough to live in yourself in the true inner poise and keep the protection of your own atmosphere, without your outward manner of aloofness or of being other than they are.
You say that you have lost the Divine peace which had come to you on your way to Gujarat. A.G. says that the Divine peace that you speak of—like other deepest states—comes and goes increasing gradually in the return until it can be fully established in the various planes of your being—they cannot be ready at once to keep it in its fullness. Lastly A.G. wants you to communicate to him constantly your experiences and the progress that you can make in your Sadhana in spite of any difficulty you may now and then feel in writing letters.
Arya Office, Pondicherry 18th November 1922
Dear Chitta,
It is a long time, almost two years I think, since I have written a letter to any one. I have been so much retired and absorbed in my Sadhana that contact with outside world has till lately been reduced to a minimum. Now that I am looking outward again, I find that circumstances lead me to write first to you. I say circumstances, because it is a need that makes me take up the pen after so long a disuse.
The need is in connection with the first outward work that 1 am undertaking after this long inner retirement. Barin has gone to Bengal and will see you in connection with it, but a word from me is necessary perhaps and therefore I send you this letter through Barin. I am giving him also a letter of authority from which you will understand the immediate nature of the need for which T have sent him to raise funds. But I may add something to make it more definite.
I think you know my present idea and the attitude towards life and work to which it has brought me. I have become confirmed in a perception which I had always, less clearly and dynamically then, but which has become more and more evident to me, that the true basis of life and work is the spiritual, that is to say, a new consciousness to be developed only by Yoga. I see more and more manifestly that man can never get out of the futile circle; the race is always treading until he has raised himself to the new foundation. I believe also that it is the mission of India to make this great victory for the world. But what precisely was the nature of the dynamic power of this greater consciousness? What was the condition of its effective truth? How could it be brought down, mobilised, organised, turned upon life? How could our present instruments, intellect, mind, life, body be made true and perfect channels for this great transformation? This was the problem I have trying to work out in my own experience and I have now a sure basis, a wide knowledge and some mastery of the secret. Not yet its fullness and complete imperative presence—therefore I have still to remain in retirement. For I am determined not to work in the external field till I have the sure and complete possession of this new power of action—not to build except on a perfect foundation.
But still I have gone far enough to be able to undertake one work on a large scale than before—the training of others to receive the Sadhana and prepare themselves as I have done, for without that my future work cannot even be begun. There are many who desire to come here and whom I can admit for the purpose, there are a greater number who can be trained at a distance; but I am unable to carry on unless I have sufficient funds to be able to maintain a centre here and one or two at least outside. I need therefore much larger resources than I at present command. I have thought that by your recommendation and influence you may help Barin to gather them for me. May I hope that you will do this for me?
One word to avoid a possible misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economical organisation and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying to work out in his own way in his Sarigha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about—my own work which I must do myself and no one can do for me.
I have been following with interest your political activities specially your present attempt to give a more flexible and practically effective turn to non-cooperation movement. I doubt whether you will succeed against such contrary forces, but I wish you success in your endeavour. I am most interested however in your indications about Swaraj; for I have been developing my own ideas about the organisation of a true Indian Swaraj and I shall look forward to see how far yours will fall in with mine.
Yours...
6 April 1923
6th April, 1923 Arya Office, Pondicherry
My dear Rajani,
I am writing today about your son Rathin and his illness if it can be called by that name. I shall state first in general terms the nature of the malady and its usual developments, that is to say, the normal course it takes when no psychic or spiritual force is brought in to remove it. Afterwards I shall indicate the two possible means of cure.
I think it is best for me to state the case in its worst and not only in its best possible terms because it is necessary that you should know the full truth and have courage to face it. These cases are not those of a truly physical malady but of an attempt at possession from the vital world: and the fits and other physical symptoms are signs, not of the malady itself, but of the struggle of the natural being against the pressure of the hostile influences. Such a case in a child of this age indicates some kind of accumulation in the physical heredity creating an opportunity or a predisposition of which vital invasion takes advantage. It is especially the physical consciousness and physico-vital which contain the germs or materials of this predisposition. The physical being is always changing its constituents and in each period of seven years a complete change is effected. If the symptoms of this predisposition in the nature are detected and wise influence and training used by the parents to eradicate them and that is done so effectively that in the first seven years no seeds of the malady appear, then usually there is no further danger. If on the contrary they manifest by the seventh year, then the next period of seven years is the critical period and ordinarily the case would be decided one way or the other by or before the fourteenth year.
There are normally three possible eventualities. The difficulty in dealing with the case of so young a child is that the mind is not developed and can give no help towards the cure. But as the mind develops in the second seven years it will, if it is not abnormally weak which I think is not the case here, react more and more against the influences. Aided by a good control and influence it may very well succeed in casting out the hostile intrusion and its pressure altogether. In that case the fits and other signs of the physical struggle pass away, the strange moral and vital tendencies fade out of the habits and the child become mentally, morally and physically a healthy normal being.
The second possibility is that the struggle between the natural being and the intruding being may not be decisive in the Psychic sense, that is to say the intruder cannot take full possession but also he cannot be thrown out entirely. In that case anything may happen, a shattered mind and health, the death of the body or a disturbed, divided and permanently abnormal nature.
The third and worst possibility is that the intruding being may succeed and take entire possession. In that case the fits and other violent symptoms will disappear, the child may seem to be physically cured and healthy, but he will be an abnormal and most dangerous being incarnating an evil vital force with all its terrible propensities and gifted with abnormal powers to satisfy them.
In Rathin's case there is not as yet possession in the full sense of the word, but a strong pressure and influence indicated by the strange habits of which you have written. These are suggested and dictated by the intruding being and not proper to the boy himself. The fearlessness and security with which he does these things is inspired from the same source. But the fits prove that there is as yet no possession. There is struggle indicated by them and a temporary hold which passes out again. He is evidently in the earlier part of the critical period. I have indicated the course normally taken by the illness, but it is not necessary to pass through it and take its risks. There are other means which can come to his help and effect a complete cure.
The first and easiest is to cure by hypnotic suggestion. This if properly applied is an absolutely sure remedy. But in the first place, it must be applied by some one who is not himself under the influence of evil powers, as some hypnotists are. For that obviously will make matters worse. Moreover, it must be done by someone, who has the proper training and knows thoroughly what he is about, for a mistake might be disastrous. The best conditions would be if someone like yourself who has a natural relation and already an influence over the child could do it with the necessary training and knowledge.
The other means of cure is the use of spiritual power and influence. If certain psycho-spiritual means could be used, this would be as sure and effectual as the other. But this is not possible because there is no one there who has the right knowledge. The spiritual influence by itself can do it but the working is likely to be slow. It must ordinarily be conveyed through someone on the spot and you yourself are obviously the right instrument. What you have to do is to keep the idea that I am sending to you power for this object, to make yourself receptive to it and at the same time make your own will and natural influence on the child a direct channel for it. The will must be a quiet will, calm and confident and intent on its object, but without attachment and unshaken by any amount of resistance and unalarmed and undiscouraged by the manifestations of the illness. Your attitude to the child must be that of a calm and firm protecting affection free from emotional weakness and disturbance. The first thing is to acquire such an influence as to be able to repel the attack when it comes and if it takes any hold to diminish steadily its force and the violence of its manifestation. I understand from your letter that you have already been able to establish the beginning of such an influence. But it must be able to work at a distance as well as in his presence. Further you must acquire the power of leaving a protection around him when you are absent. Secondly, you must be able to convey to him a constant suggestion which will gradually inhibit the strange undesirable habits of which you speak in your letter. This, I may say cannot be effectively done by any kind of external coercion. For that it likely to make these impulses more violent. It must be a will and suggestion and silent influence. If you find the control increasing and these habits diminishing, you can understand, that the work of cure has begun. Its completion may take some time because these vital beings are very sticky and persistent and are always returning to the attack. The one thing which can make the cure rapid is if the boy himself develops a will in his mind to change for that will take away the ground of the hostile influence. It is because something in him is amused and takes pleasure in the force which comes with the influence that these things are able to recur and continue. This element in him calls the invading presence back even when it has been centrally rejected. I shall of course try to act directly on him as well as through you, but the instrumentality of one on the spot greatly enforces and is sometimes indispensible to the action.
A word about your sadhana. It seems to me that the key of your future development is contained in the experience which you say you often attained for a few days at Krishnagore (your letter of the 9th February) “A state which was full of knowledge, calm, serenity, strength and wide consciousness—all questions automatically solved—a continuous stream of power passed into body through the forehead centre—extremely powerful having undisturbed samata, calm, conviction, keen sight and knowledge”. This was the consciousness of true Purusha in you aware of his own supramental being and it is this which must become your normal consciousness and the basis of the supramental development. In order that it may so become, the mind has to be made calm and strong, the emotional and vital being purified and the physical consciousness so opened that the body can hold and refrain the consciousness and power. I notice that at the time you had it the body also expressed it. This is a sign that the capacity is already there in your physical being. The calm and strength will descend from above, what you have to do is to open yourself and receive and at the same time, reject all the movements of the lower nature which prevent it from remaining and which are ruled by desires and habits inconsistent with the true being, the true power and the true knowledge, of course the superior power will itself reveal to you and remove all obstacles in your nature. But the condition is that not only your mental but your vital and physical being must open and surrender to it and refuse to surrender themselves to other powers and forces. As you yourself experienced at that time, this greater consciousness will of itself bring the development of the higher will and knowledge. Psychic experiences of a proper kind are of course a great help but in your case it may be that any rich development of the psychic will only come after or in proportion as this consciousness with its calm knowledge, will and Samata take possession of the different parts of the being.
14th April, Morning
About Natverial Bharatia: Tell him I can't take charge of his whole family all at once and that his disconnecting with Lele I don't call peaceful. Ask for particular reasons he has written in his letter and also about how Lele has taken this matter. For I told you about the Dattatraya Yoga. If that was the case, these Yogis don't care for Divine or Asuric or Rakshasic forces and when Lele saw the woman that force took possession of her, because she seems to have a very sensitive Psychic being and therefore she might have opposed the influence and there she was upset, and once it is upset it is very hard to cure. Besides if her husband died at the time when she was sufficiently grown up to receive any influence from him, then it may be that there was a clash between her husband's influence and that of Lele. I am inclined to think that it is due to both.
If Lele gets angry or chooses to react you must know that after all he is a Yogi and he can harm the boy. Now if his influence is working and I mix in this matter then our forces would clash which I don't like because it would not be good for the boy himself.
About Yoga he must thus be free from any influence from Lele, and even then he would have to prepare himself for this Yoga.
It is not so easy for him at present. But some line may be pointed out.
16 June 1923
Arya Office, Pondicherry 16th June, 1923
I have read the record of Jyotish Mukherjee's experiences. It appears from it that he has made the right start to a certain extent and has been able to establish the beginning of mental calm and some kind of psychic opening but neither of these has as yet been able to go very far. The reason probably is that he has done everything by a strong mental control and forcible stilling of the mind and emotional and vital movements, but he has not yet established the true spiritual calm which can only come by experience of or surrender to the higher being above the mind. It is this that he has to get in order to make a foundation for a more substantial progress.
(1) He is right in thinking that an inner calm and silence must be the foundation, not only of external work but of all inner and outer activities. But the quieting of the mind in a mental silence or inactivity although often useful as the first step, is not sufficient. The mental must be changed first into deeper spiritual peace Shanti, and then into the supramental calm and silence full of the higher light and strength and Ananda. Moreover, the quieting of the mind only is not enough. The vital and physical consciousness have to be opened up and the same foundation established there. Also the spirit of devotion of which he speaks must be not merely a mental feeling but an aspiration of the deeper heart and will to the truth above, that the being may rise up into it and that it may descend and govern all the activities.
(2) The void he feels in the mind is often a necessary condition for the clearing of it from its ordinary movements so that it may open to a higher consciousness and a new experience but in itself it is merely negative, a mental calm without anything positive in it and if one stops there, then the dullness and the inertia of which he complains must come. What he needs is, in the void and silence of the mind, to open himself to, to wait or to call for the action of the higher power, light and peace from above the mind.
(3) The survival of evil habits in sleep is easily explained and is a thing of common experience. It is a known psychological law that whatever is suppressed in the conscious mind remains in the subconscient being and recurs either in the waking state when the control by itself cannot eradicate anything entirely out of the being. The subconscient in the ordinary man includes the larger part of the vital being and the physical mind and also the secret body-consciousness. In order to make a true and complete change, one has to make all these conscious, to see clearly what is still there and to reject them from one layer after another till they have been entirely thrown out from the personal experience. Even then they may remain and come back on the being from the surrounding universal forces and it is only when no part of the consciousness makes any response to those forces of the lower plane that the victory and transformation are absolutely complete.
(4) His experience that whenever he gains conquest in the mental plane the force of past Karma, that is to say, really of the old nature, comes back upon him with a double vigour is again a common experience. The psychological explanation is to be found in the preceding paragraph. All the attempt at transformation of the being is to fight with universal forces which have long been in possession and it is vain to expect that they will give up the struggle at the first defeat. As long as they can, they seek to retain possession and even when they are cast out they will, as long as there is any chance of response in the conscious or the suconscious being, try to recur and regain their hold. It is no use being discouraged by these attacks. What has to be done is to see that they are made more and more external, all assent refused until they weaken and fade away. Not only the Chitta and Buddhi must refuse consent but also the lower parts of the being, the vital and the physico-vital, physical mind and the body consciousness.
(5) The defect of the receiving mind and the discriminating Buddhi spoken of are general defects of the intellect and cannot be entirely be got rid of so long as the intellectual action is not replaced by a higher superintellectual action and finally by the harmonising light of the supramental knowledge.
Next as regards the psychic experiences. The region of glory felt in the crown of the head is simply the touch or reflection of the supramental sunlight on the higher part of the mind. The whole mind and being must open to this light and it must descend and fill the whole system. The lightning and the electric currents are the (vaidyutd) Agni force of the supramental sun touching and trying to pour into the body. The other signs are promises of the future psychic and other experiences. But none of these things can establish themselves until the opening to the higher force has been made. The mental Yoga can only be a preparation for this truer starting-point.
What I have said is merely an explanation of these experiences but it seems to me that he has advanced far enough to make a foundation for the beginning of the higher Yoga. If he wishes to do that he must replace his mental control by a belief in and a surrender to the Supreme Presence and force above the mind, an aspiration in the heart and a will in the higher mind to the Supreme. Truth and the transformation of the whole conscious being by its descent and power. He must, in his meditation open himself silently to it and call down first a deeper calm and silence, next the strength from the above working in the whole system and last the higher and glory of which he had a glimpse pouring through his whole being and illuminating it with the Divine truth movement;
1923
(1923...)
Dear Ramchandra,
I am answering your second letter which reached me today. And first I must say something about the very extraordinary line of conduct you propose to adopt in case of not hearing from me. I think it is because, as you say, your mind is not yet in a completely right condition that you have proposed it. No one with any common-sense and certainly no one with a clear moral sense would support you in your intention. As to the law, it is not usual in France to take up things of this kind but only public offences against morals. The court would probably take no notice of your self-accusation and in any case it could not proceed in the absence of evidence from others which would here be lacking. But supposing it were otherwise, what would your action amount to ? First, it would be putting an almost insuperable obstacle in the way of your own mental and moral recovery and of your leading a useful life in the future. Secondly, it would be bringing an unmerited disgrace upon your father and family. Thirdly, it would mean, if it took any form, the ruin of the life of someone else, for if I understand rightly what you say, some other or others would be involved, and your suggestion that you are entirely responsible would be absurd in law and could have no value, and all this havoc you propose to cause merely in order to satisfy, in fact if it could be a morbid moral egoism. It would be, seriously executed, a greater immorality than anything you have yet done. The true way to set yourself right for your act is not to do untold harm to others in the name of honesty or any other virtue, but to put yourself right inwardly and do otherwise in the future.
I shall answer briefly the questions you put in your second paragraph. (1) The way to set yourself right is, as I have said, to set your nature right and make yourself master of your vital being and its impulses.
(2) Your position in human society is or can be that of many others v/ho in their early life have committed excesses of various kinds and have afterwards achieved self-control and taken their due place in life, if you would know that your case is not exceptional but on the contrary very common, and that many have done these things and afterwards become useful citizens and even leading men in various departments of human activity. (3) It is quite possible for you to recompense your parents and fulfil the past expectations you spoke of, if you make that your object. Only you must first recover from your illness and achieve the proper balance of your mind and will. The object of your life depends upon your own choice and the way of attainment depends upon the nature of the objects. Also your position will be whatever you make it. What you have to do first is, to recover your health; then with a quiet mind to determine your aim in life according to your capacities and preference. It is not for me to make up your mind for you. I can only indicate to you what I myself think should be the proper aims and ideals.
Apart from external things there are two possible inner ideals which a man can follow. The first is the highest ideal of ordinary human life and the other the divine ideal of Yoga. I must say in view of something you seem to have said to your father that it is not the object of the one to be a great man or the object of the other to be a great Yogin. The ideal of human life is to establish over the whole being the control of a clear, strong and rational mind and a right and rational will to master the emotional, vital and physical being, create a harmony of the whole and develop the capacities whatever they are and fulfil them in life. In the terms of Hindu thought it is to enthrone the rule of the purified and sattvikbudhi, follow the Dharma, fulfilling of one's own Swadharma and doing the work proper to one's capacities; and satisfy Kama and Artha under the control of the Buddhi and Dharma. The object of divine life, on the other hand, is to realise one's highest self or to realise God and to put the whole being into harmony with the truth of the highest self or the law of the divine nature, to find one's own divine capacities, great and small, and fulfil them in life as a sacrifice to the Highest or as a true instrument of the divine Shakti. About the latter ideal I may write at some later times. At present, I shall only say something about the difficulty you feel in fulfilling the ordinary ideal.
This ideal involves the building of mind and character and it is always a slow and difficult process demanding patient labour of years, sometimes the better part of the lifetime. The chief difficulty in the way with almost everybody is the difficulty of controlling the desires and impulses of the vital being. In many cases as in yours, certain strong impulses run persistently counter to the ideal and demand of the reason and the will. The cause is almost always a weakness of the vital being itself, for, when there is this weakness it finds itself unable to obey the dictates of the higher mind and obliged to act instead under the waves of impulsion that comes from certain forces in nature. These forces are really external to the person but find in this part of him a sort of mechanical readiness to satisfy and obey them. The difficulty is aggravated if the seat of the weakness is in the nervous system. There is then what is called by European science a neurasthenic tendency and under certain circumstances it leads to nervous breakdowns and collapses. This happens when there is too great a strain on the nerves or when there is excessive indulgence of the sexual or other propensities and sometimes also when there is too acute and prolonged a struggle between the restraining mental will and these propensities. This is the illness from which you are suffering and if you consider these facts you will see the real reason why you broke down at Pondicherry. The nervous system in you was weak, it could not obey the will and resist the demand of the external vital forces, and in the struggle there came an overstrain of the mind and the nerves and a collapse taking the form of an acute attack of neurasthenia. These difficulties do not mean that you cannot prevail and bring about a control of your nervous and vital being and build up a harmony of mind and character. Only you must understand the thing rightly, not indulging false and morbid ideas about it and you must use the right means. What is needed is a quiet mind and a quiet will, patient, persistent, refusing to yield either to excitement or discouragement, but always insisting tranquilly on the change needed in the being. A quiet will of this kind can not fail in the end. Its effects are inevitable. It must first reject in the waking state not only the acts habitual to the vital being, but the impulses behind them which it must understand to be external to the person even though manifested in him and also the suggestions which are behind the impulses. When thus rejected the once habitual thoughts and movements may still manifest in the dream-state, because it is a well-known psychological law that what is suppressed or rejected in the waking state may still recur in sleep and dream because they are still there in the subconscient being. But if the waking state is thoroughly cleaned, these dream movements must gradually disappear because they lose their food and impressions in the subonscient are gradually effaced. This is the cause of the dreams of which you are so much afraid. You should see that they are only subordinate symptoms which need not alarm you if you can once get control of your waking condition.
But you must get rid of the ideas which have stood in the way of effecting this self-conquest.
1) Realise that these things in you do not come from any true moral depravity, for that can exist only when the mind itself is corrupted and supports the perverse vital impulses. Where the mind and the will reject them, the moral being is sound and it is a case only of a weakness or malady in the vital parts or the nervous system.
2) Do not brood on the past but turn your face with a patient hope and confidence towards the future. To brood on past failure will prevent you from recovering your health and will weaken your mind and will be hampering them in the work of self-conquest and rebuilding of the character.
3) Do not yield to discouragement if success does not come at once, but continue patiently and steadfastly until the thing is done.
4) Do not torture your mind by always dwelling on your weakness. Do not imagine that they unfit you for life or for the fulfilment of the human ideal. Once having recognised that they are there, seek for your sources of strength and dwell rather on them and the certainty of conquest.
Your first business is to recover your health of mind and body and that needs quietness of mind and for some time a quiet way of living. Do not rack your mind with questions which it is not yet ready to solve. Do not brood always on the one thing. Occupy your mind as much as you can with healthy and normal occupations and give it as much rest as possible. Afterwards when you have your right mental condition and balance, then you can with a clear judgement decide how you will shape your life and what you have to do in the future.
I have given you the best advice. I have told you what seems to me the most important thing for you at present. As for your coming to Pondicherry, it is better not to do so just now. I could say to you nothing more than what I have written. It is best for you so long as you are ill not to leave your father's care, and, above all it is the safe rule in illness like yours not to return to the place and surroundings where you had the breakdown until you are perfectly recovered and the memories and associations connected with it have faded in their intensity, lost their hold on the mind and can no longer produce upon it a violent and disturbing impression.
To Hrishikesh,
It appears from your present letter and attitude that you propose to give God a seat on your right hand and R. another on the left and to sit in meditation between oscillating sweetly from one to the other. If this is what you want to do please do it in the Cherry Press and not in Pondicherry. If you want to come here, you must do it with a firm determination to get rid of this attachment and make a complete and unconditional consecration and self-surrender.
You seem not to have understood the principle of this Yoga. The old Yoga demanded a complete renunciation extending to the giving up of the worldly life itself. This Yoga aims instead at a new and transformed life. But it insists inexorably on a complete throwing away of desire and attachment in the mind, life and body. Its aim is to refound life in the truth of the Spirit and for that purpose to transfer the roots of all we are and do from the mind, life and body to a greater consciousness above the mind. That means that in the new life all the connections must be founded on a spiritual intimacy and a truth quite other than any which supports our present connections. One must be prepared to renounce at the higher call what are called the natural affections. Even if they are kept at all, it can only be with a change which transformed them altogether. But whether they are to be renounced or kept and changed must be decided not by the personal desires but by the truth above. All must be given up to the Supreme Master of the Yoga.
If you cling to the desires of the mental, vital and physical beings, this transference and transformation cannot happen. Your attachment to your son is a thing of the vital parts in you, and if you are not prepared to give it up, it will inevitably clash with the demands of the Yoga and stop your progress.
When you came here, your physical being was opened up, and the mental, vital and physical obstacles sufficiently worked upon to admit of this opening. This came first, because that was the strongest part of you for the purposes of Yoga. Afterwards there was an attempt to open up the mind and the other parts. But owing to certain influences their resistance became strong enough to bring things to a standstill. Doubt and non-understanding in the mind and the vital attachments of which this one to your son is the strongest were the main instruments of this resistance. It is no use coming back with any of these things still cherished and supported by your mind and will. Either you will make no progress at all here or if the power works on you it will work to break the resistance. The nature of this struggle and the consequences may be of a serious and undesirable character. The power that works in this Yoga is of a thorough-going character and tolerates in the end nothing great or small that is an obstacle to the truth and the realisation. To come here will be to invite its working in its strongest and most insistent form.
23 August 1924
23rd August 1924
To Chandrashekhar,
1) It is not easy to get into the Silence. That is only possible by throwing out the mental and vital activities. It is to let Silence into you i.e., to open yourself and let it descend. The way to do this and the way to call down the higher powers is the same. It is to remain quiet at the time of meditation, not fighting with the mind or making mental efforts to pull down the power of the Silence but keeping only a silent will and aspiration for them. If the mind is active one has to learn to look at it drawn back and not giving any sanction from within—until its habitual and mechanical activities begin to fall quiet for want of support from within. If it is persistent a steady rejection without strain or struggle is the one thing to be done.
2) The mental attitude you are taking with regard to Lord as the Yogeshwar can be made first step towards this quietude.
3) Silence does not mean absence of experiences. It is an inner silence and quietude in which all experiences happen without producing any disturbance. It would be a great mistake to interfere with the images rising in you. It does not matter whether they are mental or psychic. One must have experiences not only of the true psychic but of the inner mental, the inner vital and subtle physical worlds or planes of consciousness. The occurrence of images is a sign that these are opening and to inhibit them would mean to inhibit the expansion of consciousness and experience without which this Yoga cannot be done.
All this is an answer to the points raised in your letter. It is not meant that you should change suddenly what you are doing. It is better to proceed from what you have attained which seems to be solid though small and proceed quietly in the direction indicated.
A.G.
16 October 1924
Arya Office, Pondicherry 16.10.24
To Seth Gangaram Bharatia,
A letter has been received from Purani by which Sri Aurobindo has been fully informed of the details of Natwarlal's case. He now knows clearly what is really the matter with him and he wishes me to draw your attention to the following points.
1) Natwarlal's case is not one of ordinary madness—that is, disturbance of the brain, but some hostile being or power has laid hold of his mind (as happened in the case of his sister, but in a different way and as yet less completely). It is preventing him from using his own intelligence. At the same time this power is continually giving bad suggestions to him—not to take food, suggestions of death, of throwing away his present body, of wrong motives in those who offer him food, of sin, of aparadha, etc.
2) To cure this illness of the mind will be difficult and is likely to take a long time, because these suggestions have become fixed ideas which he is unable to resist. Even if the being is driven away, something in Natwarlal's mind finds delight in the play or workings of the being and that is likely to bring it back again.
3) There is a supreme power that can cure him at once, because nothing can resist it. But that comes by the Grace of God, under conditions which cannot be commanded. Sri Aurobindo by his will cannot command it; he hopes to be able to call it down, but it is not certain. Meanwhile time is needed and the danger is that if he does not eat the body may collapse before anything effective can be done.
4) The hostile power is trying to destroy him by giving the suggestions not to eat, to throw away his body etc. The first thing necessary is that he should be made to resume eating and all of you should see that these suggestions are counteracted. He should be made to eat by any means, persuasion, pressure, compulsion or otherwise.
5) This can be done best if there is someone near him with a will stronger than his own, someone who will quietly and strongly insist, take no notice of and give no value to his objections and make him eat in spite of his own mind and its hallucinations.
6) If there is none, then if a powerful and genuine hypnotist is available, he can by right suggestions counteract the bad ones of the being, make Natwarlal have the will to eat and throw out the ideas of death, aparadha, etc., which are now perverting his intelligence.
7) Otherwise, the only possible method is to put him under the control of somebody accustomed to deal with these cases who will make him eat in spite of his objections.
8) Sri Aurobindo wishes to make it clear to you that he can absolutely have no cause for anger towards you or Natwarlal. On the contrary he has every cause to be pleased with him. He asks you to remove from your mind any idea of aparadha done towards him by yourself or Natwarlal as that will only hinder his helping effectively.
Sri Aurobindo says that he will try to free Natwarlal from hostile possession of his mind—the result is in God's hands. Only as time is necessary for a complete cure, Natwarlal must be made to take food so that he may not break down in the middle. That is the first and the one indispensable thing to be done.
Yours sincerely, Punamchand M. Shah
24 December 1924
24-12-24
Letter to N. S. Chidambaram
In order to get to the higher consciousness the essential condition is quietude of the mind. The ordinary nature of the mind is either to be active or if denied activity to go to sleep. The method of counting 1, 2, 3 only stupifies the mind and though this method once accidentally got you into the higher consciousness, it is not the right way. The other way which you yourself got afterwards of “directing the aspiring Drishti of your entire Antahkaran towards its own heights and from there watching” is the right process; continue and make this progressively your normal condition.
As to Shakti Upasana, you need not trouble about it at present as your Sadhana is taking a different course, from that laid in the Yogic Sadhan. Shakti is of two kinds, the lower of the mind desires and the higher Divine Shakti. When the first has been quieted and the higher consciousness made normal in you, it is possible for the Divine Shakti to take up all your activities. This action of yielding and giving place to the higher Shakti is the aim of the Shakti Upasana. Let the quietude and the higher consciousness establish themselves. The rest will come later on. The replacing of the power of lower consciousness by that of the higher is the object of self-surrender—the surrender of your small narrow personal being and its activities to the higher and vaster Divine being and the Divine activities. By this surrender one will cease to act from one's personal motives, impulses, desires, etc. as one is at present doing. By the progressively increasing self-surrender the action of the higher consciousness will gradually begin to play in the place of the personal. That is how works in life and surrender are reconciled. The work in life will proceed as the result of surrender—from the higher consciousness instead of as now from the narrow personal. But this will come at a later stage: you need not mind about it now. But go on with the method indicated.
Only take care not to surrender to any suggestions or forces coming from the lower being as that is the chief danger of the Sadhana.
Letter to Motilal Mehta
About your difficulty in explaining to people what A.G. is doing—it will of course be useless to tell them in the true terms because they would not understand. But you can put it in this way which they will perhaps find intelligible.
A.G. is engaged in Pondicherry in Tapasya for Yoga Siddhi which is necessary before he takes up his future work. As Gandhi believes in soul force, that is to say in an inner moral force as the one thing necessary behind all true action, so A.G. believes in a higher spiritual force as the one thing necessary—the one thing that must be at the basis of India's freedom and greatness. It is this spiritual force which he is seeking to call down, embody and perfect in himself and others. This he has found can only be done by a long and patient Sadhana. It is when he feels it completed in himself and his whole mind, life and body capable of transmitting the spiritual knowledge and power into a perfectly effective action that he will come out from his Sadhana and begin his action. At the same time he is training a number of people to be effective instruments of the same power and centres and supports of his action. When he goes out into British India he intends to create a large centre for this spiritual training where his ideal will be embodied just as Mahatma Gandhi has done at Sabarmati for his own ideal, and with that as his basis undertake a work which will be for the world in general and specially for India. This work will embrace and will mean the spiritualising of all activities none being excluded. A.G. believes that a free India returned to her great spiritual ideal but on new and larger lines is destined to be the means of uplifting the world and initiating a new age of the general evolution and it is towards this ideal that all his work is to be directed.
Dear M,
I spoke of your visit to Sri Aurobindo and he asked me to write to you certain things which he thinks it better you should know. It is better you should not speak of this letter to Ramchandra, as in his present state of nervous weakness to know that his illness is being discussed might have an undesirable effect upon him. He is suffering from a strong attack of neurasthenia which developed suddenly during the three days before his departure. He was asked to go home because the conditions here are not suitable in his present state and also because in this case it is better to change the surroundings and associations under which the attack ... along with the appearance of others that were not there before. The symptoms of the illness are, first weakness of some of the nervous brain centres resulting in occasional failure of memory and a mechanical repetition of thoughts and words in the brain; secondly an instability of the temperament in rapid alternations of modes and manifestations of exaggerated self-depreciation and its opposite and fits of violent melancholy and gloom. Finally a morbid sensitiveness and suspicion specially as to what others may be saying or thinking about him. When he spoke of his illness he showed that a part of his mind was perfectly self-contained and had a lucid and accurate observation of what was wrong with him. But the will centres are not sufficiently strong to combat and throw off the attack, specially he has certain vital habits, which in the long run impair the nervous system and against which he struggled very persistently. But his will was too often unable to resist the habitual instinct. What he needs is, first, a perfect quiet and absence of anything that would cause excitement and disturbance, especially of anything that would excite or encourage the symptoms of which I have spoken. By quiet is not meant solitude; he should have society but as much as possible only of those he specially likes, and nothing should be thrust upon him. He should not be forced into any kind of occupation he does not want. But any occupation like easy reading which should distract his mind without straining it should be encouraged. Finally, he needs entire kindness and sympathy and the avoidance of anything that would wound or ruffle his feelings. If these conditions are satisfied it is possible that his nervous system will get soothed and quieted down and the illness pass away. Whatever help can be given from here will be constantly given.
12 March 1926
Pondicherry, 12th March 1926
Dear Chakravarty,
I have been obliged to answer in the negative to your request by wire for contributions to the “Bengali” on the occasion of your taking it over on behalf of the Nationalist Party. I have been for a long time under a self-denying ordinance which precludes me from making any public utterance on politics and I have had to refuse similar requests from the “Forward” and other papers. Even if it were not so, I confess that in the present confused state of politics I should be somewhat at a loss to make any useful pronouncement. No useful purpose could be served by any general statements on duties, in the present situation. Everybody seems to be agreed on the general object and issue, and the only question worth writing on is that of the best practical means for securing the agreed object and getting rid of the obstacles in the way. This is in any case a question for the practical leaders actually in the field and not for a retired spectator at a distance. It would be difficult for me even to pass an opinion on the rival policies in the field; for I have unable to gather from what I have seen in the papers what is the practical turn they propose to give these policies or how they propose by them to secure Swaraj or bring it nearer.
Please therefore excuse my refusal.
Yours sincerely, Aurobindo
1926
I received this morning your letter about Tirupati. I shall try to explain to you Tirupati's condition, the reasons why I have been obliged to send him away from Pondicherry and the conditions which are necessary for his recovery from his present abnormal state of mind.
Sometime ago, Tirupati began to develop ideas and methods of Yoga Sadhana, which are quite inconsistent with the ideas and methods that underlie my system of Yoga. Especially he began practices that belong entirely to the most extreme form of Bhakti Sadhana, practices that are extremely dangerous because they lead to an excited, exalted abnormal condition, and violently call down forces which the body cannot bear. They may lead to a breakdown of the physical body, the mind and the nervous system. As soon as I became aware of this turn, I warned him of the danger and prohibited the continuance of the practices. At first he attempted to follow my instructions, but the attraction of his new experiences was so great that he resumed his practices in secret and in the end openly returned to them in defiance of my repeated prohibitions. The result was that he entered into and persisted in an abnormal condition of mind which still continues and at times rises to an alarming height dangerous to the sanity of his mind and the health of his body.
The following are the peculiar types of his condition.
(1) There is a state of mind in which he loses hold to a great extent of physical realities and lives in a world of imaginations which do not at all belong to terrestrial body and the physical life.
(2) He conceives a great distaste for eating and sleeping and believes that the power in him is so great that he can live without sleep and without food.
(3) He is listening all the time to things which he calls inspirations and intuitions, but which are simply the creations and delusions of his own excited and unduly exalted state of mind. This exalted state of mind gives him so much pleasure, so much a false sense of strength and Ananda and of being above the human condition that he is unwilling to give it up and feels unhappy and fallen when he is brought down to a more ordinary consciousness.
(4) In this condition he has no longer enough discrimination left or enough will power to carry oat my instructions or even his own resolutions, but obeys blindly and like a machine these false inspirations and impulses. Every thing contrary to them he explains away or ignores; that is the reason why he ignores my orders and puts no value on my telegrams or letters.
(5) Also he feels in this condition an abnormal shrinking (not any spiritual detachment) from physical life, from his family, from his friends—for some time he withdrew even from the society of his fellow Sadhakas—and considers anything that comes from them or turns him from his exalted condition as the prompting of evil forces.
Please understand that all these things are the delusions of his own abnormal and exalted state of mind and are not, as he falsely imagines and will try to persuade you, signs of a high spiritual progress. On the contrary, if he persists, in them he will lose altogether such spiritual progress as he had made and may even destroy by want of food and want of sleep his body.
To allow him to remain here would be quite disastrous for him. He would count it as a victory for his own aberrations and would persist in them without any further restraint with results that might be fatal to him. And the intensity of the spiritual atmosphere .... Besides when in this condition he brings about here a state of confusion and perturbation, the one thing to be absolutely avoided in this way of Yoga, which if prolonged would make the Sadhana of my other disciples impossible and would spoil my own spiritual work altogether.
His one chance is if he can settle down in Vizianagram for a considerable time and in the surroundings of his old physical life returned to a normal condition. Please therefore do not send him back or give him money to return to Pondicherry. It will be of no use and may do him great and irreparable harm. He promised, when he went from here first, to eat well and sleep regularly, and he has. now promised, on my refusing to see or receive him on account of his disobedience of my order, to remain quietly at Vizianagram, to cease listening to his false inspirations and intuition and to obey my written orders. I had already written to him to that effect and also to throw away his shrinking from life and from his conduct with others; but he came away without waiting for my letter. If this time he carries out my instructions, he may yet recover. He must eat well, he must sleep regularly, he must give up his wrong Sadhana and live for some time as a normal human being, he must do some kind of physical action, he must resume normal contact with life and others. If he returns to his erratic movements, the remedy is not to let him leave Vizianagram, but to remind him of my instructions and his promises and insist on his carrying them out. Only you must do it in my name and remind him always that if he does not obey me, I have resolved not to see him again nor to receive him. This is the only thing at present that can make him to do what is requisite. I consented to an arrangement by which he could live quietly by himself because that was what he asked for; but the best would have been that he should live either with his family in their house so that his needs could be looked after or with some one who would see to his needs, some one with a strong will who will quietly insist, always in my name, on his doing what he has promised. But I do not know if there is any one there who could do this for him or whom he would consent to have with him.
You should not understand by what I have written, that he should live as a householder, resume his relations with his wife etc., or that he should not be left mostly to quiet and solitude, if that is what he likes. What I mean is that he must come gradually, if not at first, to deal with those around him as a human being with human beings without his present nervous shrinkings and abnormal repulsions. The spiritual attitude I have told him to take is one of calm freedom from attachment (āsakti) not of an excited shrinking. It may be that after a time will seem more possible to him than it does at present.
It will be best if you let me know fairly often what he is doing and whether he is carrying out my instructions, as it is likely that he will not write himself to me all the truth when he is in the wrong condition.
2 June 1926
(Reply of Sri Aurobindo to Rambhai through Punamchand)
2.6.1926
You have to make some further progress before you can come here. What you are doing now is a mental effort. You imagine the Divine to be present before you and then you try to offer all your mentality to the Divine; all this is a mental effort. Peace which you feel after few days was the result of your surrender. And the pressure which you felt was a sign that something in Nature resists the working of the Higher Power. When peace or any higher thing begins to descend then you should stop your mental effort because it hinders the natural working of the Higher Shakti. Instead of making any mental effort at that time you should watch as Sakshi Purusha the working of the Higher Power.
You write that you felt that the work of the sacrifice was carried on by somebody else and you were merely an onlooker, this is Sakshi Purusha, some part of you was watching and work of sacrifice was carried on by the Higher Shakti. You have to remain as Sakshi Purusha watching and consenting to the working of the Higher Power and rejecting the old lower movements of your nature. Rejection does not mean fight, it means that you have not to give your consent, anumati, to the things which come in the way of your surrender to the Divine. Let the peace and calmness settle down more and more in you.
8 June 1926
8th June, 1926
When you take Yoga, horoscope does not hold good, because another and higher force enters into play. After that, the predictions are only true, as far as you carry with you parts of your ancient life into the new one. This is a well known fact.
At least to know what is going to happen may induce one to react and to stand against these limitations and break them. I would say in such a case “This will not happen”, why should I submit to what is imposed by these vital forces ? If the Divine is in me, I am the master of my destiny.
(Based upon Sri Aurobindo's instructions)
1 December 1926
1.12.1926
Your aspiration for the truth would be satisfied if you make yourself fit for the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. In order to make yourself fit you should continue to read the Arya as you are at present doing and practise daily meditation.
In meditation you should concentrate first in an inner aspiration that the central truths of which you read in the Arya should be made real to you in conscious experience; and at the same time you should aspire that your mind may open to the calm wideness, strength, peace, life and ananda of the spiritual consciousness.
20 May 1927
Date: 20.5.27
Chandulal,
The first conditions of this Yoga are:
(1) A complete sincerity and surrender in the being. The divine life and the transformation of the lower human into the higher divine nature must be made the sole aim of all the life. No attachments, desires or habits of the mind, heart, vital being or body should be clung to which come in the way of this aspiration and one object of the life.
One must be ready to renounce all these completely as soon as the demand comes from above and from the divine Shakti.
(2) A fundamental calm, peace and purity in the mind, vital being and all the nature.
The hours of meditation should be devoted to the formation of these two conditions in you, by aspiration and by self observation and rejection of all that disturbs the nature or keeps it troubled, confused and impure. Aspiration, if rightly done, quietly, earnestly and sincerely, brings the divine help from above to effect this object.
As to the hours devoted to work, needs, family etc., they can be made an aid only on the following conditions.
(1) To regard all these things as not belonging to yourself, your inner being, but as things external, work to be done so long as it remains on your shoulders to the best of your ability without desire or attachment of any kind.
(2) To do all work as a sacrifice without any egoistic motive.
(3) To establish and deepen the inner calm and quiet. If that is done, all these things will be felt more and more as external and the falling off of desire and attachment will become possible.
For getting rid of passion the same condition. If you separate yourself from these movements, and establish calm and peace inside, the passions may still rise on the surface, but they will be felt to be external movements and you can deal with them or call down the divine aid to get rid of them. So long as the mind does not fall quiet, it is not possible to deal finally with the vital being from which these forces rise.
July-August 1927
He can come, if he understands the conditions under which alone he can profit by staying here. Henceforth a stay here can only be possible
1) for those who are ready for an intensive sadhana turning their back on all attachments belonging to the ordinary human life;
2) for those who though not ready yet recognise fully the aim and open themselves so as to prepare for it;
3) those who, even if not capable as yet of an inner intensive sadhana, can yet dedicate themselves entirely in the way of service.
9 January 1928
1928-01-09
Motibai is quite happy here and she is progressing very well in her sadhana. If she goes away from here the progress will be stopped and most of what she has gained may be lost. An intense and concentrated sadhana once begun has to be persistently continued in the right atmosphere. If it is kept up only for a short time and then dropped for another kind of life in which the concentration is diffused and weakened, there is no likelihood of any fruition. For this reason we would disapprove of her departure.
9th January, 1928
2 September 1926
It is quite impossible to turn the Ashram into a sanitorium. It is understood that apart from the use of medicines as an occasional and quite subordinate expedient, those who live here should be sufficiently open mentally,—psychically, and physically to the spiritual force to recover rapidly from attacks of illness and to keep a sufficient power of life and health in them not to need to be treated as chronic invalids. Any other rule would make the existence of the Ashram impossible.
Keep faith and confidence and remain cheerful.
2-9-28
November 1928
(Mother's answers to questions by Muljibhai Talati)
Divine Mother, J wish to get light on the following points.
1) Have I the capacity and are there potentialities in me to lead this path?
This is not the question, the question is whether you have the necessary aspiration, determination and perseverence and whether you can by the intensity and persistence of your aspiration make all the parts of your being answer to the call and become one in the consecration.
2) How should I continue my practice (sadhana) after returning home?
Quiet yourself and in the quiet see and feel the Mother.
3) How can I meditate ? What is meant by opening? Where should I open?
An inner purity and receptivity that freely lets in the Mother's influence. Begin with the heart.
4) I aspire for higher life from above the head; but I always feel strained on the middle part of the forehead. What should I do?
Do not strain yourself.
5) How does the psychic being become open ? How to understand the psychic and vital beings in the adhar?
By the force of aspiration and the grace of the Mother.
Psychic: your true being, the being that is in the heart and that is the spark of the Mother's own consciousness.
Vital: the part from which proceed desires and hunger and dynamic activities, having its physical basis round about the navel.
6) My family consists of myself, wife, two sons and one girl. I desire to come here and stay permanently, but my wife does not approve of it. What should I do?
Detachment.
7) I want to come here again for a stay of at least three months. Kindly give me permission.
Inform when you are ready to come. It is omy then that the permission can be given.
8) In my daily life, I become dejected and fall prey in the hands of the lower forces (anger, lust etc.). I humbly request the Mother for help and protection.
9) My wife is devoted to Goddess Ambaji. Her heart opens to Her, but she cannot get rid of the worldly attachments. Please help her. May I send her photo ?
If you like.
10) I request for permission to write letters to the Mother.
You can write.
11) What attitude should I keep while doing my works of daily routine? How should I act with family-members, relatives and friends?
12) What should I read at present?
Sri Aurobindo's books.
November 1928.
Your loving Child Muljibhai Talati
June 1926
(Monilal Doctor)
If this is his only illness there is absolutely no reason why it should not be cured, if he keeps proper habits and diet and above all the right attitude. I expect that the reason why the illness has such a hold and strong effect on him, is in the imagination and the nerves, more than anything else. There is something that expects the illness, accepts it when it comes and gives it free play. He must learn to keep quiet and calm in the mind and vital being, to refuse to regard the illness and the tendency to it in the body as something normal to it, regard it rather as something imposed from outside and he must believe firmly that it must and will go. If he keeps this attitude and opens to the true force, the mind and the nerves being once strengthened, the weakness will disappear.
June 1929
1 October 1929
It is not possible to come here. Since he has married and taken service, he must go on with the ordinary life. He is still much too young and too unripe for any complete sadhana. At best he can do at present some kind of Karma yoga, trying to realise the one Divine Force behind the action of the world and preparing himself so that one day he may feel a direct guidance.
1-10-1929
9 February 1930
(Answer to Swami Satyanand Giri)
As I am in retirement and see nobody for the present, not even those who are here, what he requests is not possible.
Further no one is allowed to live in the Ashram except those who are here to practise Yoga. There is no arrangement for visitors.
Pondicherry. 9-2-30
February 1930
Vithaldas,
It is only by remaining perfectly peaceful and calm with an unshakable confidence and faith in the Divine Grace that you will allow circumstances to be as good as they can be. The very best happens always to those who have put their entire trust in the Divine and in the Divine alone.
(Condolence message to Motilal Roy on the death of his wife)
Condolence. Only consolation for sincere sorrow—submission to divine will.
18 May 1930
The protection and help will be there as they were here. You have to keep yourself open to them and live inwardly seeking to become more and more conscious so that you may feel the Divine Presence and Power.
As to the Bombay atmosphere, keep inwardly separate from it, even while mixing with others, see it as a thing outside and not belonging to the inner world in which you yourself live. If you can achieve this inward separateness, it will not be able to cloud you, whatever its daily-pressure.
18.5.30
23 August 1930
It is certainly not very Yogic to be so much harassed by the importunity of the palate. I notice that these petty desires, which plenty of people who are not yogis at all nor aspirant for yoga know how to put in their proper place, seem to take an inordinate importance in the consciousness of the sadhaks here—aot all, certainly, but many. In this as in many other matters they do not seem to realise that, if you want to do yoga, you must take more and more in all matters, small or great, the yogic attitude. In our path that attitude is not one of forceful suppression, but of detachment and equality with regard to the objects of desire. Forceful suppression (fasting comes under the head; it is of no use for this purpose, abandon that idea altogether) stands on the same level as free indulgence, in both cases, the desire remains; in the one it is fed by indulgence, in the other it lies latent and exasperated by suppression. It is only when one stands back, separates oneself from the lower, refusing to regard its desires and clamours as one's own and cultivates an entire equality and equanimity in the consciousness with respect to them that the lower vital itself becomes gradually purified and itself also calm and equal. Each wave of desire as it comes must be observed, as quietly and with as much unmoved detachment as you would observe something going on outside you, and allowed to pass, rejected from the consciousness, and the true movement, the true consciousness steadily put in its place.
But for that these things of eating and drinking must be put in their right place, which is a small one. You say that many have left the Ashram because they did not like the food. I do not know who are the many; certainly, those who came here for serious sadhana and left, went for much more grave reasons than that. But if any did go because of an offended palate, then certainly they were quite unfit for yoga and this was not the place for them. For it means that a mutton chop or a tasty plate of fish was more important for them than the seeking of the Divine. It is not possible to do Yoga if values are so topsyturvy in the consciousness. Apart from such extravagance, these things which aught to be only among the most minor values even in the human life, are promoted by many here to a rank they ought not to have.
At the same time it is better, if it is possible, to have well-cooked rather than badly-cooked food. The idea that the Mother wants tasteless food to be served because tasty food is bad for yoga, is one of the many absurdities that seem so profusely current among the sadhakas in this Ashram about her ways and motives. The Mother is obliged to arrange for neutral (plain and simple), not tasteless food for the reason that any other course has been proved to be impracticable. There are ninety people here, from different countries and provinces whose tastes are as the poles asunder. What is tasty food to the Gujarati is abomination to the Bengali and vice versa. The European cannot stand an avalanche of tamarind or chillies, the Andhra accustomed to a fiery diet would find French dishes tasteless. Experiments have been tried before you came, but they were disastrous in their results; a few enjoyed, the majority starved, and bad stomach began to be the rule. On the other hand, neutral food can be eaten by all and does not injure the health,—that at least is what we have found,—even if it does not give any ecstasy to the palate.
Only, the food, if neutral, should not be tasteless. A certain amount of fluctuation is inevitable; no one can cook daily for 80 or 90 people and yet do always well. But if it is too much, a remedy is to be desired and the Mother is willing to consider any practicable and effective suggestion. If any practicable suggestion is made, it will be considered,—keeping always in view the difficulty I have pointed out, of the ninety people and the three continents and half a dozen provinces that are represented here, apart from individual idiosyncracies and fancies, which, of course, it is absolutely impossible even to try to satisfy unless we want to land ourselves in chaos.
What if people were to remember that they were here for yoga, make that the salt and savour of their existence and acquire samatā of the palate. My experience is that, if they did that, all the trouble would disappear and even the kitchen difficulties and the defects of the cooking would vanish.
August 23, 1930
20 November 1930
20th November, 1930
A deep well was seen in meditation. Its walls were deep blue. The water inside it was also blue. Ripples were playing on the surface of the water. The sky and all around was blue. As I began to look towards the water it went deeper and deeper and all around became very deep blue. Very very small blue flowers began to rain, with the flowers were white star-like things raining and falling into the well. As I went on looking towards the water it became deeper and deeper until it could not be seen. I want to know what it is. Sometimes flames of sacred fire are seen in front.
Yours,
Vishnu
Sri Aurobindo's reply:
It is a symbol of the growth of the spiritual consciousness and its manifestations. The blue colour gives the indication. The flames are the flames of Agni, the inner aspiration towards the Divine.
22 November 1930
22nd November, 1930
Yesterday morning I saw a number of green parrots in the beginning of my meditation. They had wings but could not fly and were coming crawling with great difficulty towards the centre. The colour of their beaks was light violet. They used to die as soon as they were reaching the centre. In this way innumerable parrots came and died. After this I had calmness and blue colour as usual.
What were these parrots and their death ? Have all visions some real meaning? Should I care to see these things and write to you whatever I see?
The centre is the centre of the true being. Green and. violet are colours of the vital plane and the parrots seem to indicate movements of the vital mind which try to become luminous and join the truth centre. The absence of the power of flight in the wings indicates a defect, probably that they are unable to transcend the vital plane (however brilliant in that plane itself) and therefore cannot live when brought into contact with the truth centre. Their death is no loss; it only leaves unstained the calm and intensity of the spiritual consciousness indicated by the blue colour.
All visions have a significance of one kind or another. This power of vision is very important for the Yoga and should not be neglected although it is not the most important thing—for the one most important thing is the change of the consciousness. All other powers like this of visions should be developed without attachment as parts and aims of the Yoga.
21 December 1930
21.12.1930
About ten or eleven years before, I had seen a church in a city in my vision. I do not now remember the details of the city, but when I was coming from the station to the Ashram this time the church on the way resembled the church in my vision. Yesterday I went to see the church from inside and found it all resembling that. About six or seven years before continuously for many months I used to see in my vision beautiful rooms and furniture of different kinds and colours and sometimes a young European lady used to appear there. Generally I used to see such visions at eight in the morning or at noon after taking my food. I had asked my Hatha-yogic Guru if these things had any meaning and he told me not to care to see such things as they had only a purpose to please the fancy.
I want to know whether these visions had some meaning in my coming here.
Vishnudutt...
From your account the church seems to have been a prevision of the church at Pondicherry. The second vision may have been also a prevision, but that is not so positive.
Visions of this kind are certainly not there only to please the fancy; they have always a significance. But all are not visions of the physical earth; they may be scenes in other worlds. Also you may see a scene, a house, people etc., in vital counterpart and not in their exact physical circumstances, the arrangement of rooms, furniture etc., may be different, the people may be acting, as people act on the vital plane and not as they do here etc.
You have evidently, had always a faculty of vision, but experience and the growth of an inner knowledge is necessary to understand and make use of the faculty.
6 October 1931
Kanti
You are right in feeling that the protection and grace are always there and that all has been for the best. In your wife's condition, the best was that she should change her body and she has been able to do so in the state of mind which would give her the happiest conditions both after death and for a renewal hereafter of the spiritual development for which she had begun to aspire. It is good also that you have been able to keep your poise and the freedom of your spirit in this occurrence.
Again, you are entirely right in your resolution not to marry again; to do so would be in any case to invite serious and probably insuperable difficulties in your following the path of yoga, and, as in this path of yoga it is necessary to put away sexual desire, marriage would be not only meaningless but an absolute contradiction of your spiritual life. You can expect full support and protection from us in your resolution and, if you keep a sincere will and resolution in this matter, you may be sure that the Divine Grace will not fail you.
6.10.31
12 August 1932
To Lord Sri Aurobindo, Pondicherry. Dated 12th August 1932
My Divine Father,
Please let me know how can a disciple make the best use of his Guru, the spiritual guide, for his spiritual advancement and the Divine Light or Knowledge.
I am. Your son............
16 August 1932
No. 6, Depuy Street, Pondicherry
I could not answer your letter of the 12th at once for want of time. Your question is put in a general form and I can only answer that there are three conditions for a disciple profiting fully from his relation to a spiritual guide.
1st. He must accept him entirely and him alone without submitting himself to any contrary or second influence.
2nd. He must accept the indications given by the Guru and follow them firmly and with full faith and perseverance to the best of his own spiritual capacity.
3rd. He must make himself open and receptive to the Guru, for even more than what the guru teaches to the mind of the disciple, it is what he spiritually is, the spiritual consciousness, the knowledge, the light, the power, the Divinity in him that helps the disciple to grow by his receiving that into himself and its being used within himself for the growth of his consciousness and nature into its own divine possibility.
I answer generally because of the general form of the question; if there is something more precise and particular you hold in mind, you can state it and I will see whether I can give you a more particular answer.
16-8-1932
Natural Order of the Yoga
All should understand that the true Supramental does not come in the beginning but much later on in the Sadhana.
First:— The opening up and illumination of the mental, vital and the physical beings.
Secondly;—Making intuitive of the mind, thought, will etc., and development of the hidden consciousness progressively replacing the surface consciousness.
Thirdly:— The supramentalizing of the changed mental, vital and the physical beings and finally the descent of the true Supramental and the rising into the Supramental plane.
This is the natural order of the Yoga. These stages may overlap and intermix, there may be many variations, but the last two can only come in the advanced state of the progress. Of course the Supramental Divine guides this Yoga throughout but it is first through many intermediary planes; and it cannot easily be said of something that comes in the earlier periods that it is the direct and full Supramental. To think so when it is not so may well be a hindrance to progress.
MORNING
One cannot accept everything that comes to the mind as inspiration or intuition and act accordingly.
It is true that the emotional being contains a Truth behind it and that is that of Love. But one cannot and should not go on identifying himself with everybody. It is not a good thing for this Yoga at least. For other Yogas like Bhakti Yoga it is all right. In our Yoga the love must be universal but that only as a feeling and if the feeling is there, it is no harm. But that love must be absolutely calm and above all discriminating. It must know, otherwise one identifies himself with any being and if that is good, it is all right but if his being is not pure one gets all the difficulties of that being into himself. Such external aggression ought to be guarded at least while one is a Sadhak. I know of a Madrasi Sadhak who had an experience like that and then he identified himself with Barindra and some one else and then their influence predominated over him. If one remains open like that to external influences, it creates a lot of troubles in the Sadhak. Yes, the love is for him but we must carefully distinguish identification of other parts of being from that of the spirit.
Strong Rajasic nature has always an outgoing tendency. But that can hardly be said to be a drawback. If that could disqualify a man for Yoga, none of us could have a chance of practising.
Firm entire absolute will for this is indispensable in this Yoga which he must bring to bear.
Strong intellectual doubt is certainly a great obstacle but who of us had not had! In my case it followed me for years together...
When all the elements are transformed they become a great asset to the spiritual nature.
22 December 1923
B.G: What is the way to eliminate this mechanical play of the mind? How to do away with it?
Sri Aurobindo: The physical mind must remain as the instrument to act here on the material plane, only its play, its movements will be transformed and its stuff too. Only withdrawal from the lower movements won't do. When you rise above the mind you can remain either quiescent or become dynamic.
B.G: How to transform its movements?
Sri Aurobindo: You will have not only to withdraw from its lower movements, or play by rejecting it whenever that train of activity begins but also seek its true movement above. In a thought, in an act, in speech, you have in everything to reject the lower form and seek its truer forms in the Supramental. If you seek and yet cannot always get, it shows that the lower being is not yet used to refer above and act in response to movement from there. It cannot come all at once. Slowly and with great care it is to act always from an intense intuitive and psychic plane and cannot get beyond that. Of course I am not belittling the psychic, that is also a movement—a higher mental of the soul. But there is the still higher Supramental into which the roots of all you are and do must be refounded, everything changed in the stuff. Between the intuitive and the Supramental there is this difference, that the intuitive is somehow small, insufficient and not capable of transforming anything. The other is full of power and knowledge and complete in itself, it transforms everything.
14-2-24
The talk on Whiner, the writer of “The Super sensuous Life”
B.G: Did you read that book?
A.G: Yes, not everything but some parts.
B.G: How do you find it?
A.G: Good book. But his idea about the relation of the higher to the lower Nature is not clear except that the higher only makes some impression on the lower, there is no idea of the—transformation.
B.G: I thought he has some knowledge through the psychic.
A.G: That also is superficial. I mean not that deep soul consciousness which is the basis of the true psychic knowledge. Besides, his intellect is not his strong point, for instance he defines “Reason as light of nature” or something like that. It is not so. Besides he has not got complete grasp of human psychology.
18 February 1924
18-2-24
A.G. I am well impressed with Haribhai. There seems to be something large and warm about him. I do not know how far he would go in the Yoga but apart from it he has something large about him. If he takes to Sadhana more intensely, he would find many difficulties in the way, especially in the vital being. It is help as well as obstacle. But if he can bring the psychic being to the surface and develop it, then he can overcome these difficulties and if he can go through, the result would be richer and more ample in his case. He is not like Kashibhai straight and limited. There is a tendency to throw himself out in many activities.
21 February 1924
21-2-24
Sri Aurobindo said about Gandhi's appendicitis that those who (generally) take grapes and oranges get appendicitis. In France once there was an epidemic of it on account of people eating too much of it. Grapes are perfectly harmless otherwise.
28 February 1924
28-2-1924
Sri Aurobindo: But why do you want something immediate—some excitement for a time. What is the use of creating a row and ultimately finding that there are only ten people who stand to the last. Let the peoples feeling be raised. Let all feel and then unite. If they all unite then it is easy. Let the country get slowly prepared ...
Sri Aurobindo: That is the history of every religion, sect or religious institution. It begins with religion and ends in commerce, everywhere you will find the same thing.
Interview with Sri Aurobindo Ghose by a Sadhak
1924-10-25
On my visit to Motibabu, Motibabu told me that Mr. C. R. Das told him that Sri Aurobindo is lost to India.
REPLY: Mr. Das had come to Pondicherry after seeing Motibabu and said, Motibabu's work in Chandernagore is not satisfactory. Mr. Das and Motibabu hold opposite views, several of Motibabu's close disciples have also left him. The number of his disciples given by him is unreliable.
The Sadhak said to Motibabu that Sri Aurobindo Ghose appears to move very near to Shankaracharya. Sri Aurobindo Ghose told him when he (the Sadhak) was at Pondicherry on 15th August, 1923 that we should not accept ignorance of life and as ordinary life is full of ignorance, the only possible solution is to reject ordinary life and as this doctrine is preached by Shankaracharya, so Sri Aurobindo Ghose is near to Shankaracharya and therefore there is very little new to learn from him.
REPLY: That is an entire misreading of my Yoga which aims not at rejection of life but fulfilment of life. Of course,—ordinary life is full of ignorance but it is not impossible to live without ignorance. In fact, life with full consciousness is the meaning of evolution. There is a nescience in matter and life which offers great obstacles when we progress towards conscious life and these obstacles have to be conquered by means of the supermind. There are several curves and circles coming up and down. They have to be understood and used for transforming the ordinary life. Shankaracharya understood Vijnan as a superior mental consciousness and as this was still mental he rejected that Vijnan, Shankaracharya did not believe in manifestation which to him was Maya. Manifestation is truth of Divine power and has to be accepted. That power is working in us and it is possible for us to identify ourselves with that power and thus take part in the manifestation of the Divine on this earth. For some time I also could not—understand Vijnan and mistook higher mental consciousness for Vijnan.
It is not sufficient to realise the higher-consciousness in meditation. Its working presence should be felt even while doing the ordinary works of life. But supermind proper is Divine Consciousness which arranges and guides the movements of the Universe. This consciousness must be made to be our normal nature, and allowed to descend and transform our mind, life and body. Human effort is of no use. There should be complete surrender so that the higher power will come down and work. It is not difficult to realise supramental consciousness but it is very difficult to make it active. Therefore several great souls after realising this consciousness worked through mind and reduced it to mental terms. Therefore they could not experience the working of the supramental consciousness in its true nature. This new process has not yet been attempted by anyone up to now. I believe in this process and have accepted it and it is giving good results and unless I complete it, I cannot do any other work, i.e. I do not want to multiply disciples nor can I think of Mother India. When I will get it, it will act in such a way that other people will get it without much trouble. Even at present I can give something worth giving to others but I do not wish to attempt this until the process is completed. Still I must have some men on whom I can make experiments and they will get according to their capacity. The Divine Life lives in unity but sees the difference also and the reasons of differences. There will be no action where there is knowledge of only unity. True action is possible by reading the truth of all activities by means of higher consciousness. Human consciousness is limited and therefore called ignorance. The higher consciousness is bound to grow.
Interview with a Sadhak
1924-10-26
In meditation, the light that I experienced here last year repeats itself. The only difference is that, while that light was white, the light that I now get is more like sunlight, and sometimes blue. Besides it is not steady except on rare occasions. There are also other experiences such as sweet smell, stoppage of breath, stability, vastness, timelessness etc., but these are occasional. The highest experience has been that of possession of self having some control over universal nature, but the ordinary mind takes hold of these experiences and reduces them to its own level.
Do the experiences touch the mind—Yes, except on some occasions when they live in their own greatness.
Then the unstability of the light is due to vital consciousness and stability is due to physical consciousness. Difficulty is experienced by everyone in making the higher experiences normal as the lower being gets hold of them and reduces them to their own level. That is what has happened also in Motilal Roy's case. The remedy is to increase the stability and purify the being by removing all hostile forces. Calmness is the essential nature of the Purusha.
It is Purusha. Every thought and action must be discriminated and hostile forces eliminated, so that the being may be purified. The process is necessary and is sometimes perilous. Even before the purification is done, the physical, vital and mental experiences and higher experiences are very much disturbed by similar experiences and moving forces outside oneself. Their relation must be understood and by discrimination, hostile forces coming from cosmic nature must be conquered. Then when purification is completed, there will be liberation of mental and vital being and mental and vital forces. This is ordinarily called Moksha but the real Moksha comes when there is perfection of the being and then enjoyment follows.
Is it possible to see the world by supramental sight as we see with our eyes and is there in man something like the third eye of Shiva?
Yes, but the supramental vision is not of the same kind as the mental or sensational vision. The being that stands back sees all the forces working in the world. This has been attempted by many in the past and has been acquired by some of them, but our own Yoga is not satisfied by mere vision. We must have power to control those forces. It is possible to know the physical nature of outside things by means of our physical nature, their vital nature by our vital nature, and their mental nature by our mental nature and their supramental nature by our supramental nature. It is possible also to know the inner nature of all things directly.
Is it possible to purify, liberate and per feet our nature i.e. to make an inner change without changing the outer life and whether this can be done as rapidly as by changing the outer life?
Generally this is not possible. In my own case, I was very much engrossed with political work and could not make an inner change without changing the outer life. But it all depends on the nature of the individual. For a certain time it is possible to make an inner change without changing the outer life. Afterwards the higher nature becomes very strong and many people are obliged to change the outer life. Our aim is not to get supramental experiences only in meditation but also in making them conscious and in every act of ordinary life.
There is one Sutra in Brahmasutras viz., the upadesha of manifestation and non-manifestation in the Upanishads can be explained by the example of a serpent sitting in coiled form or otherwise.
From one standpoint, there is no manifestation as all exist in one, from another standpoint, we are one and yet different. The latter is superficial consciousness. It comes to play when there is projection of the Divine Power like a cinematograph. There are various aspects of the Divine and one example is not sufficient to explain all of them.
Evening Talks
It was stated by a Sadhak to Shyam Sunder Chakravarty that Sri Aurobindo's mind had become international and that he does not think about national matters.
REPLY OF Sri Aurobindo: I do not believe in present day internationalism which aims at creating unity by destroying nationality. Nationality also has value. Out of all nations, India is most fitted to begin a new race of supermen and it is for this purpose that the Indian nation must keep up its individuality and recover her soul. At the same time I do not want India to imitate Europe nor to remain in the present mud. Mahatma Gandhi has introduced Tolstoyan Christianity in India and has given a set-back to Indian culture. I do not believe also that Councils will be very useful as the vision of the men there is limited. My work is meant for future India and will bring better results than what can be achieved through Councils, but that is silent work and does not require advertisement or speeches as made by leaders of men. India will be free. There is no doubt about it. Western individualism has failed. Russian communism is also not useful for India. India must find its elevation and it will come. If I find it necessary to come out for future work for India, I will do so, but I think inner change is necessary before outward action is accepted. Communism is useful for India but it should be based on spiritual lines.
(Dilip Kumar Roy wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo asking certain questions regarding marriage. These are the answers of Sri Aurobindo conveyed by Mom.)
November 1924
No cut and dry answer can be given to such questions as that will convey a wrong impression of this very complex and complicated subject. A solution is hardly possible in a few words. It depends, so Sri Aurobindo tells you something in a general way.
Bonds of union between man and woman are generally of three kinds. The first is the vital and the physical bond. This is very common and ninety nine out of every hundred marriages result in this type of union. This is the only possible bond among men and women of ordinary type and there is absolutely nothing wrong in it. In fact it is neither right nor wrong, but is rather necessary for them for gaining experience in their progress of life. It is also there for fulfilling a great purpose of Nature, that is, reproduction or the continuity of the race. You ask why sexual impulse is so strong in man making him almost a helpless tool in its hand. Because, as Sri Aurobindo has said, it is there placed by Nature for fulfilling her most primary and primitive purpose, that of reproduction, and it is strong in order to compel man to do it in spite of himself. For ordinary men it is the only principle and in fact the sole impulse, however man may try to cover it with his emotional and aesthetic ideas and ideals.
The second type of union between man and woman is the psychic bond. Those who are extraordinary in type, of rare refinement and culture and have a call for a greater ideal in life than the average man and woman, as for instance, for art, music, poetry, patriotism, they should seek their life companion not from sexual desires but from a higher outlook so that their union may result in this type of pure and psychic bond. In such a case of an extra-ordinary man a psychic woman alone can be his real partner of life. She alone can help him to fulfil himself and add to his power and Ananda. A wrong choice for him spells a set-back, and even ruin. A vital and physical union with a lower type of woman may blunt his aspirations and even wreck his life according as the woman is. This psychic union is very rare in the world and is so difficult to find—especially as your seeking for a partner is always coloured by your clamouring of desires and lower impulses. On the other hand, when found, your life is extremely happy and both of you grow in power and purity and may even develop the highest type of bond—the spiritual out of this psychic one. Because psychic union is so rare and a real companion of life is so hard to find for a man of higher ideal, they generally remain single. Some of them find their mate late in life like Mustafa Kamal. Some are fortunate like Browning and are very happy all their life.
K.D: What about Napoleon and Josephine? Isn't that relation psychic?
Sri Aurobindo: Not entirely; it is half and half. Something in Josephine's luck helped Napolean. Josephine had a better chance of being an Empress than Napolean had of being an Emperor. It was by marrying her he made his chance secure.
The spiritual bond is the third and the highest and is for him who feels the true call for spiritual life and has to find his Shakti or complementary soul who will be at once his partner and guide in his sadhana. If you have spiritual life as an ideal in view, you must not seek either an ordinary woman or a mere psychic one but a woman of that spiritual type who is also psychic and something more. This spiritual bond between man and woman is still more difficult to find and only one per cent of the marriages in the world, if at all, result in such a union. When found, a spiritual companion doubles your life and power and increases your speed of progress tenfold. It is really the Purusha and Prakriti fulfilling themselves in their world and raising themselves to the Divine plane by their united power. A wrong choice in the type of one who seeks spiritual greatness is worse than in the psychic bond, the fall is swifter and the result may be fatal. Where there is spiritual union, the psychic is sure to be, but where there is psychic, the higher may not be; only in some cases the higher can be evolved out of it. But out of the lowest the highest cannot certainly come and even the psychic is hardly possible.
What Ramakrishna had in his mind Sri Aurobindo cannot say, but he thinks Ramakrishna dreaded marriage from the point of view of the ascetic life. If one's ideal is to renounce the world he has to avoid woman, she being like wealth and ambition, one of the great forces in Nature which drag down man's consciousness to the lower planes of vital and physical desires. Ramakrishna's insistence on renouncing woman was from a moral and ascetic standpoint. You can very well see that Sri Aurobindo does not tell you anything from this ascetic or moral point of view, but because of the above facts.
These are general truths relating to union of man and woman. In your own case everything depends on your ideal. If it is to be the ordinary life of vital and physical enjoyments you can choose your mate just wherever you like.
If it is a nobler ideal of art or music or patriotism, the seeking for a companion of life must not primarily be from the sexual desire but from something higher and the woman must have something in her in tune with the psychic part of your being. If on the other hand, your ideal is spiritual life you must think fifty times before you marry: Sri Aurobindo has already told you how rare a fit mate is for such a spiritual union. You are here given the general principles only. From its complexity you can easily imagine how difficult it will be for Sri Aurobindo to give you any clear-cut answer. With these data before you you must decide for yourself.
(FURTHER POINTS ELICITED IN 2ND CONVERSATION)
K.D: How can one know when he meets his psychic mate?
Sri Aurobindo: How do you know a spiritual experience? How do you know when you have the right leader? It is all a matter of feeling and inner perception. It is an art and not a science. When she walks into your life you will know her right enough. As I have told you again and again, no rigid and hard and fast rule is possible in things like this. Union with woman is right in one case and perhaps wrong in other 99 cases. In that one case again without his Shakti the man's progress will be very slow and he may even go wrong. In the other 99 cases contact with woman itself may prove an obstacle. There are so many hostile powers working against the right union of complementary souls that very often, you can seldom meet your right mate. Of course I am talking of the path and not of the goal. When you reach the highest you will have to see whether you can get your Shakti. Without a Shakti you can yourself be perfect, in the sense that you can attain full knowledge, power and Ananda and change your entire organised being into its divine nature, but when you want to throw your powers on the world for creation, it is different. Take my instance. It may so happen that I reach the highest all alone, my Shakti falling in the way. Then I cannot create without her. I can by my highest siddhi only prepare the way for others to follow and accomplish the rest in the future. It is not only the dark forces who obstruct and make it impossible for the twin souls to meet, but even when they actually meet their life may get wrecked owing to mental and vital impediments. It is only when the psychic or the spiritual part is predominant in both, the two can really fulfil one another and progress higher and higher. The hostile powers working against the siddhi of yogis are difficult to conquer. Ordinarily we are in complete darkness or ignorance with only flashes of knowledge now and then, even when the sadhaka has risen into a continual glow of knowledge and can discern the play of all the dark forces, he is not exempt from attack. Only when he reaches full illumination and is in serene and revealed knowledge he is beyond them and safe." } ] }, { t: "Tirupatti's Questions", chapters: [ { t: "7 April 1925
1925-04-07
A.G.: When you bring down Power, you always bring down fighting power. The Divine Power need not always be fighting power. When so power comes, mere touch is enough to produce great effect. The Higher Power knows the need of the system. In the physical, it is the calm, persistent power that works best, so you open with Sattvic ease, and the power can come down very easily, without your feeling strain. You need not bring down fighting power, unless you have to fight very great forces. In the vital, you could safely bring it down, for the vital is a fighting being.
11 April 1925
1925-04-11
Tirupatti: What I am now getting is the consciousness of unity with everything. The knowledge of difference, feeling etc. will come afterwards?
A.G.: When you have got the unity, then you have got the right foundation for difference.
16 April 1925
1925-04-16
1) Supermind is the Divine mind of knowledge and wisdom.
2) It shows the true relation of everything.
3) It shows everything.
4) Unity is the nature of the infinite.
5) The idea of unity ... etc. is the creation of the mind.
6) You must pass beyond all these, to arrive at the true Supermind.
7) That which is coming is coming from above.
17 April 1925
1925-04-17
1) What you are getting is what I call Vishaya Ananda; Ananda of the visayas.
2) Influence coming from these, have the nature of the true physical.
3) The Power is working in the material.
19 April 1925
1925-04-19
1) Faith may be due to:
(a) The awakening of the psychic being.
(b) Fully developed emotional being turned upwards.
(c) Fully developed mind, which sees the thing as certain.
(d) Religious faith which is stupidity.
(e) Faith may be due to the absence of intellectual development; intellect which sees all possibilities gives prominence to each.
(f) Doubt may be due to the physical mind having positive side. We have to see, what is the source of faith. There is no absolute rule or law.
2) Spiritual being is Sachchidananda, which can be realised on the mental plane. One need not go to the Supermind at all.
3) First the whole physical being must be opened up; the Supermind must come and change the whole being from top to bottom: supramentalise it; then you get into the Supermind when you have the absolute truth.
4) Capacity of the physical being to extend depends upon our becoming conscious, and upon the plasticity of matter. Its capacity is the same as in the. other parts, i.e., the plasticity and becoming conscious.
20 April 1925
1925-04-20
There are very few people who have a trained mind. The education is such—getting mere ideas from books. They do not have that accuracy of the intelligence: intelligence which properly deals with the facts that are offered to it.
21 April 1925
1925-04-21
I mean by trained intelligence, the capacity to think rightly and see the truth, the truth of things in themselves and in right relation to each other. I mean the ideative mind. I do not mean to say that people have no ideas, but having ideas does not mean they think or look for the truth. Being idealistic does not mean that they have trained intelligence. It is just the opposite of it. Idealists are mostly narrow. Opinions anybody can have. People may be optimistic, pessimistic, idealistic and it does not mean that they think.
2) My faith is from the psychic plane.
3) All power is one, but in manifestation it takes different forms and aspects.
4) These are different aspects and expressions of Ananda, delight of the perception of all things on all planes. In some there may be psychic or intuition, but that is a different matter. That is very rare in humanity.
1) Tirupatti: What do you mean by psycho-mental, psycho-vital, etc.?
A.G.: That is only a name. You can call it larger mental and larger vital.
Tirupatti: What is pure psychic?
A.G.: Pure psychic is Divine Principle.
2) Tirupatti: Should we not be conscious of our strength? You say, what is strong in me.
A.G.: Yes, but you should be also conscious of your defects. You have a very strong vital being, and a good psychic being.
Tirupatti: Is it to act from the psychic, more easily?
A.G.: That you need not know now. The one advantage of having a good psychic is that there will be faith and certainty that the thing will come down. It is this that is necessary to fight the things on the physical plane. What they say Cue... it is faith. The nature of the Physical is to refuse power and light. But your faith brings down into the physical, the power and the light.
3) Tirupatti: You ask me to be always conscious of the forces working and you make me so. But many people are not conscious yet; and yet they make progress. Why? How does the power work?
A.G.: That is very common. It works behind the veil. Power is always working in the world. People are progressing, but few know how much they progress.
Becoming conscious is exceptional. It depends upon the aspiration of the being behind and upon the call from above. There is something in you which always, even in the darkest period, wants the higher thing. That is because of the force that has been gathered up in previous lives.
Answers to Questions from Velji
1925
An Avatār is not subject to the laws of Karma as ordinary men are. The mind, life and body of the ordinary man are formed as a result of his past Karma. The Avatar having no such past how are his mind, life and body formed?
The Avatar gets it as other men do. What has that to do with his being an Avatar ? All that is only a certain movement in nature in his lower Prakriti. If your idea is that the Avatar is something miraculous and that he is not subject to the laws of Nature, then you have only the conventional notion about it. He is not miraculous in the methods he adopts. He also like others accepts the human limitations. If he did not then he ceases to have any meaning for man.
But how is his Adhāra prepared?
It is a certain movement which takes place in his nature leaving his soul free unaffected. If he were to use his freedom he would grow twenty arms and ten eyes. But he does not do so. Krishna says he has been taking birth always since the beginning. It is not that God is above somewhere else and has to come down. He is always here and everywhere. Only he has to manifest his Divinity.
Did Buddha live in the Supermind?
His aim was not to produce superman. His idea was to realise all this as the impermanent manifestation of the Permanent, to leave this and always remain in the permanent Nirvana State.
But his vital and physical parts did not live in Nirvana?
Evidently not.
Then were these parts subject to ignorance or were they free? If they were subject to ignorance then they could drag him down to birth again.
He could have abandoned those parts.
Then was he free?
What do you mean by freedom ? Birth is a bondage so long as one is in the mental being. It only appears so. But if you look at the thing from above then there is no such thing, one is not affected by birth and death.
Then Buddha did not achieve perfection of his nature?
He may have entered the higher ignorance. You see there are infinite movements of the higher consciousness in Nature. Human mind can occupy itself with certain mental absolutes, not all. It can confine itself to the absolute of the silent Brahman or the absolute of the Infinite Power, Mahashakti, and exclude the rest of the infinite. So many movements like this are possible. But I do not concern myself with them. Looking at the thing as a whole, we find that the aim has been to manifest more and more of the Divine.
In the Jaina Philosophy there is an idea that in this age this body would not be capable of bearing the supermind.
We shall see.
They say that we have to prepare our body infield of consciousness first.
That may be the true body which is in the Supermind. We have to bring that body down into the physical. Besides Jaina Philosophy is concerned with individual perfection. Our effort is quite different. We want to bring down the Supermind as a new faculty just as the mind is now a permanent state of consciousness in humanity which anybody can attain if he makes an effort. So we want to create a race in which the supermind will be a permanent state of consciousness.
11 September 1925
1925-09-11
If one has a natural conscious psychic capacity to open to God totally, unconditionally, sincerely, then there is no fall for him. Difficulties there may come, confusions there may occur, stumblings and covering up by forces of ignorance may happen but he will go on without a fall.
He will come to know accurately what is to be taken up and what is to be thrown out—he will get the right knowledge and right guidance. Very few have got such utter sincerity and the natural psychic capacity to open themselves up to God.
One must be severe with oneself—must be able to reject at all times all kinds of lower movements wherever they are detected with a strong will—must not allow oneself to be lax and loose and enjoy oneself in these movements. All good, bad, indifferent, everything must be given up and surrendered to the Supreme. Unconditional surrender is required for the continued onward march and progress from light to light.
If one is simply blind to his aim, content with any kind of experience and taking delight and enjoyment in it, he easily opens himself very often into some part of the vital world. The vital world mostly (that is nine-tenth) is full of delusions and falsities and images. Anyone by his imagination may create anything for himself, bring about an image or experience of any kind. They have nothing to do with the higher Truth. There is some truth of course in the vital world which is behind all these. The forces in the vital world are only too ready to take their earliest chance and make use of the person at any time. The mental opening on the other hand is a better one than the vital. It is nearer the Truth—there are less delusions and falsities in it than in the vital. And when one has this opening there is a chance of his opening to the higher Truth. Psychic opening beyond and above the mental opening is the real opening—here there is no danger, one gets the proper knowledge and can go on with more spontaneity.
People who are not called to this Yoga, who have not taken the proper personal guidance from me and on whom Yoga is simply forced, in other words want to do some Yoga forcing it on themselves—very often and easily open themselves to these vital worlds. When a number of people sit together and meditate and earnestly want to get something there will always be some opening. The worlds they open themselves to without being conscious to what they have opened themselves to is of no small importance to know.
One ought to know and become conscious to what he has opened himself to.
Also these people who have forced the Yoga on themselves and who easily get into some communication and opening into the vital world have no strong minds. The mind is not grown up or strong in them. Otherwise they could get beyond this vital opening and recognise and become conscious of their opening and the many delusions and falsities in it.
When one gets the real thing always he feels it, knows it and becomes conscious of it, and where he puts it or applies it, is always successful.
This natural psychic opening of the soul establishes something increasingly which always stands and is not broken by obstacles, confusions or covering.
12 September 1925
1925-09-12
A quietude of the mind is necessary. This does not mean silence. It is necessary to have a quietude and calmness in the mind, a giving up of himself to the Supreme and a calm, quiet and peaceful watching of all the movements that take place. There should be a deep aspiration for the descent and establishing of calm and peace in the being. There should also be an aspiration for the entire purification and Suddhi of the being. When the calmness is established then the light and knowledge will descend into the being.
13 September 1925
1925-09-13
The motor-car is a devil incarnate; as long as there are motor-cars there will be accidents. There is something in the very speed of the car that invites all possible forces and movements and brings about all the accidents etc.
14 September 1925
1925-09-14
Three-fourths of the actions of human beings are done from this physico-vital world. In the vital world at least there is some power, some widening. In the physico-vital it is petty narrow and small; some imps who when they get the chance of using some person as their medium begin to use them.
A movement from the physico-vital, a fancy which the person is not conscious of and is unable to arrange or organise.
All the charlatanism the humbugging hoaxes are from this world. Charlie Chaplin, the buffoons, clowns and newspaper-wits, all these are acted upon from this world.
There is very little difference between cats and human beings, it is a difference in details.
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