The Asram : of Sri Aurobindo & the Mother: Sri Aurobindo: My Yoga is done not for myself who need nothing & do not need salvation or anything else, but precisely for the earth consciousness, to open a way to the earth consciousness to change. [CWSA 35:405] –The Way: First be sure of the call & of thy soul’s answer. For if the call is not true, not the touch of God’s powers or the voice of his messengers, but the lure of thy ego, the end of thy endeavour will be a poor spiritual fiasco or else a deep disaster…. Imagine not the way is easy…. At every step is an ambush, at every turn a pitfall. A thousand seen or unseen enemies will start up against thee, terrible in subtlety against thy ignorance, formidable in power against thy weakness…. Thou shalt find thyself alone in thy anguish, the demons furious in thy path, the Gods unwilling above thee. Ancient & powerful, cruel, unvanquished & close & innumerable are the dark & dreadful Powers that profit by the reign of Night & Ignorance & would have no change & are hostile. .... But thou sayst God’s hand will be with me & the Divine Mother near with her gracious smile of succour? And thou knowest not then that God’s Grace is more difficult to have or to keep than the nectar of the Immortals or Kubera’s priceless trea¬sures? .... Beautiful is the face of the Divine Mother, but she too can be hard & terrible. Nay, then, is immortality a plaything to be given lightly to a child, or the divine life a prize without effort or the crown for a weakling? Strive rightly & thou shalt have; trust & thy trust shall in the end be justified; but the dread Law of the Way is there & none can abrogate it. [SABCL 17:39-40] – All would change if man could once consent to be spiritualised; but his nature, mental & vital & physical, is rebellious to the higher law…. Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness & height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love & charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer; Judaism & Islam how to be religiously faithful in action & zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest & profoundest spiritual possibilities. A great thing would be done if all these God-visions could embrace & cast themselves into each other; but intellectual dogma & cult-egoism stand in the way. – All religions have saved a number of souls, but none yet has been able to spiritualise mankind. For that there is needed not cult & creed, but a sustained & all-comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution. [SABCL 16:393-4] – There are a thousand ways of approaching & realising the Divine & each way has its own experiences which have their own truth & stand really on a basis one is essence but complex in aspects, common to all but not expressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these variations; the important thing is to follow one’s own way well & thoroughly. [SABCL 22:114-15] – Our aim is not, either, to found a religion or a school of philosophy or a school of yoga, but to create a ground of spiritual growth & experience & a way which will bring down a greater Truth beyond the mind but not inaccessible to the human soul & consciousness. All may find great difficulties in their person or common human nature; but it is not their physical origin or their racial temperament that can be an insuperable obstacle to their deliverance. [SABCL 23:559] – What we call truth is always an equivalence between a partial truth of fact & the perception in the human mind. If too rigidly insisted upon it is itself an error, as if a tract of ground brilliantly lighted were to be taken for the whole earth & the vastnesses left in obscurity excluded as if they were non-existent. This rigidity is the ordinary method of truth-seekers. Necessary to the limited human mind, it yet prevents comprehensive vision. [CWSA 10:505] – For the Sādhaka of the integral Yoga, it is necessary to remember that no written Shāstra, however great its authority or however large its spirit, can be more than a partial expression of the eternal Knowledge. He will use, but never bind himself even by the greatest Scripture…. [In] the end he must take his station, or better still, if he can, always & from the beginning he must live in his own soul beyond the written Truth – beyond all that he has heard & all that he has yet to hear. For he is not the Sādhaka of a book or of many books; he is a Sādhaka of the Infinite. [SABCL 20:49] – To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth & the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable & all the rest is nothing without it. [SABCL 23:516] – [What are the fundamental realisations in this Yoga?] 1) The psychic change so that the complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart & the ruler of thought, life, & action in constant union with the Mother & in her Presence. 2) The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the higher consciousness through the head & heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. 3) The perception of the One & the Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere & living in that infinite consciousness. [CWSA 30:319] – There was no Asram at first, only a few people came to live near Sri Aurobindo & practice Yoga. It was only sometime after the Mother came from Japan [24 Apr.’1920] that it took the form of the Asram [24 Nov.’1926], more from the wish of the sadhaks who desired to entrust their whole inner & outer life to the Mother than from any intention or plan of hers or of Sri Aurobindo. [SABCL 26:376] – All monasteries or ashramas have a tendency to degeneration. It is due to the incapacity of human nature. Whatever it receives from above, it spoils very soon. As long as the influence of the founder lasts, his teaching remains pure, but then his disciples, who cannot fully grasp it or can only grasp it intellectually, deform the whole thing. – 19 July 1926. [“Conversations”, recorded by Anilbaran Roy, edited & published by Kishore Gandhi in his Sri Aurobindo Circle, No. 34, 1978] – Queer idea all you fellows seem to have of the “prestige of the Ashram”. The prestige of an institution claiming to be a centre of spirituality lies in its spirituality, not in newspaper columns or famous people. Is it because of this mundane view of life & of the Ashram held by the sadhaks that this Ashram is not yet the centre of spirituality it set out to be? – 30 June 1938 [SABCL 26:380-81 + CWSA 35:693; traditionally twelve years of serious sādhanā are the first step; s/a Facilis Descensus$ in SABCL 8:165] – …cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit & hypocrisy & vain self-flattery that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit & hear that which summons it…. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire & a whirlwind & a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God…. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected. [SABCL 17:1] – To become ourselves is the one thing to be done; but the true ourselves is that which is within us, & to exceed our outer self of body, life & mind is the condition for this highest being, which is our true & divine being, is to become self-revealed & active. – One who fears monotony & wants something new would not be able to do yoga or at least this yoga which needs an inexhaustible perseverance & patience. [SABCL 26:630] The Mother: Since the beginning of the earth, wherever & whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of Consciousness, I was there. [CWM 13:37] – All souls who aspire are always under my direct care. – 27 Dec. 1957 [CWM 13:66] – With those whom I have accepted as disciples, to whom I have said Yes, there is more than a tie, there is an emanation of me…. In truth, I hold myself responsible for everyone, even for those whom I have met only for one second in my life. [CWM 13:74] – But being a disciple does not necessarily imply that one lives in the Ashram. In fact, there are more disciples living outside Ashram than in it. – 5 July 1937 [CWM 17:188] – Whatever difference there is between the West & the East in relation to spiritual life lies not in the inner being or nature, which is an invariable & constant thing, but in the mental habits, in the modes of expression & presentation which are the result of education & environment & other external conditions…. Sincerity, for example, is a quality which is the same everywhere. Those who are sincere, to whichever nation they belong, are sincere in the same way. Only the forms given to this sincerity vary. – 14 April 1929 [CWM 3:12] – Apart from the fact that the Ashram is not meant for those who seek the satisfaction of their vital or sentimental desires, but for those who aspire to perfect their consecration to the Divine, I have to warn you that here you must do only what can be done publicly because nothing can remain hidden. – 25 April 1958 [CWM 13:116] –Disciple: This morning I told Y that Mother had told me that She does not know what will happen to this Ashram [in Pondicherry] in the future. “How is it possible?” he said, “I cannot believe that She knows nothing about the work for which She has taken a body on earth.” Mother: I do not think that I said any such thing. You must have misunderstood me. But Y is wrong to believe that I came upon earth to establish an Ashram! That would really be a very paltry objective. – 8 Dec. 1934 [CWM 17:71] – I appreciate your feelings about what a sadhak ought to be & from that point of view, what you say is quite true. But it is well understood that the Ashram is not exclusively composed of sadhaks. The Ashram is a reduced image of life where those who practice yoga are a minority, & if I were to keep here only those who are quite sincere in their sādhanā, very few indeed would remain. – 26 Jan. 1962 [CWM 13:144] – But something has happened in the world’s history which allows us to hope that a selected few in humanity, a small number of beings, perhaps, are ready to be transformed into pure gold & that they will be able to manifest strength without violence, heroism without destruction & courage without catastrophe.... And perhaps it would be enough if some individuals became pure gold, for this would be enough to change the course of events.... Why not heroically face the furnace of inner purification so that it does not become necessary to pass once more through one of those terrible, gigantic destructions which plunge an entire civilisation into darkness?…. This is the problem before us. It is for each one to solve it in his own way…. And I add: Time presses... from the human point of view. – 27 March 1957 – Meanwhile we are in a very special situation, extremely special, without precedent. We are now witnessing the birth of a new world; it is very young, very weak – not in its essence but in its outer manifestation – not yet recognised, not even felt, denied by the majority…. But the road to it is a completely new road which has never before been traced out…! It is a beginning, a universal beginning. So, it is an absolutely unexpected & unpredictable adventure. …. It is not a question of repeating spiritually what others have done before us…. It is a question of a new creation, entirely new, with all the unforeseen events, the risks, the hazards it entails…whose goal is certain victory, but the road to which is unknown & must be traced out step by step in the unexplored…. What will happen to you tomorrow – I have no idea. – 10 July 1957 – Since 1926 when Sri Aurobindo retired & gave me full charge of it [Asram] all has grown up & developed like the growth of a forest…not by any artificial planning but by a living & dynamic need. This is the secret of constant growth & endless progress. The present difficulties come chiefly from psychological resistances of disciples who have not been able to follow the rather rapid pace of the “sādhanā” & the yielding to the intrusion of mental methods which have corrupted the initial working. A growth & purification of the consciousness is the only remedy. – 9 March 1964 [The Aims & Ideals of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2000, p.11, quoting Bulletin, Aug. 1964: 96] – When you are conscious of the whole world at the same time, then you can become conscious of the Divine. – 1 January 1973 [CWM 15:176]
... it that it has been raised over there? 25 April 1930 No member of the Asram can while he is a member contract a marriage whether it is spiritual or sexual or bring in a woman to be his life-companion or establish such a relation with anyone outside. This is no part of the Asram life. He can do it outside by leaving the Asram, for then he is no longer a member and can order his life as he pleases;... nature of the Asram life. (1) It is a strict rule that husband and wife living in the Asram cannot keep up the old conjugal relations and conjugal life. They either live separately or, if together, which is sometimes but not often allowed, as sadhak and sadhika only, each turned wholly to the Divine. Page 730 (2) Children of a tender age, under 10, are not allowed to live in the Asram, they... they are even not allowed as a rule to enter the Asram precincts. Even in houses not belonging to the Asram but still in some way connected with it (like the private house of Y where Z is temporarily staying) they are allowed only in very exceptional cases when we are sure that they can accommodate themselves to the Asram life and atmosphere. (3) Children of low age are not admitted first because ...
... no need of an Asram or of Yoga. But my letters to Y and P had nothing to do with the conquest of death—they had to do with the conditions of the sadhana in the Asram. Surely I never wrote that death and illness could not happen in the Asram which was the point Y was refuting and on which I confirmed him. A solid mass of faith? Surely that is a very heavy Himalayan condition you impose. For instance... "Mixture very bitter, may I take pān after it?" I said, "You may." Now I hear she is telling people that I've advised her to take pān . Ladies in the Asram are really wonderful!! My dear sir, such ladies are quite wonderful outside the Asram also. M didn't need to come here to be marvellous in that way. Reading about T, S, etc., confirms my disgust. You have made fine specimens of them... Both! Please give me some Force for writing. But I wonder if you have time for circulating it. Not as much as is necessary. The atmosphere seems to be thick with doubt etc. A lull over the Asram. Panic seems to be the order of the day as well as doubt. Storm brewing? The storm seems to have brewed. I am fighting it at present, having been obliged to give up my Abyssinian campaign ...
... (of course of the right kind) and keep it, then other vibrations will fall away from it. What are the Asram precincts? Every house in which the Page 630 sadhaks of the Asram live is in the Asram precincts. People have a queer way of talking of the houses in this compound as the Asram—it has no meaning. Or do they think the Mother's influence or mine is shut up in a compound? 12 January... only if one stays long and mixes in the ordinary life of the Asram or hears the gossip of the Sadhaks. People from this country, Gujaratis or others, more easily see or feel this side and do not feel the rest because they enter at once into relation with the exterior life of the Asram. 4 February 1937 There are two atmospheres in the Asram, ours and that of the sadhaks. When people with a little... favoured than others. This appeals to me. For if it was otherwise I would of course try to get into a room within the Asram precincts, as people often say that there the atmosphere is ever so much better. The atmosphere of the houses as houses is pretty much the same in all the Asram. But people make their own atmosphere as well; a number of people living together may create one that is agreeable ...
... rest of the Asram houses, are read out to everybody who is to stay in Golconde and if he does not want he can be given accommodation elsewhere. X seemed to be very happy about his stay here; if he was not really so and felt badly about these rules, why on earth did he refuse to stay in your place? I may mention that he told Y that there were two things he specially admired in the Asram, first... and secondly the discipline of the Asram. He said, according to Y, that the absence of discipline was the great bane in India, neither individuals nor groups had any discipline. Then why did he weep merely because he was not allowed to put his handbag in a place not intended for it? I do not agree myself with him in the idea that there is perfect discipline in the Asram; on the contrary, there is a great... maintain in spite of all that. That organisation and order is necessary for all collective work; it has been an object of admiration and surprise for all from outside who have observed the Asram; it is the reason why the Asram has been able to survive and outlive the malignant attacks of the Catholic priests and of many people in Pondicherry who would otherwise have got it dissolved long ago. The Mother ...
... It was after this that Sri Aurobindo published his statements about the Asram and his teaching. 2 (2) The French authorities at Pondicherry have enacted a law, the effect of which was to prevent the Mother from purchasing any more houses in the town for the purposes of the Asram. You can write about the stories of the Asram that they are not true. The publication had no connection with Gandhi's... been long wishing to put off farther expansion and consolidate the inward life of the Asram in a more completely spiritual sense. I give this as an example of how things have to be dealt with from the Yogic point of view. 20 March 1935 Page 31 X has passed along these two pieces of news about the Asram: (1) During his tour Mahatma Gandhi went to Pondicherry and with a view to meet Sri... visit to Pondicherry. No "law" has been passed by the French Government, nor could be. The relations of the Asram with the French Government are very friendly. But there was a housing crisis in Pondicherry and some complaints from the officials that they could not get houses to live in because the Asram had occupied so much of the better part of the town, so it was suggested to us that we might build houses ...
... some casual remark of R—which was immediately turned into "Mother's saying" with additional superstructures. This sort of notion is unfortunately current even in the Asram. There are hundreds of false notions current in the Asram. The other day K was saying that you have written to him that, even living outside, sadhana can be done, for it is done by the psychic which can receive from anywhere... without faith no Yoga possible. Reasoning, sir, reasoning—the mighty intellect in its full stupidity. Understand now? Each time somebody leaves the Asram, I feel a kick, a shock, a heartquake... May I ask why? People have been leaving the Asram since it began, not only now. Say 30 or 40 people have gone, 130 or 140 others have come. The big Maharattas, B, Y, H departed from this too damnable... go out and mix with the town people—enough to make a sufficient show on paper. She expects that Gaffiero will pass the thing and let the matter drop without insisting more—he is very favourable to the Asram. Only the thing had better be completed before he goes to Europe. April 6, 1937 Valle seemed to say that one of their members has to be present, to write down the reports etc. which has ...
... character. All houses of the Asram are owned either by Sri Aurobindo or by the Mother. All the money spent belongs either to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother. Money is given by many to help in Sri Aurobindo's work. Some who are here give their earnings, but it is given to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother and not to the Asram as a public body, for there is no such body. The Asram is not an association; there... association, no governing council or committee, no activity undertaken of a public character. The Asram is not a political institution; all association with political activities is renounced by those who live here. All propaganda, religious, political or social, has to be eschewed by the inmates. The Asram is not a religious association. Those who are here come from all religions and some are of no... those who come to him for the teaching and practice. An Asram is not an association or a religious body or a monastery—it is only what has been indicated above and nothing more. Everything in the Asram belongs to the Teacher; the sadhaks (those who practise under him) have no claim, right or voice in any matter. They remain or go according to his will. Whatever money he receives is his property ...
... character. "All houses of the Asram are owned either by Sri Aurobindo or by the Mother. All the money spent belongs either to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother. Money is given by many to help in Sri Aurobindo's work. Some who are here give their earnings, but it is given to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother and not to the Asram as a public body, for there is no such body. "The Asram is not an association; there... no governing council or committee, no activity undertaken of a public character. "The Asram is not a political institution; all association with political activities is renounced by those who live here. All propaganda—religious, political or social—has to be eschewed by the inmates. Page 257 "The Asram is not a religious association. Those who are here come from all religions and some... those who come to him for the teaching and practice. An Asram is not an association or a religious body or a monastery—it is only what has been indicated above and nothing more. "Everything in the Asram belongs to the Teacher; the sadhaks (those who practise under him) have no claim, right or voice in any matter. They remain or go according to his will. Whatever money he receives is his property ...
... and unanswerable questions—but still if he had been there, he would have felt it as an intimation from his daemon, "Turn back, Socrates; it is at the Asram that you ought to be now". Another might have felt an intuition that something was up at the Asram. Yet another would have heard a voice or suggestion saying "If you went back at once it would be useful"—or simply "Go back, back; quick, quick!"... All right except for the last ominous touch. September 5, 1935 You remember once you made a prophecy that Y would turn out a spiritual poet. Has it been fulfilled? Now that he has left the Asram, what becomes of your prophecy? I am asking as a perplexed man, not as a 'broken spiritual pot". As a spiritual poet he is not a failure, it is as a spiritual pot that he is a failure. You... would have been quite right and scientific. I forgot to tell you that C has gone back to his old habits.By the way, X has been sending Rs. 2 every month. He doesn't take any other interest in the Asram. Is it of use to correspond with him? I don't know. Some people say that everything one does in this world is of some use or other known or unknown. Otherwise it wouldn't be done. But it is doubtful ...
... work. All the work done in the Asram is the Mother's. All those works, meditation, reading Conversations , studying English etc. are good. You can do any of them dedicating them to the Mother. Meditation means opening yourself to the Mother, concentrating on aspiration and calling in her force to work and transform you. 18 September 1932 All work in the Asram is the Mother's. 12 February... Work for the Mother in the Ashram The Mother with Letters on the Mother All Ashram Work Is the Mother's Work If anybody in the Asram 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,... free decision. She must be free to use the capacities of each separately or together according to what is best for the work and best for the worker. None should regard or treat another member of the Asram as his subordinate. If he is in charge, he should regard the others as his associates and helpers in the work, and he should not Page 408 try to dominate or impose on them his own ideas ...
... profession of seeking the spiritual Truth is really deep or genuine. Therefore till we are fixed about her, Mother wishes that she should not be taken in intimately into the Asram life or told anything about inner matters of the Asram or spoken to about questions such as the divinity of the Mother or myself (for her we are simply spiritual Teachers) or shown freely messages or letters. A certain reserve... last paragraphs are about things that concern only disciples or even only sadhaks of the Asram, it is not desirable to discuss them and publish to outsiders or the general public. What you write about my books would be considered as extravagant by most readers. Also we do not usually encourage sadhaks of the Asram to write about us as divine, though one or another may have done it—there is a certain... manifestation of Page 399 the Mother. If this meant proclaiming him as the Avatar, I do not see how it can agree with the other saying that after his leaving his body the Avatar would come to the Asram he had created. I do not quite know what is meant by ayoni-sambhava . An incarnation is always through a human mother, though there have been one or two cases in which a virgin birth has been ...
... prepared and large enough to supply all that the Asram needs of rice, of vegetables and more and also to maintain cows and a dairy so that the Asram can consume its own milk. The land is offered at an extraordinarily favourable rate. Originally offered at 66,000, it is now to be had at Rs 25,000. The Mother wants to know if there is anyone in the Asram or connected with it or sympathetic with it... sent away and there is no farther danger. September 17, 1929 [3] Notice There have been several instances recently in which members of the Asram have been rude and overbearing in their behaviour to the French police when they come to the Asram in connection with the registration of new arrivals. There can be no possible excuse for this kind of conduct, especially as the police authorities... agreed to our own proposals in the matter and we have undertaken to help them with all necessary information. Sri Aurobindo has already given a warning against Page 534 making trouble for the Asram 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 ...
... February 1936 The human vital everywhere, in the Asram also, is full of unruly and violent forces—anger, pride, jealousy, desire to dominate, selfishness, insistence on one's own will, ideas, preferences, indiscipline—and it is these things that are the cause of the disorder and difficulty in the D. R. [ Dining Room ] and elsewhere also in the Asram work. The rule established in order to control... enforced because refusal of discipline is visited by severe penalties or else results in so much discomfort of various kinds that the indisciplined man has either to submit or to go. But here in the Asram it is not possible to enforce the rule in this way. An inner obedience has to be given as the source of the outer obedience. The only remedy is the descent into the consciousness of that golden lotus... lotus which you saw in your vision. Everyone in whom it is established or even who feels its influence will become a centre of the true consciousness and true action which will change life in the Asram. 14 February 1936 Small movements of depression caused by unhappiness, dullness, etc. do not usually touch me. But there are also strong movements of depression and despair that come from vital ...
... because I do not need to know. 15 June 1936 If anyone questions the right of the Mother to control the Asram or to control his own conduct, his place is outside; there he can exercise his full civic or other rights and do what he pleases. Whoever is dissatisfied, has the right to leave the Asram just as the Mother has the right not to maintain in it anyone whose conduct or attitude she finds uns... in return the Mother is under obligation to supply satisfaction for all demands and desires spiritual, mental, vital and physical, and, if she falls short in her task, she has broken her contract. The Asram is a sort of communal hotel or mess, the Mother is the hotel-keeper or mess-manager. One gives what one can or chooses to give, or it may be nothing at all except the aforesaid commodity; in return... hotel-keeper or mess-manager. This attitude has nothing whatever to do with sadhana or Yoga and I absolutely repudiate the right of anyone to impose it as a basis for my work or for the life of the Asram. There are only two possible foundations for the material life here. One is that one is a member of an Asram founded on the principle of self-giving and surrender. One belongs to the Divine and ...
... return to the Asram that gave him enough vitality to last longer. I firmly believed that death was impossible here. Since it has been possible, it means that hostile forces have become victorious. There have been three deaths since the Asram began—one, of a child in a house that was not then part of the Asram and the other of a visitor. This is the first death of an Asramite in the Asram itself... Overmind force which is getting gradually supramentalised in parts—the utmost that it can do in this respect is to keep death at a distance and that is what has been done. The absence of death in the Asram for so many years has been due to that. But it is not impossible—especially when death is accepted. In S's case there was a 5 percent chance of his survival on certain conditions, but he himself knew... might be of a hysterical character,—it is difficult to say. You will excuse my fear, I hope. But surely if one can be the cause of such a trouble and upset somebody—and a lady at that, and in the Asram, in addition to the fact that one has plenty of these to bear in oneself, I don't know really what could be done. You know, so I leave it to you. Fear of what? [ Underlining "one". ] Who is ...
... see the prestige of the Asram elevated by at least one man, though I suppose you care a damn for prestige. Queer idea all you fellows seem to have of the "prestige" of the Asram. The prestige of an institution claiming to be a centre of spirituality lies in its spirituality, not in newspaper columns or famous people. Is it because of this mundane view of life and of the Asram held by the sadhaks... [ Mother :] You can try—with prudence. Dr. André says that cooking for Benjamin is no longer necessary. I shall inform him tomorrow. [ Mother :] But it must be ascertained that he eats the asram food. It is by not taking it (he does not like it) that he got so bad— For my piles, local injection or operation is the only remedy! [ Mother :] Beware of operation: it does not cure— ... permit. [ Mother :] All right— The honey we got from Datta is exhausted. I think K can discontinue it now. [The Mother underlined "discontinue it new".] Yes. 1) Arjava says that the Asram food is too rich and too spiced for him. Would it be possible to provide him with some boiled vegetables—beetroots, cabbage, potatoes, etc., once a day, at midday? 2) Madanlal since a very long ...
... or now that I know, action of some greater Power behind. He was successful outside. While he was outside the Asram, not yet accepted, he was making remarkable cures and already getting a name. I had to stop him as soon as he became an accepted disciple, even before he came into the Asram, because his practice was illegal. But I had to refuse applications from the town for allowing him to treat patients... such individual affairs in a Yoga Asram, but ought and is are far asunder. December 13, 1935 About the individual affair, it may be so, but aren't most of the affairs that happen in the Asram, individual? That is why we never take sides in these "affairs". But have you not yourself said that very often when subtle planes are touched for transformation, all these impurities surge... there some extraordinary power behind R before he came here that was responsible for the marvellous results? Certainly. It was because the Mother saw a great force in him that she accepted him in the Asram. I hear he is a very good medium and is a tower of vital strength. Which means of course full of a massive vital force which can be used by the Yoga-force for its purposes and being massive ...
... remain in the Asram for at least six months commencing from 1st January 1930 or thereabouts. If I can be found by the end of that time to be a fit one I hope to stay in the Asram for ever if you would kindly take me in. An "experiment" of this kind is not made in the Asram. Those who are as yet uncertain about their capacity or their call, are sometimes allowed to live here outside the Asram (at their... Yoga. 22 February 1930 X may write explaining that the Asram is not a public institution with rules etc. which anyone satisfying the rules can enter. Only those are admitted who are already Sri Aurobindo's disciples and who are considered ready for the Asram life. 1 April 1930 Page 559 Answer that admission to the Asram is very strictly limited and only those who have already been... One cannot enter the Asram like that. One must first be admitted to the Yoga and show that there are the experiences which indicate that one is really called to this path. Even afterwards it rests on the decision of Sri Aurobindo whether the sadhak is to be admitted to the Asram or practise his sadhana outside. 8 January 1934 You will tell him that admission to the Asram is only allowed to ...
... the Ashram. Tell him that there are no public rules and regulations for the Asram, as it is not a public institution. 1 Only some of Sri Aurobindo's disciples who are considered ready or called to the Asram life are admitted. At present however no admissions are being made, as the accommodation capacity of the Asram is exhausted and there is no possibility just now of expanding it. 25 December... The Ashram's Rules and Regulations I would like to know precisely which people I should ask to read the Rules and Regulations of the Asram 2 and sign for them? The members of the Asram. For the others you can submit the names—long resident visitors in the Asram itself would usually have to see the rules e.g. X . 12 April 1933 Page 677 General Rules and Individual Natures ... granted to them. If no such sanction has ever been given, then how far are the principles of the Asram violated if a local well-wisher or a visitor to the Asram invites us to such feasts? Do they do the right thing by inviting us? No, they don't do the right thing—if they know of the rule of the Asram. Those sadhaks who wilfully indulge this vital desire, how do they stand in your estimation ...
... convenience, he is answerable for any failure in the work that may result or wrong spirit or clash or confusion or false atmosphere. (5) Any work done personally for Y or another (not for the Page 421 Asram) is not part of the Mother's work and the Mother has nothing to do with that; if such work is asked, X may do it if he likes or not do it if he thinks it is improper. (6) X has been... of messages from the Mother. Would it be possible for her to arrange for copies to be sent to me regularly? It is quite impossible for the Mother to see to every detail of the organisation of the Asram in person. Even as it is she has no Page 422 time free at all. It is understood that you can have the copies sent to you, but it is with those who have charge that you must insist on the... any number of times. If that happens, then the Mother will have to come back again to the steps she had contemplated and commenced this time. It is quite impossible that an important department of the Asram should remain in the hands of one who goes on making it a sacred duty to disobey in favour of his own ideas the clear orders of the Mother. 28 December 1934 Is it the atmosphere of the Dispensary ...
... the idea of his personal divinity and that of the Mother or of certain aspects of the Asram life; these things have been kept private for the Asram itself, and its inmates and the disciples—especially anything in the English language. In later pages of the book all that can be fruitfully said about the life of the Asram and the position of the Mother in the eyes of the disciples and in their life has... There was no Asram at first, only a few people came to live near Sri Aurobindo and practise Yoga. It was only some time after the Mother came from Japan that it took Page 102 the form of the Asram, more from the wish of the sadhaks who desired to entrust their whole inner and outer life to the Mother than from any intention or plan of hers or of Sri Aurobindo. In the meantime, Mirra... In the meantime, the Mother, after a long stay in France and Japan, returned to Pondicherry on the 24th April, 1920. The number of disciples then showed a tendency to increase rather rapidly. When the Asram began to develop, it fell to the Mother to organise it; Sri Aurobindo soon retired into seclusion and the whole material and spiritual charge of it devolved on her. [On a section of a biography ...
... all depression. But why? But why accept a depression which has no reason for its existence? Is it, as our friend Jaswant says, the Asram vital that affects me, or a personal one? In Jaswant's case it is personal—in yours it looks like surrender to the "Asram" or rather to the "anti-Asram" vital. But I have suffered enough, enough, more than my share. One can't go on, you know, with a spiritual... Subconscient vital physical—the lower vital is irrational, but not so utterly "without reasons" as that. July 8, 1935 J says he has no personal difficulties; he has to suffer for the sake of the Asram. Rubbish! His own vital has always been vehement and unstable. You say his depression is personal, mine impersonal, while all the time I was cursing myself for my neuro-vital mechanism. ... do I. It would have saved a lot of bother July 11, 1935 N is slightly better. I came to know he had been taking a lot of mangoes. Won't it be better to tell him to rigorously keep to the Asram diet for the sake of his health? If he wants to be healthy and last, he must certainly be careful about his diet. It is extremely important at his age. My cold has given me the quick realisation ...
... of S 4 shows that it is possible, it means that hostile forces have become victorious. There have been three deaths since the Asram began—one, of a child in a house that was not then part of the Asram and the other of a visitor. This is the first death in the Asram itself. You have said, I hear, that you have conquered Death, not only personally but for others as well. I am unaware of... lity in this respect; most seem to think that they are entitled to waste, destroy, spoil, use freely as if the Mother's sole business was to supply their wants and the Asram had unlimited resources. But it is not possible for the Asram to develop its wealth so long as the sadhaks and workers are selfish, careless, undisciplined and irresponsible. Lakshmi does not continue to pour her gifts under such... comes forth. Yes; since you are working for the Asram. (2) whether it would be desirable to open up fresh correspondence with friends who may perhaps send something. If you can get some help from your friends, it would be much better. You can understand that with 100 members almost, most of whom can contribute nothing to the expenses, the Asram needs all the help it can get for their and its ...
... principle of the Asram life is to take the world as it is and deal with it by a transformation of which the supramental descent is not the first but the final process. The presence of the hostile forces is a part of the world as it is and not to deal with them at all or to act as if they were not there would have been to leave the problem unsolved and the work undone. The sadhaks of the Asram are not spotless... Asrama, you ordered me to remain here. The hostile forces were not in the Budhi house any more than in any other and being in a house near the Asram does not save anybody from their attacks—as is shown by the case of several who lived in houses near the Asram. Even to be in the central building does not necessarily save anybody from attacks. It depends on oneself, not on purely external things. ... Asuric forces though they were so called in the book. 3 I said nothing about their not being Asuras. I said those to whom the Mother referred were not Asuras who had manifested in the Asram, but outside the Asram and before it was formed—as human beings who wanted to help and prepare the Divine Advent but spoiled their work, not by hostility, but by egoism—just as human beings with an Asuric t ...
... 1933 As the moment of the possibility of the supramental Descent grows nearer, these forces have become more eager to keep hold on the Asram atmosphere and break the sadhana of anyone they can touch. Their main aim is to get as many as possible to leave the Asram so that they may not share in the descent and so that the descent itself may be delayed and disturbed by a constant tempest in the atmosphere... always to put a comfortable interpretation even on uncomfortable statements. I have heard that even X had a terrible attack recently. He almost left the Asram! Y wanted to commit suicide, and Z is in revolt! There are only 2 or 3 in the Asram to whom this word "even" would apply. I won't mention their names less the devil should be tempted to try with them also. A solid mind, a solid nervous... week or two ago. When I asked whether the direct Supermind Force was acting in the Asram, you replied, if I remember correctly, "I suppose so, but it should not be an excuse for a passive acquiescence." 11 Also, when I began to feel a powerful, fiery keen force, I took it to be the Supermind. Acting in the Asram means only acting in the earth consciousness to prepare its own possibility. The ...
... have no impulse towards it. But how is it that you have clean forgotten my rule of not writing any article for an outside paper, magazine or journal—I mean other than those conducted from the Asram and by the Asram—and even for these I write nothing new except for the Bulletin at the Mother's request,—also my reasons for this fixed rule? If I started doing that kind of thing, my freedom would be gone;... Writing Philosophy Look here! Do these people expect me to turn myself again into a machine for producing articles? The times of the Bande Mataram and Arya are over, thank God! I have now only the Asram correspondence and that is "overwhelming" enough in all conscience without starting philosophy for standard books and the rest of it. And philosophy! Let me tell you in confidence that I never... 1936 The Sale of His Books The question of the royalty can be deferred till X has seen the translation. If it is not approved, the question of royalty does not arise. You can tell him that the Asram is not supported by public subscriptions but by what is given by disciples and private sympathisers. Therefore Sri Aurobindo's publications cannot be given free, they are sold and the proceeds counted ...
... better today, Sir, and the doctor has asked him to eat macaroni and potatoes. But the fellow can't bear the name of potato! Very queer, all of us are mad over it in the Asram! Quite queer—for he has surely eaten plenty of potatoes in the Asram. ... The surgeon says he suspects a contusion in the abdomen—can't localise it... He seems to have said that it is or was a very serious case. But no serious... poetry is the unexpected that has happened as a result of Darshan! But the result of Darshan in some other quarters leaves me staggered and staggered! I can't imagine such an incident taking place in the Asram—I mean, of course, N's gripping M's throat. It makes me rather aghast. Coupled with that the incident of R rushing to shoe-beat P. Good Lord! but I suppose they are all in the game! You seem to... has always been so. The Darshan is not responsible. And he is not the only howler. What about M herself? and half a dozen others? Hunger strikes? Threats of suicide? not to mention rushes to leave the Asram etc., etc. All from the same source, sir, and apparently part of the game. Difficulties of individual nature rushing up? Individual and general. The subconscient, sir, the subconscient. Brilliant ...
... behaviour does not justify X 's losing his temper, but neither were you justified in pushing him against the wall. This kind of scene ought not to happen in the Asram. It is besides not only with X you have clashed but with a good many others in the Asram, and it is no use telling me that it was always the other man who misbehaved and that you were an angel of calm and patience and good behaviour. Quar... request you to allow food free, because as a sannyasi, I am unable to pay for it. You should make the following points clear to the Swami. 1) His request for food free from the Asram is contrary to the rule of the Asram. Food is given free, as a rule, only to members. 2) Only those are allowed to attend Pranam and Soup (save on exceptional occasions) who have entered Sri Aurobindo's path of... people from outside are allowed to come in like that, very soon half Pondicherry will be invading the Asram and it will not be an Asram, but a public place—that is why the rule is there. Even for servants from outside, the rule is against their coming Page 807 inside and upstairs in the Asram houses. 1933 You have permission for darshan in February, but we do not think it would be advisable ...
... him, if you are not in a condition to come alone. To bring someone else would be very inconvenient and might lead to awkwardness; for it has been for a long time the rule of the Asram to admit for residence only sadhaks of the Asram itself, disciples who come for a visit or short stay, people who come with special permission for initiation in Yoga, and, in some cases, those who come,—again with special... own arrangements in the matter. As to the money he needs, if he absolutely cannot get from home or his friends, we will see about it. But it will be better if he can arrange, for the expenses of the Asram are heavy and always increasing, and at present money is not coming in freely. Next, about his stay. In his former letter he spoke of coming for a few days to settle certain matters, but in this... special permission,—for darshan on the days in the year on which Sri Aurobindo comes out. Outsiders who do not fall within these classes are not allowed to stay in the Asram, but are supposed to make their own arrangements elsewhere. There is one thing which I should mention and of which I omitted to write in my last letter. You have written of the Page 412 work in which you have been recently ...
... filled, we are obliged to spend on our monthly upkeep sums that ought to go for capital outlay and under such circumstances the very foundation of the Asram from the pecuniary point of view remains insecure. If the monthly expenses are secured, the Asram will be put on a safe foundation and the work for bringing the lakh and other large sums can go forward on a much sounder basis. Besides the forces... but for the Asram it dwindled and grew less and less; only Vithaldas' money saved it from becoming a zero. Next, the money for your expenses became more and more difficult to get and for that too you are compelled now to fall back on the contribution of Vithaldas. That was the first result; the second was that people in Bombay lost all confidence in you and in the collection for the Asram and began... with yourself behind and think only of the work you went for which is to get support for the Asram—that and nothing else. You have no other work in Gujerat—as you have sometimes vainly imagined. You may be right in thinking that the only thing you can do now is to get people with means interested in the Asram, but in that case you must see that they are put into direct touch without which the interest ...
... are not in themselves the best means of entering the Yoga. It is self-dedication from within oneself that is the means. Nor is it entrance into the atmosphere of the Asram that is needed, for there are many things in the atmosphere of the Asram, not all of them desirable. It is with Page 547 the consciousness of the Mother that he must unite and there too a sincere self-consecration in mind... sadhaks who had entered into the life and atmosphere of the Asram and felt the touch on the Page 548 psychic of what is here. It does not apply to those who have come here from the outside world but still belong to the outside. All the ties of X 's nature were still with the outside life; her vital was quite unadapted to the Asram life and recoiled from the idea of living it always. She... no direct answer to his letters; if anything has to be said, you will write through X . (4) He must not expect to be called to Pondicherry. Only those are allowed who are ready for sadhana in the Asram or who are called for work for which they have a special capacity or training. For darshan, permission is given only when the Mother chooses; demands made in the spirit of his letter are always refused ...
... quiet within, silencing the vital movement and getting into the true attitude. What you write shows that you had a wrong idea of the work. The work in the Asram was not meant as a service to humanity or to a section of it called the sadhaks of the Asram. It was not meant either as an opportunity for a joyful social life and a flow of sentiments and attachments between the sadhaks and an expression of... that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her. 31 May 1933 We cannot approve of your idea—there are already enough intellectuals in the Asram and the room-keeping intellectual is not a type whose undue propagation we are disposed to encourage. Outside work is just what is necessary to keep the equilibrium of the nature and you certainly... obvious demerits. You have no experience of major realisations through work, and you conclude that such realisations are impossible. But what of the many who have had them—elsewhere and here too in the Asram? That has no value? You kindly hint to me that I have failed to get anything by works? How do you know? I have not written the history of my sadhana—if I had, you would have seen that if I had not ...
... their own limits—none of them could be trusted with the responsibility the Mother has given to you. The difficulties you have are the difficulties which are met in each department and office of the Asram. It is due to the imperfections of the sadhaks, to their vital nature. You are mistaken in thinking that it is due to your presence there and that if you withdrew all would go smoothly. The same state... explanation. No man in his senses ought to quarrel over such matters or magnify into a stupendous tragedy. It shows that egoistic sensitiveness not only in your case but in that of many others in the Asram has reached enormous and fantastic proportions. It is time that the sadhaks of this Asram realised what they have come here for;—it is not to nourish the ego and Page 437 to insist on... of the sadhana and a means and part of the inner development. That you will see more as the psychic grows within you. Apart from that the work is important because necessary to the maintenance of the Asram, which is the frame of the Mother's action here. December 1936 I do not know why there should be so much difficulty about the instructions; you have been doing this work for many years and must ...
... with Amal Kiran) Amal Kiran's Correspondence with The Mother 20 November 1937 Mother, I dipped into The Teaching and the Asram of Sri Aurobindo and read: “Everything in the Asram belongs to the Teacher; the sadhaks (those who practise under him) have no claim, right or voice in any matter. They remain or go according to his will. Whatever money... the “Life-Sketch” in the other book counteract the impression likely to be given by it and make him a believer in the benevolence of the Teacher in question? You need not send “The Teaching and the Asram”. 20 November 1937 ...
... cheques for him and pay out of my own pocket the expenses of cashing them (some 8 to 12 annas usually). He further said that if you had accepted him in the Asram, then you could have cashed the cheque and kept the money with you. Only the Asram would have to send, on the first of every month, Rs. 31.5 to his wife from his pension of Rs. 91.5. He added: “I am only here temporarily. I will wait and... Correspondence with The Mother 12 September 1933 Mother, M. B. Desai gave me a cheque for Rs. 91.5 annas this afternoon, saying that Rs. 60 was for the Asram for the month of September and that the rest was for his wife which he would send to her at the end of the month. In the evening he told me not to encash the cheque now since it is only the 12th of ...
... It is certainly the force hostile to the Yoga and the divine realisation upon earth that is acting upon you at the present moment. It is the force (one force and not many) which is here in the Asram and has been going about from one to another. With some as with X, Y and Z it has succeeded; others have cast it from them and have been able to liberate the light of their soul; open in that... presence were not for us visible and palpable, by the fact that the suggestions it makes to the minds of its victims are always the same. Its one master sign is always this impulse to get away from the Asram, away from myself and the Mother, out of this atmosphere, and at once . For the force does not want to give time for reflection, for resistance, for the saving Power to be felt and act. Its other... love and let them throw out this egoistic darkness. All these things, feelings, suggestions etc. [ depression, wanting to die ], are the workings of an adverse Force which wants to break up the Asram, upset or drive away the workers and prevent the Truth and Light which are descending from having any fruition. There is no truth behind it, it is a Force of the Devil or Falsehood—there is no rational ...
... that, not a single sadhak would have been able to practise this Yoga. The Divine has to put on humanity in order that the human being may rise to the Divine. This is a simple truth, but nobody in the Asram seems able to understand that the Divine can do that and yet remain different from them—can still remain the Divine. 8 May 1933 People believe that their difficulties and illnesses are taken... having either left it alone or used on it only a detailed mental and vital force, not the general spiritual force. It was the reason why after a serious illness caused by a terribly bad state of the Asram atmosphere, I had to insist on her partial retirement so as to minimise the most concrete part of the pressure upon her. Naturally the full conquest of the physical would revolutionise matters, but... adverse movements only. But after a time these things should disappear. It does so disappear in individuals—but there seems to be a great difficulty in getting it to disappear from the atmosphere of the Asram—somebody or other always takes it up and from him it tries to spread to others. It is of course because there is behind it one of the principles of life according to the Ignorance—a deeply rooted ...
... vital impulse used by the hostile Powers. Is it because the vital forces are so strong that even if a person has a clear aspiration and a Divine call they can lead him away from the Mother and the Asram? Every man is free at every moment to consent to the Divine call Page 367 or not consent—to follow the lower nature or to follow his soul. When a person leaves the path, does it... desire to go, they are allowed sometimes to do so at their own risk, but the Mother never sends anybody—unless there is her work to do. That is the position. 15 January 1937 As for going out, the Asram has seen X go out twice and return with full permission, it has recently seen Y and Z go with the Mother's permission, both with the full intention of returning Page 370 —to say nothing... you; but there is no reason why you should allow it. The idea that we are driving away and will drive many by the pressure of our Yoga force is a silly notion among the many silly notions current in the Asram invented by the too idly active brains of the sadhaks. We do not press on anybody to go away—our action has been the opposite. It is a contrary undivine Force which presses on sadhaks to go away from ...
... for the Mother in the Ashram The Mother with Letters on the Mother Work, Sadhana and the Mother You need not be so much concerned as to what others in the Asram may think about you or say to you. It is only what the Mother says to you or thinks about you that has any importance. All you need to be concerned with is your own work and sadhana, whether you... say it or write to X and Page 418 ask him to remedy it or take the orders of the Mother. But to complain to others and create the idea that you are ill-used so that it spreads through the Asram is to create disturbance and a current of forces against the Mother and her work which may have a serious consequence. I do not wish to insist on this any more. Everybody makes mistakes and one... be here were not a grace and her giving work also were not a grace. If the sadhaks could get rid of this wrong attitude, they would go much faster in their spiritual progress and the atmosphere of the Asram would be clearer and purer. 5 January 1936 ...
... that once the Mother accepts us as disciples, we should simply go to her. One should not be miserable if one does not see her in the heart. One has only to remain with her in the Asram. No, it is not enough to be in the Asram—one has to open to the Mother and put away the mud which one was playing with in the world. 25 September 1934 I could not decide whether to give up my present work or... An entire faith, opening, self-giving to the Mother are the one condition necessary throughout. 23 September 1935 It seems to me that the best place for getting rid of wrong movements is the Asram, under the Mother's grace, help, protection and physical nearness. That is only true if one can open oneself to the Mother. To be here and shut up to it and under another control does not help ...
... has seen me only once on August 15th and has never had any talk with me. She was not at any time admitted as a member of the Asram, is acquainted only with the Mother and one English disciple (Datta)—except for two visits to Madame Potel and knows nothing personally about the Asram. Throughout she has been kept apart on probation. But it was found that she was a woman who took her desires and imaginations... is no connection between my spiritual work and politics. Not only so but those like Anilbaran Ray who were political workers or leaders outside, had to give up politics before they were taken into the Asram. There is not a single fact or act of mine, that can support any statement to the contrary. If Sloane or anyone else wants any evidence better than her intuitions to establish her charge, they will ...
... February 1934 under the title "Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Some Misconceptions Cleared". A short while later, both texts were published in Pondicherry and in Madras in brochures entitled "The Teaching and the Asram of Sri Aurobindo" (Pondicherry: Barathy Press; Madras: Kesari Printing Works). Also around this time a brochure containing a French Page 608 translation of both texts was printed... English text of one or both pieces.) Five months later, in August 1934, both texts were published in English, along with Bengali and Hindi translations, in a booklet entitled "The Teaching and the Asram of Sri Aurobindo" (Chandernagore: Rameshwar & Co.). A second edition, with English texts only, was published in 1945 (Calcutta: Arya Publishing House). Both texts were included in the first and second... but "Sri Aurobindo's Asram" has not been printed since 1951. A letter written by K. D. Sethna to the Mother in 1937 helps explain why. Wondering whether he should send a copy of "The Teaching and the Asram of Sri Aurobindo" to someone, Sethna noted that the passage about there being "no public institution" etc. "was written in this downright way when that anti-Asram movement [of 1934] was in full ...
... Certainly, my force is not limited to the Asram and its conditions. As you know it is being largely used for helping the right development of the war and of change in the human world. It is also used for individual purposes outside the scope of the Asram and the practice of Yoga; but that, of course, is silently done and mainly by a spiritual action. The Asram however remains at the centre of the work ...
... Asking where will be the end of this প্রনান্ত লীলা । 32 My supramental forehead is merging with the Infinite, what? Yes, dominating scornfully from there the pigmy universe. Lastly, the Asram photos are very fine. Very well done. I give you a rare occasion for laughter. Please do laugh loud and share it with us! No time to laugh! Can only smile. As the cause of J's irregular... will spend the whole day tiffin-carrying—and finally what will be the damned use of the Dining Hall? Your name among the home-consumers—so gave you a jog. If we omit the visitors, 50 per cent of the Asram are taking home-meals and most of these all meals at home. All do not take by cart, but even so the cart has to carry more than its proper capacity. September 6, 1936 G did not have good... minute, under the breezy, starry sky. Their breeding place is in the thick canna bushes Manubhai has planted. Can't you direct him to strike them off and save my precious life? What will happen if the Asram doctor is to die of malaria? My dear sir, Manubhai will have a fit and you will have to treat him and probably he will kill you into the bargain. You prefer a violent death to malaria? While there ...
... 1938 Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo July 1938 I understand that the prestige of the Asram is in its spirituality, but at the same time when a member of the Asram behaves caddishly, doesn't it naturally reflect on us a little, or does it reflect because we are accustomed to take a mundane view of life and its usual code of morals and behaviour... people is to be our standard, then we may say good-bye to the spiritual consciousness. If the Mother and I had cared for praise or blame, we would have been crushed long ago. It is only recently that the Asram has got "prestige"—before it was the target for an almost universal criticism, not to speak of the filthiest attacks. For instance we feel a little "embarrassed" when things are said against X ...
... prominent, and not with the outer consciousness only, it should be different, but— 29 July 1936 You have said that those who are doing sadhana outside the Asram cannot do it fully—the daily touch and nearness of the Mother, gained by living in the Asram, alone can bring a possibility of transformation. Carrying this idea a little further, it naturally follows that those who live nearer to the Mother... given to Y by her working here and seeing and speaking with the Mother being an injustice to you and a sacrifice of you to her development, she might equally complain, and most of the people in the Asram might complain that they are not allowed to send a book to Sri Aurobindo every second day and get an answer from him and a constant outward help, but are left out in the cold and an unjust partiality... the person. Some profit, some do not. No general statement can be made. Is it possible to receive the Mother's help at a great distance—say Bombay or Calcutta—almost in the same way as here in the Asram? One can receive everywhere, and if there is a strong spiritual consciousness one can make great progress. But experience does not support the idea that it makes no difference or is almost the ...
... some people from the town went to see Gandhi and asked him why he had cancelled his visit to the Asram. Gandhi is supposed to have said that it was because Sri Aurobindo was not willing to see him, after which he showed a copy of the notice which was put on our notice board—the one prohibiting members of the Asram from attending Gandhi's arrival procession, etc. 3 I don't believe Gandhi actually had... political heroes—I have seen them close and have none. 2 July 1938 I am not responsible for anything that may have been said by any sadhak in the Asram. I have not said that Subhas was my enemy and that anybody sympathising with him ought to leave the Asram. If this statement was made, it certainly did not have my authority. There is absolutely no reason why you should say anything contrary to your... heard that Mother asked Govindbhai to meet him and explain her inability to see him. Gandhi wrote to Govindbhai and from his letter it seemed as if he were still expecting to see the Mother and the Asram or at least expecting an answer. In view of this persistence we sent Govindbhai to explain to him that it was impossible for the Mother to receive his visit. 23 February 1934 It is curious ...
... by all concerned. This is Page 502 now generally understood in the Asram 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 Asram have and which all would be only too glad to have. It is not because you have... 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 Asram; 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... 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 Asram. 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 ...
... 1934 When I spoke of the inner mind of the Asram, I was only using a succinct expression for the "minds of the members of the Asram" and I was not thinking of the collective mind of the group. But the action of the Mother in the meditation is at once collective and individual. She is trying to bring down the right consciousness in the atmosphere of the Asram—for the action of the minds and vital of... time of meditation, the atmosphere of the Meditation Hall extends to all the Asram houses. It is natural that it should be so as the Mother when she concentrates on the inner work is accustomed spontaneously to spread her consciousness over the whole Asram. So to anyone who is sensitive, it must be felt anywhere in the Asram, though perhaps more strongly in the nearer houses on an occasion like the ...
... to drop, you can do the same (without giving any reason for the dropping off). The public Men in India are not circumstanced like the Asram. For us also if it were a personal matter it would not matter. But if a report goes from the British or French police that the Asram is associated with revolutionaries in Bengal or with a paper run by a Terrorist, that will be a note against us in the record (which... report or complaint to the ministry in Paris. In that case any such Governor or party would be able on that ground alone to dissolve the Asram by a stroke of the pen — the Governor is all powerful and can do such things by a single order of decree. It is no use running the Asram and the work into danger for a trivial reason which has nothing to do with our work. That is why the Mother is so careful not to... to give any ground for hostile representations and that is why she wants no connection of this kind between the people in the Asram and suspects there. MYSELF: Mother, the songs I am singing for gramophone recording are not turning out at all well. My throat is also bad. Besides, those who have come for recording believe that the old songs I used to sing before in Calcutta would have been better ...
... "advanced") had made a habit of this kind of expression of their difficulties and some still do it; they cannot even yet understand that it is not the way. At one time it was a sort of gospel in the Asram that this was the thing to be done,—I don't know on what ground, for it was never part of my teaching about the Yoga,—but experience has shown that it does not work; it lands one in the recurring... There too I write almost entirely to disciples or seekers of the Yoga. 1 February 1936 Useful and Useless Letters What is meant by vital nature? These are questions that anybody in the Asram could answer. This and questions such as "what is meant by faithfulness". It is much better if you get these things explained to you by someone in Gujarati so that you can understand and be able to... collections that were asked for of messages etc.—as it is found that things unauthorised, inaccurate, not mine are often included and afterwards they get copied and end by being circulated even outside the Asram. Also things that are quite private or are not intended to circulate leak out in this way, since some people are unscrupulous in copying (like X who took things he was asked not to take). A control ...
... thing is to remain unmoved. As for violence that is out of the question. No doubt you do not mind about yourself—but you represent the Asram and we must not give a handle to those in power—many of whom are not now favourable to us—to get a handle to do anything against the Asram. That is the primary consideration at the present moment and under the present conditions—which will not always remain as they... a critical or hostile way? It is not only likely but certain that it happens. The pressure of the environment is always there and it becomes more effective for suggestion if there are any in the Asram itself who are accustomed to mix and receive freely the impacts of the people there. 20 May 1933 Some boys in the neighbourhood have become a systematic nuisance—jeering and throwing things—and... only when one has got a complete foundation in the outer as well as the inner consciousness that one can do it completely in all surroundings. That is why the Mother has always insisted on keeping the Asram and the sadhaks as much as possible out of contact with the outer world. 9 August 1933 In The Synthesis of Yoga you write of the love of the Divine in all beings and the constant perception ...
... attain it. 8 May 1932 There is no doubt that at times the idea enters the thinking elements among the members of the Asram that the Mother has lost her grip on the physical, and thus she says things that are contradictory or not factual. It is rather surprising that the Asram does not break down altogether, if the Mother has no grasp of the physical world—those who are in that lamentable condition... condition are not usually able to run anything on the physical plane; but perhaps it is the great grip of the thinking elements here on the physical world that keeps the Asram going in spite of the imbecility of myself and the Mother. What I notice however is that when the Mother says something, the thinking elements very often understand the exact opposite. You write of being responsive to the Mother... for the Mother, you will not find in her this blind adherence to an arrangement once made. If, for instance, she told someone, next time you yield to sex-passion in any way, you will have to leave the Asram and if the man did it and repented, she too might relent and not insist in following out her menace. These matters of interviews are not promises, contracts or engagements,—they are arrangements only ...
... child and little star and what can anybody be more than that? I see no reason therefore why you should care so much if anybody is not behaving well with you. I have told you already that people in the Asram—it is true even of those who have inner experiences and some opening—are not yet free in their outer selves from ego and wrong ideas and wrong movements. It is no use getting distressed or depressed... the quarrels increased tenfold. For a long time that has been given up. If we began again intervening in clashes between housemates or coworkers, all the time would have to be passed in that and the Asram would become a seething cauldron of feuds and collisions. These things can only disappear if the sadhaks become fully sadhaks in their consciousness and temperament, learn how to keep equality in... Mother wants you to remain quiet and do your work as well as you can under the circumstances without allowing yourself to be upset by these things. Any improvement in the conditions of life or work in the Asram depends on each one trying to progress and open within to the true consciousness, growing spiritually within and not minding about the faults or conduct of others. No change can come by outer means; ...
... will cease to be merely by leaving the body? When the Mother said that by doing that you would bring trouble to the Asram, it is not merely the entry of the police into the Asram, the inquiry and the immediate local scandal that she meant. It would bring a general discredit on the Asram, the Yoga, myself and my work, arm all the numerous enemies here and outside against me, shake the whole Asram and... body. One comes back with the same difficulty to solve. People do not come here in order to throw off the body. If everybody here dropped his body because of acute difficulties, three quarters of the Asram would be dead by this time. That is not right. Throwing away the life does not improve the chances for the next time. It is in this life and body that one must get things done. Sadhana ...
... And that is what I am doing now, at Dilipda's. Any objection to gratis supply of butter and cream? I suppose not, so long as you do not constitute a Municipal Corporation. Complaint against the Asram doctor from the D.R. servers. "Often after we have served his dish, he would send a note saying 'My meals, please!' or a verbal message through any sadhak he might come across... 208 Carrier bearers... suppose. By the way, when Mother made all these observations about B.P., why didn't you tell us, so that we could be more careful? When Mother has handed over the case to a doctor (not of the Asram), she never interferes, so long as it is in his charge. It would be ridiculous to do so. She can have no control or influence or weight with him. He is bound by his science and his ideas of treatment... If you mean the Vedantic realisation, several have had it. Bhakti realisation also. If I were to publish the letters on sadhana experiences that have come to me, people would marvel and think that the Asram was packed full of great Yogis! Those who know something about Yoga would not mind about the dark periods, eclipses, hostile attacks, despairings, falls, for they know that these things happen to ...
... Yogi—no joke, not a word in excess... Do you believe that people here are more sensitive than people outside? Some persons think that the Asram is a "rotten" place with jealousy and hatred rampant among the sadhaks. Outside there are just the same things—The Asram is an epitome of the human nature that has to be changed—but outside people put as much as possible a mask of social manners and other... over the rottenness—What Christ called in the case of the Pharisees the "whited sepulchre". Moreover there one can pick and choose the people one will associate with while in the narrow limits of the Asram it is not so possible—contacts are inevitable. Wherever humans are obliged to associate closely, what I saw described the other day as "the astonishing meannesses and caddishnesses inherent in human... disheartened", a failure, in one word, and started on Asram. Have read it. The Moslem was K.N., if I remember right—flaring atheist and God-beater. So what do you expect? And he says that the Asram, judging by the ideals it stands for, is a great enemy to the society... It doesn't recognise the "individual entity"; somebody gets "Light" and everything has to be done according to his dictates ...
... on uncomfortable statements. I have heard that even N had a terrible attack recently. He almost left the Asram! D wanted to commit suicide, and H is in revolt! How many underground tragedies! ... And all these despite your continuous day and night fight. There are only 2 or 3 in the Asram to whom this word "even" would apply. I won't mention their names lest the devil should be tempted to try... There are some definite follicles on the lower lids. It may be either follicular conjunctivitis or granulations. Sometime ago all pimples about the eyes or on the lids were being classed in the Asram as trachoma. It was an epidemic of trachoma! T better. R said T was "unconscious" and restless at night wanting to go out and saying "Somebody is trying to take me out, I don't want to go"... am mad, Sir, and impatient too; and who can be and remain otherwise unless and until one is divine oneself? Ummm! don't you think there are enough people in that condition already here without the Asram doctor adding himself to the collection? Unfortunately, experience seems to show that one must be divine oneself before one can bear the pressure of divine love. Come down, Sir,—for heaven's ...
... ss governing the inner and outer individual and collective life. Therefore the existence of the Asram, whatever difficulties it created for ourselves or for the individual, was inevitable. The method was the preparation of the earth consciousness in the human being as represented by the members of the Asram and others (with also a certain working in the general earth consciousness) so as to make the ...
... precedence of everything. If we ask you to remain still with your father and mother, it is not from the point of view of Truth, but of charity. Four of their children have already left them to come to the Asram; it would be too hard a blow if you also left them now. As you have remained with them so long, you might remain a little longer. Even while in the family, you can prepare yourself for the spiritual... that the vital alone has warmth and the psychic is something frigid without any flame in it. A clear limpid goodwill is a very good and desirable thing—one has only to consider what a changed place the Asram would be if all had it for each other. But that is not what is meant by psychic love. Love is love and not merely goodwill. Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense and more intense than ...
... time in meditation and to those who spend a long time in meditation. Each sadhak must be left to himself and the Mother to find his right way which need not be that of his neighbour. There is in the Asram too much observation of each other by the sadhaks, criticism, discussion of persons, even baseless gossip about each other's character, ideas, sadhana, actions along sometimes with theories and (usually... obvious demerits. You have no experience of major realisations through work, and you conclude that such realisations are impossible. But what of the many who have had them—elsewhere and here too in the Asram? That has no value? You kindly hint to me that I have failed to get anything by works? How do you know? I have not written the history of my sadhana—if I had, you would have seen that if I had not ...
... vanished. Indiscipline, carelessness, regard for one's own convenience only, disobedience to rules, utter disregard for economy or proper use or safeguarding Page 377 of the property of the Asram are responsible for this result. It is no use any farther protecting the sadhaks against the results of their own wilful disorders or providing them with means of life which they show no will or fitness... keep them up. I suppose "thrifty" minds would consider the local principle to be sound and a higher standard to be waste. If the higher standard has been kept, it is not for the glory of anyone, the Asram or the Page 379 Mother—the principle of glory being foreign to Yoga, but from another point of view which is not mental and can only be fully appreciated when the consciousness is capable ...
... been to admit them and identify them as your own—from want of knowledge and experience in these matters. There are certain vital forces of this lower vital plane that are constantly wandering about the Asram and trying to push their movements now on one, now on another, now on several at a time. The processus is always the same. First, suggestions: the Mother has done this or not done that, she has said... suggestion to the sadhak's mind from the Force that wants to create the wish to go or any other kind of discontent or depression. It is a curious form of delusion that has taken root, as it were, in the Asram atmosphere and is cherished not so much by the individual vital as by the forces that work upon it to break, if possible, the sadhana. You must not allow any Page 490 harbourage to that ...
... the dualities, weaknesses, ignorance of human nature as you do and a great deal more. The idea that the Mother or I are spiritually great but ignorant of everything practical seems to be common in the Asram. It is an error to suppose that to be on a high spiritual plane makes one ignorant or unobservant of the world or of human nature. If I know nothing of human nature or do not consider it, I am obviously... lunatic or a gibbering imbecile or a fool so abysmally idiotic as to be worth keeping in a museum as an exhibit. I am glad however to know that this is the opinion that you and all the other members of the Asram (I suppose this is what "we" means) have about me. I am glad however to know that you think the Mother is less of an exalted imbecile than myself. 30 April 1937 ...
... out of the protection. 8 June 1933 I was invited by friends to go to a restaurant and accepted. Later I learned that you were opposed to the idea. What should we—those of us who live outside the Asram—do? The Mother has made an arrangement with a view to all the occult forces and the best possible conditions for the protection of the sadhaks from certain forces of death and disease etc. It... things. But still there is a protection. If however the sadhaks go outside her formation, it must be on their own responsibility—the Mother does not and cannot sanction it. But this arrangement is for the Asram and not for those who are outside. 14 July 1933 When the Mother's protection is put around a person, how does he go out of it? By desire, wrong thoughts, wrong actions, wrong feelings—by ...
... "This man has gone mad, otherwise why all these asthmatic gaspings?" Yes, I am mad, Sir, and impatient too. Ummm! don't you think there are enough people in that condition already here without the Asram doctor adding himself to the collection? Who can be and remain otherwise unless and until one is divine oneself? Unfortunately, experience seems to show that one must be divine oneself before... slokas; one says that the Divine makes no difference, the other says that Arjuna is specially dear to him. It seems to me that if X and myself, for example, were to transgress some vital rules of the Asram, I would get a thunderbolt from you while he would get nothing. In my saner moments I have tried to look at it more rationally. That does not stand. Sometimes you might get nothing except perhaps ...
... more carefully. Will return with N's. Tomorrow, by the way, I am going to burst a little—Attention! Eh what! Burst? Which way? If you explode, fizz only—don't blow up the Asram. August 17, 1936 The Asram is quite safe! My explosion will burst me alone, but I will see if the Divine can as well be exploded. I expected very much that your touch would relieve my burden, a little even ...
... differences—the other says that Arjuna is specially dear to him. Sometimes I feel that if the Divine loves all equally, even then D and myself, for example, transgressing some vital rules of the Asram, will not be equally treated. In my saner moments I have tried to look at it more rationally. That does not stand. Sometimes you might get nothing except perhaps an invisible stare; sometimes... Yoga. Not of my Yoga, but of the blasted atmosphere that has been created here by the theory that revolt, doubt and resultant sorrow and struggle and all that rot are the best way to progress. The Asram has never been able. to get out of it, but only some people have escaped. The others have opened themselves to the confounded Man of Sorrows and got the natural consequence. But why the devil did ...
... say "O, it was latent" when a thing apparently impossible is done, is a mere post factum explanation which amounts to an evasion of the difficulty. They state very strongly that a servant of the Asram, like Muthu, for example, cannot be changed into a Ramakrishna, or a Yogi for that matter, even by the Divine. If he were, they would say "O, it was latent in him". Well, Ramakrishna himself... rose to 26-30 divided among three meals. It is amazing he had no bad symptoms except a slight oily sensation in the throat at first. Immunity? Tolerance by the system? Or another Khagananda 65 in the Asram? He must have immunised himself—a modem Mithridates! Of course, the Yogis do do this kind of thing and it is perfectly possible, but I did not realise that V was one of the great ones. He has ...
... most of us have a deep and genuine feeling for him which he doesn't see because our expression is so different from worldly people's. Yes, but X likes universal patting and patting is rare in the Asram, preaching is more usual. You remember he said that he is a great believer in expression. Is expression the only real thing in life? No. Expression is all right provided it is the right expression... have nothing if they did not have a shelter here—even such people criticise him. ? The quality of the sadhaks is so low? I should say there is a considerable amount of ability and capacity in the Asram. Only the standard demanded is higher than outside even in spiritual matters. There are half a dozen people here perhaps who live in the Brahman consciousness—outside they would make a big noise and ...
... the physical action breaks a law without which the Asram cannot stand and the work cannot be done. It is not a personal matter, but a blow aimed at the very soul of the Mother's work. Outside sadhaks indulge and get a child, e.g. Y and others. Mother disapproves and the man who does it has no longer the same grace as before, but he is not in the Asram and his lapse hurts only himself and his wife ...
... away from the outer waking state. If you find it necessary to sit for a time you may do so, but afterwards lie down, keeping the concentration till this happens. April 14, 1933 I go to the Asram for meditation, about an hour after I rise. Is this not rather late for "getting back the thread of the progress"? You neen not meditate at once—but for a few minutes take a concentrated attitude... aspiration, patient perseverance and persistence. Just now I received P's telegram. I am sure you will give him permission, won't you? The permission may be given—but does he want to stay in the Asram? If so, does he know the ways of life here and that he must conform to them and also about the expenses? Or will he stay outside? For how long is he likely to come? All this should be understood ...
... earlier stages. But that is only one side of the truth, there is another. Otherwise the logical conclusion might be that there was no necessity for the Mother to be here at all or for the existence of the Asram or for anyone to come here. The psychic being is there in all, but in very few is it well developed, well built up in the consciousness or prominent in the front; in most it is veiled, often i... not if it is an aspiration of the psychic being calm, deep and without clamour in it or perturbing insistence. This is for those who are not called upon or are not yet called upon to live in the Asram under the direct pressure of the central force and Presence. Those who must so live are those called from the beginning or who have become ready or who are for some reason or other given a chance ...
... him that it is impossible for me to satisfy his requests. I am in entire retirement, seeing no one, not even my disciples, so I cannot see him. As for the Asram, it is a strict rule that none but disciples can reside in it; the whole life of the Asram is besides governed by a system elaborated in all details and it is only the disciples trained to this life who can conform to it. 16 September 1932... for Sri Aurobindo's silence? Just as I see no one, so I answer usually no letters except those of the disciples and many of these even are not answered by myself personally if they are outside the Asram. Will you also advise me how I can obtain his kṛpā? My spiritual work is limited to a very small field and a particular purpose. Outside that field I never intervene whether for spiritual ...
... Darshan Admission to Darshan Write that usually Sri Aurobindo sees on these days only his disciples, whether those residing in the Asram or those who come to him from outside, and a few others who are either connected in some way with the Asram, its work or its members or else are given permission for special reasons. Permission is not given to all who would like to come, as that would... hours at a stretch receiving them, so it is not advisable to go on increasing the numbers under the present circumstances. If a man is especially deserving or likely to be a helper or sympathiser of the Asram or there is any other reason Page 520 for encouraging him, then of course this general rule does not apply. 27 July 1937 I have heard about you and read your books and feel impelled ...
... can be of so much importance. December 1936 In fact, if X and a few others had not made themselves the instruments of the Mother and helped her to reorganise the whole material side of the Asram, the Asram would have collapsed long ago under the weight of a frightful mismanagement, waste, self-indulgence, disorder, chaotic self-will and disobedience. He and they faced unpopularity and hatred in... personality and the power of control called organisation and above all fidelity and obedience to the Mother's will, the faith in her perceptions and the desire to carry them out. It is not many in the Asram who have that combination. Before the Mother took up directly through X the work, now concentrated in Aroumé and the granaries, all was confusion, disorder, waste, self-indulgence, disregard of ...
... is the doubt that most or many are raising now in the Asram. "Where am I? Where am I going? Am I really doing the Yoga? It seems to me I am getting nothing. There is no progress anywhere. All is dry and mechanical. What is the use of being here?" These are the thoughts that have been moving about in the atmosphere Page 411 of the Asram and when you get such thoughts, it means that they... sadhak from being all the time in the inner consciousness. This resistance disappears altogether only when one reaches an advanced stage of the sadhana. This resistance is now specially active in the Asram because the force is working on the physical and all that is contrary there has to be met and eliminated. But you have before this several times gone inside and felt the touch of the psychic, so that ...
... come into the Asram to lead its life at once. I would like you to show him the rules of the Asram, translating and explaining them to him, so that he may think about it again before asking for admission. You can tell him also that, if admitted, it will be first on trial as it always is. Final admission coming only after some time, when it is proved that he can conform himself with the Asram life and ...
... think I would be allowed to stay at the Asram for a fortnight? It is because I will be coming there for the Asram and if I am not permitted to stay there it would not be much good.” She is the head-mistress of a well-known school for girls in Bombay. I suppose she wants to come during a vacation. May I give her hope that you will permit her to stay in the Asram? Truly I have no room. 15 November ...
... put them separately, I am sure Jatin will agree so long as he and his wife are given rooms in the Asram. It is because we can't put them together that it is impossible. There is no sufficient separate room for ladies. I shall tell him the situation, unless you don't want her at all to stay in the Asram, in which case he will be compelled to stay outside. It is not a question of wanting, but... a delightful time, 3 hours of undisturbed concentration on my real work, a luxury denied to me for ages. Don't tear your hair. Will be done another day with luck. And what about the rooms in the Asram for him and his wife? By himself accommodation in Asram easy—with wife difficult, in fact seems impossible. Can't put them together. April 2, 1936 [I sent back the letter of April ...
... its faith, surrender, one-pointed will to the Divine, there would still be ups and downs of a slighter character, but no need for states of despair. April 24, 1934 X was coming from the Asram at 9 p.m. and was molested by a ruffian in front of Nolini's room. She called him and then the boy disappeared. I am simply dumb-founded by the news. To think that someone—maybe a fuffian or a... must have somebody by her. I wonder how long it'll take to free the atmosphere from these seen vital forces. When the sadhaks get rid of the unseen ones in themselves and in the atmosphere of the Asram. I am afraid there will be now an apprehension and a nervousness among all the sadhikas. The Mother has constantly told the sadhiksa who approached her about it that they should not be out... fearlessness, inner strength and courage, then she would be able to walk about unchallenged even in Pondicherry. But conditions are not like that here—as yet at least—the wrong forces are here inside the Asram as well as outside—under such circumstances, the protection, though it can still act, acts on conditions and within limits. April 27, 1934 X, I think, is more or less free from sex and ...
... live here (not in the Asram, but outside). At one time I thought that old people are better off since they have a less active vital, but Doctorbabu and Bhupalbabu have demolished that view. Doctor had a genuine seeking and went away for a flimsy reason! With A the same fate! He has always been doing that—doing the navette between his family and the Asram. A has left the Asram? All these ...
... them their true form and significance. But as you have arranged it, it can be done. 11 August 1933 On Writing His Biography This [ a proposed book in Telugu ] is not a publication for which the Asram is responsible. If the outer facts of the life are corrected there is no harm, but nothing should be said about the inner things of the life here. It is not necessary to give the book so much importance... for the present. 1 The general public can know about my philosophy and Yoga and general character of my work, it has no claim to know anything about the personal side of my life or of that of the Asram either. 30 October 1935 First of all what matters in a spiritual man's life is not what he did or what he was outside to the view of the men of his time (that is what historicity or biography ...
... Mother has never objected to people who "cannot pay" residing or visiting the Asram without paying; she expects payment only from visitors who can pay. She did object strongly to the action of some rich visitors (on one occasion) who came here, spent money lavishly on purchases etc. and went off without giving anything to the Asram or even the smallest offering to the Mother, that is all. 21 October ...
... their dangers and to keep a right atmosphere in the Asram favourable to spiritual development; the obedience is necessary so as to get away from one's own mind and vital and learn to follow the Truth. 8 June 1933 All your comments seem to rise from the fact that you object to discipline, rule and order. That seems to be the general mind of the Asram. Each must be allowed to follow his own inclination ...
... original or in translation, the book is not one meant to be given or shown to everybody. If X wants to make copies for himself and Y he can do so; but, as it comes from the Asram, it might be taken for an authoritative issue from the Asram. It should be understood that it is your translation, only made for your personal use; we have not seen it and cannot therefore guarantee its correctness. 29 March ...
... would be the same as his—I would have to leave the Asram. Later, while in this condition I passed by Y's room and felt that the Mahakali forces of the Mother were around me; I also felt that her very name would create fear in the hostile forces. As I thought of her with feeling, suddenly all was clear. It is the Force that attacks everyone in the Asram who can at all be attacked in this way—the X ...
... the physical action breaks a law without which the Asram cannot stand and the work cannot be done. It is not a personal matter, but a blow aimed at the very soul of the Mother's work. Outside sadhaks indulge and get a child, e.g. X and others. Mother disapproves and the man who does it has no longer the same grace as before, but he is not in the Asram and his lapse hurts only himself and his wife ...
... stop altogether, but even they were reduced to a much smaller number of visits. This is the present state of things and it will continue till there is a true freedom and vital calm and purity in the Asram atmosphere. You must be aware yourself that the vital confusions and disturbances continue in you though in a reduced form and that you have not yet freedom and a settled control over your vital... and peace, then in time you would have the fullness of the sadhana and would find life here well worth living. The push to go comes from an adverse Force that is trying to make people depart from the Asram—but none who have gone as yet have found peace or satisfaction outside. 24 July 1935 X gets to talk with the Mother for two hours a day—more time than we get in months! Yet when I ask for an ...
... a greater force and Ananda than she had ever got when the Mother put her hand fully. 11 November 1935 All this idea about the Mother's looks and her hand in the blessing which is current in the Asram is perfectly irrational, false, even imbecile. I have a hundred times written to people that the whole thing is wrong and rests on a false suggestion of the adverse forces made in order to create... behaviour or bad behaviour. These variations are not intended to assign a competitive place to each sadhak, as to schoolboys in a class. All these ideas are absolutely absurd, trivial and unspiritual. The Asram is not a schoolboys' class nor is the Yoga a competitive examination. All this is the creation of the narrow physical mind and vital ego and desire. If the sadhaks want to get a true basis and make ...
... here is a preparation for a work—a work which will be founded on Yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti, and can have no other foundation. Meanwhile every member here is expected to do some work in the Asram as part of his spiritual preparation. Recommendation to X not to take you away but to let you realise the Divine first has no meaning. Must one realise the Divine before one can serve him... not matter what the work is. If one trains oneself spiritually Page 240 like that, then one will be ready to do in the true way whatever special work directly for the Divine (such as the Asram work) one may any day be given to do. Yes, obviously, that is one great utility of work that it tests the nature and puts the sadhak in front of the defects of his outer being which might otherwise ...
... other and it is only when one has got them out of the physical and subconscient that one can say "Now that is done." If these recurrences were to be taken as a proof of failure, there are few in the Asram who should not be pronounced as failures. I don't think more than 2 or 3 have got over some sex-trouble; it lasts in one form or another even when people are "advanced"—as they say here. It is because... if the outer is rejected, then the conflict is confined to the internal desire and fought out there. Naturally an outer renunciation by itself does not liberate. There are people outside the Asram even who have got free from the sex without seclusion—even sleeping in the same bed with the wife. I know one at least who did it without any higher experience. The work of these people is ordinary ...
... is the drift of your questions. It sounds as if you had been allowing yourself to be influenced by a vague and confused atmosphere of discouragement and barren questioning which has caught many in the Asram. Otherwise there is no ground for any such feelings. Where you are? In the Mother's presence here and close to me. Where you are going? Towards union with the Divine through dedication and service... there is anything more special in your thoughts that has disturbed you, it is better to say clearly what it is. But do not listen to the thoughts spoken or silently suggested that are moving about the Asram and of which I have spoken, for these are a poison that will only bring discontent and depression. Depression The outer being does not care for the sadhana unless it gets something by it which ...
... the Inconscience and Ignorance—for this world was meant to be a working out of these possibilities with the supramental harmonisation as its eventual outcome. The life, the work developing here in the Asram has to deal with the world problem and had therefore to meet, it could not avoid, the conflict with the working of the hostile Powers in the human being. The hostile forces make it their function... of the hostile forces is a special intervention creating violent inner conflicts, abnormal depressions, thoughts and impulses of a kind which can be easily recognised as suggestions, e.g. leaving the Asram, abandoning the Yoga, revolt against the Divine, suggestions of calamity and catastrophe apparently irresistible, irrational impulses and so on. It is a different order from the usual human weaknesses ...
... ordinary daily and social life and nothing else. When formerly the sadhana was going on on higher levels (mind, higher vital etc.), there was plenty of vigour and verve and interest in the details of the Asram work and life as well as in an inner life; the physical vital was carried in the stream. But for many this has dropped; they live in the unsatisfied vital physical and find everything desperately... fundamental basis of all resistance in the individual and in the world to the victory of the Spirit and the Divine Work that is leading toward that victory. The difficulties themselves are general in the Asram as well as in the outside world. Doubt, discouragement, diminution or loss of faith, waning of the vital enthusiasm for the ideal, perplexity and a baffling of the hope for the future are the common ...
... Mother The Mother's Illness in 1931 and Her Temporary Retirement In the first place why on earth do you put any belief in the "reports circulated in the Asram" and, in the second, why on earth do you allow them to depress you? I thought you knew the value or rather the entire absence of value of this kind of gossip and rumour? What about the "scepticism"... well have come down into matter under former conditions, if the means created by the Mother for the physical and vital contact had not been vitiated by the wrong attitude, the wrong reactions in the Asram atmosphere. It was not the direct supramental Force that was acting, but an intermediate and preparatory force that carried in it a modified Light derived from the supramental; but this would have ...
... Incarnation and Evolution The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mystery of Incarnation Many years ago, the Mother wrote regarding life in the Asram: "In our daily practices we are endeavouring to express the great mystery of the Divine Incarnation." 1 I pray that this message may be explained to me—and that I be enabled to understand its meaning... It means that we act as we do because we take it as a fact that the Divine can manifest and is manifested in a human body. Is this a message which can be circulated to all the members of the Asram? Yes, they ought to know it. To outsiders? Not unless they are interested and seek the meaning of what we do. I am also eager to know whether in my occupations at Madras, professionally ...
... and a will and capacity to open oneself to the influence; but this capacity usually comes as the result of sincerity and faith. It is quite possible to follow the Yoga while remaining outside the Asram. There are many both in Northern and Southern India who do it. You can submit your doubts for elucidation to Sri Aurobindo, if brief answers are sufficient, as he has little time. If longer and... advice available here as it would be in America. Finally, you do not know perhaps that I am living for the present in an entire retirement, not seeing or speaking with anyone, even the disciples in the Asram, only coming out to give a silent blessing three times in a year. The Mother also has not time to give free or frequent access to those who are here. You would therefore probably be disappointed if ...
... Truth and the way to the Truth. All that is nothing very terrible, it is simple common sense. As to the particular kind of control you speak of, it is not imposed on anybody; it is only a few in the Asram who at all follow any such rule. X whom you mention would not have dreamed a year or two ago of asking the Mother before doing anything; if he does so now, it is not because the Mother told him... correct. It is not at all correct to say that we—in this instance the Mother, never warned B and C of their deterioration—they were warned and plainly warned and also of the influences from outside the Asram to which they were succumbing. The Mother had even foreseen from the beginning that this might happen and put them on their guard in due time. If they fell, it was because they preferred to follow ...
... glad to see you here and the two children 1 can also come. You will have all to crowd in one room, but as it is only for a few days that should not matter. We are getting more and more packed in the Asram and our elbow-room has diminished since you were here. Sri Aurobindo Ma, I speak with Kakima [aunt Shanti Kumari, Uday Singh's wife], another Kakima [Kiran Kumari, Umir... the soul in them will grow and the seed of psychic capacity develop. The arrangements for Sujata of which you speak in your letter are approved by the Mother. Abhay Singh has become very fond of the Asram; but the Mother thinks he has need of your direct care and training as he is so very young and that is why she preferred that he should return with his uncle. Sri Aurobindo Page ...
... (Correspondence with Amrita) Amrita's Correspondence with The Mother 25 December 1932 Mother, You have asked, “When are there cakes in the Asram? I don’t understand.” Mother, Savitri bakes cakes from time to time. Evidently Jayaraj has received them from her each time. He asked You to let him have those Indian cakes, and nothing else. But... going to advise him to make some other arrangement for his food. May I tell him that in Your name? You should not speak harshly to him as if it were an order from me, but simply tell him that if the Asram food does not suit his stomach, it would be better to take food from elsewhere. 25 December 1932 ...
... Here is the full text of the letter: "Queer idea all you fellows seem to have of the 'prestige' of the Asram. The prestige of an institution claiming to be a centre of spirituality lies in its spirituality, not in newspaper columns or famous people. Is it because of this mundane view of life and of the Asram held by the sadhaks that this Asram is not yet the centre of spirituality it set out to be?" ( ...
... hospital? If you like I can show it to Philaire, or he can go to our Miracle doctor, and wait for a miracle... I don't think it will be any use sending him to R—he does not succeed so well with the Asram people because they are too critical and have too much feeling against him. He works not by medicine alone, but by suggestion also with the Force behind him, and a spirit of critical antagonism and... quite follow what you meant by "it does not matter" about S. He wants the glasses badly and says his eyes are burning. Really now, what have I to do with his glasses? He is going—once out of the Asram, all these things will be his own business. As he is going tonight, if any intelligent fellow with some interest in work can take his place or guard the Dispensary at least, please give us one ...
... vacuum. Glory to God! Lots of people feel that outside or similar things. Also they feel a bhakti and faith outside which is spoiled or gets rude shocks if they come and stay for some time in the Asram and converse with its enlightened sadhaks. But that I suppose is all in the game. At any rate it used to be like that. Nowadays I notice some improvement—let us hope that soon it will be an entire... impression for a fact, since Mulshankar denies the walking. It would be awkward, if the inquiries are pushed farther, that two different and incompatible statements about the incident should proceed from the Asram. If Bapu does not give evidence, it is another matter. Who has asked him to give it? The juge d' instruction or someone else? January 31, 1936 ...
... need a "cause" for criticising others? It is done 'or the heavenly Ananda of the thing in itself. পরনিন্দা is to he human vital sweeter than all the fruits of Paradise. If 6 or 7 years stay in the Asram, doing Yoga can't change these things in persons who are supposed to be good adharas, is there any chance for us? "These things" are usually the last to change, not the first. Until the inner... years old instead of her apparent age? Who has invented this supreme jest? Tell us something—give us a word of hope or of despair, But only be fair! There are already more than 5 or 6 in the Asram who have had some realisation at least of the Divine—so take comfort. May 6, 1935 I hear there are some who proceed through the heart, and and some through the mind, in sadhana. Those ...
... talking about; although you may not know it. October 9, 1938 What the deuce, Sir! Are you aware of the raging epidemic [flu, dengue] havoc in the Asram? Too busy with the Supermind to bother about these trifles? How is it that the Asram has become so vulnerable to it this time—the first? There has been a "progressive" increase in that respect during the last ten years and this seems ...
... As the moment of the possibility of the supramental Descent grows nearer, these forces have become more eager to keep their hold in the Asram atmosphere and break the sadhana of anyone they can touch. Their main aim is to get as many as possible to leave the Asram, so that they may not share in the descent and so that the descent itself may be delayed and disturbed by a constant tempest in the atmosphere ...
... introduced by someone who knows Nuffield well and would take some interest”. How much is H to tell this intermediary? Is it advisable to say that he wants Nuffield to give a substantial sum of money to the Asram? Or should he just talk about the yogic work of Sri Aurobindo and say that he would like to interest Nuffield in it. Perhaps it may not be nice to be specially secretive if somebody is good enough ...
... 22 November 1937 Mother, I have made a draft of the letter for Lord Nuffield, incorporating the information prepared for the Hyderabad people. As we are not sending the “Teaching and the Asram”, some sort of general information is necessary. Please go through the letter and make any modification you think is needed. I should like to know how the letter strikes you. It is all right. ...
... What do you think of my idea? Very good. I should like to send the letter as well as the books by air-mail. The books we spoke of are: The Life-Sketch of Sri Aurobindo , The Teaching and the Asram of Sri Aurobindo , Thoughts and Glimpses and The Riddle of This World . Has Sri Aurobindo any suggestion for some others? What about The Mother? There is a chapter in it on the right use of money ...
... with Amrita) Amrita's Correspondence with The Mother c. 1930 To Amrita I expected him to go to the hotel — but if he insists on being put up in the asram, one room can be given in the Hequet House; for the food he must manage himself. c. 1930 ...
... was eager to see me. I went and there she was, in bed and unwell, and there was talk of sending for a doctor. I sat down and talked a little and expressed my impression that she had gone away from the Asram all of a sudden. But the story I hear from Nandini is quite another. It seems that last night she returned to the house to sleep and she was turned away by the girls. They said that the Mother had ...
... done by both parties meeting personally and that the Director of the bank will ask who the prospective buyer is. The Notary has decided to give my name as the buyer. I requested him not to mention the Asram as the interested party in buying the property. I will also keep in mind that you do not want your name to be mentioned to the Director. But I would like to know whether you want me and Chandulal ...
... to us for milking and the cow will be very clean. The most important point, again according to Varadou, is that this man will not be merely a milkman on business terms with us but will deal with the Asram with devotion and sincerity. He prays to you to consider this point and hopes for a favourable reply from you. Why should you not see this man without promising anything and see if his devotion ...
... to Sankara Rama. As nothing was decided at that time, I simply bring it before you again. You might go to him and tell him simply: You know that Mother gives pocket money to all the members of the Asram. Would you like to have some? 4 May 1933 ...
... experienced fear or loneliness. It seems some people in Aroumé told her that if she is afraid of living all alone in the house, she should tell you and that you will arrange for another member of the Asram to live with her. She told those people that she has no fear and she feels your Presence. I forgot to ask her who told her all those things. Yes, better ask her who it is. But she is wondering ...
... been supramental beings and all I have written about the supermind would be so much superfluous stuff, useless and otiose. Anybody who had spiritual experiences would then be a supramental being; the Asram would be chock-full of supramental beings and every other Asram in India also. Spiritual experiences can fix them selves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like; one can ...
... concentrate on the Mother. Thoughts and feelings are passing from one human being to another all the time, only people don't know or observe it. Especially if people live together the same life, as in the Asram, a sort of atmosphere is formed in which the same thoughts and feelings are moving about and constantly passing from one to another. You have to become conscious—that is to say, there must be something ...
... is much more strongly and insistently discouraged. It is much better to tell [ any feelings of dissatisfaction ]. But you Page 222 are not alone in these feelings—two-thirds of the Asram have them in more or less vehemence—it is the unregenerate vital ego which is just the thing that stands most in the way of the transformation—other things are comparatively mild obstacles compared ...
... this psychic change their main object, each for himself. If some develop it, then it will spread more rapidly among the rest. It is so only that the present state of the physical consciousness in the Asram full of ego and strife can become what it should be. What has happened is that the psychic in you which had formerly been constantly in action in the mind and vital was for a Page 385 ...
... afterwards the sense of release. The throat is the centre of the externalising mind (physical mind). I do not think you have gone back—probably what has been happening to many if not most in the Asram (especially those who have done some serious sadhana) is happening to you. It is the rising of old habitual thoughts, feelings, impulses in a confused way from the subconscient in a mechanical repetition ...
... overpassed and cease. To give up Yoga is no solution; you could not successfully do it as both Krishnaprem and I have told you and as your own mind tells you when it is clear. A temporary absence from the Asram for relief from the struggle is a different matter. I do not think, however, that residence in the Ramana Asram would be eventually helpful except for bringing back some peace of mind; Ramana Maharshi ...
... material being to the Light and Power and the supramental change a thing actual and practicable. It is for this that we are here in the body, and it is for this that you and other sadhaks are in the Asram near us. But it is not by insistence on petty demands and satisfactions in the external field or on an outer nearness pleasing to the vital nature and its pride or desire that you can get the true ...
... ignorant criticism of others—mixed with all sorts of imaginations, inferences, exaggerations, false interpretations, even gross inventions is one of the universal Page 87 illnesses of the Asram. It is a disease of the vital aided by the physical mind which makes itself an instrument of the pleasure taken in this barren and harmful pursuit of the vital. Control of the speech, refusal of this ...
... value. The Divine Consciousness is not bound by these things and has no attachment, but it is also not bound to abstain from them if beauty in things is part of its intended action. The Mother, when the Asram was still unformed, was wearing patched cotton saris; when she took up the work, it was necessary to change her habits, so she did so. 22 October 1935 Page 596 ...
... supramental victory mean the victory of the Hindu religion and culture over others? Will the supramental consciousness come into the body of a man whether or not he subordinates himself to Hinduism? The Asram has nothing to do with Hindu religion or culture or any religion or nationality. The Truth of the Divine which is the spiritual reality behind all religions and the descent of the supramental which ...
... Work for the Mother in the Ashram The Mother with Letters on the Mother Work for the Mother and Kartavyaṁ Karma X asked me if for us in the Asram whatever is sanctioned by the Mother can be accepted unhesitatingly as our kartavyaṁ karma. I replied, "Yes, if the sanction is asked for in the right spirit." He said, "What do we know of the right or wrong ...
... matter whether you feel any attack or not—the attack is there. In fact for the last several months the atmosphere is full of the most violent attacks threatening the very existence of the Yoga and the Asram and the sadhaks personally or the body of the Mother. If you are not touched that is a matter for which you ought to be grateful to the Mother instead of your vital getting upset because she is doing ...
... his departure, that is quite contrary to what we wish. His search for Truth is on fixed lines of his own and the Mother can say nothing to help him there—nor has he said that he wants any help—and the Asram would hardly please him since it is run on quite unascetic lines contrary to his ideal. 24 January 1934 [5] GOVINDBHAI PATEL: As he has written to me to inform you, shall I answer that ...
... it up as they would take any way for spiritual experience) and must be prepared for great difficulties to surmount. Can it be said that you have seen in all those who are permanent members of the Asram this readiness to go through to the end? The readiness to go through to the end is a thing dependent on the will of the sadhak. That will may be there in the beginning and flag afterwards. All ...
... need arises for a statement. Just now Sri Aurobindo does not want strong attacks to be made on the policy of the Congress Government as by their action they have removed many of the difficulties of the Asram and all that it needs for its institutions are coming in freely as a result of special orders given by the Madras Government so he does not want to figure as their enemy or opponent. Certain things ...
... through a catastrophic upheaval. The latter is the sign of a struggle, generally of conflicting vital forces, but at any rate a struggle on the inferior plane. Have I been kept here, outside the Asram, so that I can, by constant surrender to the Mother, rise above the difficulties of this environment and control the adverse forces that now touch and move and affect my lower nature? You think ...
... become so strong that it affects the sheath of gross matter which conceals it. The Mother has certainly no idea of making people see it—it is of themselves that one after another, some 20 or 30 in the Asram, I believe, have come to see. None of them are big Yogis, some of them are mere beginners. It is certainly one of the signs that the higher Force (call it supramental or not) is beginning to influence ...
... real work remaining neglected and undone if I did not change my course and devote myself to it, while the actual results of this outer activity were very small—it cannot be said that it resulted in the Asram making a great spiritual progress. Now in these times of world-crisis when I have had to be on guard and concentrated all the time to prevent irremediable catastrophes and have still to be so and ...
... nation her spiritual force will contribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light I offer my public adhesion in case it can be of any help in your work. 1 Sri Aurobindo The Asram Pondicherry 31 March 1942 Page 469 [2] In view of the urgency of the situation I am sending Mr Duraiswami Iyer to convey my views on the present negotiations and my reasons for ...
... see why your having difficulties or the external consciousness denying the inner truth should prevent you from calling our help. At that rate hardly anybody could call for help. Almost everybody in the Asram except a few have this difficulty of the external consciousness denying or standing in the way of the inner experience and trying to cling to its old ways, ideas, habits and desires. This division ...
... with the true consciousness before you can hope to do it. And for that faith and surrender and fidelity and openness are conditions of some importance. 6 November 1929 Are there sadhaks in the Asram who do not understand that "the Divinity acts according to the Consciousness of the Truth above and the Lila below and not according to men's ideas about what it should or should not do"? There ...
... and the desires of the vital: but these things never lead to siddhi in Yoga. The rules are laid down in order to guard against certain influences and their dangers and to keep a right atmosphere in the Asram favourable to spiritual development; the obedience is necessary so as to get away from one's own mind and vital and learn to follow the Truth. Yes, it [ obedience ] is difficult, but once achieved ...
... objective and not the aim of a complex change of consciousness; there was no pressure from above and no consequent resistance from below. When I spoke of some, I was thinking not of people in the Asram but of occultists who make such things their main method. The Mother herself was taught to do it by a great occultist under whom she first practised these things. As to Coué, your answer was the right ...
... bring down everything and the sadhaks have only to wait and receive, a misconception responsible for much inner indolence and inertia, and the fact that for a long time a certain protection was over the Asram so that there was no death of any sadhak and little illness—the legend survives, though the circumstances are not now the same. 26 July 1937 Page 93 ...
... she is supreme here and has the right to arrange the work as she thinks best for the Page 82 work, no one has any right or claim or proprietorship over any work that may be given him. The Asram is the Mother's creation and would not have existed but for her, the work she does is her creation and has not been given to her and cannot be taken from her. Try to understand this elementary truth ...
... to see the Himalayas, it will be much better for you to see them hereafter with your Mother beside you. You are quite mistaken when you say that if you will go, there will be no Devil left in the Asram. The Devil is not here because of you; he is here because he wants to give trouble to the Mother and spoil her work. And what he chiefly wants is to drive her children away from her, and especially ...
... there is much more to be said than at first sight appears, and the moral of it all is that one must bear with what calm and philosophy one can the conflicts of opposing tendencies in this welter of the Asram atmosphere and wait till the time has come when a greater Light and with it some true Harmony can purify and unite and recreate. 28 June 1934 ...
... such queries. 1 I can only say that the final aim of the Yoga here is to bring down the supramental Truth (all other aims and stages being preliminary and instrumental) and organise its action. The Asram proceeds on the assumption that this has to be done through myself and the Mother and in accepting this aim and the descent of this Truth the sadhaks accept myself and the Mother and must be guided ...
... Mother's business. She alone can say what is the right way to deal with people. If she were to deal with people only according to their defects, there would be hardly half a dozen people left in the Asram. 26 March 1933 I am sure there are reasons for everything the Mother does and that what she does is suited to the needs of each one, but the vital does not believe it, and it is not yet well ...
... intuition is released—so by a constant pressure on the consciousness by which the Divine Truth is liberated the Knowledge of the worlds can come. 4 June 1933 I suppose if some yogis outside the Asram heard about the Supermind and the higher realms they would think that they had passed these worlds or left them behind as a side-issue. They might regard the idea of a divine manifestation as a desire ...
... destruction of my work. You are quite right therefore in resenting this kind of attitude (also there is the fact that it establishes a centre of support for the Falsehood and Evil Page 220 in the Asram). The propagation of this Falsehood, false ideas, false feelings, false actions and persuading people that they are right is the chief instrument of the Asura and its prevalence and success a sign ...
... achieved until all is. Is that not enough to show that real faith is not yet there? Faith is there in parts of the being, absent in others. Now, if K behaves in this way and X can leave the Asram after 8 years, two opposites—what about us? Opposites, but for the same reasons—a physical mind clinging like a leech to its own wrong ideas of traditional sadhana and a vital that does not want ...
... crossed? Can't say that, yet. Ah, if this joy remains so! will it? Let us hope so. I forgot to narrate to you a funny experience I had on Darshan day. Just after darshan, I sat in the Asram for a while, then went home and lay down. From 10 to midday I slept heavily. But throughout those 2 hours, I had the feeling that I'd lose all that I had received at darshan. Suddenly I felt myself ...
... At such a time many tempting thoughts lure me to set the wheel back—but it is clear that I shall never step back. I must go on. It is a formation of a hostile character that is wandering about the Asram and taking hold of one after another telling them that they are not fit and won't be able to do the Yoga and had better die or better go away or at least better be desperate. The only sensible thing ...
... has got that feeling there always, expressed or latent in a corner. At the same time he used to write to me long lamentations in the desert saying he couldn't stay here because he had no friends in the Asram. Human affection is obviously unreliable because it is so much based upon selfishness and desire; it is a flame of the ego sometimes turbid and murky, sometimes more clear and brightly coloure ...
... there. ...Because you know I have very often been played at by these suggestions—and the forces have not exhausted their resources, though at present they are out of the way. So are many in the Asram. The thing is neither to play with them—nor to fear them. Suggestions are suggestions—they come to all. It is the rejection that is important. I have received a letter from my family—usual pathetic ...
... him! You Page 567 probably saw in your dream something like that moving about and the dream gave it form. Several people had this delusion before, but I think with X it went out of the Asram. Still some remnants may be floating still. 9 September 1934 ...
... speech or instruction or answering questions that Mother works on the consciousness of the sadhaks, it is by a silent influence to which they have to learn to open themselves. As for his readiness for the Asram life, it should be evident to himself from his reactions, especially about his family, that he is not ready—he would have been pulled away by these feelings and it would have been a serious fall for ...
... impossible. Jawaharlal is coming on a political mission and as president of the Congress, while we have to steer clear not only of politics but of the shadow of politics. If he put up in a house of the Asram, we would be in for it! A flaming report from the British Consul to Delhi to be forwarded to London and from London to Paris. Just now we have to be specially careful, as the friendly Governor is ...
... Mother) is quite unnecessary; for the two things are one and go perfectly together. It is he who has brought you to the Mother and it is by adoration of her that you will realise him. He is here in the Asram and it is his work that is being done here. 2 March 1932 Page 337 This evening when I looked at the Mother, I found in her the utmost beauty. She was glimmering. I felt as if a great ...
... wrong notions and most likely to come in the way of and block your sisters' receptivity; it is surprising that you should accept or echo them and not react against them at once. They are here in the Asram (a little nearer or farther makes no difference), in the Mother's presence and atmosphere; meeting her every day at the Pranam where everyone who is open can receive as much of her touch and her help ...
... the ages would have been supramental beings and all I have written about the supermind would be so much superfluous rubbish. Anybody who had spiritual experiences would then be a supramental being; the Asram would be chock-full of supramental beings and every other Asram in India also. As for writing about these things, I do not see the utility. I have already two philosophical essays to write and I do ...
... their knowledge. Secrecy is perfectly admissible and usual in spiritual matters except in special relations like that of the shishya to the guru. We do not let people outside know what is going on in the Asram but we do not tell any lies about it either. Most Yogis say nothing about their spiritual experiences to others or not until long afterwards and secrecy was a general rule among the ancient Mystics ...
... who would prefer Moslem to British rule. Even if Swaraj itself were postponed for a long time, it would be less of a shock to anybody in the Ashram than if Mahomedans got a little right. The Asram is not concerned with politics; but I cannot believe without proof that this is the state of their mentality. 17 November 1932 Dominion Status The Mother has said that only a minor portion ...
... inner knowledge. But this is not the same as seeing her with the physical eyes or having conversations with her. These things are extremely common among those who practise Yoga everywhere. In the Asram the sadhaks are too intelligent, sceptical and matter of fact to have much of that kind of experience. Even those who might develop it are repressed by the outward-mindedness and physical-mindedness ...
... was obviously psychic. I often mark that when an inner love springs out for the divinity, tears follow. These are psychic tears of devotion etc. 25 August 1934 A visitor was leaving the Asram today. When the Mother finished the Pranam ceremony and began to go up the stairs, this lady began to weep. Was it due to her psychic coming in front for a while? It is not a question of the psychic ...
... surroundings but on the inner relation with a higher consciousness which is the consciousness of the Divine, of the Mother. Those who have not that or do not aspire to get it can come here and live in the Asram for ten or twenty years and yet be as restless and full of struggle as ever,—those who open their mind and vital to the Mother's strength and peace can get it even in the hardest and most unpleasant ...
... the Mother Vital Energy and the Mother's Work This [ renewal of energy for work ] is the thing that used to happen daily to the physical workers in the Asram. Working with immense energy and enthusiasm, with a passion for the work they might after a time feel tired—then they would call the Mother and a sense of rest came into them and with or after it ...
... Telling the Whole Truth The unwillingness to tell the whole truth, the wish to conceal or justify things is another general trait of human nature which is common in the Asram. It is perfectly true that to do that is to stand in the way of one's own progress, but the lower nature is Page 463 strong and overcomes the buddhi . People also think that Mother will ...
... I never used it as a wall against anything. You seem to know more about my sadhana than I do. 4 June 1936 I believe I have as many hours of hard external work to do as almost anyone in the Asram and I am not aware that I have any leisure or spend even the very short time I have for concentration in a blissful quietism communing with the silent Brahman. Even my concentration is of the nature ...
... has to do, what one can do, leaving the rest to the Mother. It is not possible to have everything perfect at present, even supposing that what one thinks to be right is the best. There is much in the Asram and the work that is not as perfect as the Mother would like it to be, but she knows that the perfection she would like is not yet possible because of circumstances and the imperfection of her in ...
... fiery that I am made to sit for hours continuously and my head becomes so heavy. Please tell me what to do. What the Mother meant was that this meditating on an easy chair which is so common in the Asram is a new thing to her and she finds it a rather tamasic habit. There can be no objection to a long sitting or resting when you need it. 20 September 1934 Page 404 Very often there ...
... her vision and judgment and word, otherwise when she says or does something unpleasant to his ego that ego will go sulking, justifying itself, calling her names etc. as is the habit with so many in the Asram when she does not do what they like. There are very few here who can take this attitude even imperfectly, but it is with them that the Mother has this relation. With others, who have a different nature ...
... up in almost everybody as soon as they get a little disturbed and they never seem to see the sheer illogicality of the thing. This has been a disease, it is true, that has sprung up and stuck in the Asram mind since almost the Page 558 beginning and if it is somewhat diminished in generality and force, is still there. When it disappears altogether, it will be a great day for the collective ...
... X is doing like many others—they are cheerful outside, but sorrowful or displeased or suffering when they come to the Mother or write to her. There is a sort of idea (which was long current in the Asram) and there is still a feeling in the vital that the more you do that with the Mother the more you will get out of her. Of course it is absurdly untrue—the truth is the opposite; the more one is cheerfully ...
... or saint there is the Divine. Again his experience is that there is one Force working in the world both in its good and in its evil—one Cosmic Force; it works both in the success (or failure) of the Asram and in the success (or failure) of the brothel. Things are done in this world by the use of the force, although the use made is according to the nature of the user, one uses it for the works of light ...
... out the possibility which that shows. The prevalence of illness just now is a fact; it is part of the struggle that is going on in the domain of Matter. But even so there are plenty of people in the Asram who get rid of their ills by reliance on the Mother. If all cannot do it, what does that prove or disprove? It only proves that the Power does not work absolutely, miraculously, impossibly, but it ...
... Indian Yoga seems to be that they have a Hindu temperament in a European or American body. As Gandhi is inwardly a moralistic Westerner and Christian, so, you say, the other non-Oriental members of the Asram are essentially Hindus in outlook. But Page 37 what exactly is this Hindu outlook? I have not myself seen anything in them that can be so described nor has the Mother. My own experience ...
... insistence on things human, it must not be understood that I reject everything human,—human love or worship or any helpful form of human approach as part of the Yoga. I have never done so, otherwise the Asram could not be in existence. The sadhaks who enter the Yoga are human beings, and if they were not allowed a human approach at the beginning and long after, they would not be able to start the Yoga ...
... sense of power and glow" and the natural concentration of the being in inspiration and expression, the action of the Power. This is the thing that used to happen daily to the physical workers in the Asram. Working with immense energy and enthusiasm, with a passion for the work they might after a time feel tired—then they would call the Mother and a sense of rest came into them and with or after it ...
... the Yogic attitude in all things—they have been contented with the common ideas, common view of things, common motives of life,—only varied by inner experiences and transferred to the framework of the Asram instead of that of the world outside. It is not enough—and there is great need that this should change. Quite correct. Unless the adhar is made pure, neither the higher truth (intuitive, illumined ...
... difficulty and the obstruction for the moment. If you can accept emptiness as a passage to the true consciousness and true movements, then it will be easier to get rid of the obstacle. All in the Asram are not suffering from the sense of dullness and want of interest, but many are because the Force that is descending is discouraging the old movements of the physical and vital mind which they call ...
... need not be at all what we call hostile forces,—they are simply forces of Nature. It is not a fact however that hostile forces cannot bring a man here—e.g. when Y came back and wanted to enter the Asram, there was clearly a hostile force working that wanted to create trouble, but it was not strong enough to do it. X 's new consciousness makes him feel more strongly the opposite forces that ...
... contact with the astral Forces attended by a leaving of the body is not a spiritual aim but belongs to the province of occultism. It is not a part of the aim of Yoga. Also fasting is not permissible in the Asram, as its practice is more often harmful than helpful to the spiritual endeavour. This aim suggested to you seems to be part of a seeking for occult powers; such a seeking is looked on with disfavour ...
... personality, though it is something in your nature of which they make use. But you are not conscious, and others also, of this intervention and pressure at its source for the reason I state. Those in the Asram who have developed the inner view of things on the vital plane 1 have plenty of experience of the hostile forces. Page 461 However, you need not personally concern yourself with them ...
... will be sufficiently modified to allow of the spiritual opening. That is of course not inevitable; it can be done more briefly; but still it takes usually a long time—it has done so with most in the Asram. But in your case the first opening did come, it is only temporarily and not altogether closed, awaiting a second opening which should free the nature for the external as well as the inner change ...
... this is overcome. Till then oscillations are inevitable. As for violence, violence of action has been confined to a few only, but what about violence of speech and the quarrels that take place in the Asram? These are not difficulties that ought to prevent you from looking beyond them to the ultimate spiritual issue out of this flux of contending forces of Nature. Aspiration and will to change ...
... "advanced") had made a habit of this kind of expression of their difficulties and some still do it; they cannot even yet understand that it is not the way. At one time it was a sort of gospel in the Asram that this was the thing to be done,—I don't know on what ground, for it was never part of my teaching about the Yoga,—but experience has shown that it does not work; it lands one in the recurring ...
... protection,—that was why, very naturally, it brought to you a sense of peace. The Mother says that she always saw it when she was in communion with Krishna and now too constantly sees it enveloping the Asram. That this should be the first thing shown when the power of vision broke through its state of latency is very significant; it proves that you are in contact, the touch already there in your inner ...
... character by the smell. The human sense has lost this acuteness, but it can be recovered by a development in the sense consciousness. That is what probably has happened in your case. There are others in the Asram who have the same experience. Page 113 ...
... violence ]; but if one goes there in full reliance on the Mother's protection, all dangers either disappear or become ineffective. These dreams come from the vital world,—there is nobody in the Asram who does not have them or else has not had them. You must not get afraid or upset at these things, but look at them with indifference, without fear and passion. Do not always be thinking of the ...
... taking stumbles and difficulties too seriously, as the Tapaswis do or of viraha pangs as the Vaishnavas do or of vairagya as the Mayavadis do, yet the old ideas and forces bring these things into the Asram through the minds of the sadhaks and there they are. Well, well! Page 177 The thing in you which enjoys the suffering and wants it is part of the human vital—it is these things that ...
... other in perfecting the Page 81 sadhana. What is known as Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is the joint creation of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother; they are now completely identified—the sadhana in the Asram and all arrangement is done directly by the Mother, Sri Aurobindo supports her from behind. All who come here for practising Yoga have to surrender themselves to the Mother who helps them always and ...
... Divine and perhaps also for the descent of the Divine on the earth. 8 May 1933 People make all sorts of effort to have God's darshan; some even weep and weep, yet they fail to obtain it. We in the Asram don't seem to have done very much, and yet we are here with you. What has brought this about? There are many things that have brought it about—a connection in past lives with the Mother and myself ...
... but in an acuter form and in much less favourable circumstances. The other justifying suggestions were equally irrational and untrue. Wherever you went, the blow would always fall on ourselves and the Asram, for you are and would remain too intimately identified with us for it to be otherwise and distance would make no difference. And certainly the verse in the Gita does not cover a case of suicide, ...
... because she is, indeed, always present"? It is the emanation of the Mother that is with each sadhak all the time. In former days when she was spending the night in a trance actively working in the Asram, she brought back with her the knowledge of all that was happening to everybody. Nowadays she has no time for that. This question of Mother's knowledge became even more interesting for me today ...
... Progress in Sadhana and the Mother's Force When you say to someone, "You are open to the Mother", do you mean open in a general way? Are not all in the Asram more or less open to the Mother as soon as they have accepted her as the Mother? And when the Mother has accepted a sadhak, does her Force not begin to work in him and is it not always with him? ...
... in sending the new servant, Joseph, with dishes to the ladies of the Ashram. Therefore he did not send the new man with the dishes this afternoon. Perhaps it is better not to allow the man inside the Asram for a few days, during which time we can observe and study him. I don’t mean to say that he is untrustworthy, but he gives me a feeling of being an adventurer. What is this? We have had enough ...
... house. If Amal has to arrange for furniture for them, they will need three cots, three tables and three chairs. I thought there was some furniture in that house — I don’t like very much to send the Asram furniture to an outside house. We can wait until they arrive and see what is truly needed. 11 June 1932 ...
... doesn’t want to eat bread in the morning. He begs You to let him have one more banana in addition to the phoscao. The bread does not agree with him. I firmly believe that he is unfit to receive the Asram food. It would be better if he could make some other arrangement from the first of next month. He also does not like the cooked vegetables served in the evening. But he would like to have some ...
... Mother 12 May 1933 Mother, Ramchandra informs me that Louis Arogya [ a local resident ] has taken a turn to the Yoga. He has decided to join the Asram, but all depends on whether you will admit him or not. It would be good if he could give the date and the time of his birth. He wishes to have a waiting period of one month. He will use ...
... Correspondence with The Mother 5 February 1933 Amal, Will you ask Nolini for the list of the people coming for the 21st who are to be accommodated in the Asram and see if you have the necessary cots, chairs, tables. If something is missing let me know as soon as possible. Benu is coming, do you have a cot to fit him? 5 February 1933 ...
... simply looking at you or your photograph? Yes, very many do. I want to know whether I am pursuing the right line. Yes. March 10, 1933 I dreamed that I had gone away from the Asram, to my native place. My misery and utter helplessness cannot be described. I think the significance of my dream was that life outside will be a hell for me. I am meant for this life and must ...
... I have a difficulty? You can always write June 17, 1933 During my gate duty visitors enquire sometimes about the nature of food, number of people, etc. No inner details about the Asram can be given to outsiders—there is an express rule against it. Some people get disappointed when they learn that they cannot see Sri Aurobindo. Shall I suggest to them to write or tell them anything ...
... for data from humans. Human opinion, G will at once question, but the Divine's he can't. Or he can and the Divine is afraid of losing his prestige, what? If you mean that I can kick G out of the Asram even without assigning a reason, of course I can, and it is not any questioning of his that would prevent it. Usually my very deferent disciples demand an explanation of what I do, and if it is not ...
... come back perhaps changed, transformed. If it is so, please allow me and many others to go every year. Your Supramental work will be made half easier! Logically, that would mean everybody in the Asram taking a month's trip to the Himalayas, Calcutta, Cape Comorin etc. and returning, if not as supermen, yet as fully-fledged psychic angels. Easy! May 29, 1938 I've marked that at times ...
... have no time, now when the correspondence has gone down? Who told you that? Since the first it has gone up or rather swelled up and my table is covered with 4-volume letters from one third of the Asram. I suppose you are busy doing something high and mighty! I would like to do something high and mighty, but God knows how I shall do it at this rate. September 5, 1938 "The magic ...
... may mean anything from prickly heat to— December 8, 1936 S.B. had no sleep at all last night. No trouble and yet no sleep. Mystery! Any yogic reason? It is the new fashion with the Asram Yogis—not to sleep. I send you a letter from S which will speak eloquently for itself. Please return after communicating the contents to Dr. B. I see she has horse-disease অশ্বরোগ 57 —I presume ...
... way, is there still trouble in Mother's eyes? Somewhat. I send for information another tragic letter from S—which please return. It appears, it is only a resurrected S that is walking about the Asram since yesterday afternoon! I say—Dr. Hutchinson, President of the Royal Society of Medicine, in London, says (vide Sunday Times, page 4) that if all the doctors struck work for a year, it would ...
... thoroughly cleaned and the room itself will be whitewashed entirely. November 20, 1937 N says he may hire a servant just to be by his side. That can be done— S says he can't digest the Asram curry at all, and soup and vegetables did him much good. It is better to give him soup and boiled vegetables. November 21, 1937 Guru, I dare to disturb you as daring has become a ...
... obvious demerits. You have no experience of major realisations through work, and you conclude that such realisations are impossible. But what of the many who have had them—elsewhere and here too in the Asram? That has no value? You kindly hint to me that I have failed to get anything by works? How do you know? I have not written the history of my sadhana—if I had, you would have seen that if I had not ...
... compromise with what they ask from us,’ or to accept them as companions and our own people — these things have a great importance. If the attack were a physical menace to the Mother and the work and the Asram, one would see this at once. But because the attack is of a subtler kind, can a passive attitude be right? It is a spiritual battle inward and outward — by neutrality and compromise or even passivity ...
... suggestion to the sadhak’s mind from the Force that wants to create the wish to go or any other kind of discontent or depression. It is a curious form of delusion that has taken root, as it were, in the Asram atmosphere and is cherished not so much by the individual vital as by the forces that work upon it to break, if possible, the sadhana. You must not allow any harbourage to that or else it will create ...
... it a power not merely for "salvation" but for a divine life upon earth. It is with this object that I have withdrawn from public life and founded this Asram in Pondicherry (so-called for want of a better word, for it is not Page 441 an Asram of Sannyasins, but of those who want to leave all else and prepare for this work). But at the same time I have a small number of disciples all over India ...
... The Mother 17 February 1933 Mother, In 1930 Sri Aurobindo wrote to the head of the British Post Office that Amrita is the “Manager, Sri Aurobindo Asram, Pondicherry”. I always sign at the Post Office as the “Manager, the Arya Office, Pondicherry”. Now I find that Pavitra has given his address at the British Post Office as “The General Secretary, the ...
... Public Statements, Messages, Letters and Telegrams on Indian and World Events (1940-1950) Autobiographical Notes On the Wavell Plan [1] Sri Aurobindo Asram Pondicherry June 15, 1945 We heard the Viceroy's broadcast yesterday. 1 Sri Aurobindo says the proposals are decent enough and seem to be even better than Cripps' in certain respects. An Indian ...
... me. I should also be very glad to know of the swift and easy method of Yoga by which all that can be done in a few years—or else not at all, for that seems to be your alternative. What I see in this Asram is that people catch hold of something said or written by the Mother, give it an interpretation other than or far beyond its true meaning and deduce from it a crudely extreme logical conclusion which ...
... light or only all darkness and whoever has any weakness in him has no light and no sincere aspiration and no truth in his nature. If that were so, Yoga would be impossible. All the sadhaks in this Asram would be convicted of insincerity and of having no true sadhana — for who is there in whom there is no obscurity and no movement of ignorance? If you have fallen down from the consciousness you had ...
... supramental has no meaning whatever and is merely a mental propaganda which is unrealisable and hopelessly out of place. 16 May 1933 Should not the Sadhanbari be regarded as the seed-type of an Asram in the making? The question arises from the fact that there is a tendency in almost all here at the Sadhanbari—and in others in Chittagong at large—to think that it (the Sadhanbari) is merely a res... Yogasram at Pondicherry the better. What really is the immediate and ultimate use of mofussil centres? It is quite a mistake to suppose that everybody has eventually to come and join the Pondicherry Asram. That is not the Mother's intention, nor is it physically possible. The work to be done is not supposed to be confined to Pondicherry. On the other hand cannot this tangential turn of thought prove ...
... Aurobindo replied: "I am afraid not. When I was in Calcutta it was already a battle-field and even in the post-civil-war period one hears distressing things about it. It is the same with other Asrams..." (Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, p.1048) Be that as it may, we, the disciples of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, should be clear about one point. What we Page 48 ...
... to do it. December 6, 1937 Dr. André says that N's is decidedly a hopeless case. Should his family be informed? No, it is better not, for obvious reasons. Can Jiban take regular Asram food? He ought to be able to take it— December 7, 1937 What should be done with N's things? Shall we distribute the clothes among the servants? Flask, easy chair, blankets, etc... ...
... Letters and Telegrams on Indian and World Events (1940-1950) Autobiographical Notes Letters Related to the Andhra University Award [1] SRI AUROBINDO ASRAM. PONDICHERRY. July 15, 1948 To Sir C. R. Reddy Vice-Chancellor Andhra University—Waltair I have been unable to give an early answer to your letter of the 28th June, 1948 which reached ...
... force of Tapasya. As for the Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods, to surmount mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody else in this Asram or outside, far more difficult conditions, battles to fight, wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and forest, hostile masses to conquer, a work such as I am certain ...
... Sannyasa. The Sannyasi, the Vaishnava Vairagi or the Brahmachari are free; they are dead to the family and can live according to the dictates of the inner spirit. Only if they enter into an order or asram, they have to abide by the rules of the order, but that is their own choice, not a responsibility which has been laid on them without their choice. Society recognised this door of escape from itself;... the past. That would account for the cases you have come across—but I don't think the number of such cases can be as yet at all considerable, it is quite a new phenomenon; the admission of women to Asrams is itself a novelty. The extreme unhappiness of a mental and vital growth which does not fit in with the surroundings, of marriages imposed that are unsuitable and where there is no meeting-point between ...
... bliss for endless years To rest, until another aeon comes, When of the seven Rishis thou art one." I sent my knowledge forth across the land; It found him not in Bharat's princely halls, In quiet asrams, nor in temples pure, Nor where the wealthy traffickers resort; Brahmin nor Kshatriya body housed the Lord, Vaishya nor Sudra nor outcaste. At length To a bare hut on a wild mountain's verge Led ...
... yet pakka 8 . One has to pick oneself up again quietly without minding the interruption. Mother, from your look at pranam it seemed to me you didn't or don't like our taking food exclusive of Asram food... How did you read food into the Mother's look? It was not there at all. Often I have felt that you give sanction for these occasional feastings, but at the same time you don't sanction ...
... feel nothing else, nothing that does not minister to or increase the misery. Support you always have; there is absolutely no reason why we should withhold it. If anyone is in serious trouble in this Asram, that falls on us and most on the Mother—so it is absurd to suppose that we should take pleasure in anyone suffering. Suffering, illness, vital storms (lusts, revolts, angers) are so many contradictions ...
... says that this is his true mother; for she has given him a new birth in an inner life and is creating him anew for a diviner existence. The idea of spiritual Motherhood is not an invention of this Asram; it is an eternal truth which has been recognised for ages past both in Europe and in Asia. The distinction I have drawn between the physical relation and the psychic and spiritual relation is also ...
... guard and aged couriers whom her watchful father sent, Mounted on her golden chariot unto sylvan woodlands went. Far in pleasant woods and jungle wandered she from day to day, Unto asrams, ermitages, pious-hearted held her way. Oft she stayed in holy tirthas washed by sacred limpid streams, Food she gave unto the hungry, wealth beyond their fondest dreams. Many... true and chosen lord, Sweet Savitri served his parents by her thought and deed and word. Bark of tree supplied her garments draped upon her bosom fair, Or the red cloth as in asrams holy women love to wear. And the aged queen she tended with a fond and filial pride, Served the old sightless monarch like a daughter by his side. And with love and gentle sweetness... thus her humble prayer addrest. "To the jungle goes my husband, fuel and the fruit to seek, I would follow if my mother and my loving father speak. Twelve-month from this narrow asram hath Savitri stepped nor strayed, In this cottage true and faithful ever hath Savitri stayed. For the sacrificial fuel wends my lord his lonesome way, Please my kind and loving ...
... what is new in Time. From where did you get this singular attitude towards the old Yogas and Yogis? Is the wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing? Have then the sadhaks of this Asram attained to self-realisation and are they liberated Jivan-muktas, free from ego and ignorance? If not, why then do you say, "it is not a very difficult stage", "their goal is not high", "is it such ...
... As I have told you, these are not yet and cannot be the supramental Forces; it is a work of preparation which is only making things ready for a future Yoga-siddhi. How can the people in this Asram judge whether a man has progressed in Yoga or not? They judge from outward appearances—if a sadhak secludes himself, sits much in meditation, gets voices and experiences, etc. etc. they think he is ...
... Sannyas or of entering into any established order of Sannyasis. It ought to be well known to everybody that Sannyas was never accepted by him as part of his Page 93 yoga; he has founded an Asram in Pondicherry but its members are not Sannyasis, do not wear the ochre garb or practise complete asceticism but are sadhaks of a yoga of life based on spiritual realisation. This has always been Sri ...
... Imagination within them. All this you must stop. You must come to Pranam regularly, take your food regularly, sleep regularly, do the work given you conscientiously, following the lines laid down for this Asram by the Mother, and through a right consciousness in this life you must realise her Truth in the physical existence. Your unwillingness to come to the Pranam because that would interrupt some subjective ...
... script have likewise been transliterated. This policy is in accord with the practice followed in Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. The reader may note that Sri Aurobindo almost always spelled the word "Asram" without an "h" in his manuscripts. Around 1945, due to failing eyesight, he began dictating most of his writings to his amanuensis Nirodbaran; Nirodbaran sometimes spelled the word without an "h", ...
... transliterated. This policy is in accord with the practice followed in Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. The reader may note that Sri Aurobindo almost always spelled Page 819 the word "Asram" without an "h" in his manuscripts. Around 1945, due to failing eyesight, he began dictating most of his writings to his amanuensis Nirodbaran; Nirodbaran sometimes spelled the word without an "h", ...
... follow a rule deduced from the circumstances. S says Asram bread does not agree with him, responsible for heaviness, want of appetite etc., asks for bazaar bread. What does the doctor say? July 12, 1936 I am obliged to keep N 12 for the usual reason. It is already beyond time and my work unfinished. I don't think Asram bread has anything to do with S's "non-agreement", for he ...
... Page 507 transliterated. This policy is in accord with the practice followed in Sri Aurobindo's lifetime. The reader may note that Sri Aurobindo almost always spelled the word "Asram" without an "h" in his manuscripts. Around 1945, due to failing eyesight, he began dictating most of his writings to his amanuensis Nirodbaran; Nirodbaran sometimes spelled the word without an "h", ...
... The relation of the disciple to the Guru in the Guruvada is supposed always to be that of worship, respect, complete happy confidence, unquestioning acceptance of the guidance. It is only in this Asram that another theory has sometimes been advanced and reached its height as a result of the misapplication or wrong extension of the relation with the human Mother (which in itself, rightly understood ...
... the necessity of sadhana. If it did, the logical consequence would be that the whole earth, men, dogs and worms, would suddenly wake up to find themselves supramental. There would be no need of an Asram or of Yoga. What is vital is the supramental change of consciousness—conquest of death is something minor and, as I have always said, the last physical result of it, not the first result of all or ...
... mercy of the imaginations and suggestions of the adverse vital world when carried over the border into the intermediate zone of which I spoke in a recent message. 2 All the cases of collapse in this Asram have been due to these three causes—to the first two mostly. Only three or Page 809 four of them have ended in madness—and in these the sexual aberration was invariably present; usually ...
... other than English have been translated. When the question is not available, only Sri Aurobindo's reply is printed. Readers should note that Sri Aurobindo almost always spelled the word "Asram" without an "h", though some of his correspondents wrote "Ashram". Both spellings have been reproduced here following the manuscripts. By the late 1940s, when "Ashram" had become the standard spelling ...
... myself exactly the opposite in character to what I was when I started life. I have seen it done in many and I have helped myself to do it in many. But certain conditions are needed. At present in this Asram there is an obstinate resistance to the change of nature—not so much in the inner being, for there are a good number who accept change there, but in the outer man which repeats its customary movements ...
... it, Sir? Of course. Why on earth shouldn't delight be motionless? What kind of delight should the immutable Brahman have, for instance, if not an immobile delight? [Dilip's telegram:] "Nirod Asram pondicherry arriving tomorrow evening train Heldil". Guru, this is from Dilipda—Heidi! is not he, of course. But who is it then? Can your Supramental Intuition solve it? But mine has: it is H of ...
... than anything else, not as the manifestation of a new Nature in the earth consciousness. I do not know that any except a very few great Yogis have really changed their outer nature. In all the Asrams I have seen people were just as others except for certain specific moral controls put on certain kinds of outer action (food, sex etc.), but the general nature was the human nature (as in the story ...
... to seek solitude to meditate; for to the Karmayogin also Jnana is necessary and solitude is the nurse of knowledge. You may sit by the Ganges or the Narmada near some quiet temple or in some sacred asram to adore the Lord; for to the Karmayogin also bhakti is necessary, and places like these which are saturated with the bhakti of great saints and impassioned God-lovers best feed and strengthen the... but he can choose to what he shall direct his works, whether to his lower self or his higher, whether to desire or to God. The man who leaves the world behind him and sits on a mountaintop or in an asram, has not therefore got rid of works. If nothing else he has to maintain his body, to eat, to walk, to move his limbs, to sit in asan and meditate; all this is work. And not only his body works; his ...
... It was with great difficulty, I learn, that the Wardha Ashram was able to make two ends meet. And the inmates could hardly get time for anything else. Disciple : Then it is parisrama, and not asram ! Sri Aurobindo : Why not sasrama ! – (with the labour) Disciple : Roman Rolland has written a book on Mahatmaji. Sri Aurobindo : Yes, I have heard about it and seen it. These European ...
... languages other than English have been translated. When the question is not available, only Sri Aurobindo's reply is printed. Readers should note that Sri Aurobindo almost always spelled the word "Asram" without an "h" though some of his correspondents occasionally wrote "Ashram". By the late 1940s, when "Ashram" had become the standard spelling in the Ashram's publications, Sri Aurobindo was no longer ...
... come out of this condition. All right—shall try that also. June 2, 1936 You mean to say—"I am in Heaven. Everything is all right in the best of all possible worlds—in Sri Aurobindo Asram and with Nirod"! Quite so. All is well, if it ends well. But how to make you realise that I welcome the stillness etc.... but it's not always there. I quite realise. Don't make such Herculean ...
... and many other things besides. And if I were to send you away because you are not entirely disinterested in the approach to the Divine, I should have, to be consistent, to send practically the whole Asram packing. I do not know why you are allowing yourself to indulge in such black and despondent thoughts—there is no ground for them at all, and I do not think I gave any grounds for them in my letter ...
... moreover, and it is well known that people can argue for ever without one convincing the other. To go on perpetually answering persistent and always recurring doubts such as for long have filled this Asram and obstructed the sadhana, is merely to frustrate the aim of the Yoga and go against its central Page 337 principle with no spiritual or other gain whatever. If anybody gets over his f ...
... to live with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo as his Gurus, to start a new life here, taking up the path of this Yoga. Sri Aurobindo told Anilbaran to meet Jogdananda and tell him: “...this is not an Asram like others — the members are not Sannyasis; nor is the object the same; it is not ‘moksha’ that is the aim of Yoga here. What is being done here is a preparation for a work — a work which will be founded ...
... and balance. The first thing I tell people when they want not to eat or sleep is that no Yoga can be done without sufficient food and sleep (see the Gita on this point). This is not Gandhi's asram or a miracle-shop. Fasting and sleeplessness make the nerves morbid and excited and weaken the brain and lead to delusions and fantasies. The Gita says Yoga is not for one who eats too much or sleeps ...
... something that seems like it, a jugglery of the consciousness,—well, still out of that calm and silence I conducted a pretty strenuous political activity and have also taken my share in keeping up an Asram which has at least an appearance to the physical senses of being solid and material! If you deny that these things are material or solid (which of course metaphysically you can), then you land yourself ...
... and repining group and spent about 5 years in such a crisis. True? who will believe it now? You are asking very delicate questions. I can only say that Datta has been with the Mother from the pre-Asram, even the pre-Yoga-times—her case is uniquely difficult... November 3, 1935 Only my expressions are puzzling, Sir? Your supramental ones are no less—especially when you want to be "elusive" ...
... also solve your difficulty about things unpleasant and disagreeable. All unpleasantness should be faced with this spirit of samatā . When one is living in the world, one cannot do as in an Asram—one has to mix with others and keep up outwardly at least ordinary relations with others. The important thing is to keep the inner consciousness open to the Divine and grow in it. As one does that, ...
... It may be so, but that is not my experience. The highly sattwic are few; the abnormally rajasic are few; of the middle sort there are many. According to my observation, this is true not only of this Asram but of others. If so, can one say that in the evolution of consciousness sattwic people are more evolved than the others? Narrow logic again? Um! somewhat! There are all sorts among the more ...
... in you. Your alleged or inferred unfitness is a delusion, an imagination of this vital part; it doesn't exist. If persistence of difficulties is a proof of unfitness, then there is nobody in this Asram who is fit for the Yoga. We would all have to pack up our belongings or give them away and start either to get back to the ordinary world or en route for the Himalayas. You describe the rich human ...
... that you belong to Him and not to yourself and just go on whether in light or in darkness, in joy or in sorrow as He wills. But stick to it. Since your Gurudev sanctions, take a holiday, go to Raman Asram or Ramdas or anywhere else but do not for one moment entertain the thought of ever going back to your old life.... "There can be no going back for us, Dilip: that which we have left behind us has ...
... कार्यते ह्यवशः कर्म सर्वः प्रकृतिजैर्गुणैः ॥] And this statement in the Gita is perfectly consistent with reason; for the man who leaves the world behind him and sits on a mountaintop or in an asram has not therefore, it is quite clear, got rid of Karma; if nothing else, he has to maintain his body, to eat, to walk, to move his limbs or to sit in asan and meditate; and all this is Karma. If he ...
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