March 22,1936
There is no rule excluding emotion from the field of Yoga
unless of course it is a Yoga of pure knowledge and nothing
else. Emotion is necessary for Bhakti, so it must find a place
in any Yoga in which Bhakti is a necessary element. So your
increase of emotion does not disqualify you for Yoga. Also
cold calm is not the thing aimed at by the sadhak or attained
by the siddha [accomplished yogi]. Cold calm is possible to
certain kinds of Asuras, but the divine Calm is not cold; it is
a basis for Light, Power, Love, Ananda and these are not
things that take root in the ice. So there too fear is groundless.
As for the turning of all to the Divine, that is a counsel of
perfection for those who want to go fast and far and so don't
care to carry any baggage. But otherwise friendship whether
between man and man or man and woman or woman and
woman is not forbidden—provided it is the true thing and sex
does not come in and also provided it does not turn one away
from the goal. If the central aim is strong, that is sufficient.
March 26,1936
What happened is a thing that often happens and—taking
your account of it—it reproduced in your case the usual
stages. First, you sat down in prayer—that means a call to the
Above, if I may so express it. Next came the necessary condition
for the answer to the prayer to be effective—"little by little a
sort of restfulness came", in other words, the quietude of the
consciousness which is necessary before the Power that has
to act can act. Then the rush of the Force or Power, "a flood
of energy and 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 Ashram. 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 come into them and with or after
it a flood of energy so that twice the amount of work could
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be done without the least fatigue or reaction. In many there
was a spontaneous call of the vital for the Force, so that they
felt the flood of energy as soon as they began the work and
it continued so long as the work had to be done.
The vital is the means of effectuation on the physical plane,
so its action and energy are necessary for all work—without
it, if the mind only drives without the co-operation and
instrumentation of the vital, there is hard and disagreeable
labour and effort with results which are usually not at all of
the best kind. The ideal state for work is when there is a
natural concentration of the consciousness in the special
energy, supported by an easeful rest and quiescence of the
consciousness as a whole. Distraction of the mind by other
activities disturbs this balance of ease and concentrated
energy—fatigue also disturbs or destroys it. The first thing
therefore that has to be done is to bring back the supporting
restfulness and this is ordinarily done by cessation of work
and repose. In the experience you had that was replaced by
a restfulness that came from above in answer to your station
of prayer and an energy that also came from above. It is the
same principle as in sadhana—the reason why we want
people to make the consciousness quiet so that the higher
peace may come in and on the basis of that peace a new
Force from above.
It is not effort that brought the inspiration. Inspiration
comes from above in answer to a state of concentration
which is itself a call to it. Effort on the contrary fatigues the
consciousness and therefore is not favourable to the best
work; the only thing is that sometimes—by no means always—
effort culminates in a pull for the inspiration which brings
some answer, but it is not usually so good and effective an
inspiration as that which comes when there is the easy and
intense concentration of the energy in its work. Effort and
expenditure of energy are not necessarily the same thing—
the best expenditure of energy is that which flows easily
without effort at all—when the Inspiration or Force (any
Force) works of itself and the mind and vital and even body
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rowing instruments and the Force flows out in an intense
and happy working—an almost labourless labour.
April 24,1936
The Mother has no trust in this tenant, Banerji—he has
shown himself to be a rogue and in any dealing with him we
are sure to burn our fingers. The rent of 200 Rs. for the two
houses is much too low and if we leave the repairs, etc. to
them, there is no surety as to what they will do or whether
they will keep the house in good condition. We don't think his
proposition is worth looking at—it is too much to his own
advantage and too little to ours.
If you answer him, it would be best to let him know that you
have given a power of attorney to Prithwisingh for all matters
related to the houses and ask him to place the proposition
before him.
Shall one be right if one says that Bengali language is
richest in songs and that such songs (or rather such a
wealth of it, si vous voulez) does not exist in English or
French or German ? At least I was peculiarly struck while
in Europe by their comparative poverty of songs. But I
may here be guilty of partiality to my own language. But
will you then give me some information as to which poets
in English e.g. have composed such lovely songs—I mean
songs sung—not poems, that is. lam curious to know. For
when I was learning songs in Europe I found them com-
paratively speaking unsatisfying qua songs though with
harmonic setting they sounded to me beautiful enough
qua music, if you know what I mean. But in Bengali the
tradition of songs from the extremely rich lore of Vaishnava
Kirtanists and developed gloriously in this age by Tagore,
Atulprasad,27 my father,28 etc. (there are heaps of the
lesser fry) is a spectacle somewhat difficult not to be
proud of nationalistically, forgive me. And now I see in
Nishikanta such an ease in writing songs that I can't help
thinking that a long background of songs is partly responsible for it. Tagore you must know has written more
than four thousand songs, my father well over thousand,
Atulprasad two thousand29 and many others will contribute
a good anthology of at least five hundred songs. Of these
Page -80
if a selection is made at least one thousand extremely fine
songs can be collected leaving out the marvels of the
Vaishnava poets altogether. I want you to compare English
and French songs (and German too, if possible) with this
achievement and enlightenment. I ask not to dogmatise
but to know as a jignāsu [an inquirer].
About French or German songs I know nothing—but as for
the English, except for a few like Cardinal Newman's30 hymn
"Lead, kindly Light" they don't exist so far as I know—I mean
of course as regards their contents, manner, style. I believe
in European music the words are of a very minor importance,
they matter only as going with the music. But I am not an
expert on the subject, so I can't go farther into it. When
religious songs were written in medieval Latin, they were
very fine, but with the use of the modern languages the art
was lost—the modern European hymnals are awful stuff.
May 14,1936
As you have opened yourself to the Force and made yourself
a channel for the energy of work, it is quite natural that when
you want to do this work the Force should flow and act in the
way that is wanted or the way that is needed and for the effect
that is needed. When one has made oneself a channel, the
Force is not necessarily bound by the limitations or disabilities
of the instrument; it can disregard them and act in its own
power. In doing so it may use the human instrument simply
as a medium and leave him as soon as the work is finished
just what he was before, incapable in his ordinary moments
of doing such good work; but also it may by its action set the
instrument right, accustom it to the necessary intuitive know-
ledge and movement so that it can at will command the action
of the Force. As for the technique, there are two different
Page - 81
things, the intellectual knowledge which one applies and the
intuitive cognition which acts in its own right, even if it is not
actually possessed by the worker. Many poets, for instance,
have little knowledge of metrical or linguistic technique and
cannot explain how they write or what are the qualities and
elements of their success, but they write, all the same, things
that are perfect in rhythm and language. Intellectual know-
ledge of technique helps of course, provided one does not
make of it a mere device or a rigid fetter. There are some arts
that cannot be done well without technical knowledge, e.g.
painting, sculpture.
What you write is your own in the sense that you have been
the instrument of its manifestation—that is so with every
artist or worker.
You need have no scruple about putting your name, though
of course for sadhana it is necessary to recognise that the real
Power was not yourself and you were simply the instrument
on which it played its tune.
The Ananda of creation is not the pleasure of the ego in
having personally done well and being somebody, that is
something extraneous which attaches itself to the joy of work
and creation. The Ananda comes from the inrush of a greater
Power, the thrill of being possessed and used by it, the āvésa,
the exultation of the uplifting of the consciousness, its illumination and its greatened and heightened action and also
the joy of the beauty, power or perfection that is being
created. How far one feels it depends on the condition of the
consciousness at the time, the temperament, the activity of
the vital; the Yogi, of course, (or even certain strong and calm
minds) is not carried away by the Ananda, he holds and
watches it and there is no mere excitement mixed with the
flow of it through the mind, vital or body. Naturally the
Ananda of samarpan [surrender] or spiritual realisation or
divine love is something far greater, but the Ananda of
creation has its place.
May 17,1936
Yesterday morning I was reading Krishnaprem's article
in the Aryan Path on the Seventh Chapter of the Gita
where he says: (I give you the gist) that meditation can't
be fruitful for most and that is because a high degree of
inner development and purification has not been achieved,
one of the conditions being that most men are not yogis
whom "the pairs of opposites that torment other people
will have no power to disturb/' etc. He posits a host of
other conditions for a successful meditation which well
nigh drive me to despair. It is no joke, it seems. One must
become perfect first before one can hope for any result
in meditations. No wonder my attempts were fruitless.
Last evening as I lolled on the pier alone I felt sad: what
is this path I have taken where one has to be a Hercules
to be able to do anything—even to try meditation. My
cherished preconception that prayer, meditation, etc.
purify received such a blow! Then how on earth is one to
arrive ? By writing notations to music and songs and
poems ? I wonder if anyone ever realised the Divine
through such a way! I was really very much disheartened.
No doubt you have been encouraging us—but Krishnaprem
has at last blurted out the home truth. Look at me: I have
been working hard enough in all conscience—but with no
consciousness at all of the least sense of illumination
within. What can such work do! But then again meditation
is useless d'aprés Krishnaprem unless one were thoroughly
purified and stationed in the perfect yogic poise. Today I
have been struggling against this despondency: for us it
is perhaps impossible to arrive by any path. Then why do
yoga ? Work ? Only to ward off the depression that comes
from repose ?
I do not know what Krishnaprem said or in which article, I
do not have it with me. But if the statement is that nobody can
Page - 83
have a successful meditation or realise anything till he is pure
and perfect, I fail to follow it, it contradicts my own experience.
I have always had realisation by meditation first and the
purification started afterwards as a result. I have seen many
get important, even fundamental realisations by meditation who could not be said
to have a great inner development. Are all Yogis who have meditated to effect
and had great realisations in their inner consciousness perfect in their nature ?
It does not look like it to me. I am unable to believe in absolute
generalisations in this field, because the development of
spiritual consciousness is an exceedingly vast and complex
affair in which all sorts of things can happen and one might
almost say that for each man it is different according to his
nature and that the one thing that is essential is the inner call
and aspiration and the perseverance to follow always after it,
no matter how long it takes or what are the difficulties or
impediments, because nothing else will satisfy the soul within
us.
It is quite true that a certain amount of purification is
indispensable for going on, that the more complete the
purification the better, because then when the realisations
begin they can go on without big difficulties or relapses and
without any possibility of fall or failure. It is also true that with
many purification is the first need—certain things have to be
got out of the way before one can begin any consecutive
inner experience. But the main thing is a certain preparation
of the consciousness so that it may be able to respond more
and more freely to the higher Force. In this preparation many
things are useful—the poetry and music you are doing can
help, for it acts as a sort of śravana [hearing] and manana
[thinking], even if the feeling roused is intense, a sort of
natural nididhyāsana. Psychic preparation, clearing out of the
grosser forms of mental and vital ego, opening mind and
heart to the Guru and many other things help greatly—it is
not perfection that comes or a complete freedom from the
dualities or ego, but preparedness, a fineness of the inner
being which makes spiritual responses and receiving possible.
There is no reason therefore to take as gospel truth these
demands which may have been right for Krishnaprem on the
way he has trod, but cannot be imposed on all. There is no
around for despondency of that ground—the law of the spirit
is not so exacting and inexorable.
May 19,1936
Glad to learn you may write something on the Hinduism
problem. I have written to Dhurjati quoting this—hoping
this may induce you to write after all—to preclude shelving
(or rather to attempt it abortively ?)
It will give us much light. We are all very eager for it. For
such a long time I have not got anything from you—
working at this ten hour-a-day—dry notation business
with no sense of Divine contact. Off and on the dejection-
surge came saying, "What were you doing ? Do you think
that by such ayukta karma [work inharmonious with yoga]
your consciousness will change—fool !" Again and again
I rejected it. But when except for the joy of creation—vital
one of course—I could not get at last I succumbed, and
in the grip of sadness and suffering and doubt and what
not. So a letter on Hinduism and spirituality will be like
rain to thirsty sere earth. For I see no way to turn to for
relief.
I shall see what can be done. For some time however it has
been difficult for me to put myself to any sustained intellectual work, because I am strongly taken up by a push to
finish inwardly in myself what remained to be done in the
way of transformation of the consciousness and, though this
part of it is terribly difficult and arduous, I was making so
unexpected a progress that the consciousness was unwilling
to turn away from it to anything else. So much hangs on this,
the decisive mastery, the power to receive the difficulties of
others as well as my own (those that are still there, physical
and other) that I was pushing for it like Mussolini for Addis
Ababa before the rains. However, any night when there is a
lull, I will see.
May 20, 1936
I cannot candidly say that the Mother and I approve of the
idea of your going to Calcutta for a fortnight for relief from
your sufferings : if we ever sanction such a movement, it is
against our own seeing of things because no choice is left to
us owing to circumstances or the state of mind of the Sadhak.
We have never found that such absences do any spiritual
good : they usually relax or lower the consciousness or renew
old movements that must go. It is much better to face the
difficulty however sticky it is till the conquest is there.
It is a pity that this movement of depression has come back
with its painful and irrational circle. It must be thrown away for
good: these movements go round in a circular repetitionary
way characteristic of these things. It is lent force by the
reasonings of the physical mind which are specious but of no
value. It is not true of spiritual things that experience must
come within a certain number of years or not at all. There are
some who begin to succeed after a few years some who take
longer, succeeding only in work but not in meditation or
activity of the inner consciousness, but finally the veiled inner
preparation of so many years has prevailed and they begin
to get the psychic change, the inner opening of head and
heart, the descents, the growth through frequent though not
uninterrupted experience. This has happened even to those
who are troubled by these circular movements and have been
again and again on the point of rushing away in despair.
There is nothing more futile than to despair in the spiritual
path and throw up the game: it is to break a working which
would have led one to the realisation asked for if one had
persevered. I have always said that since your soul wants the
Divine truly, you are sure to reach Him.
There is only one logic in spiritual things—when a demand
is there for the Divine, a sincere call, it is bound one day to have
its fulfilment. It is only if there is a strong insincerity somewhere,
a hankering after something else—power, ambition, etc.—
Page - 87
which counterbalances the inner call that the logic is no
longer applicable. Supramental realisation is another matter: I am speaking now of the realisation of the Divine, of the
contact with the Divine, through whatever lever, heart or
mind or both. In your case it is likely to come through the
heart, through increase of bhakti or psychic purification of
the heart: that is why I was pressing the psychic way upon
you. I do not mean that nothing can come through meditation
for you, but probably—barring the unexpected—only after
the heart experience.
Do not allow these wrong ideas and feelings to govern you
or your state of depression to dictate your decisions : try to
keep a firm central will for the realisation—you can do so if
you make up your mind to it—these things are not impossible
for you; they are within the scope of your nature which is
strong. You will find that the obstinate spiritual difficulty
disappears in the end like a mirage. It belongs to the maya
and, where the inner call is sincere, cannot hold even the
outer consciousness always: its apparent solidity will dissolve.
May 29, 1936
It is a little difficult for me to answer your letter in view of
what you have written there. I have certainly persuaded you
to remain here because I did not think that going away was
the right solution, nor do I think so now. But from what you
wrote last time after this came on you, I understood that you
did not really want to go and were glad that I had persuaded
you, that in fact you would have suffered greatly if I had given
my consent. Here you write very differently and in such a way
that if I am to take what you say in its full sense I would have
to reply at once "Yes, go, since there is no other alternative".
Let me say at once that persuasion is not force. Last time I
Page - 94
don't think I even used persuasion; I simply gave my opinion
against your proposal. My opinion remains the same, but that
is not binding on you. I have also never thought of cutting you off if you go to Cape Comorin for a time or to Calcutta.
Everyone here is free to follow his own decision in these
matters. But when I am asked for a full consent, I take it as
an invitation to give my own view on what is proposed and I
give it. There is no question there of detaining or refusing a
bitter need or cutting you off for a time to Calcutta or to Cape
Comorin, and therefore there can be no reason for your
being driven to the extremes of which you speak in your letter.
As for the way out of the impasse, I know only of the
quieting of the mind which makes meditation effective,
purification of the heart which brings the divine touch and
in time the divine presence, humility before the Divine which
liberates from egoism and the pride of the mind and of the
vital, the pride that imposes its own reasonings on the ways
of the spirit and the pride that refuses or is unable to surrender,
sustained persistence in the call within and reliance on the
Grace above. These things come by the inner discipline
which you had begun to practise some time ago but did not
continue. Meditation, japa, prayer or aspiration from the
heart can all succeed, if they are attended by these or even
some of these things. But I do not know that you can be
promised what you always make the condition of any inner
endeavour, an immediate or almost immediate realisation or
beginning of concrete realisation. I fully believe on the other
hand that one who has the call in him cannot fail to arrive if
he follows patiently the, way towards the Divine.
Frankly this is my view of the matter. I have never seen that
anyone by changing place arrived at any spiritual realisation—
it always comes by a change of mind and heart. I put before
you what I can see. The rest is for you to consider.
May 30, 1936
I have surely never said that you should not want the Divine
Response. One does Yoga for that. What I have said is that
you should not expect or insist on it at once or within an early
time. It can come early or it can come late, but come it will if
one is faithful in one's call—for one has not only to be sincere
but to be faithful through all. If I deprecate insistence, it is
because I' have always found that it creates difficulties and
delays owing to a strain and restlessness which are created
in the nature and the despondencies and revolts of the vital
when the insistence is not satisfied. The Divine knows best
and one has to have trust in His wisdom and attune oneself with
His will. Length of time is no proof of an ultimate incapacity
to arrive—it is only a sign that there is something in oneself
which has to be overcome and if there is the will to reach the
Divine, it can be overcome.
Suicide solves nothing—it only brings back to life with the
same difficulties to be faced in worse conditions. If one
wishes to escape from life altogether, it can only be by the
way of complete inner renunciation and merging oneself in
the Silence of the Absolute or by a bhakti that becomes
absolute or by a Karmayoga that gives up one's own will and
desires to the will of the Divine.
I have said also that Grace can at any moment act suddenly,
but over that one has no control, because it comes by an
incalculable Will which sees things that the mind cannot see.
It is precisely the reason why one should never despair—that
and also because no sincere aspiration to the Divine can fail
in the end.
Mother does not remember having said to Sahana what
you report—it may have been something in another sense
which Sahana understood in that way. For it cannot be said
that you have never received force from us, you have received
it to any extent, it can only be said that you were not conscious
of it, but that happens with many. Certainly none of the
Page -96
sadhaks receives and uses all the Force the Mother sends, but
that is a general fact and not peculiar to you.
I hope you will not carry out your idea of going suddenly
g^ay—if you have to go for a time, it should be with our
knowledge and our protection around you. I hope it will not
be necessary at all, but certainly it should not be in that way.
Whatever else you doubt, you should not doubt that our love
and affection will be always with you. But I still hope that you
will be able to overcome this despair and this impulse of flight
and develop the quiet force of intense call which brings the
Light that is sure to come.
Last evening at Meditation with Mother I had a feeling
of suffering because I could find no solace, no knowledge,
no relief anywhere, because it was such a shame that I
understood nothing. Then I came back and prayed to
Krishna and the prayer that issued with profusion was: "0 Krishna, you know I wanted you and nothing but you,
still I feel I am so ignorant and find myself in an impasse.
Do shed on me your grace" etc. At once I felt a velvety
softness and a feeling of plasticity within and the sense of
friction and chafing vanished. I felt that there was no
ignominy in not understanding it all, and that one was
utterly impotent. I felt very humble and then there came
a sense of release born of a surrender in this unconditional
humility. Kanai says it is a psychic experience and an
important one. Please let me know if it is.
It was certainly an experience and as Kanai33 very accurately
described it an experience of great value, a psychic experience
Par excellence. A feeling of velvety softness within—an
ineffable plasticity within is a psychic experience and can be
Page - 97
nothing else. It means a modification of the substance of the
consciousness especially in the vital-emotional part, and such
a modification prolonged or repeated till it became permanent
would mean a great step in what I call the psychic transformation of the being. It is just these modifications in the
inner substance that make transformation possible. Further,
it was a modification that made a beginning of knowledge
possible—for by knowledge we mean in Yoga not thought or
ideas about spiritual things but psychic understanding from
within and spiritual illumination from above. Therefore the
first result was this feeling "that there was no ignominy in not ;
understanding it, that the true understanding would come only when one
realised that one was completely impotent".
This was itself a beginning of true understanding; a psychic
understanding, something felt within which sheds a light or'
brings up a spiritual truth that mere thinking would not have
given, also a truth that is effective in bringing both the
enlightenment and solace you needed—for what the psychic
brings with it always is light and happiness, an inner under-
standing and relief and solace.
Another very promising aspect of this experience is
that it came as an immediate response to an appeal to the Divine. You asked for
the understanding and the way out and at once Krishna showed you both—the way
out was the change of the consciousness within, the plasticity which makes the
Knowledge possible and also the understanding of the condition of mind and vital in which the true knowledge or
power of knowledge could come. For the inner knowledge
comes from within and above (whether from the Divine in the
heart or from the Self above) and for it to come, the pride of
the mind and vital in the surface mental ideas and their
insistence on them must go. One must know that one is
ignorant before one can begin to know. This shows that I was
not wrong in pressing for the psychic opening as the only
way out. For as the psychic opens, such responses and much
more also become common and the inner change also proceeds
by which they are made possible.
Page -
98
The poems are very beautiful and certainly they come from
a sincere feeling and experience—in view of what you felt
there can be no doubt of that.
But one question: what is the difference between
a "feeling" and an "experience” ? Is every feeling an experience ? Or an
intensely emotional one only an experience ? Anyhow since I understand nothing
please enlighten the crass ignorant who sees himself to be so.
I doubt whether I am able to answer your
question—or whether I quite understand it. There is no law that a feeling cannot
be an experience; experiences are of all kinds and take all forms in the
consciousness. When the consciousness undergoes, sees or feels anything
spiritual or psychic or even occult, that is an experience (in the technical
yogic sense, for there are of course all sorts of experiences that are not of
that character). Feelings themselves are of many kinds. The word feeling is
often used for an emotion, and there can be psychic or spiritual emotions which
are numbered among Yoga
Page - 102
experiences, such as a wave of suddha bhakti
[pure bhakti] or the rising of love towards the Divine. A feeling also means a
perception of something felt—a perception in the vital or psychic or in the
essential substance of the consciousness. Even I find often a mental perception
when it is very vivid described as a feeling. If you exclude all these feelings
and kindred ones and say that they are feelings, not experiences, then there is
very little room left for experiences at all. Feeling and vision are the main
forms of spiritual experience. One sees and feels the Brahman everywhere—one
feels a force enter or go out from one; one feels or sees the presence of the
Divine within or around one; one feels or sees the descent of light; one feels
the descent of peace or Ananda. Kick all that out on the ground that it is a
feeling, not an experience (what the deuce then is an experience ?) and you make
a clean sweep of most of the things that we call experience. Again, we feel a
change in the substance of the consciousness or the state of consciousness. We
feel ourselves spreading in wideness and the body only as a small thing in the
wideness (this can be seen also)—we feel the heart-consciousness being wide
instead of narrow, soft instead of hard, illumined instead of obscure, the
head-consciousness also, the vital, even the physical also—we feel thousands of
things of all kinds and why are we not to call them experiences ? Of course it
is an inner sight, an inner feeling, subtle feeling, not material, like the
feeling of a cold wind or a stone or any other object, but as the inner
consciousness deepens it is not less vivid or concrete, it is even more so.
In this case what you felt was not an emotion,
though something emotional came with it; you felt a condition on the very
substance of consciousness—a softness, a plasticity, even a velvety softness, an
ineffable plasticity. Any fellow who knows anything about Yoga would immediately
say, "What a fine experience", a very clear psychic and spiritual experience.
June 10,1936
Your letter this morning was perfectly
crystal-clear. And I felt also like that. I will now start revising my long [
?]. Yesterday I was extremely busy correcting proofs from 7.30p.m. till 2.30
a.m. at a stretch, fancy! Today too I had to work hard at it.
Jyoti has sent me another poem, which I like
very much but I find the last verse rather cryptic. I understand you opined it
was perfectly clear to you. But what idea did it convey to you ?
A propos, a question. I was reading in your
Future Poetry to-day that mysticism comes "When either we glimpse but do not
intimately realise the now secret things of the spirit, or, realising, yet
cannot find their direct language, their intrinsic way of utterance, and have to
use obscurely luminous hints or a thick drapery of symbol, when we have the
revelation, but not the inspiration, the sight but not the word." This, I think,
I follow
Page - 105
heartily and applaud lustily. For I have had a
feeling often (though not always) that mystic poetry hides behind the symbols
the author's comparative inability to find a proper expression for what he has
vaguely felt. I have often seen that when the feeling is very concrete I can
express what I can't if it isn't concrete enough. Much of the mystic poetry of
Tagore during the last few years we are all altogether baffled by and can't but
set down to his comparative failure to seize what loomed before him. It suggests
but only faintly—glimmers but does not illumine. His prose- poetry of
late are often altogether cryptic.... And now I find you say also something
kindred in the passage I quoted—calling the source of much mystic poetry (though
not all, mind you) "revelation” but not "inspiration”. Apropos, does not
inspiration mean something more intimate to our conscious than a visioned
"revelation” which is perforce somewhat remote, I gather or rather infer from
your passage ? In Jyoti's poem the last verse will, happily, exemplify what I
mean. I don't doubt she felt something but has she adequately conveyed it
with a more adequate power of expression ? I am not unsympathetic to mystic
poetry (I can't possibly be) but I am, I fear, a little fond of clarity and as
such perhaps a little apathetic to symbolic esotericism. But enough. Now do say
something radiant to dissipate my hazes, O please Guru—for god's sake—.
I find no difficulty in the last stanza of
Jyotirmayi's poem nor any in connecting [it] with the two former stanzas. It is
a single feeling and subjective idea or vision expressing itself in three facets
: In the full night of the spirit there is a luminosity from above in the very
heart of the darkness—imaged by the moon and stars in the bosom of the Night.
(The night- sky with the moon (spiritual light) and the stars is a well-known
symbol and it is seen frequently by sadhaks even when they do not know its
meaning.) In that night of the spirit is the Dream to which or through which a
path is found that in the
Page - 106
ordinary light of waking day one forgets or misses.
In the night of the spirit are shadowy avenues of pain, but even in that shadow
the Power of Beauty and Beatitude sings secretly and unseen the strains of
Paradise. But in the light of day the mystic heart of moonlight sorrowfully
weeps, suppressed, for even though the nectar of it is there behind, it falters
away from this garish light because it is itself a subtle thing of dream, not of
conscious waking mind-nature. That is how I understand or rather try mentally to
express it. But it is putting a very abstract sense into what should be kept
vague in outline but vivid in feeling—by mentalising one puts at once too much
and too little in it.
I do not remember the context of the passage you
quote from The Future Poetry, but I suppose I meant to contrast the
veiled utterance of what is usually called mystic poetry with the spiritual
clarity of the fully expressed experience. I did not mean to contrast it with
the mental clarity which is aimed at usually by poetry. The concreteness of
intellectual imaged description is one thing and spiritual concreteness is
another. "Two birds perched on one tree, but one eats the fruit, the other eats
not but watches his fellow"37—that has an illumining spiritual clarity and
concreteness to one who has had the experience, but mentally and intellectually
it might mean anything or nothing. Poetry uttered with the spiritual clarity may
be compared to sunlight, poetry uttered with the mystic veil to moonlight. But
it was not my intention to deny beauty, power or value to the moonlight. Note
that I have distinguished between two kinds of mysticism, one in which the
realisation is vague, the other in which the realisation is revelatory and
intimate, but the utterance is veiled by the image, not thoroughly revealed by
it. I do not know to which Tagore's recent poetry belongs, I have not read it.
But the latter kind of poetry (where there is the intimate experience) can be of
great power and value—witness Blake. Revelation is greater than inspiration—it
brings the direct knowledge and seeing, inspiration gives the expression. If
there is inspiration without revelation, one may get the word while the
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thing remains behind the veil; it is better to get
the sight of the thing itself than merely express it by an inspiration which
comes from behind the veil. Of course both together is the best... Mark also
that the inspiration I speak of is the coming of intrinsic word, the
spiritual mantra—it would not do to say that the mystic poetry has no
inspiration, no inspired word at all. No inspiration, no poetry.
(Written in great hurry—hope it is not impossible
to follow.)
July 5,1936
I have read the "admirer's" letter. I don't
suppose he has any definite idea of what is meant by seeking the Divine
or the Yoga. I don't know whether it is any use telling him that Yoga is
not an easy thing and one has much to face and much to conquer and
therefore it is not right to hurry to it. He should allow time for the
consciousness to grow and become clear about its [aim] and the true urge
behind before any step is taken ? Things like that to stave him off ?
There is too much of a rhetorical turn in his epistle.
Prithwisingh wants to know whether Shankar
paid the rent not only up to October (which P.S. knows) but up to
December as Sen avers. I suppose he did pay, since he says so ? He has
agreed to pay by installments but claims a deduction of Rs. 300 for the
garage. Prithwisingh is not inclined to concede more than Rs. 75. Sorry
to intrude this on you, but I have to answer him about the rent payment
up to December, so have to trouble you.
July 6, 1936
Thirst for the Divine is one thing and
depression is quite another, nor is depression a necessary consequence
of the thirst being unsatisfied; that may lead to a more ardent thirst
or to a fixed resolution and persistent effort or to a more and more
yearning call or to a psychic sorrow which is not at all identical with
depression and despair. Depression is a clouded grey state in its nature
and it is more difficult for light to come through clouds and greyness
than through a clear atmosphere. That depression obstructs the inner
light is a matter of general experience. The Gita says expressly, "Yoga
should be practised persistently with a heart free from depression"—
anirvinnacetasā. Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress
symbolises it as the Slough of Despond, one of the perils of the way
that has to be overcome. It is no doubt impossible to escape from
attacks of depression, almost all sadhaks go through these attacks, but
the principle is that one should react against them and not allow them
by any kind of mental encouragement or acceptance of their suggestions
to persist or grow chronic.
It is hardly a fact that sorrow is
necessary in order to make the soul seek the Divine. It is the call of
the soul within for the Divine that makes it turn, and that may come
under any circumstances—in full prosperity and enjoyment, at the height
of outward conquest and victory without any sorrow or disappointment,
but by a sudden or a growing enlightenment, by a flash of light in the
midst of sensuous passion, as in Bilwamangal42,
by the perception that there is something greater and truer than this
outward life lived in ego and ignorance. None of these turns need be
accompanied by sorrow and depression. Often one turns saying, "Life is
all very well and interesting enough as a game, but it is only a game,
the spiritual reality is greater than the life of the mind and senses."
In whatever way it comes, it is the call of the Divine or the soul's
call to the Divine that matters, the attraction of it is something far
greater than the things that usually hold
Page - 123
the nature. Certainly if one is satisfied
with life, entranced by it so that it shuts out the sense of the soul
within or hampers the attraction to the Divine, then a period of
vairagya, sorrow, depression, a painful breaking of the vital ties may
be necessary and many go through that. But once the turn made, it should
be to the one direction and a perpetual vairagya is not needed. Nor when
we speak of cheerfulness as the best condition, do we mean a cheerful
following of the vital life, but a cheerful following of the path to the
Divine which is not impossible if the mind and heart take the right view
and posture. At any rate, if positive cheerfulness is not possible in
one's case, still one should not acquiesce in or mentally support a
constant depression and sadness. That is not at all indispensable for
keeping turned to the Divine.
In speaking of the Buddhist and his nine
years of the wall and other instances, the Mother was only disproving
the view that not having succeeded in seven or eight years meant
unfitness and debarred all hope for the future. The man of the wall
stands among the greatest names in Japanese Buddhism and his long
sterility did not mean incapacity or spiritual unfitness; but apart from
that there are many who have gone on persisting for long periods and
finally prevailed. It is a common, not an uncommon experience.
I answer about the psychic and vital love
tomorrow.
July 7,1936
It is certainly easier to have friendship
between man and man or between woman and woman than between man and
woman, because there the sexual intrusion can be easily absent. In the
friendship between man and woman the sexual turn can at any moment come
in in a subtle or a direct way and produce perturbations. But there is
no impossibility of friendship between man and woman pure of this
element;
Page - 124
such friendships can exist and have always
existed. All that is needed is that the lower vital should not look in
at the back door or be permitted to enter. There is often a harmony
between a masculine and a feminine nature, an attraction or an affinity
which rests on something other than any open or covert lower vital
(sexual) basis—it depends sometimes predominantly on the mental or on
the psychic or on the higher vital, or on a mixture of these for its
substance. In such cases friendship is natural and there is little
chance of other elements coming in to pull it downwards or break it.
It is also a mistake to think 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 thing and desirable—
[one has only to consider what a changed place the Ashram would be if
all had it for each other.]43 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 the vital, only it
is a pure fire, not dependent on the satisfaction of ego-desire or on
the eating up of the fuel it embraces. It is a white flame, not a red
one; but white heat is not inferior to the red variety in its ardour. It
is true that the psychic love does not usually get its full play in
human relations and human nature, it finds the fullness of its fire and
ecstasy more easily when it is lifted towards the Divine. In the human
relation the psychic love gets mixed up with other elements which seek
at once to use it and overshadow it. It gets an outlet for its own full
intensities only at rare moments. Otherwise it comes in only as an
element, but even so it contributes all the higher things in a love that
is predominantly vital—all the finer sweetness, tenderness, fidelity,
self-giving, self- sacrifice, reachings of soul to soul, idealising
sublimations that lift up human love beyond itself, come from the
psychic. If it could dominate and govern and transmute the other
elements, mental, vital, physical of human love, then love could be on
the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an integral
union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life. But even some
imperfect appearance of that is rare.
Page - 125
[Here we do not talk of psychic love
between sadhaks, for the reason that that comes usually to be employed
as a cover and excuse for things that are not at all psychic and have no
place in the spiritual life.] Our view is that the normal thing is in
Yoga for the entire flame of the nature to turn towards the Divine and
the rest must wait for the true basis : to build higher things on the
sand and mire of the ordinary consciousness is not safe. That does not
necessarily exclude friendships or comradeships, but these must be
subordinate altogether to the central fire. If anyone makes meanwhile
the relation with the Divine his one absorbing aim, that is quite
natural and gives the full force to the sadhana. Psychic love finds
itself wholly when it is the radiation of the diviner consciousness for
which we are seeking; till then it is difficult for it to put out its
undimmed integral self and figure.
P.S. Mind, vital, physical are properly
instruments for the soul and spirit; when they work for themselves then
they produce ignorant and imperfect things—if they can be made into
conscious instruments of the psychic and the spirit, then they get their
own fulfilment—that is the idea contained in what we call transformation
in this Yoga.
July 13,1936
The woman of the photograph is certainly
genuine, that is to say she is sincere and her trances are genuine. The
Mother could follow her through the trance experience reflected in the
photograph and find that she went into a sort of static Sachidananda
consciousness, that is a broad release of peace and quietude, behind the
vital—for into this kind of state one can withdraw on almost any level,
in the physical conscious- ness, in the vital as well as in the higher
mental or overmental. Wherever entered into, it is, though rather
negative, yet a very happy state and it is probably the light of that
happiness that creates the radiance, they speak of. It is a withdrawn
and disinterested condition; one always wants to be in it and has no
wish for anything else. Hence her refusal to be bothered with disciples
and her frequent samadhi.
As for her question about her
bereavement do let me have at least a few lines which I will convey to
her. I don't relish the idea of philosophising about it when I am so far
from the attitude of a nirdvandva [equable] yogi. Even a sentence
or two from you will, I am sure, immensely help her, as you have both
the knowledge and the grace which make the blind see.
It is a very intricate and difficult
question to tackle and it can hardly be done in a few words. Moreover it
is impossible to give a general rule as to why there are these close
inner contacts followed by a physical separation through death— in each
case it differs and one would have to know the persons and be familiar
with their soul history to tell what was behind their meeting and
separation. In a general way, a life is only
Page - 137
one brief episode in a long history of
spiritual evolution in which the soul follows the curve of the line set
for the earth, passing through many lives to complete it. It is an
evolution out of material inconscience to consciousness and towards the
Divine Consciousness, from ignorance to divine Know- ledge, from
darkness through half-light to Light, from death to Immortality, from
suffering to the Divine Bliss. Suffering is due first to the Ignorance,
secondly to the separation of the individual consciousness from the
divine Consciousness and Being, a separation created by the
Ignorance—when that ceases, when one lives in the Divine and no more in
one's separated smaller self, then only suffering can altogether cease.
Each soul follows its own line and these lines meet, journey together
for a space, then part to meet again perhaps hereafter—often they meet
to help each other on the journey in one way or another. As for the
after-death period, the soul passes into other planes of existence,
staying there for a while till it reaches its place of rest where it
remains until it is ready for another terrestrial existence. This is the
general law, but for the connections of embodied soul with embodied soul
that is a matter of personal evolution of the two on which nothing
general can be said as it is intimate to the soul stories of the two and
needs a personal knowledge. That is all I can say, but I don't know that
it will be of much help to her as these things are helpful usually only
when one enters into the consciousness in which they become not mere
ideas but realities. Then one grieves no longer because one enters into
the Truth and the Truth brings calm and peace.
July 27,1936
Your letter this morning is beautiful
and written in such a soft humanistic tone almost! I am sure it will
help her. The other day you quite floored me by as good as saying that
when one wants the Divine all friendship, etc. is little better than
nonsense. I agreed though, as I don't really like terrestrial life and
evolution, still the only thing I rather like still in this darkish
world is friendship and affection and art and music and poetry. But as
all friendship, you pointed out, are stigmatised by some vital warmth or
other, well, I told myself (willingly), "Better be cold to all when it
is such a trouble and never a help, almost always a hindrance at worst a
downfall at best a tolerable thing." But in this letter you suggest
humans do help each other— their destinies meeting and re-meeting to
that end. Well, I like this attitude better as, alas, I have had too
many friends in my life and still have a soft corner in my heart even
for men like Dhurjati, the atheist and Subhash the patriot. However I am
babbling to no purpose. This is only to say that some part of my heart
was touched by your tone in this letter in contradistinction to that of
your other letter where you practically threw freezing water on the
fuels of all friendships as their psychic is so little [absurd].
Page - 139
Well, I was speaking in this answer not of
Yoga but of the process of human lives in previous stages of
development. In Yoga friendship can remain, but attachment has to fall
away or any such engrossing affection as would keep one tied to the
ordinary life and consciousness—human relations must take quite a small
and secondary place and not interfere with the turn to the Divine.
August 1936
(...) I quite agree about the
language. It is an exquisitely beautiful translation.
Yes, keep the literature valve
open. As to the 15th, well, it has its advantages, but also its
disadvantages. Among the latter is the afflux of people full of the
consciousness of the outside world—bringing an oppressive weight of
dullness and ordinariness into the atmosphere—also as the adverse forces
know that something is to be attempted at this period they become active
to stop it. Don't lay too much stress on the 15th which is after all
more a general than a personal occasion— for the individual any day in
the year may be the 15th—that is the birthday or a birthday of
something in the inner being. It is with that feeling that one should do
the sadhana.
August 1936
(...) I quite agree about the
language. It is an exquisitely beautiful translation.
Yes, keep the literature valve
open. As to the 15th, well, it has its advantages, but also its
disadvantages. Among the latter is the afflux of people full of the
consciousness of the outside world—bringing an oppressive weight of
dullness and ordinariness into the atmosphere—also as the adverse forces
know that something is to be attempted at this period they become active
to stop it. Don't lay too much stress on the 15th which is after all
more a general than a personal occasion— for the individual any day in
the year may be the 15th—that is the birthday or a birthday of
something in the inner being. It is with that feeling that one should do
the sadhana.
August 24, 1936
There is no reason to think that
the movement of strength and purity was a make-believe. No, it was a
real thing. But with these strong forward movements the vital enthusiasm
often comes in with a triumphant "Now it is finished", which is not
quite justified, for "Now it will be soon finished" would be nearer to
it. It is at these moments that the thrice-damned Censor comes in
with a jog, raises up a still shaky bit of the nature and produces a
result that is out of all proportion to the size of the little bit, just
to show that it is not finished. I have had any number of times that
experience myself. All this comes from the complexity and slowness of
our evolutionary nature which Yoga quickens but not as a whole at one
stroke. But in fact, as I said, these crises are out of all proportion
to their cause in the nature. One must therefore not be discouraged, but
see the exaggeration in the adversary's successful negation as well as
in the exaggeration in our own idea of a complete and definite victory
already there.
That too explains Puranmal's
condition. His experiences
Page - 147
are quite sound and have brought a
considerable part of his nature into the Light, but the physical and
nervous man (by nervous I mean vital-physical) was unrefined, hard and
obscure, indulging in grossnesses of many kinds. It is that part of him
which is still giving trouble because it is still not enough purified
and has acquired sensitiveness at the cost of a nervous excitement
caused by the crude elements not yet accepting to change.
Sahana is no longer working about the past
events (only seeking for the inner causes of her stumble), so I don't
write about them either. She is recovered a little, enough to think of
her taking to music again. We will see when she is quite all right.
Yes, that is the bother of these
attachments—the reason why the Yogis were so down on them—the Vedantists
especially with their insistence on the breaking of the heart-knots.
They must have known from their own difficulties in the matter.
I am pondering over what to say and not to
say about this spiritism—so many people find solace in it like Raihana.
And yet well, it is a damnably mixed sort of thing and not safe.
Tomorrow.
August 25,1936
(Re: Attachment between Raihana and the
Gujarati girl Saroj)
About spiritism, I think, I can say this
much for the present. It is quite possible for the dead or rather the
departed—for they are not dead—who are still in regions near the earth
to have communication with the living. Sometimes it happens
automatically, sometimes by an effort at communication on one side of
the curtain or the other. There is no impossibility of such communication by the means used by
the spiritists; usually, however, genuine communications or a contact
can only be with those who are yet in a world which is a sort of
idealised replica of the earth-consciousness in which the same
personality, ideas, memories persist that the person had here. But all
that pretends to be communications with departed souls is not
genuine—especially when it is done through a paid professional medium.
There is there an enormous amount of mixture of a very undesirable
kind—for apart from the great mass of unconscious suggestions from the
sitters or the contributions of the medium's subliminal consciousness,
one gets into contact with a world of beings which is of a very
deceptive or self-deceptive illusory nature. Many of these come and
claim to be the departed souls of relatives, acquaintances, well-known
men, famous personalities, etc. There are also beings who pick up the
discarded feelings and memories of the dead and masquerade with them.
There are a great number of beings who come to such séances only to play
with the consciousness of men or exercise their powers through this
contact with the earth and who dope the mediums and sitters with their
falsehoods, tricks and illusions. (I am supposing, of course, the case
of mediums who are not themselves tricksters.) A contact with such a
plane of spirits can be harmful (most mediums become nervously or
morally unbalanced) and spiritually dangerous. Of course, all pretended
communications with the famous dead of long-past times are in their very
nature deceptive and most of those with the recent ones also—that is
evident from the character of these communications. Through
conscientious mediums one may get sound results (in the matter of the
dead), but even these are very ignorant of the nature of the forces they
are handling and have no discrimination which can guard them against
trickery from the other side of the veil. Very little genuine knowledge
of the nature of the after-life can be gathered from these séances; a
true knowledge is more often gained by the experience of individuals who
make serious contact or are able in one way or another to cross the
border.
Page - 149
[When Mother said that it was not good to
try to meet the dead, she was speaking from a spiritual standpoint which
is not usually known or regarded by the spiritists.
I have written so much in answer to your
question (and V's), but I do not know that it would be right to let all
that go to R. Her experiences conducted by herself in person are
probably genuine and it would not be helpful to trouble her with all
these general considerations which would not be relevant to her own
case.]
I
went to the pier for a short walk. The Queen Mother ofDewas59
was there and pranamed me—almost sent her little son to me. I had
to speak to her. She was very nice and cordial. I had never seen her
before her Princesses told me. They were very vivacious. Said;
they were six brothers and
sisters. Talked as we were coming back just for a few minutes. Said they
didn't care for Pondicherry. Well. I felt very easy today however: I
suppose because I was inoculated by another Princess. But they were very
friendly all the same and spoke beautiful Hindi. They were Marathi they
said however. The Queen Mother has a gentle face but does not look a
mother of six children: she looks rather as the eldest sister. So that
is that.
Now adieu, I have to finish this article
quick to do
Page - 160
meditation. A little coffee has revived
me. I was a little tired at last this evening after long hours of work.
Trying to dedicate but still getting absorbed in work. Help me there
please. Or do I worry too much hereanent ? But then without offering the
work becomes undedicated, does it not? And such work can't help the
sadhana, can it? Hein ?
Absorption in work is inevitable. It is
enough to offer it when beginning and ending and to encourage the
attitude to grow= for You and by You.
October 18,1936
It is quite impossible for the descent of the Divine Grace to
produce nausea and nervousness and a general disturbance
like that—to think so is self-contradictory and foolish. Sometimes when one has pulled or strained, there is a headache or
sensation as if of headache or if one pulls down too much
force then there may be a giddiness, but one has only to
remain quiet and that sets itself right by an assimilation of
what has come down or otherwise. There is never any adverse
or troublesome after-consequence. What seems to have
happened is that Saurin's finding the Force he had called
down much more than what he was accustomed to, got
nervous and went from nervousness into a panic—with the
result of an upsetting of his stomach and circulation. If it is
not that then it must have been an attack of illness which he
associated with the descent, but the attack seems to be of a
nervous character. Probably if he had had the experience of
this increased descent sometime ago, he would not have been
frightened and nothing would have happened, but the madness
of Premshankar following on the death of Dahi Lakshmi65 has
created a panic and at the least thing each person thinks he
is going to go mad or die. As nothing upsets the organism
more than fear, they create by this general atmosphere of
panic danger, where there was none.
The idea that Premshankar was sent mad by a descent of
Divine Force is an absurdity and an irrational superstition.
People go mad because they have a physical predisposition
due either to heredity (as in the case of Premshankar and T.)
or to some kind of organic cause or secret illness, syphilis
gone to the head or colon bacillis similarly misdirected or
brain lesion or other material cause, the action being often
brought up by some psychological factor (ambition turning
to megalomania, hypochondria, melancholia, etc.) or on the
contrary itself bringing these to the surface. All that happens
in ordinary life and not only in Yoga; the same causes work
Page - 190
here. The one thing is that there may be an invasion of an
alien Force bringing about the upsetting, but it is not the
divine Force, it is a vital Force that invades. The Divine Force
cannot by its descent be the cause of madness any more than
it can be of apoplexy or any other physical illness. If there is
no predisposition, one may have all kinds of attacks from vital
or other forces or from one's own movements of the lower
nature, as violent as possible, but there will be no madness.
October 20,1936
(Padmaja, daughter of Sarojini Naidu, bore a tale to
Dilipda,
which troubled him no end, as it concerned
two of his great
friends: Subhash Bose and
Jawaharlal Nehru.)
I would certainly not hang anybody on the testimony of
Padmaja; she has too much of a delight in scandal-mongering
of the worst kind; but I suppose she would not cite Jawaharlal as a witness if
there were nothing in it. The question is : how much exaggeration ? I am afraid
it is not at all impossible that Subhash should say one thing to Jawaharlal and
quite another to somebody else. Politics is like that, a dirty and
corrupting business full of "policy", "strategy", "tactics",
"diplomacy", in other words, lying, tricking, manœuvring of
all kinds. A few escape the corruption but most don't. It has
after all always been a trade or art of Kautilya from the
beginning, and to touch it and not be corrupted is far from
easy. For it is a field in which people fix their eyes on the thing
to be achieved and soon become careless about the character
of the means, while ambition, ego and self-interest come
Pouring in to aid the process. Human nature is prone enough
to crookedness as it is, but here the ordinary restraints put
upon it fail to be at all effective. That however is general—in
Page - 191
a particular case one can't pronounce without knowing the
circumstances more at first hand or before having seen the
documents cited.
I hope this attack prolonged by so many outward circum-¦
stances heaping themselves on each other, will now pass.
As
you have got over the pressure of the vital longing and of the
will to doubt (though the doubt of yourself continues), I hope
that you will get over all the emotional weakness of over-
sensitiveness (don't misunderstand, I don't mean getting over
the emotions, for the emotional being is a necessity of the
Yoga) and be able to present a quiet front to the speech and
action and event that disturb it. The will to do so was growing
and where the will affirms itself, success in the end must
come. Then the fixing of the quiet mind will provide the ground
that is needed for peace and silence. It is the sensitiveness and
the self-doubt that come across now and bring the relapse
into despondency. If these can go, the way will become clear.
October 21, 1936
I pointed out last evening that the idea that
emotion was not allowed in this yoga, the idea you put forward for going away
was not and could not be true. But there are certain other notions connected
with it which come readily in your mind in periods of depression which are
equally unfounded. I lay stress on these as these suggestions are used by the
Force that wants to drive you away as its chief supports and reasons for
departure. There is for instance the notion that tears of bhakti are disapproved
of. It is strange that it should ever be supposed that tears of bhakti or true
emotion are discouraged by us: the Mother has always spoken appreciatively of
the feeling from which they come and never discouraged them. Tears of bhakti or
tears of a high or pure emotion are not looked down upon by us. We have always
spoken of psychic sorrow also as a thing to be respected, an emotion which is
helpful and true in its place. Why then should it be supposed that emotion is
discouraged and an empty heart is demanded of the spiritual seeker ? Then there
is the question of personal relations. But what personal relations of yours have
been discouraged ? Your friendships have always been respected: when you have
called your friends here, they have been allowed and encouraged. I have not
discouraged your friendship with Subhash or with Jawaharlal or with others. Your idea that I did not like your
Page - 193
friendship with Vidya or the Yuvaraj is a sheer imagination
for which I gave no cause. There are many friendships in the
Ashram between sadhaks and some are supported, with the
others there has been no interference. The only exception is
when a certain vital relation comes in which is of a character
inconsistent with the sadhana altogether. But there in your
case you yourself have recognised the necessity of the elimination of this element and it is with your full consent that you
have been helped and encouraged to eliminate/ but there has
been no impatience or hard inhuman insistence. What then
becomes of these grievances against the Yoga ? They have no
existence except in the suggestions by which the despondency
tries to support itself in periods of depression.
What I have spoken of as desirable to eliminate, is the over-
sensitiveness of feeling which brings the sadness and
depression, but it is because they come across and give you
unnecessary trouble and suffering. You yourself have spoken
of hyper-sensitiveness as a weakness you do not want and
would like to get rid of. My wish to help you out of that cannot
be regarded as an attack of the Yoga on your emotional being.
On the other hand to affirm that the fact that you have it is a
reason why you should not go on with the Yoga is not reason-
able either. It is something that is no essential part of your
vital being which has plenty of reserves of strength in it, but
a small tendency of a small part which has unduly magnified
itself owing to past struggles and comes up strongly in
periods of depression. When you have even an ordinary
quietude, you are master of it and with the affirmation of the
will to be free of it, it can and will go.
October 22,1936
"There is no love lost between me and the Mother,” said Saurin to me.
Well, you know Mother was not at all willing to have Saurin
back here and would have sent him away—only very reluctantly gave him a chance. But she did not believe in his entire
sincerity—in fact she saw in him something of hypocrisy which
repelled her. He knew very well what he was saying when he
spoke of the "no love lost". He was no doubt in earnest about
sadhana, but only in the sense of wanting to succeed and
being prepared to make some sacrifices for that—but on a
basis of ego. Yet he wrote that he was feeling Mother's
presence in him whenever he was having his experiences—
a thing she did not find very credible. How could it be if there
was "no love lost" etc. ? The disturbance that came was not
illness, Nirod could find no sign of illness anywhere. Fear of
madness ? He had it no doubt because of Premshankar's affair.
But in fact the fear was in the insincere part of his being, the
fear of the descent. Because the Force was something beyond
his personal control, because he felt that "something greater
than himself was there, it got terribly frightened. Mark that
except this fear and nervous upheaval, there was nothing in
the experience itself that was inconsistent with the experience
being in true descent of Force, nothing that others have not
had and had with joy and spiritual profit. But if he felt Mother's
presence so much, why this fear ? It was the fear of this
insincere part of him, partly in terror lest it might really be
seized by the Divine Force and made to change, partly lest its
insincerity and egoistic, ignorant self-sufficiency might have
pulled down a wrong Force which would upset his balance
altogether. All that was wrong within him was this fear and
its results in the nerves and body. As soon as he knew he
could go, this part at once threw its fear away and became
exultant and all the trouble ceased. It seems to me that all that
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is clear. Of course the fear if it had remained might have
produced anything, so strong it was; but up to the time of his
going there was no sign of any real illness or disturbance of
the brain—the body was sound, the brain clear. Of course,
too, there was a part that regretted to have to go, but this was
pushed behind by the part that gladly accepted the departure.
October 24,1936
It is a little difficult for the wider spiritual outlook to answer
your question in the way you want and every mental being
wants, with a trenchant "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not",
especially when the "thou" is meant to cover "all". For while
there is an identity of essential aim, while there are general
broad lines of endeavour, yet there is not in detail one common
set of rules in inner things that can apply to all seekers. You
ask: "Is such and such a thing harmful ?" But what is harmful
to one may be helpful to another; what is helpful at a certain
stage may cease to be helpful at another; what is harmful
under certain conditions is helpful under other conditions,
what is done in a certain spirit may be disastrous, the same
thing done in a quite different spirit would be innocuous or
even beneficial. I asked the Mother [?] what she would say
Page - 198
to your question about pleasures and social experiences (put
as a general question) and she answered, "Impossible to say
like that; it depends on the spirit in which it is done." So there
are so many things, the spirit, the circumstances, the person,
the need and cast of the nature, the stage. That is why it is
said so often that the Guru must deal with each disciple
according to his separate nature and accordingly guide his
sadhana; even if it is the same line of sadhana for all, yet at
every point for each it differs. That also is the reason why we
say the Divine's way cannot be understood by the mind,
because the mind acts according to hard and fast rules and
standards, while the spirit sees the truth of all and the truth
of each and acts variously according to its own comprehension
and complex vision. That also is why we say that no one can
understand by his personal mental judgment the Mother's
actions and reasons for action: it can only be understood by
entering into the larger consciousness from which she sees
things and acts upon them. That is baffling to the mind because
it loses its small measures, but it is the truth of the matter.
To come down to hard facts and it may make the doctrine
a little more comprehensible. You speak of retirement and
you say that if it is good why not impose it—you couple
together Anilbaran, Radhananda, Nolini, Jyoti, Kanai, Nolineshwar! Well, take that last name, Nolineshwar and add to
it Nolinbehari for he also "retired" and went headlong for an
intense and solitary sadhana. Anilbaran and Radhananda
profited by their seclusion, what happened to Nolineshwar
and Nolinbehari ? We forbade Nolinbehari to retire—he was
always wanting to give up work, withdraw from all intercourse
and spend all his time in meditation; but he did it as much as
he could—result, collapse. Nolineshwar never asked permission and I cannot say what his retirement was like; but I
hear he boasted that by his intense sadhana he had conquered
sex not only for himself but all the sadhaks! He had to leave
the Ashram owing to his unconquerable attachment to his
wife and child and he is there living the family life and has
Produced another child—what a success for retirement.
Where the retirement is helpful and fits the need or the
nature, we approve it, but in the face of these results how can
you expect us to follow what the mind calls a consistent
course and impose it as the right thing on everybody ? You
have spoken of your singing. You know well that we approve
of it and I have constantly stressed its necessity for you as
well as that of your poetry. But the Mother absolutely forbade
Harm's singing ? So music for some again she is indifferent
or discourages it, for others she approves as for Romen,
Chandra and others. For some time she encouraged the
concerts, afterwards she stopped them. You drew from the
prohibition to Harin and the stopping of the concerts that
Mother did not like music or did not like Indian music or
considered music bad for sadhana and all sorts of strange
mental reasons like that. Mother prohibited Harin because
while music was good for you, it was spiritually poison to
Harin—the moment he began to think of it and of audiences,
all the vulgarity and unspirituality of his nature rose to the
surface. You can see what he is doing with it now! So again
with the concerts though in a different way—she stopped
them because she had seen that wrong forces were coming
into their atmosphere, which had nothing to do with the
music in itself; her motives were not mental. It was for similar
reasons that she drew back from big public displays like
Udayshankar's. On the other hand she favoured and herself planned the exhibition
of paintings at the Town Hall. She was not eager for you to have your big
audiences for your singing because she found the atmosphere full of mixed forces
and found too you had afterwards usually a depression; but she has always
approved of your music in itself done privately or before a small audience. If
you consider them, you will see that here there is no mental rule, but in each
case the guidance is determined by spiritual reasons which are of a flexible
character and look only at what in each case are the spiritual conditions,
results, possibilities. There is no other consideration, no rule. Music, painting, poetry and many other activities
which are of the mind and vital can be used as part of spiritual
Page -200
development or of the work and for a spiritual purpose—"it
depends on the spirit in which they are done".
That being established—that these things depend on the
spirit, the nature of the person, its needs, the conditions and
circumstances. I will come to your special question about
pleasure and especially the pleasure in society of an expressive
vital nature.
October 25,1936
Well, I have said already that quarrels, cuttings are not a
part of sadhana; the clashes and friction that you speak of
are, just as in the outside world, rubbings of the vital ego.
Antagonisms, antipathies, dislikes, quarrellings can no more
be proclaimed as part of sadhana than sex-impulses or acts
can be part of sadhana. Harmony, goodwill, forbearance,
equanimity are necessary ideals in the relation of sadhak with
sadhak. One is not bound to mix, but if one keeps to oneself,
it should be for reasons of sadhana, not out of other motives—
moreover it should be without any sense of superiority or
contempt for others. The cases of friction you speak of seem
to me to arise from ordinary motives of discord and they are
certainly not the results of any spiritual Force working to heal
the dangers of social or vital attraction by the blessings (!) of
personal discord. If somebody finds that association with
another for any reason raises undesirable vital feelings in him
or her he can certainly withdraw from that association as a
matter of prudence until he or she gets over the weakness.
But ostentation of avoidance, public cuttings, etc. are not
included in the necessity and betray feelings that equally
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ought to be overcome. There is a great confusion of thought
about these things—for the vital gets in the way and disturbs
the right view of things. It is only what is done sincerely with
a sound spiritual motive that is proper to Yoga. The rest
cannot be claimed as the working of a spiritual force mysteriously advancing its ends by ways contrary to its own
nature.
November 10,1936
The idea that all sadhaks must be aloof from each other and
at daggers drawn is itself a preconceived idea that must be
abandoned. Harmony and not strife is the law of Yogic living.
This preconceived idea arises perhaps from the old notion of
Nirvana as the aim; but Nirvana is not the aim here. The aim
here is fulfilment of the Divine in life and for that, union and
solidarity are indispensable. [I find it difficult to see in the
mind's eye Sotuda developing an aversion for you and it
would not be easy for you to develop an aversion for Sotuda; so these nightmares of the vital imagination ought not to
emerge. Aversion and quarrelling are unyogic, not yogic
tendencies; the fact that this Ashram is full of quarrels only
shows that it is still an Ashram of very imperfect sadhaks, not yet an Ashram of
Yogis—it does not at all mean that aversion and quarrelling is the dharma of the
spiritual seeker.]69
The ideal of the Yoga is that all should be centred in and
around the Divine and the life of the sadhaks must be founded
on that firm foundation, their personal relations also should
have the Divine for their centre. Moreover, all relations
should pass from the vital to the spiritual basis with the vital
only as a form and instrument of the spiritual—this means
that from whatever relations they have with each other, all
jealousy, strife, hatred, aversion, rancour and other evil vital
feelings should be abandoned, they can be no part of the
spiritual life. So also all egoistic love and attachment will have
to disappear—the love that loves only for the ego's sake and
as soon as the ego is hurt and dissatisfied ceases to love or
even cherishes rancour and hate. There must be a real living
and lasting unity behind the love. It is understood of course
Page - 214
that such things as sexual impurity must disappear also.
That is the ideal, but as for the way of
attainment, it may differ for different people. One way is that in which
one
leaves everything else to follow the Divine alone. This does not mean an
aversion for anybody any more than it means aversion for the world and
life. It
only means absorption in one's central aim, with the idea that once that
is
attained it will be easy to found all relations on the true basis, to
become
truly united with others in the heart and the spirit and the life,
united in the
spiritual truth and in the Divine. The other way is to go forward from
where one
is, seeking the Divine centrally and subordinating all else to that, but
not
putting everything else aside, rather seeking to transform gradually and
progressively whatever is capable of such transformation. All the
things that are not wanted in the relation—sex impurity,
jealousy, anger, egoistic demand—drop away as the inner
being grows purer and is replaced by the unity of soul with
soul and the binding together of the social life in the hoop of
the Divine. [Your eagerness to bring your friends into the
Yoga was perhaps in reality due to a dim recognition some-
where in the being that this was the safest way to preserve
the relation, to found it on the common search for the Divine.
If quarrels intervene and there is strife, it is because the old
ego basis stuck still and brought in old reactions not of a
yogic character; but for that the Yoga is not to blame.]69
It is not that one cannot have relations with
people outside the circle of the sadhaks, but there too if the spiritual life
grows within, it must necessarily affect the relation and spiritualise it on the sadhak's side. And there must be no such
attachment as would make the relation an obstacle or a rival
to the Divine. Attachment to family etc. often is like that and,
if so, it falls away from the sadhak. That is an exigence which,
I think, should not be considered excessive. All that, however,
can be progressively done; a severing of existing relations is
necessary for some; it is not so for all. A transformation,
however gradual, is indispensable—severance where severance is the right thing to do.
Page - 215
P. S. I must repeat also that each case differs—one rule for
all is not practical or practicable. What is needed by each for
his spiritual progress is the one desideratum to be held in view.
November 11,1936
On the contrary, much progress has been made in the
change of the nature—only it seems to be covered over and
forgotten when there is the difficulty and the whole attention
is on the things unchanged and still to be changed so that
these seem alone to exist. The over-sensitiveness which
makes you suffer by the smallest things in the contact with
others is the present obstacle—it has to be changed into a
sensibility which will be the means of the deep and sensitive
realisation of the Divine. All parts of nature have a spiritual
use, once the change can be brought about. I hope the trouble
will now pass and you will be able to get back the poise.
These things are only dust-storms on the way and one must
try to pass quickly through. To see them for what they are and
not to dwell on the thought of them is best. Shake away the
dust and go forward.
December 16,1936
As for Krishna, why not approach simply and
straight ? The simple approach means trust. If you pray, trust that He hears. If
the reply takes long in coming, trust that he knows and loves and that he is
wisest in the choice of the time. Meanwhile quietly clear the ground, so that He
may not have to trip over stone and jungle when he comes. That is my suggestion
and I know what I am saying—for whatever you may say, I know very well all human
difficulties and struggles and I know of the cure. That is why I press always on
the things that would minimise and shorten the struggles and difficulties—the
psychic turn, faith, perfect and simple confidence and reliance. These, let me remind you, are tenets of
the Vaishnava yoga. Of course, there is the other Vaishnava
way which swings between yearning and despair—ardent
seeking and the pangs of viraha. It is that you seem to be
following and I do not deny that one can arrive by that as one
can by almost any way, if followed sincerely. But then those
who follow it find a rasa even in viraha, in the absence and
the caprice of the Divine Lover. Some of them have sung that
they have followed after Him all their lives but always he has
slipped away from their vision and even in that they find a
rasa and never cease following. But you find no rasa in it. So
you cannot expect me to approve of that for you. Follow after
Krishna by all means, but follow with the determination to
arrive: don't do it with the expectation of failure or admit any
possibility of breaking off half-way because there is as yet no
answer.
For I, for one, feel myself a veritable "underling" to have
to think, say, that it had been sidereally decided that Dilip
would read a book at midnight on the fifteenth of December
in the year of Grace, 1936, and would on the morrow
write to his Guru of his deep dejection whereupon the
latter would write off a deep reply the next day couched
in words of wisdom. And then tell me, did these stars
know what your Wisdom is going to write tomorrow ?
Page - 237
Your extracts taken by themselves are very impressive, but
when one reads the book, the impression made diminishes
and fades away. You have quoted Cheiro's successes, but
what about his failures ? I have looked at the book and was
rather staggered by the number of prophecies that have
failed to come off. You can't deduce from a small number of
predictions, however accurate, that all is predestined down
to your putting the questions in the letter and my answer. It
may be, but the evidence is not sufficient to prove it. What is
evident is that there is an element of the predictable, predictable
accurately and in detail as well as in large points, in the
course of events. But that was already known; it leaves the
question still unsolved whether all is so predictable, whether
destiny is the sole factor in existence or there are other factors
also that can modify destiny—or, destiny being given, there
are not different sources or powers or planes of destiny and
we can modify the one with which we started by calling in
another destiny source, power or plane and making it active
in our life. Metaphysical questions are not simple that they
can be trenchantly solved either in one sense or in another
contradictory to it—that is the popular way of settling things,
but it is quite summary and inconclusive. All is free-will or
else all is destiny—it is not so simple as that. This question of
free-will or determination is the most knotty of all metaphysical
questions and nobody has been able to solve it—for a good
reason, that both destiny and will exist and even a free-will
exists somewhere—the difficulty is only how to get at it and
make it effective.
Astrology ? Many astrological predictions come true, quite
a mass of them, if one takes all together. But it does not follow
that the stars rule our destiny; the stars merely record a
destiny that has been already formed, they are a hieroglyph,
not a Force—or if their action constitutes a force, it is a
transmitting energy, not an originating Power. Someone is
there who has determined or something is there which is
Fate, let us say; the stars are only indicators. The astrologers
themselves say that there are two forces, daiva and pumshartha,
Page - 238
fate and individual energy, and the individual energy can"
modify and even frustrate fate. Moreover, the stars often
indicate several fate-possibilities; for example that one may
die in mid-age, but that if that determination can be overcome,
one can live to a predictable old age. Finally, cases are seen
in which the predictions of the horoscope fulfil themselves
with great accuracy up to a certain age, then apply no more.
This often happens when the subject turns away from the
ordinary to the spiritual life. If the turn is very radical, the
cessation of predictability may be immediate; otherwise certain
results may still last on for a time, but there is no longer the
same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or
can be a higher power or higher plane or higher source of
spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the
lower-power, lower-plane or lower source of vital and material
fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because
character can also be indicated from the horoscope much
more completely and satisfactorily than the events of the life.
The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We
ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by
us binds
us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still
we are
creating new fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the
past in
the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not,
as European critics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising
fatalism. But again, our will and action can often annul or
modify even the past Karma, it is only certain strong effects,
called utkat karma [excessive or strong, powerful karma],
that are non-modifiable. Here too the achievement of the
spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give
the power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the
Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what
it had sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it
had created, the narrow fixed lines disappear, there is a more
plastic freedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology
therefore point to a rigid and for ever immutable fate.
As for prophecy, I have never met or known of a prophet,
Page - 239
'however reputed, who was infallible. Some of their predictions
come true to the letter, others do not—they half-fulfil or
misfire entirely. It does not follow that the power of prophecy
is unreal or the accurate predictions can be all explained by
probability, chance or coincidence. The nature and number
of those that cannot is too great. It may be explained either
by an imperfect power in the prophet sometimes active,
sometimes failing or by the fact that things are predictable in
part only, they are determined in part only or else by different
factors or lines of power, different series of potentials and
actuals. So long as one is in touch with one line, one predicts
accurately, otherwise not—or if the lines of power change,
one's prophecy also goes off the rails. All the same, one may
say, there must be, if things are predictable at all, some power
or plane through which or on which all is foreseeable; if
there is a divine Omniscience and Omnipotence, it must be
so. Even then what is foreseen has to be worked out, actually
is worked out by a play of forces—spiritual, mental, vital and
physical forces—and in that plane of forces there is no absolute
rigidity discoverable. Personal will or endeavour is one of
those forces. Napoleon when asked why he believed in Fate,
yet was always planning and acting, answered, "Because it
is fated that I should work and plan," in other words, his
planning and acting were part of Fate, contributed to the
results she had in view. Even if I foresee an adverse result, I
must work for the one that I consider should be; for it keeps
alive the force, the principle of Truth which I serve and gives
it a possibility to triumph hereafter, becomes part of the
working of a future favourable Fate, even if the fate of the
hour is adverse. Men do not abandon a cause because they
have seen it fail or foresee its failure; and they are spiritually
right in their stubborn perseverance. Moreover, we do not
live for outward result alone; far more, the object of life is the
growth of the soul, not outward success of the hour or even
of the near future. The soul can grow against or even by a
material destiny that is adverse.
Finally, even if all is determined, why say that Life is, in
Page - 240
Shakespeare's phrase or rather Macbeth's, "a tale told by an
idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" ? Life would
rather be that if it were all chance and random incertitude.
But if it is something foreseen, planned in every detail, does
it not rather mean that it does signify something, that there
must be a secret Purpose that is being worked up to, power-
fully, persistently, through the ages, and ourselves are a part
of it and fellow-workers in the fulfilment of that invincible
Purpose.
