August 16,
1932
Anyhow,
do not allow yourself to be overborne by the dejection; it can only be an
incident in the ups and downs of the sadhana, and, as an incident, it should be
made as short as possible. Remember that you have chosen a method of proceeding
in the sadhana in which dejection ought to have no place. If you have a growing
faith that all that is happening has somehow to happen and that God knows what
is best for you,—that is already a great thing; if you add to it the will to
keep your face always turned towards the goal and the confidence that you are
being led towards it even through difficulties and apparent denials, there
could be no better mental foundation for sadhana. And if not only the mind, but
the vital and physical consciousness can be imbued with this faith, dejection
will become either impossible or so evidently an outer thing thrown from
outside and not belonging to the consciousness that it will not be able to keep
its hold at all. A faith of that kind is a very helpful first step towards the
reversal of consciousness which makes one see the inner truth of things rather
than their outward phenomenal appearance.
As
for the causes of the dejection, there were causes partly general in the shape
of a resistance to a great descending force which was not personal to you at
all, and, so far as there was a response to it in you, it was not from your
conscious being, otherwise you would not have had it in this way, but from the
part in us which keeps things for a long time that have been suppressed or
rejected by the conscious will. It is the conscious will that matters, for it
is that [which] prevails in the end, the will of the Purusha and
not the more blind and obstinate parts of Prakriti. Keep the
conscious will all right and it will carry on to the goal,—just as the
resistance in universal Nature will yield in the end before the Divine Descent.
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All
this, however, has nothing to do with what the Mother wished to say in the
morning. What she told you was that you seemed to have a fixed notion about the
Divine, as of a
Page – 243
rather distant
Being somewhere whom you expect to give you an article called Ananda, and, when
there is some prospect of his giving it to you, you are on good terms with him,
but when he doesn't, you quarrel and revolt and call him names! And she said a
notion of the kind was in itself an obstacle, because it is rather far from the
Truth, in the way of realising the Divine. What is this Ananda that you seek, after all? The mind can
see in it nothing but a pleasant psychological condition,—but if it were only
that, it could not be the rapture which the bhaktas and the mystics find in it.
When the Ananda comes into you, it is the Divine who comes into you; just as
when the Peace flows into you, it is the Divine who is invading you, or when
you are flooded with Light, it is the flood of the Divine Himself that is
around you. Of course, the Divine is something much more; many other things
besides, and in them all a Presence, a Being, a Divine Person; for the Divine
is Krishna, is Shiva, is the Supreme Mother. But through the Ananda you can
perceive theānandamaya [all-blissful] Krishna; for the Ananda is
the subtle body and being of Krishna; through the Peace you can perceive
the śantimaya [all-peaceful] Shiva; in the Light, in the
delivering Knowledge, the Love, the fulfilling and uplifting Power you can meet
the presence of the Divine Mother. It
is this perception that makes the experiences of the bhaktas and mystics so
rapturous and enables them to pass more easily through the nights of anguish
and separation; when there is this soul-perception, it gives to even a little
or brief Ananda a force or value it could not otherwise have and the Ananda
itself gathers by it a growing power to stay, to return, to increase. This was
what the Mother meant when she said, "Don't ask the Divine to give you
Ananda, ask Him to give you Himself—signifying that in the Ananda and through
the Ananda it would be Himself that He would give you. There would then be no
cause to say, "\ don't know the Divine I have never felt
or met Him"; it would be a gate for other experiences and make it easier
to see the Divine in the material object, in the human form, in the body.
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October 22,
1932
Absence
of love and fellow-feeling is not necessary to the Divine nearness; on the
contrary, a sense of closeness and oneness with others is a part of the divine
consciousness
Page – 258
into which the
sadhak enters by nearness to the Divine and the feeling of oneness with the
Divine. An entire rejection of all relations is indeed the final aim of
the Mayavadin and in the ascetic Yoga an entire loss of all
relations of friendship and affection and attachment to the world and its
living beings would be regarded as a promising sign of advance towards
liberation, moksa; but even there, I think, a feeling of
oneness and unattached spiritual sympathy for all is at least a penultimate
stage, like the compassion of the Bud dhist, before the turning to Moksha or Nirvana. In
this Yoga the feeling of unity with others, love, universal joy and Ananda are
an essential part of the liberation and perfection which are the aim of the
sadhana.
On
the other hand, human society, human friendship, love, affection,
fellow-feeling are mostly and usually—not entirely or in all cases—founded on a
vital basis and are ego held at their centre. It is because of the pleasure of
being loved, the pleasure of enlarging the ego by contact and pen etration with
another, the exhilaration of the vital inter change which feeds their
personality that men usually love —and there are also other and still more
selfish motives that mix with this essential movement. There are of course
higher spiritual, psychic, mental, vital elements that come in or can come in;
but the whole thing is very mixed, even at its best. This is the reason why at
a certain stage with or without apparent reason the world and life and human
society and relations and philanthropy (which is as ego-ridden as the rest)
begin to pall. There is sometimes an ostensible reason—a disappointment of the
surface vital, the withdrawal of affection by others, the perception that those
loved or men generally are not what one thought them to be and a host of other
causes; but often the cause is a secret disappointment of some part of the
inner being, not translated or not well translated into the mind, because it
expected from these things something which they cannot give. It is the case
with many who turn or are pushed to the spiritual life. For some it takes the
form of a vairāgya [disgust] which drives them
Page – 259
towards ascetic
indifference and gives the urge towards Moksha. For us, what
we hold to be necessary is that the mixture should disappear and that the
consciousness should be established on a purer level (not only spiritual and
psychic but a purer and higher mental, vital, physical consciousness) in which
there is not this mixture. There one would feel the true Ananda of oneness and love and
sympathy and fellow ship, spiritual and self-existent in its basis but
expressing itself through the other parts of the nature. If that is to happen
there must obviously be a change; the old form of these movements must drop off
and leave room for a new and higher self to disclose its own way of expression
and realisation of itself and of the Divine through these things— that is the
inner truth of the matter.
I
take it therefore that the condition you describe is a period of transition and
change, negative in its beginning, as these movements often are at first, so as
to create a vacant space for the new positive to appear and live in it and fill
it. But the vital, not having a long continued or at all sufficient or complete
experience of what is to fill the vacancy, feels only the loss and regrets it
even while another part of the being, another part even of the vital, is ready
to let go what is disappearing and does not yearn to keep it. If it were not
for this movement of the vital, (which in your case has been very strong and
large and avid of life), the disappearance of these things would, at least
after the first sense of void, bring only a feeling of peace, relief and a
still expectation of greater things. What is intended in the first place to
fill the void was indicated in the peace and joy which came to you as the touch
of Shiva—naturally, this would not be all, but a beginning, a basis for a new
self, a new consciousness, an activity of a greater Nature; as I told you, it
is a deep spiritual calm and peace that is the only stable foundation for a
lasting Bhakti and Ananda. In that new consciousness there would be a new basis
for relations with others; for an ascetic dry ness or isolated loneliness
cannot be your spiritual destiny since it is not consonant with your svabhāva [essential
nature]
Page – 260
which is made
for joy, largeness, expansion, a comprehensive movement of the life-force.
Therefore do not be discouraged; wait upon the purifying movement of Shiva.
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November 22,
1932 2
I shall certainly do what I can to help you but it will be
easier if you do what the Mother asked you to do—to "efface all that"
from your mind instead of letting it return constantly upon it. It is no use
making [a serious?] obstacle out of a passing trifle. As for the rest, I do not
know that I can say anything new; I have tried to explain what was the
difficulty in your way, but my explanations do not amount to much; one
must see for oneself. You are right in praying to realise that difficulty, but
if you could realise it without being carried away by the movement of
depression, see it with calm and detachment, standing back from it,—it would be
easier for you to get out of it or at least prevent it from recurring
____________________
1. About your dream I think I have already
intimated that you could accept it as true. (Sri Aurobindo's note)
2. One side of the manuscript of this
letter is torn, leaving many words missing.
Page – 273
violently each time there is a movement towards experience.
But the despondency, the depression which takes hold of you and finds its own
justifications for lasting comes [?] of your realising with the necessary
calmness and detachment.
You know very well that I am not going to [send?] you
stinging letters or take your name off the list. On our side our relation with
you remains firm and you will always find from us an unwavering help and
affection. I expect you to throw off these black clouds and [pass?] quickly
into the sunlight. The road may be long and more difficult than you ever
expected, but there is no true reason for despair.
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'In
silence is wisdom"—it is in the inner silence of the mind that true
knowledge can come; for the ordinary activity of the mind only creates surface
ideas and representations which are not true knowledge. Speech is usually only
the expression of the superficial nature—therefore to throw oneself out too
much in such speech wastes the energy and prevents the inward listening which
brings the word of true knowledge.
"In
listening you will win what you are thinking of means probably that in silence
will come the true thought-formations
Page – 275
which can
effectuate or realise themselves. Thought can be a force which realises itself,
but the ordinary surface think ing is not of that kind, there is in it more
waste of energy than in anything else. It is in the thought that comes in a
quiet or silent mind that there is power.
'Talk
less and gain power" has essentially the same meaning. Not only a truer
knowledge, but a greater power comes to one in the quietude and silence of a
mind that, instead of bubbling on the surface, can go into its own depths and
listen for what comes from a higher consciousness.
It
is probably this that is meant—these are things known to all who have some
experience of Yoga.
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As to Putu's1 collapse,
I did not intend to say anything about it just now,—for mental discussion of
causes and con sequences is not of much help at this juncture. I must say
however that it is not the push for union with the Divine nor is it the Divine
Force that leads to madness—it is the way in which people themselves act with
regard to their claim for these things. To be more precise, I have never known
a case of collapse in Yoga—as opposed to mere difficulty or negative failure,—a
case of dramatic disaster in which there was not one of three causes—or more
than one of the three at work. First, some sexual aberration—I am not speaking
of mere sexuality which can be very strong in the nature with out leading to
collapse—or an attempt to sexualise spiritual experience on an animal or gross
material basis; second, an exaggerated ambition, pride or vanity trying to
seize on spiritual force or experience and turn it to one's own
glorification—ending in megalomania; third, an unbalanced vital and a weak
nervous system apt to follow its own imaginations and unruled impulses without
any true mental will or strong mental will to steady or restrain it, and so at
the 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. All the causes of collapse in this Ashram2 have been
due to these three causes—to the first two mostly. Only three or four of them
have ended in madness—and in these the sexual aberration was invariably
____________________
1. A Bengali
sadhika, Anilbaran's relative.
2. "In this
Ashram" was omitted from the excerpt from this letter that was published
in Letters on Yoga (24:1766).
Page
– 277
present; usually a violent fall
from the Way is the consequence. Putu's is no exception to the rule. It is not
because she pushed for union with the Divine that she went mad, but because she
misused what came down for a mystic sexuality and the satisfaction of
megalomaniac pride, in spite of my repeated and insistent warnings. For the moment
that is all the light I can give on the matter—naturally I generalise and avoid
details.
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Necessarily I have mentioned only
salient facts, leaving out all mere details. As for an estimate of myself I
have given none. In my view, a man's value does not depend on what he learns or
his position or fame or what he does, but on what he is and inwardly becomes,
and of that I have said nothing. I do not want to alter what I have written. If
you like you can put a note of your own to the "occidental education"
stating that it included Greek and Latin and two or three modern languages, but
I do not myself see the necessity of it or the importance.
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January 5,
1933
I
cannot say that I follow very well the logic of your doubts. How does a
brilliant scholar being clapped into prison invalidate the hope of the Yoga?
There are many dismal spectacles in the world, but that is after all the very
reason why Yoga has to be done. If the world were all happy and beautiful and
ideal, who would want to change it or find it necessary to bring down a higher
consciousness into the earthly Mind and Matter? Your other argument is that the
work of the Yoga itself is difficult, not easy, not a happy canter to the goal.
Of course it is, because the world and human nature are what they are. I never
said it was easy or that there were not obstinate difficulties in the way of
the endeavour. Again, I do not understand your point about raising up a new
race by my going on writing trivial letters. Of course not—nor by writing
important letters either; even if I were to spend my time writing fine poems it
would not build up a new race. Each activity is important in its own place—an
electron or a molecule or a grain may be small things in themselves, but in
their place they are indispensable to the building up of a world,—it cannot be
made up only of mountains and sunsets and streamings of the aurora
borealis,—though these have their place there. All depends on the force behind
these things and the purpose in their action—and that is known to the Cosmic
Spirit which is at work,—and it works, I may add, not by the mind or according
to human standards but by a greater consciousness which, starting from an
electron, can build up a world and, using "a tangle of ganglia," can
make them the base here for the works of the Mind and Spirit in Matter, produce
a Ramakrishna, or a Napoleon, or a Shakespeare. Is the life of a great poet
either made up only of magnificent and important things? How many
"trivial" things had to be dealt with and done before there could be
produced a "King Lear" or a "Hamlet"? Again, according to
your own reasoning, would
Page – 295
not people be justified in
mocking at your pother—so they would call it, I do not—about metre and scansion
and how many ways a syllable can be read? Why, they might say, is Dilip Roy
wasting his time in trivial prosaic things like this when he might have been
spending it in producing a beautiful lyric or fine music? But the worker knows
and respects the material with which he must work and he knows why he is busy
with "trifles" and small details and what is their place in the
fullness of his labour.
As
for, faith, you write as if I never had a doubt or any difficulty. I have had
worse than any human mind can think of. It is not because I have ignored
difficulties, but because I have seen them more clearly, experienced them on a
larger scale than anyone living now or before me that, having faced and
measured them, I am sure of the results of my work. But even if I still saw the
chance that it might come to nothing (which is impossible), I would go on
unperturbed, because I would still have done to the best of my power the work
that I had to do and what is so done always counts in the economy of the
universe. But why should I feel that all this may come to nothing when I see each
step and where it is leading and every week, every day—once it was every year
and month and hereafter it will be every day and hour —brings me so much nearer
to my goal? In the way that one treads with the greater Light above, even every
difficulty gives its help and has its value and Night itself carries in it the
burden of the Light that has to be.
As
for your own case, it comes to this that experiences come and stop, there are
constant ups and downs, in times of recoil and depression no advance at all
seems to have been made, there is as yet no certitude. So it was with me also,
so it is with everyone, not with you alone. The way to the heights is always
like that up to a certain point, but the ups and downs, the difficulties and
obstacles are no proof that it is a chimera to aspire to the
summits.
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April 29, 1933
It is very good news. The peace settling into the system and
with it a happy activity—that is the basis for your Yoga which I always wanted
you to have—a sunny condition in which what has to come in will come in and
expand like a bud into flower and what has to fall off will fall off in its
time like a slough discarded.
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May 1933?
It
is true that the removal of the sex-impulse in all its forms and, generally, of
the vital woman-complex is a great liberation which opens up to the Divine
considerable regions of the being which otherwise tend to remain shut up. These
things are a degradation of the source in the being from which bhakti, divine
love and adoration arise. But the complex has deep roots in human nature and one
must not be disappointed if it takes time to pull them up. A resolute
detachment rejecting them as foreign elements, refusing to accept any inner
association with them as well as outer indulgence even of the slightest kind is
the best way to wear out their hold upon the nature.
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May 1933 ?
The crystallising of the concentration is a good sign. As a
matter of fact all these things depend upon perseverance. With a long
perseverance a little result comes, with more perseverance a bigger result
comes, then with a little more perseverance the big result comes. Concentration
or even the effort at concentration is like a constant pressure which wears away
the obstacle until, before one well knows, one finds it breaking or broken.
I know very well these pressures of a mental Power or
creative formation to express itself and be fulfilled. When it presses like
that there is nothing to do but to let it have way, so as to leave the mind
unoccupied and clear; otherwise it will be pushed two ways and not in the
condition of ease and clearness necessary for concentration.
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May 16, 1933
I
have no time to write a long letter. I can write only this. You are not to
leave Pondicherry by this morning's train or at all. You have to come and see
the Mother at 9.30 and speak to her heart to heart. Both the Mother and myself
_________________
1. Barin Ghose, Sri Aurobindo's younger brother.
Page – 338
have lavished
much love and care on you and you are certainly not going to make a return like
this—it is impossible. Do not believe all you hear or allow yourself to be
driven off your balance by falsehoods of the kind that have been retailed to
you. You do not belong to yourself and have not the right to do what you
propose to do: you belong to the Divine and to myself and the Mother. I have
cherished you like a friend and a son and have poured on you my force to
develop your powers—until the time should come for you to make an equal
development in the Yoga. I claim the right to keep you as our own here with us.
Throw away this despair—rise above the provocations of others—turn back to the
Mother.
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September 7,
1933
(from Mother)
Why
didn't you come yourself with the money? I would have seen you for a few
minutes and told you something interesting and helpful as an answer to your
letter of this morning. For in speaking it would have been better than anything
I could write. At pranam time I felt that you were still depressed and I
thought that I would try to pour on you some of the Divine forces. I was
looking at you for such a long time and it was Divine love that I was pouring
on you with a strong will that you should become conscious of the Divine
Presence in you and see all your sorrows turn into Ananda. I saw to my great
joy that you were very receptive to all these Divine forces and absorbing them
without resistance as they were pouring down! When I read your letter and saw
that you thought you had received only some human
Page – 357
kindness it
struck me that it was only a misunderstanding of the mind, almost a question of
vocabulary that was standing in the way, and if you could see this all or most
of your doubts would disappear for ever and with them your painful
difficulties. For what I was pouring in you was not merely human
kindness—though surely it contained all that human kindness can be at its
best—but Mahalakshmi's love, Mahasaraswati's care, Maheswari's embracing and
enveloping light. Do not think of Divine Love as something cold or impersonal
or distantly high—it is something as warm and close and tender as any feeling
can possibly be. It does not abolish whatever is pure and sweet in human love,
but intensifies and sublimates it to its highest. It is this love that the
Divine has to give and that you must open yourself to receive. I think if you
realise this, it will be easier for you to pierce through the mental veil and
receive what you are longing to receive.
