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Helpers on the Way
Sadhana through the Mother and Sri Aurobindo
These are questions that I cannot answer —it is not for me to reply to such queries.1 I can only say that the final aim of the Yoga here is to bring down the supramental Truth (all other aims and stages being preliminary and instrumental) and organise its action. The Asram proceeds on the assumption that this has to be done through myself and the Mother and in accepting this aim and the descent of this Truth the sadhaks accept myself and the Mother and must be guided by us and receive from us what is descending and cannot attain it otherwise. If they follow or want some other Truth, they are free to do so but they cannot do it here, because here they will not succeed, as it is not the end for which the Divine Force is working here. And it has been found that if they reject the Power that comes from us to follow something which is not that, it leads them out of this way and they cannot profit by our presence or by the Yoga or form a harmonious unit in the work that is to be done here. That is all I am prepared to say in this matter. 30 December 1932
This morning when I saw the Mother I got some contact with her consciousness. I was very impressed by her saying that she thought I am sincerely doing sadhana and by her giving me the flower called Supramental Future. Both these things gave me hope, especially the latter, for I have been wondering whether I would realise up to the supramental consciousness. These days many forces have been pulling me in different directions; in this way I don’t arrive at the Truth or at the organisation of my being. Now and then I get experiences,
1 The questions Sri Aurobindo was asked are not available. —Ed.
Page – 98 but I also get confusion and nothing is settled. Sometimes the very law of life seems to be fight and disagreement. Today I felt a quiet peace in the vital and the Mother’s consciousness. For a long time I remained quiet after seeing the Mother. I am getting many experiences, but the consciousness gets diverted by suggestions and by activity. 1. A quiet mind makes consciousness easier. 2. If you keep a quiet mind and a constant contact with myself and the Mother and the true Light and Force, then things will become easy and straight —it is the only way to get to the realisation. 3. It is a mistake to think that this method will not lead you to the supramental realisation. It is the only way to advance towards the supramental change. 4. It is because you become doubtful and begin to follow after other ways and other (lower) experiences that you get again confused and full of incertitudes. 5. Keep to one way, the way shown to you by me. It is by following this way that you can reach the wideness you want —if you run about on many ways, that will bring not wideness but confusion. 6. Here in the lower nature there are many things, but they are in a state of disharmony, so to follow them all together means disharmony, confusion, want of organisation, fight. In the higher (supramental) nature there is a greater wideness and much more is there than in the lower nature; but all is harmony, organisation, peace. Follow therefore the one way that leads to the higher supramental nature. 7. Do not be impatient, because full knowledge does not come to you at once. In quietude of mind keep the contact, let the true Light and Force work and with time all knowledge will come and the Truth will grow in you. 2 February 1932 Taking Refuge in Their Protection
You may be sure that we shall not desert you and that we would never dream of doing so. You say truly that what drives you
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into these moods is the Asuric Maya or a goad from the Asura —it is what we speak of as the hostile Force. What answers to it is a part of the human vital that has an attraction or habit of response to suffering, self —torment, depression and despair. But in itself what comes is from outside and not from within you. It is, as I have more than once told you, a formation that has been made and repeats itself and this is shown by the fact that once it starts it goes round always in the same course of ideas, suggestions and feelings. The first thing you have to do is to recognise it for what it is. It was not, for instance, “all your nature” that advised you not to write to the Mother, but it was the suggestion of this Force. If you recognise these things as suggestions —and of a Force adverse to you and your sadhana —it is easier to meet and answer than if you see it as something in yourself. The second thing is to take refuge in your better and higher self against that vital part which responds to these suggestions. You must not regard this part as all your nature, but only a part of your vital which has taken an exaggerated prominence. Even in the vital the larger part by far was that which had high ambitions, generous feelings, a large —heartedness which everybody was obliged to recognise. That is what you must regard as your real self and you must believe that the Divine has a use for that and for the faculties that have been given you —believe not in a rajasic or egoistic spirit but in the spirit of the instrument called and chosen to purify itself and be fit for its work and service —and because of that you have no right to throw it or yourself away, but have to persevere quietly till you are rid of the lower nature and the Asuric Maya. And, last but not least, you have to develop the power and the habit of taking refuge in the protection of the Mother and myself. It is for this reason that the habit of criticising and judging by the outer mind or cherishing its preconceived ideas and formations must disappear. You should repeat always to yourself when it tries to rise, "Sri Aurobindo and the Mother know better than myself —they have the experience and knowledge which I have not —they must surely be acting for the best and in a greater light than that of ordinary human knowledge." If you can fix that idea in
Page – 100 yourself so that it will remain even in clouded moments, you will be able to face much more easily the suggestions of the Asuric Maya. The idea of suicide is always a sign of these Asuric formations. Like all the rest it is perfectly irrational —for the suicide after death goes through a hell of misery far worse than was possible in life and when he is reborn he has to face the same problems and difficulties he fled from, but in an acuter form and in much less favourable circumstances. The other justifying suggestions were equally irrational and untrue. Wherever you went, the blow would always fall on ourselves and the Asram, for you are and would remain too intimately identified with us for it to be otherwise and distance would make no difference. And certainly the verse in the Gita does not cover a case of suicide, but refers to the consciousness and concentration of the Yogi in his departure. 18 October 1934 Their Attitude towards the Sadhaks
You need not think that anything can alter our attitude towards you. That which is extended to you is not a vital human love which can be altered by external things: it remains and persistently we shall try to help and lift you up and lead you towards the Light where in the union of soul and heart you will recognise the Friend and the Mother.
*
I was overjoyed to read your letter —first because it relieved me from the anxiety which your persistent trouble had given and, most, because of the clarity of consciousness which has liberated you. Yes, that was the main difficulty —that and the clinging to wrong ideas which it has created. You should never doubt about the reality and sincerity of our feeling towards you, mine and the Mother’s —for it creates a veil and separates, where there should be no separation, and it is a first barrier against that openness which is necessary if one is to receive fully or even at all from the Guru. Of course, I saw that something had blinded you and
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was keeping you unconscious of the source of the trouble, but there was needed a certain clarity of the soul to remove it. Now that it has come, I trust that it will keep the mind clear and free the ways of the spirit.
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When these moods come upon you, why do you run away from the Mother and avoid her? Why do you not come to her, tell her frankly what you feel and what is in your mind and let her take the trouble from you? The reasons you give for wishing to leave us are no good reasons at all. If you want to see the richness and greatness of God, you will, if you wait, see more of it with us than you ever can outside. And if you want to see the Himalayas, it will be much better for you to see them hereafter with your Mother beside you. You are quite mistaken when you say that if you will go, there will be no Devil left in the Asram. The Devil is not here because of you; he is here because he wants to give trouble to the Mother and spoil her work. And what he chiefly wants is to drive her children away from her, and especially those who like you are nearest to her. If you go, he will remain; and not only he will remain, but he will feel that he has won a great victory and will set himself with a double vigour to attack her through others. You talk of not giving trouble to the Mother and to me; but do you not realise that nothing can be worse trouble to us than your going away? The moods of revolt that come upon you are clouds that pass; but to see you leave us in this way and feel our love rejected and your place near us empty would be indeed a real trouble to us and we would feel it more deeply than anything else you could do. You know that it is not true that your sole desire is to go away. It is only so when you are in these moods. And you know that these are moods that pass, and if you allow the Mother to take them away, they go at once. The trouble is that when they come, you take them too much to heart and you begin to
Page – 102 think that there is nothing else to do but go away. I assure you that that is no solution and that we would much rather have you with us even with these moods than be separated from you; compared with our love for you, the trouble they give us is mere dust in the balance. Read this letter, talk with the Mother and act according to your true self; never mind the rest. 7 March 1930
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I hope you have been able to recover or have begun to recover from the mass of suggestions that fell upon you with regard to the Mother’s relations with you and her feeling towards you which have not varied from a constant loving kindness, affection and good will. Especially since the time you returned from Bengal her appreciation of the good work you have done for us there has been constant and never varied for a moment. The suggestions that fell upon you were certainly the result of a passing despondency and nervous upset: there was nothing on our side, no coldness, no displeasure, no indifference and, had these or any similar feelings been there —and there never was any reason for her feeling them —she could not have and had no wish to manifest anything of the kind either by gesture or otherwise. These were the suggestions of an adverse force which wanted to push you away from her and create a distance between her and you so that you might be discouraged in your sadhana and, if possible, induced to go away from us. It is impossible that we should ever accept the idea of your leaving us and unthinkable that we should ever admit any sunderance between us. This attack upon you, the depression and nervous upset and all these suggestions were part of a general attack which has been raging against us from adverse forces for some time past, but I hope that the worst of it is over for you and that you will be able to go on untroubled in your sadhana. It is needless then to insist that she never thought of you as excluded from her Light which is also mine; that Light will be with you and will, I hope, help to light you on your path towards the realisation you long for. 4 April 1950
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Faithfulness to the Light and the Call
When I spoke of being faithful to the light of the soul and the divine Call, I was not referring to anything in the past or to any lapse on your part. I was simply suggesting the great need in all crises and attacks, —to refuse to listen to any suggestions, impulses, lures and to oppose to them all the call of the Truth, the imperative beckoning of the Light. In all doubt and depression, to say “I belong to the Divine, I cannot fail”; to all suggestions of impurity and unfitness, to reply “I am a child of Immortality chosen by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother; I have but to be true to myself and to them —the victory is sure; even if I fell, I would be sure to rise again”; to all impulsions to depart and serve some other ideal, to reply “This is the greatest, this is the Truth, this alone can satisfy the soul within me; I will endure through all tests and tribulations to the very end of the divine journey.” This is what I mean by faithfulness to the Light and the Call. 31 March 1930 Openness to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo
Is it the same whether we write to Sri Aurobindo or to the Mother? Some say that both are one, so whether we write to Sri Aurobindo or to the Mother we are open to the Mother. Is this correct? It is true that we are one, but there is also a relation, which necessitates that one should be open to the Mother. Can it happen that one who is open to Sri Aurobindo is not open to the Mother? Is it that whoever is open to the Mother is open to Sri Aurobindo? The Mother proposition is true. If one is open to Sri Aurobindo and not to the Mother it means that one is not really open to Sri Aurobindo. Very often Sri Aurobindo says one should allow the Mother’s
Page – 104 force to govern. Does it mean that there is a difference between the two forces? There is one force only, the Mother’s force —or, if you like to put it like that, the Mother is Sri Aurobindo’s Force.
*
Somebody told me: “When I came here, Sri Aurobindo never used to teach us anything about the Yoga. He told us to follow our own knowledge.” Is this so? I am not aware of that. But now also the Mother does not teach, she asks all to open and receive. But she does not tell them and I don’t think I told people to follow their own “knowledge”. 26 April 1933
It is quite sure that we are with you day and night; even if you do not yet see the Mother in your dreams or feel her presence, you should think of her as there and supporting you and that will surely help you. If there is a natural movement of your mind to identify Shiva in the way you speak of and it jumps to myself and the Mother, why not let it take the jump? Perhaps it is not a jump but a natural transition, and reconciliation and not a conflict. Certainly, your pranams are always accepted by us and always will be.
*
Our presence, force, peace, love are always with you. That is a thing you must realise and learn to keep the consciousness of it. If you do that, all the rest is of minor importance (your difficulties, the old nature etc.) and will be set right in due time.
Calling the Mother and Sri Aurobindo
While aspiring towards the Mother and repeating her name, your name comes in as well. Strange!
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You must always aspire towards the Mother, because hers is the force which can alone give you the true realisation of the Divine. If your mind wants to do otherwise, you must control it. Any separation made by it between the Mother and myself (like substituting my name for hers) must be discouraged —because when that happens, errors may creep into the inner experience.
*
When I aspire to feel Mother with me and call “Mother, Mother”, something in me calls “Lord, Lord” and I feel him near me! What is this you are doing, Lord? Probably I come to work in you so that it may become easier for you to feel the Mother with you always.
There are no conditions for receiving the influence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother2 except faith, an entire sincerity in following the spiritual path and a will and capacity to open oneself to the influence; but this capacity usually comes as the result of sincerity and faith. It is quite possible to follow the Yoga while remaining outside the Asram. There are many both in Northern and Southern India who do it. You can submit your doubts for elucidation to Sri Aurobindo, if brief answers are sufficient, as he has little time. If longer and more detailed answers are necessary, it could only be done through one of his disciples. 28 October 1934
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We are doubtful about the advisability of your coming here the next winter. Your illness and the fact that you suffer from the heat stand in the way, for in Southern India the heat is extreme. The sudden change of climate and ways of life may be hard to
2 Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the correspondent. —Ed.
Page – 106 bear. Moreover there will not be truly competent medical aid and advice available here as it would be in America. Finally, you do not know perhaps that I am living for the present in an entire retirement, not seeing or speaking with anyone, even the disciples in the Asram, only coming out to give a silent blessing three times in a year. The Mother also has not time to give free or frequent access to those who are here. You would therefore probably be disappointed if you came here with the idea of a personal contact with us to help you in your spiritual endeavour. The personal touch is there but it is more of an inward closeness with only a few points of physical contact to support it. But this inner contact, inner help can very well be received at a distance. We have not any disciples in America, though several Americans have come recently here and became interested in the Yoga. But we have disciples in France and some of these have been able already to establish an inner closeness with us and to become aware of our nearness and help in their spiritual endeavour and experience. We would advise you therefore to try this way where you are rather than face the difficulty and inconveniences of a journey and stay here which, if necessary, could be undertaken with more advantage after you have gone some way on the path rather than at present. 9 September 1936
If you want the plain and simple truth, the plain truth is this that you have entered into a complete falsehood and have put yourself into the hands of a hostile Influence that lives by confusion and ignorance. You began by setting your own imperfect thinking power against a superior Truth and Knowledge. And by false and fantastic reasonings you have so clouded your mind that it has become entirely muddled and confused and incapable of understanding the plainest distinctions or discriminating between falsehood and Truth. This is evident in all you are saying and doing; it is not Truth and religion, but the false and inadequate ideas of your own confused and weakened mind that you are trying to force upon others.
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The letter you wrote to me shows a surprising inability to understand the plainest distinctions and the simplest truths. The one who was an instrument for giving birth to the physical body of X was no doubt in her lifetime his material mother. But the relation which exists between the Mother here and X (and between the Mother and all who accept her), is a psychic and spiritual motherhood. It is a far greater relation than that of the physical mother to her child; it gives all that human motherhood can give, but in a much higher way, and it contains in itself infinitely more. It can therefore, because it is greater and more complete, take altogether the room of the physical relation and replace it both in the inward and the outward life. There is nothing here that can confuse anyone who has common sense and a straightforward intelligence. The physical fact cannot in the least stand in the way of the greater psychic and spiritual truth or prevent it from being true. X is perfectly right when he says that this is his true mother; for she has given him a new birth in an inner life and is creating him anew for a diviner existence. The idea of spiritual Motherhood is not an invention of this Asram; it is an eternal truth which has been recognised for ages past both in Europe and in Asia. The distinction I have drawn between the physical relation and the psychic and spiritual relation is also not a new invention; it is an idea known and understood everywhere and found to be perfectly plain and simple by all. It is the present confused state of your own mind which prevents you from understanding what men have found natural and intelligible everywhere. As for X and Y, you have no claim over them and no right to control their thoughts and actions. X is of an age to choose and decide; he can think and act for himself and has no need of you to think and act for him. You are not his guardian nor Y‘s; you are not even the head of the family. On what ground do you claim to decide where he shall go or where he shall stay? Your pretension to have the responsibility for him or her before God is an arrogant and grotesque absurdity. Each one is responsible for himself before God unless he freely chooses to place the responsibility upon another in whom he trusts. No one has the
Page – 108 right to impose himself as a religious or spiritual guide on others against their free will. You have no claim at all to dictate to X or Y either in their inner or their outer life. It is again the confusion and incoherence of your mind in its present state that prevents you from recognising these plain and simple facts. Again, you say that you ask only for the Truth and yet you speak like a narrow and ignorant fanatic who refuses to believe in anything but the religion in which he was born. All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion. The Divine Being is eternal and universal and infinite and cannot be the sole property of the Mussulmans or of the Semitic religions only, —those that happened to be in a line from the Bible and to have Jewish or Arabian prophets for their founders. Hindus and Confucians and Taoists and all others have as much right to enter into relation with God and find the Truth in their own way. All religions have some truth in them, but none has the whole truth; all are created in time and finally decline and perish. Mahomed himself never pretended that the Koran was the last message of God and there would be no other. God and Truth outlast these religions and manifest themselves anew in whatever way or form the Divine Wisdom chooses. You cannot shut up God in the limitations of your own narrow brain or dictate to the Divine Power and Consciousness how or where or through whom it shall manifest; you cannot put up your puny barriers against the divine Omnipotence. These again are simple truths which are now being recognised all over the world; only the childish in mind or those who vegetate in some formula of the past deny them. You have insisted on my writing and asked for the Truth and I have answered. But if you want to be a Mussulman, no one prevents you. If the Truth I bring is too great for you to understand or to bear, you are free to go and live in a half —truth or in your own ignorance. I am not here to convert anyone; I do not preach to the world to come to me and I call no one. I am here to establish the divine life and the divine Consciousness in
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those who of themselves feel the call to come to me and cleave to it and in no others. I am not asking you and the Mother is not asking you to accept us. You can go any day to Hyderabad and live either the worldly life or a religious life according to your own preference. But as you are free so also are others free to stay here and follow their own way. You are not entitled to try to make yourself a centre of disturbance and an obstacle to their peace and their spiritual progress. In answering you I am answering the ideas which have been put in you by the Power of darkness and ignorance that is just now using you for its own purpose. This Power is very obviously not the divine Power. It is a Power of Falsehood that is making you do and say extravagant things which are not Islamic but a caricature of Islamic faith and action; its intention is to make not only Islam but all spirituality and religion ridiculous through you. It hopes to disturb the divine work upon earth, even if it can only do it a little. It is trying to spoil your brain and destroy your intelligence, to make you say and do foolish and extravagant things and turn you into an object of sorrow and pity for your friends and well —wishers and a laughing —stock to others. If you have any respect for yourself or for God or religion, if you truly hope for the Truth and Light, if you wish for the awakening and salvation of your soul, you must stop speaking and doing these extravagant things and you must throw away the Influence that is now driving you. 23 October 1929
*
Your remark of yesterday, “There is no quarrel on the Mother’s part, the quarrel is with me”, intrigues me. The basis of my quarrel with the Mother is that I do not feel her, so we have no dealings with each other. Whereas you are always with me, so how can there be any quarrel with you? I recognise, of course, my arrogance, egoism and pride in this matter. If you listen to the inspirations of the Asura against the Mother that brings a quarrel with me —just as if you did anything against me, it will land you in a quarrel with her. It is precisely
Page – 110 this arrogance, egoism and pride that make it difficult for you to feel the Mother. 11 April 1933
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If all that you write against us is correct, there is only one logical conclusion possible that the Mother and myself are a queer combination of impotent imbecile and selfish mean —minded oppressive Asura. Perhaps we are, though I am not yet persuaded to recognise myself or the Mother in the picture. But why do you want to be docile and devoted to such people? The other conclusion to be gathered from your remarks is that our life work is likely to be and is indeed already a failure because of our insincerity and tyrannical meanness and our leniency and love for the insincere and oppression of the sincere and our unspiritual conduct in all ways. It may be so. I have tried to offer what I felt to be the Light and the Truth to the Earth and her children —if the Earth and her children do not want it or if my Truth is falsehood and my Light is Darkness and Evil in the eyes of men —well, be it so. If there is nothing to be done on earth, the Mother and I can always return into our own Self and see the thing better done by others. 24 April 1933
These doctrines still sound strange to me. I should also be very glad to know of the swift and easy method of Yoga by which all that can be done in a few years —or else not at all, for that seems to be your alternative. What I see in this Asram is that people catch hold of something said or written by the Mother, give it an interpretation other than or far beyond its true meaning and deduce from it a crudely extreme logical conclusion which is quite contrary to our knowledge and experience. If we protest against these crude ideas being put upon us, the "disciples" cling to their own deductions and delusions and push aside our protests as inconsistent with what we have once said, insincere or unintelligible. The Mother has long ago given up trying to correct these things, for she finds that they do not listen to
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her but to something in their own minds which they follow and announce as hers. I still sometimes try, but with no great success. As for the logical conclusion drawn —well! It is natural, I suppose, and part of the game. It is so much easier to come to vehement simple logical conclusions than to look at the truth as it is, many —sided and whole. 16 April 1935
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I have always told you that you should not take what any sadhak says or thinks as authoritative or coming from me or the Mother. Even when they say that it is from me or her, it cannot be accepted, for it is often an idea of their own minds which they “think” to be ours also or a onesided misunderstanding of what we may have said in a particular connection but which their minds apply to something with which it was not connected or to all things in general. But when they simply write to you their own ideas without referring to us at all, why on earth should you suppose or imagine that it comes from us? I know nothing of what X wrote to you, except from your own letter. What X writes is X‘s, we must not be held responsible for it. For that matter no sadhak, whoever he or she may be, can stand for us in our place or speak for us. Each must be taken as speaking on his own account his own thought or feeling. 3 June 1937 Criticisms, Humility and Faith
First of all, why get upset by such slight things, a phrase in a poem, a tap on the head of doubt? I do not see at all why you should take it as a personal assault on yourself. It is clear from the poems themselves that they are not an assault but a riposte. Some have been criticising and ridiculing X’s faith and his sadhana, there have been criticisms and attacks on the Mother indicating that it is absurd to think of her as divine. X justifies his faith in his own way —and in doing so hits back at the critics and scorners. No doubt, he ought not to do so, he ought to disregard it all, as we have told him to more than once. But it is a hard rule to follow for a militant enthusiasm endowed
Page – 112 with a gift of expression. But what is there in all that to affect you who do not gibe at faith, even if you yourself doubt, and do not attack or criticise the Mother. As for the sense of superiority, that too is a little difficult to avoid when greater horizons open before the consciousness, unless one is already of a saintly and humble disposition. There are men like Nag Mahashoy in whom spiritual experience creates more and more humility, there are others like Vivekananda in whom it erects a giant sense of strength and superiority —European critics have taxed him with it rather severely; there are others in whom it fixes a sense of superiority to men and humility to the Divine. Each position has its value. Take Vivekananda’s famous answer to the Madras Pundit who objected to one of his assertions, “But Shankara does not say so.” To which Vivekananda replied, “No, Shankara does not say so, but I, Vivekananda, say so”, and the Pundit sank back amazed and speechless. That “I, Vivekananda” stands up to the ordinary eye like a Himalaya of self —confident egoism. But there was nothing false or unsound in Vivekananda’s spiritual experience. This was not mere egoism, but the sense of what he stood for and the attitude of the fighter who, as the representative of something very great, could not allow himself to be put down or belittled. This is not to deny the necessity of non —egoism and of spiritual humility, but to show that the question is not so easy as it appears at first sight. For if I have to express my spiritual experiences, I must do it with truth —I must record them, their bhāve, the thoughts, feelings, extensions of consciousness which accompany them. What can I do with the experience in which one feels the whole world in oneself or the force of the Divine flowing in one’s being and nature or the certitude of one’s faith against all doubts and doubters or one’s oneness with the Divine or the smallness of human thought and life compared with this greater knowledge and existence? And I have to use the word “I” —I cannot take refuge in saying “this body” or “this appearance”, —especially as I am not a Mayavadin. Shall I not inevitably fall into expressions which will make X shake his head at my assertions as full of pride and ego? I imagine it would be difficult to avoid it.
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Another thing, it seems to me that you identify faith very much with mental belief —but real faith is something spiritual, a knowledge of the soul. The assertions you quote in your letter are the hard assertions of a mental belief leading to a great vehement assertion of one’s creed and god because they are one’s own and must therefore be greater than those of others —an attitude which is universal in human nature. Even the atheist is not tolerant, but declares his credo of Nature and Matter as the only truth and on all who disbelieve it or believe in other things he pours scorn as unenlightened morons and superstitious half —wits. I bear him no grudge for thinking me that; but I note that this attitude is not confined to religious faith but is equally natural to those who are free from religious faith and do not believe in Gods or Gurus. I don’t think that real faith is so very superabundant in this Asram. There are some who have it, but for the most part I have met not only doubt, but sharp criticism, constant questioning, much mockery of faith and spiritual experience, violent attacks on myself and the Mother —and that has been going on for the last fourteen years and more. Things are not so bad as they were, but there is plenty of it left still, and I do not think the time has come when the danger of an excessive faith is likely to take body. You will not, I hope, mind my putting the other side of the question. I simply want to point out that there is this other side, that there is much more to be said than at first sight appears, and the moral of it all is that one must bear with what calm and philosophy one can the conflicts of opposing tendencies in this welter of the Asram atmosphere and wait till the time has come when a greater Light and with it some true Harmony can purify and unite and recreate. 28 June 1934 Taking on the Sadhaks’ Difficulties
I thank you for a perfect night of rest and repose. I felt your presence throughout the night. Was it merely by your presence that the disquiet was dismissed as the rising sun dispels the
Page – 114 night’s darkness? Or do you take upon yourself the disquiet as some yogis do to relieve their disciples? No, I don’t take them on myself —though sometimes they try to throw themselves on me, but that is from the general atmosphere. The method of taking upon oneself had its utility at one time (the Mother used always to do it); but it is useful no longer. The thing has to be driven out, its right to remain altogether denied. 25 November 1932
It is very silly and childish to have abhimāna; for it means that you expect everyone including the Mother and myself to act always according to your ideas and do what you want us to do and never do anything which will not please you! It is for the Mother to do whatever she finds to be right or necessary; you must understand that; otherwise you will always be making yourself miserable for nothing. 28 April 1932
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It is no question of fault or punishment —if we have to condemn and punish people for their faults, and deal with the sadhaks like a tribunal of justice, no sadhana could be possible. I do not see how your reproach against us is justifiable. Our sole duty to the sadhaks is to take them towards their spiritual realisation —we cannot behave like the head of a family intervening in domestic quarrels, supporting one, putting our weight against the other! However often X may stumble we have to take him by the hand, lift him up again and get him to move once more towards the Divine. We have always done the same with you. But we could not support any demand of yours upon him. We have always treated it as something between him and the Divine. For you, the one thing we have insisted on and that with your full consent and with your prayers to us to be helped in doing it, is to cut the vital relation with him altogether and to base nothing upon it any more. Yet now you write to us that because we have not approved of your action of what you
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said to Y, no matter what that might be, —you renounce us forever. I must ask you to return to your better self and your true consciousness and throw off these moods of vital passion which are unworthy of your soul. You have repeatedly written of your love for the Mother, the Ananda which you received from her and the number of spiritual experiences. Remember that and remember that that is your true way and your true being and nothing else matters. Get back your poise and throw off the lower nature and its darkness and ignorance. 29 March 1933
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The Mother and myself deal with all according to the law of the Divine. We receive alike rich and poor, those who are high —born or low —born according to human standards, and extend to them an equal love and protection. Their progress in sadhana is our main concern —for they have come here for that, not to satisfy their palates or their bellies, not to make ordinary vital demands or to quarrel about position or place or comforts. That progress depends on how they answer to the Mother’s love or protection —whether they receive the forces she pours on all alike, whether they use or misuse what she gives them. But the Mother has no intention or obligation to deal with all outwardly in the same way —the demand that she should do so is absurd and imbecile —and if she did it, she would prove false to the truth of things and the law of the Divine. Each sadhak has to be dealt with according to his nature, his capacities, his real needs (not his claims or desires) and according to what is best for his spiritual welfare. As to how it is to be done, we refuse to be dictated to by the ignorance of those of the sadhaks who consider that the Mother must act according to their standards or their ideas of equality or justice or the demands of their vital or the notions they have brought with them from the outside world. We act according to the Light within us and for the Truth that we are striving to establish in this earthly Nature. 11 December 1933
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Page – 116 The human consciousness is made of many materials and all cannot bear quickly a constant spiritual endeavour —they have to be trained, enlightened, changed in their habits. That is why the Mother and I always give time for the soul to grow upon the other parts and we do not mind if it takes time, provided there is a central sincerity and will —as certainly there is in you. Do not be impatient or easily discouraged because things do not go fast. Aspire, try to keep yourself in the sunshine of confidence and let the seed grow. 18 June 1934
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X told me that Y has been insulting him often. But why does he allow himself to be insulted so badly that he has to go to his room and weep over it? Of course it is because he is afraid of bringing things down to the physical level and breaking them. But X also seems to have a good deal of hatred for Y and others too. How long can these hatreds be contained? What can be done for either of these men? Each has to get rid of his wrong reactions —they are here for that. What other remedy is there? If they are not prepared to do that, then we remain on the ground of the ordinary life where one has to do as in a big family, intervening in quarrels, reconciling, soothing, rebuking, punishing, lecturing, somehow getting things going until the next clash. There is no end to that and we gave it up long ago. Each must mend himself —there is no other way out of it. 17 June 1935
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From your answers to me it seems that the tamasic and rajasic elements of my nature have been at work for a long time and it will now take more time to get rid of them. But since you saw these wrong things entering me, would it not have been better to warn me of their intrusion so that I could keep a vigilant eye on them? Here again is the rajasic ego in you dictating to us what we should have done and showing us our mistakes. 14 October 1935
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A suggestion sometimes comes to me: “As Mother has become stricter with you at pranam, so Sri Aurobindo is becoming stricter with you in his letters.” Is what I have written all right? You attributed too many motives —e.g. that the Mother tries to allure the vital by indulging it in the beginning. She has no such intention. She behaves naturally and simply with the being —whatever change there is is in the vital’s impressions about her action rather than in the action itself —except in so far as there is a change necessitated by the change in the consciousness. Formerly you were writing from the higher mind mostly, but partly from the vital —the vital was often dissatisfied with my answers, so I ceased answering to it and wrote only what would help your higher mind and psychic. Now it is from the physical mind and vital that you often write and so my answers must be to them and they feel they are not given the answers they want or in the tone of indulgence they would like. But to satisfy and indulge them would not be helpful to your sadhana. 9 December 1935
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It seemed to me that the Mother did not respond to my smile yesterday and that she put unnecessary pressure on me in regard to X‘s letter. And when you replied to my note in the evening with a simple “all right”, I felt a terrible emptiness and a want of sympathy. It seemed as if your “all right” was also a sort of pressure in regard to X‘s letter. The Mother put no pressure whatever about X‘s letter and there was no reason why she should do so. As for myself, I never even thought of it when I wrote the “all right”. The word “pressure” besides is an entirely wrong one to use; the only thing we put is a supporting force to help you in your difficulties or else to bring down more peace and more of the higher consciousness. I do not see how that can be described as an unnecessary pressure or produce bad consequences. But the idea that we were displeased about X‘s letter or withdrew our support or were putting any kind of pressure about it is absolutely groundless. You ought not
Page – 118 to make constructions of the mind like that or believe in them; for it is always these wrong constructions that upset you. 5 June 1936
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Unfortunately X seems to think that the Mother is harder than you: she is grim and does not love etc. That is because Mother’s pressure for change is always strong —even when she does not put it as force it is there by the very nature of the Divine Energy in her. 11 March 1937 Awareness of the Sadhaks’ Movements
You and the Mother know what is going on in us, how and what we are aspiring for, how our nature is reacting to your help and guidance. What is then the necessity of writing all that to you? It is necessary for you to be conscious, and to put your selfobservation before us; it is on that that we can act. A mere action on our own observation without any corresponding consciousness on the part of the sadhak would lead to nothing. 7 January 1936
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I thought that it is not possible for us to have spiritual experiences, especially major ones, without your previously knowing that so —and —so is having such —and —such an experience. Previously? My God, we would have to spend all our time prevising the sadhaks’ experiences. Do you think Mother has nothing else to do? As for myself, I never previse anything, I only vise and revise. All that Mother prevised was that there was something not right in X, some part of him at odds with his aspiration. That might lead to trouble. That is why, entre nous, I want him to find out what part of him didn’t want the descent. 18 October 1936 120
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Their Knowledge of Human Nature
Sometimes we feel that your answers (not so much the Mother’s) come from such a high plane that they seem to have no connection with our lives and do not consider the dualities, weaknesses, ignorance, etc. of human nature. Is it because it is a plane or planes of eternal and infinite Light, Power, Ananda, infallible Will —Force, which sees the human plane in the same way? I think I know as much about the dualities, weaknesses, ignorance of human nature as you do and a great deal more. The idea that the Mother or I are spiritually great but ignorant of everything practical seems to be common in the Asram. It is an error to suppose that to be on a high spiritual plane makes one ignorant or unobservant of the world or of human nature. If I know nothing of human nature or do not consider it, I am obviously unfit to be anybody’s guide in the work of transformation, for nobody can transform human nature if he does not know what human nature is, does not see its workings or, even if he sees, does not take them into consideration at all. If I think that the human plane is like the plane or planes of infinite Light, Power, Ananda, infallible Will —Force, then I must be either a stark lunatic or a gibbering imbecile or a fool so abysmally idiotic as to be worth keeping in a museum as an exhibit. I am glad however to know that this is the opinion that you and all the other members of the Asram (I suppose this is what “we” means) have about me. I am glad however to know that you think the Mother is less of an exalted imbecile than myself. 30 April 1937
I am overwhelmed at the patience and compassion with which you put up with our insincerities, disobediences and loosenesses. Human nature is like that in its very grain; so if we are not patient, there would be little hope of its changing. But there is
Page – 120 something else in the human being which is sincere and can be a force for the change. The difficulty in people like X is to get at that something (it is so covered up) and get it to act. 8 July 1934
Well, what an amazing mass of extraordinary mental constructions you have built up about the Mother and myself! The Mother is a great Yogi of a rather grave and impersonal type! I am Vedantic and vast and cosmic and impersonal and what not! What not indeed! Nothing is impossible after that!! However, I won’t protest —for mental constructions are to the mind like his favourite productions to an author, the more you criticise them the more the mind clings to them. Let me point out however by example how they come unnecessarily in your way and how very unnecessarily you let them do that, so that my insistence —in The Mother or elsewhere —on getting rid of mental constructions is not so groundless after all. The Mother told you very simply that if you prayed to her (your prayers to Krishna having according to you no effect) you would have received quicker help. That was simply to help you —she is here close to you and the others and any number here have received help by calling to her simply and directly, of course without any questions or misgivings. Even now there are several who are emerging out of the same illness as yours, a habit of many years of long attacks of black despondency with the usual round of suggestions, "unfitness, this Yoga hopeless for me, no response, no experience, the Divine does not love me, Mother is distant and far, how long can I go on, how can anyone live like this, running away, suicide etc.," and they are emerging because they have suddenly managed to turn simply and directly towards her. So what the Mother said was not something unfounded and a mere idea of hers. But it was simply a suggestion to help you. How did your mind come to the conclusion that it was a command to be followed on pain of displeasure, spiritual hanging or rejection and exile? The habit of mental constructions, that is all. Fear?
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But the fear itself is a mental construction which could have no real foundation if you had remembered the constant indulgence and patience the Mother has always shown to you.
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The doubt about the possibility of help is hardly a rational one, since all the evidence of life and of spiritual experience in the past and of the special experience of those, numerous enough, who have received help from the Mother and myself, is against the idea that no internal or spiritual help from one to another or from a Guru to his disciples or from myself to my disciples is possible. It is therefore not really a doubt arising from the reason but one that comes from the vital and physical mind that is troubling you. The physical mind doubts all that it has not itself experienced and even it doubts what it has itself experienced if that experience is no longer there or immediately palpable to it —the vital brings in the suggestions of despondency and despair to reinforce the doubt and prevent clear seeing. It is therefore a difficulty that cannot be effectively combated by the logical reason alone, but best by the clear perception that it is a selfcreated difficulty —a self —formed sanskara or mental formation which has become habitual and has to be broken up so that you may have a free mind and vital, free for experience. As for the help, you expect a divine intervention to destroy the doubt, and the divine intervention is possible, but it comes usually only when the being is ready. You have indulged to a great extreme this habit of the recurrence of doubt, this mental formation or sanskara, and so the adverse force finds it easy to throw it upon you, to bring back the suggestion. You must have a steady working will to repel it whenever it comes and to refuse the tyranny of the sanskara of doubt —to annul the force of its recurrence. I think you have hardly done that in the past, you have rather supported the doubts when they came. So for some time at least you must do some hard work in the opposite direction. The help (I am not speaking of a divine intervention from above but of my help and the Mother’s) will be there. It can be effective in spite of your physical mind, but it will be more
Page – 122 effective if this steady working will of which I speak is there as its instrument. There are always two elements in spiritual success —one’s own steady will and endeavour and the Power that in one way or another helps and gives the result of the endeavour. I will do what is necessary to give the help you must receive. To say you cannot would not be true, for you have received times without number and it has helped you to recover. 26 January 1934
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I don’t feel any devotion at all. I think you know how much I suffer and how helpless I am to do anything. Have pity on me, cure me by your Grace. Help me out of this pit of darkness by your mercy. I will try to do so. But it is a pity you cannot form the habit and stabilise the power to reject this thing when it comes —for it would mean that the difficulty was practically over and the whole being under the right direction and on the right way. Other difficulties are of minor importance, it is this one thing that is standing obstinately in the way of the soul’s deliverance. I will put my force to pull you out —I hope I shall get the full response. 9 June 1934
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Something in me is open to you and the Mother, for I can feel Peace coming into me. But I do not see how I can call for your help —selfishness, blindness and distrust of spiritual things are supreme in me. I do not see why your having difficulties or the external consciousness denying the inner truth should prevent you from calling our help. At that rate hardly anybody could call for help. Almost everybody in the Asram except a few have this difficulty of the external consciousness denying or standing in the way of the inner experience and trying to cling to its old ways, ideas, habits and desires. This division in human nature is a universal fact and one should not make too much of it. Once the Peace
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and Power are there, it is best to trust to that to remove in time the opposition and enlighten and occupy the external nature. 19 July 1934
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We are sorry that you have suffered so much. It was not to hurt you that the Mother put the pressure, but to liberate. It has always been with a deep affection and sympathy with you in your struggles that she has tried to help you. I trust you will recover soon your ease of mind and peace. I will try to give you all the help possible. 23 January 1935
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The Mother and I will do all to get rid of the cloud which the physical mind presents against the permanent consciousness of your soul’s connection with the Mother; but let your thinking mind be firm in its will to be rid of it and to call the aid of our Force. 6 February 1936
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Last night I got stuck at every stanza and had to send you and Mother frequent S.O.S.’s to rescue me. Do you really receive these signals, or do your impersonal Forces intercept them and do the necessary? As we receive some hundreds of such signals daily, we are obliged to be impersonal about it, otherwise we would have no time for anything else. 6 November 1938
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It is very painful for us to see you in this condition and it makes us very sad and anxious. Will you not make an effort and throw off the cloud that has fallen upon you? There is surely something you are not telling us, for nothing has happened to our knowledge that could make you go so far as to refuse food and reject persistently the love and solicitude of the Mother. Will you not tell us what is your reason and relieve your mind of its burden? You are our beloved child. Nothing should be able to
Page – 124 throw a shadow between you and our love. Throw off whatever shadow there is. I ask you to take your food as usual. Speak to the Mother; turn to us once more; call back the happiness and the sunshine.
Speaking One’s Thoughts Freely
X wants me to tell him all my thoughts. Can one tell to others what should be told to you? Since I have not told him everything, he says that I am stubborn and even the Mother finds it difficult to work in me. Is it true that the Mother finds it difficult to work in me? It is quite unnecessary to say all your thoughts to X and it would not be good either. It is only to the Mother and myself that you can say freely all that is in you, not to anybody else. There is no reason why the Mother’s force should not be able to work in you as in others.
Sri Aurobindo’s Coming out of Retirement
I want to know clearly whether you have any idea of coming out to lead us and guide us as the Mother did in 1926. I have no ideas about the matter, no mental decisions; when the time comes, the Mother and I will know what is to be done and do it according to the Truth. 21 November 1932
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