Section Four
Remarks on Contemporaries and on Contemporary Problems
Remarks on Spiritual Figures in India
Ramakrishna Paramhansa
I would have been surprised to hear that I regard (in agreement with an advanced sadhak) Ramakrishna as a spiritual pigmy, if I had not become past astonishment in these matters. I have said, it seems, so many things that were never in my mind and done too not a few that I have never dreamed of doing! I shall not be surprised or perturbed if one day I am reported to have declared, on the authority of advanced or even unadvanced sadhaks, that Buddha was a poseur or Shakespeare an overrated poetaster or Newton a third-rate college Don without any genius. In this world all is possible. Is it necessary for me to say that I have never thought and cannot have said anything of the kind, since I have at least some faint sense of spiritual values? The passage you have quoted is my considered estimate of Ramakrishna.1 3 February 1932
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I have heard that if one learns logic or philosophy it can be a great help in the yoga, because it makes the mind wider to spiritual experiences so that once the mind gets beyond the intellect and reaches the intuitive, it is able to bring down or express knowledge which an unintellectual mind could not do.
An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge? What then about Ramakrishna? Do you mean to say that the
1
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majority of the sadhaks here who have not learned logic and are ignorant of philosophy will never get Knowledge? 4 November 1936
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“An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge?” Certainly it can. But don’t you think there is a world of difference between the expression of an intellectual mind and an unintellectual one?
Expression is another matter, but Ramakrishana was an uneducated, nonintellectual man, yet his expression of knowledge was so perfect that the biggest intellects bowed down before it. 5 November 1936
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What a difference there is between Ramakrishna’s expressions of knowledge and those of a perfectly developed intellect like yourself!
His expressions are unsurpassable in their quality. Don’t talk nonsense. Moreover I never developed my intellect and I made zero marks in Logic.
Who preached Ramakrishna’s gospel to the world? Vivekananda, a highly developed mind.
And who taught Vivekananda the Truth? Not a logician or highly developed intellect certainly? 13 November 1936
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I have heard different things about Ramakrishna from different people. Some say he was an Avatar and some that he was not. Do you think he was an Avatar as he said in his autobiography?
He never wrote an autobiography. What he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly quite as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya. 13 November 1936
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Page – 162 Ramakrishna himself never thought of transformation or tried for it. All he wanted was bhakti for the Mother and along with that he received whatever knowledge she gave him and did whatever she made him do. He was intuitive and psychic from the beginning and only became more and more so as he went on. There was no need in him for the transformation which we seek; for although he spoke of the divine man (Ishwarakoti) coming down the stairs as well as ascending, he had not the idea of a new consciousness and a new race and the divine manifestation in the earth-nature.
Swami Vivekananda
I do not remember what I said about Vivekananda.2 If I said he was a great Vedantist, it is quite true. It does not follow that all he said or did must be accepted as the highest truth or the best. His ideal of sevā was a need of his nature and must have helped him — it does not follow that it must be accepted as a universal spiritual necessity or ideal. Whether in declaring it he was the mouthpiece of Ramakrishna or not, I cannot pronounce. It seems certain that Ramakrishna expected him to be a great power for changing the world-mind in a spiritual direction and it may be assumed that the mission came to the disciple from the Master. The details of his action are another matter. As for proceeding like a blind man, that is a feeling that easily comes when a Power greater than one’s own mind is pushing one to a large action; for the mind does not realise intellectually all that it is being pushed to do and may have its moments of doubt or wonderment about it and yet it is obliged to go on. Vedantic (Adwaita) realisation is the realisation of the silent static or absolute Brahman — one may have that and yet not have the same indubitable clearness as to the significance of one’s action — for over action for the Adwaitin lies the shadow of Maya. 24 December 1934
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2 Sri Aurobindo is referring here to the passage from The Synthesis of Yoga
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I am thinking of reading Vivekananda. What he has said in his lectures — is it all truth, something directly inspired?
I cannot say that it is all truth — he had his own opinions about certain things (like everybody else) which can be questioned. But most of what he said was of great value.
I wish to read some good books on yoga or philosophy. Will you please give me some names?
I am not sure what books would interest you and I am myself so far away from books that it is difficult to remember names. If you have not read V’s things you can read them or any books that would give you an idea of Vedanta schools and Sankhya. There is Mahendra Sircar’s Eastern Lights. It is Indian philosophy you want, I suppose? 25 September 1935
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I hear that there is a file of unpublished letters by Vivekananda, in one of which he says: “The time has now come to follow Aurobindo Ghose.” Because of this it seems the Ramakrishna Mission keeps always an interested eye on what is going on in Pondy. Do you know anything of that reference by Vivekananda and in what connection it was made?
Where on earth is this extraordinary file? How could Vivekananda know anything about me? Trikaldrishti? 5 July 1937
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God knows where that extraordinary file of Vivekananda’s letters is. I got news of it from X who heard about it from a man of the Ramakrishna Mission who came here.
What I want to know is when did Vivekananda write that or what led him to take notice of me. I no longer remember when he left his body, but my impression is that it was when I was a blissfully obscure Professor of Baroda College and neither in politics nor Yoga had put on the tedious burden of fame. Why then should Vivekananda say anything about me at all, much
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less a thing like that — unless it was as the trikaldarshi Yogi that he spoke? 7 July 1937
Swami Ramatirtha
From the standpoint of sadhana Vivekananda has never attracted me — he was more of a missionary. As far as I have studied Ramatirtha, he seems to have been on a higher level.
That can be judged from the personal experience only — not from the books which are too highly mentalised to give any indication of the full achievement in the lower part of the nature. 2 December 1933
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Ramatirtha used to say that all beings were himself in different forms and to address others as “myself in the form of . . .”. This sounds a little fantastic!
It is fantastic.
Can this not be called an example of the transformed mind and vital, for he seems to have been engrossed in the Self in the waking life as well as in meditation.
I think Ramatirtha’s realisations were more mental than any thing else. He had opening of the higher mind and a realisation there of the cosmic Self, but I find no evidence of a transformed mind and vital; that transformation is not a result of or object of the Yoga of Knowledge. The realisation of the Yoga of Knowledge is when one feels that one lives in the wideness of something silent, featureless and universal (called the Self) and all else is seen as only forms and names; the Self is real, nothing else. The realisation of “my self in other forms” is a part of this or a step towards it, but in the full realisation the “my” should drop so that there is only the one Self or rather only the Brahman. For the Self is merely a subjective aspect of the Brahman, just as the Ishwara is its objective aspect. That is the Vedantic “Knowledge”. Its result is peace, silence, liberation. As for the active Prakriti,
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(mind, vital, body), the Yoga of Knowledge does not make it its aim to transform them — that would be no use as the idea is that if the liberation has come, it will all drop off at death. The only change wanted is to get rid of the idea of ego and realise as true only the supreme Self, the Brahman. 25 June 1934
Ramana Maharshi
I did not ask X to prevent you from going to Ramana Maharshi and I never had the least thought or intention of requesting him to intervene at all. He tells me that it is true he told you Sri Aurobindo had approved of his speaking to you about the right attitude etc. and he had inferred that from a phrase in my answer to a letter of his. But that inference was a mistake — the phrase did not carry that meaning, nor was there in the context any reference to Ramana Maharshi. He adds, “But I did not say I was authorised by Sri Aurobindo to try to detain him here.” There was absolutely no reason why I should want to prevent you from going to the Maharshi. I have always encouraged people to go even in long past years when the Maharshi was unknown except to a few and I even sent several there who wanted to come here. Even if anyone wished to leave me and go to him, I would be the last person to interfere. Everyone has the right to choose his own Guru or, if he is dissatisfied or has lost his faith, to go elsewhere. The Mother in her letter to you made it very clear that she approved of your visit and she even said it was the first thing to do. There can be no doubt therefore of her approval. Mine is contained in hers. 2 September 1935
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Ramana Maharshi seems to agree to some extent with your views. He seems to believe in Grace and takes the position that the Real Self is in the heart, something akin to the psychic being. That means he is less of a Shankara Adwaitin.
According to Brunton’s description of the sadhana he (Brunton) practised under the Maharshi’s instructions, it is the Overself
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one has to seek within, but he describes the Overself in a way that is at once the Psychic Being, the Atman and the Ishwara. So it is a little difficult to know what is the exact reading. 25 January 1936
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I quote the following remarks of Ramana Maharshi as recorded by Paul Brunton: “All human beings are ever wanting happiness, untainted with sorrow. They want to grasp a happiness which will not come to an end. The instinct is a true one.”3
All? It is far too sweeping a generalisation. If he had said that is one very strong strain in human nature it could be accepted. But mark that it is in human physical consciousness only. The human vital tends rather to reject a happiness untainted by sorrow and to find it a monotonous, boring condition. Even if it accepts it, after a time it kicks over the traces and goes to some new painful or risky adventure.
“Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true self. His search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true self. The true self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end” [pp. 157 58].
The true Self is quite a different proposition. But what it has is not happiness but something more.
“Even they [the wicked and the criminal] sin because they are trying to find the self’s happiness in every sin which they commit. This striving is instinctive in man, but they do not know that they are really seeking their true selves, and so they try these wicked ways first as a means to happiness” [p. 158].
Who is this “they”? I fear it is a very summary and misleading criminal psychology. To say that a Paris crook or apache steals,
3 Paul Brunton,
A Search in Secret India
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swindles, murders for the happiness of stealing, swindling, murdering is a little startling. He does it for quite other reasons. He does it as his metier just as you do your doctor’s work. Do you really do your doctor’s work because of the happiness you find in it?
People will not seek a sorrowless, untainted, everlasting happiness, even if shown the way — because they will consider it beyond their power to attain, or so it seems to me.
It is also with many because they prefer the joy mixed with sorrow, মানুষের হাসিকান্না, and consider your everlasting happiness an everlasting bore.
About the criminals, I don’t obviously include those types who are born with a criminal instinct: idiots and imbeciles.
Why not? If your generalisation is good for all, it must be good for them also.
Ramana Maharshi also says that if you “meditate for an hour or two every day, you can then carry on with your duties. If you meditate in the right manner . . .”
A very important qualification.
“then the current of mind induced will continue to flow even in the midst of your work. It is as though there were two ways of expressing the same idea; the same line which you take in meditation will be expressed in your activities.” The result will be a gradual change of attitude towards people, events and objects. “Your actions will tend to follow your meditations of their own accord” [p. 156].
If the meditation brings poise, peace, a concentrated condition or even a pressure or influence, that can go on in the work, provided one does not throw it away by a relaxed or dispersed state of consciousness. That was why the Mother wanted people not only to be concentrated at pranam or meditation but to
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remain silent and absorb or assimilate afterwards and also to avoid things that relax or disperse or dissipate too much — precisely for this reason that so the effects of what she put on them might continue and the change of attitude the Maharshi speaks of will take place. But I am afraid most of the sadhaks have never understood or practised anything of the kind — they could not appreciate or understand her directions.
Of course, he adds that setting apart time for meditation is for spiritual novices. You too wrote to me to meditate at least half an hour a day, if only to bring a greater concentration in the work.
It does bring the effects of meditation into work if one gives it a chance.
You know that meditations are not always successful.
You forget that with numbers of people they are successful.
Even if they were, how does this affect the whole day’s work?
It doesn’t, if one does not take care that it should do so — if one takes care, it can.
Is it something like charging a battery which goes on inducing an automatic current?
It is not exactly automatic. It can be easily spoilt or left to sink into the subconscient or otherwise wasted. But with simple and steady practice and persistence it has the effect the Maharshi speaks of — he assumes, I suppose, such a practice. I am afraid your meditation is hardly simple or steady — too much kasrat and fighting with yourself.
Ramana Maharshi seems a real Maharshi.
He is more of a Yogi than a Rishi, it seems to me. The happiness theory does not impress me, — it is as old as the mountains but
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not so solid. But he knows a lot about Yoga. 9 February 1936
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Ramana Maharshi has seen the truth. Can he not be called a Rishi?
He has experienced certain eternal truths by process of Yoga — I don’t think it is by Rishilike intuition or illumination, nor has he the mantra. 10 February 1936
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I recently have read of some of Ramana Maharshi’s disciples, who have the power of vision to a greater degree than X. But it seems that the beings they see do not come and help them in their difficulties. Usually these beings show them certain things which strengthen their faith; but their difficulties remain. It is they or their guru who have to solve them.
It is quite usual at a certain stage of the sadhana for people who have the faculty to see or hear the Devata of their worship and to receive constant directions from him or her with regard either to action or to sadhana. Defects and difficulties may remain, but that does not prevent the direct guidance from being a fact. The necessity of a Guru in such cases is to see that it is the right experience, the right voice or vision — for it is possible for a false guidance to come as it did with Y and Z.
Moreover, Maharshi dissuaded his disciples from cultivating this power of vision, since it had nothing to do with the realisation of the self.
Maharshi is very much of a Vedantist. He does not believe in what we believe or in the descent etc. At the same time he himself has had experiences in which the Mother interfered in a visible, even material form and prevented him from doing what he intended to do. 7 July 1936
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It is evident that my ideas about visions and views on occult things were poor and ignorant from the very beginning. They
Page – 170 became all the more ignorant when I read that the Maharshi, whom you have called a great man and one who “lives al ways in the light” and therefore in the truth consciousness, discouraged his disciples from using their occult gifts.
Because he is a great man does it follow that everything he thinks or says is right? or because he lives in the light, does it follow that his light is absolute and complete? The “Truth-Consciousness” is a phrase I use for the supermind. Maharshi is not in the supermind. He may be and is in a true Consciousness, but that is a different matter.
They were not misusing their gifts, rather they were making spiritual progress through them.
He discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and intuition — in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind — visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that they are being misled or in danger of being misled by false visions and false voices. That does not mean that visions and voices have no value. 9 July 1936
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If the true being behind the usual emotional heart is the psychic, how is it that Ramana Maharshi says, and all the Upanishads too say, that in the core of the heart is the Self, the Atman? Maharshi says the place of the Self is not in the centre of the chest but two fingers to the right — whereas the psychic is located in the middle.
The Upanishads do not say that about the Atman — what they say about the Atman is that it is in all and all is in it, it is everywhere and all this universe is the Atman. What they speak of as situated in the deeper inner heart is the Purusha in the heart or Antaratman.4 This is in fact what we call the psychic being, caitya purusa.
4 angusthamātrah puruso antarātmā. ˙ .. .
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The heart spoken of by the Upanishads corresponds with the physical cardiac centre; it is the hrtpadma of the Tantriks. As a subtle centre, cakra, it is supposed to have its apex on the spine and to broaden out in front. Exactly where in this area one or another feels it does not matter much; to feel it there and be guided by it is the main thing. I cannot say what the Maharshi has realised — but what Brunton describes in his book as the Self is certainly this Purusha Antarātmā but concerned more with mukti and a liberated action than with transformation of the nature. What the psychic realisation does bring is a psychic change of the nature purifying it and turning it altogether towards the Divine. After that or along with it comes the realisation of the cosmic Self. It is these two things that the old Yogas encompassed and through them they passed to Moksha, Nirvana or the departure into some kind of celestial transcendence. The Yoga practised here includes both liberation and transcendence, but it takes liberation or even a certain Nirvana, if that comes, as a first step and not as the last step of its siddhi. Whatever exit to or towards the Transcendent it achieves is an ascent accompanied by a descent of the power, light, consciousness that has been achieved and it is by such descents that is to be achieved the spiritual and supramental transformation here. This possibility does not seem to be admitted in the Maharshi’s thought, — he considers the Descent as superfluous and logically impossible. “The Divine is here, from where will He descend?” is his argument. But the Divine is everywhere, he is above as well as within, he has many habitats, many strings to his bow of Power, there are many levels of his dynamic Consciousness and each has its own light and force. He is not confined to his position in the heart or to the single cord of the psycho-spiritual realisation. He has also his supramental station above the heart-centre and mind-centres and can descend from there if He wants to do so. 3 March 1937
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I am giving below the best brief account by Paul Brunton of the Maharshi’s technique of discovering what Brunton calls the Overself. It occurs in the book named A Message from
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Arunachala: “When the mind is deeply engaged in a train of thought, it tends to become unconscious of external surroundings as concentration deepens. When this condition is carried to a profound extent, then the mind becomes one-pointed. If, at this degree, the subject of the meditation could be some how dropped, the ensuing vacuum would swiftly cause the hidden world of man’s soul to arise and fill it. In that apparent emptiness he would become aware of a new visitant, his Overself. Such is the essential principle behind this process of self-knowing. . . . “It [the Maharshi’s method] consists in taking as the subject of meditation the inquiry, `Who Am I?’ The mind must centre itself upon this single question, pressing deeply inward in the effort to discover the elusive inhabitant of the body. If the concentration is complete and the persistence undiminished; if the inquiry is conducted in the correct manner; if the person is really sincere; then an extraordinary thing will happen. The mental current of self-questioning, the attempt to ferret out what one really is, the watching of one’s thoughts in the earlier part of the process, ultimately pins all thinking down to the single thought of personal existence. `I’ is the first thought sprayed up by the spring of life’s being, but it is also the last. As this final thought is held in the focus of attention and questioned in a particular way, it suddenly disappears and the Overself takes its place, overwhelming both questioner and question in its divine stillness.”5 What do you think, from this, the Overself of the Maharshi is? Is it the Antaratman leading to or widening into the Cosmic Self or is it the silent Self of the Jnanis, the traditional Atman, realised directly?
[Sri Aurobindo did not immediately answer this question, posed on 4 March 1937. The correspondent sent two reminders, to which Sri Aurobindo answered as follows on 6 and 7 March:]
I had started answering your questions but it took on too long a development and I could not finish it — I don’t suppose I shall find time.
5 Paul Brunton, A Message from Arunachala (London: Rider & Co., n.d. [1936]), pp. 205 7.
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In the first place I do not want to go farther into the question of the Maharshi’s realisation which does not really concern us. As I have said comparisons are of no use; each path has its own aim and direction and method and the truth of one does not invalidate the truth of the other. The Divine (or if you like, the Self) has many aspects and can be realised in many ways — to dwell upon those differences is irrelevant and without use. Transformation is a word that I have brought in myself (like supermind) to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral Yoga. People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by the “influence” of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; purification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change — the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose. What I mean by the spiritual transformation is something dynamic (not merely liberation of the self, or realisation of the One which can very well be attained without any descent). It is a putting on of the spiritual consciousness dynamic as well as static in every part of the being down to the subconscient. That cannot be done by the influence of the Self leaving the consciousness fundamentally as it is with only purification, enlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the vital. It means a bringing down of a Divine Consciousness static and dynamic into all these parts and the entire replacement of the present consciousness by that. This we find unveiled and unmixed above mind, life and body and not in mind, life and body. It is a matter of the undeniable experience of many that this can descend and it is my experience that nothing short of its full descent can thoroughly remove the veil and mixture and effect the full spiritual transformation. No metaphysical or logical reasoning in the void as to what the Atman “must” do or can do or needs or needs not to do is relevant here or of any value. I may add that transformation is not the central object of other paths as it is of this Yoga — only so much purification and change is demanded by them as will lead to liberation and the
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beyond-life. The influence of the Atman can no doubt do that — a full descent of a new Consciousness into the whole nature from top to bottom to transform life here is not needed at all for the spiritual escape from life. 6 March 1937
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Sundays are no better than other days. A number of people always choose it for long letters demanding replies. But apart from that to write what you demand of me would mean a volume, not a letter — especially as these are matters of which people know a great deal less than nothing and would either understand nothing or misunderstand everything. Some day I suppose I shall write something, but the supramental won’t bear talking of now. Something about the spiritual transformation might be possible and I may finish the letter on that point6 — if I find leisure, but that is doubtful. 7 March 1937
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The methods described in the account are the well-established methods of Jnanayoga7 — (1) one-pointed concentration followed by thought-suspension, (2) the method of distinguishing or finding out the true self by separating it from mind, life, body (this I have seen described by him more at length in another book) and coming to the pure I behind; this also can disappear into the Impersonal Self. The usual result is a merging in the Atman or Brahman — which is what one would suppose is meant by the Overself, for it is that which is the real Overself. This Brahman or Atman is everywhere, all is in it, it is in all, but it is in all not as an individual being in each but is the same in all — as the Ether is in all. When the merging into the Overself is complete, there is no ego, or distinguishable I, or any formed separative person or personality. All is ekākāra — an indivisible
6 The “letter” referred to here is presumably the one on pages 173 75, which Sri Aurobindo wrote below the date 6 March 1937. He apparently had not finished writing it when he wrote this note dated (Sunday) 7 March 1937. — Ed. 7 This is Sri Aurobindo’s reply to the correspondent’s question of 4 March 1937 (see pp. 172 73), containing Paul Brunton’s account of Ramana Maharshi’s methods. — Ed.
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and indistinguishable Oneness either free from all formation or carrying all formations in it without being affected — for one can realise it in either way. There is a realisation in which all beings are moving in the one Self and this Self is there stable in all beings; there is another more complete and thoroughgoing in which not only is it so but all are vividly realised as the Self, the Brahman, the Divine. In the former, it is possible to dismiss all beings as creations of Maya, leaving the one Self alone as true — in the other it is easier to regard them as real manifestations of the Self, not as illusions. But one can also regard all beings as souls, independent realities in an eternal Nature dependent upon the One Divine. These are the characteristic realisations of the Overself familiar to the Vedanta. But on the other hand you say that this Overself is realised by the Maharshi as lodged in the heart-centre, and it is described by Brunton as something concealed which when it manifests appears as the real Thinker, source of all action, but now guiding thought and action in the Truth. Now the first description applies to the Purusha in the heart, described by the Gita as the Ishwara situated in the heart and by the Upanishads as the Purusha Antarātmā; the second could apply also to the mental Purusha, manomayah prānaśarīra netā of the Upanishads, the mental Being or Purusha who leads the life and the body. So your question is one which on the data I cannot easily answer. His Overself may be a combination of all these experiences, without any clear distinction being made or thought necessary between the various aspects. There are a thousand ways of approaching and realising the Divine and each way has its own experiences which have their own truth and stand really on a basis, one in essence but complex in aspects, common to all, but not expressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these variations; the important thing is to follow one’s own way well and thoroughly. In this Yoga, one can realise the Psychic Being as a portion of the Divine seated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there — this psychic being takes charge of the sadhana and turns the whole being to the Truth and the Divine, with results in the mind, the vital, the physical consciousness which I need not go into
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here, — that is a first transformation. We realise it next as the one Self, Brahman, Divine, first above the body, life, mind and not only within the heart supporting them — above and free and unattached as the static Self but also extended in wideness through the world as the silent Self in all and dynamic too as the active cosmic Divine Being and Power, Ishwara-Shakti, containing the world and pervading it as well as transcending it, manifesting all cosmic aspects. But, what is most important for us, is that it manifests as a transcending Light, Knowledge, Power, Purity, Peace, Ananda of which we become aware above and which descends into the being and progressively replaces the ordinary consciousness by its own movements — that is the second transformation. We realise also the consciousness itself as moving upward, ascending through many planes physical, vital, mental, overmental to the supramental and Ananda planes. This is nothing new; it is stated in the Taittiriya Upanishad that there are five Purushas, the physical, the vital, the mental, the Truth Purusha (supramental) and the Bliss Purusha; it says that one has to draw the physical self up into the vital, the vital into the mental, the mental into the Truth Self, the Truth Self into the Bliss Self and so attain perfection. But in this Yoga we become aware not only of this taking up but of a pouring down of the powers of the higher Self, so that there comes in the possibility of a descent of the Supramental Self and nature to dominate and change our present nature and turn it from nature of Ignorance into nature of Truth-Knowledge (and through the supramental into nature of Ananda) — this is the third or supramental transformation. It does not always go in this order, for with many the spiritual descent begins first in an imperfect way before the psychic is in front and in charge, but the psychic development has to be attained before a perfect and unhampered spiritual descent can take place, and the last or supramental change is impossible so long as the two first have not become full and complete. That’s the whole matter, put as briefly as possible. March 1934
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I wish I had learned logic. One needs to know it before entering into a discussion with you. In a recent letter you say, as if logically: “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. . . .” Surely no one ever thought of you in these terms!
No need of logic to see that — a little common sense is sufficient. If anyone, no matter who he be, thinks that this world of ignorance, limitation and suffering is a plane of eternal and infinite Light, Power and Ananda, infallible Will and Power, what can he be but a self-deceiving fool or lunatic? And where then would be the need of bringing down the said Light, Power etc. from the higher planes, if it was already gambolling about all over this blessed earth and its absurd troop of human-animal beings? But perhaps you are of the opinion of Ramana Maharshi, “The Divine is here, how can he descend from anywhere?” The Divine may be here, but if he has covered here his Light with darkness of Ignorance and his Ananda with suffering, that, I should think, makes a big difference to the plane and, even if one enters into that sealed Light etc., it makes a difference to the Consciousness but very little to the Energy at work in this plane which remains of a dark or mixed character. 3 May 1937
Swami Ramdas
In the April number of The Vision, Ramdas concludes his editorial letter with the words, “When all are kind to us, we realise God’s own kindness, because God dwells in all — God is verily all.”8 But what cogent objection is there to continuing: “When all are cruel or indifferent to us, we realise God’s own cruelty or indifference, because etc.”? The stock answer is to acknowledge human incapacity to fathom an inscrutable Providence; but then why profess to do so in the case of kindness or similar circumstances of happiness (beauty, health, powers and capacities of different kinds)? It seems to
8 The Vision, vol. 1 (April 1934), p. 146.
Page – 178 be loading the dice — to be placing in the mouth of Providence some such words as “Heads I win, tails you lose”. Earlier in the letter there is this sentence: “God is the one power who provides for and guides all the works of the Ashram [i.e. Anandashram] as He does also all the affairs of the world.” This put me in mind of a missionary who, trying hard to be liberal and fair-minded about Taoism in China, acknowledged defeat when confronted with the spectacle of Taoist priests conducting a religious ceremony in a brothel for the success of the business. Would it be possible for you to indicate which of your writings would clear up my perplexity?
I have not read Ramdas’s writings nor am I at all acquainted with his personality or what may be the level of his experience. The words you quote from him could be expressions either of a simple faith or of a pantheistic experience; evidently if they are used or intended to establish the thesis that the Divine is everywhere and is all and therefore all is good, being Divine, they are very insufficient for that purpose. But as an experience, it is a very common thing to have this feeling or realisation in the Vedantic sadhana — in fact without it there would be no Vedantic sadhana. I have had it myself on various levels of consciousness and in numerous forms and I have met scores of people who have had it very genuinely — not as an intellectual theory or perception, but as a spiritual reality which was too concrete for them to deny whatever paradoxes it may entail for the ordinary intelligence. Of course it does not mean that all here is good or that in the estimation of values a brothel is as good as an Asram, but it does mean that all are part of one manifestation and that in the inner heart of the harlot as in the inner heart of the sage or saint there is the Divine. Again his experience is that there is one Force working in the world both in its good and in its evil — one Cosmic Force; it works both in the success (or failure) of the Asram and in the success (or failure) of the brothel. Things are done in this world by the use of the force, although the use made is according to the nature of the user, one uses it for the works of light, another for the works of
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Darkness, yet another for a mixture. I don’t think any Vedantin (except perhaps some modernised ones) would maintain that all is good here — the orthodox Vedantic idea is that all is here an inextricable mixture of good and evil, a play of the Ignorance and therefore a play of the dualities. The Christian missionaries, I suppose, hold that all that God does is morally good, so they are shocked by the Taoist priests aiding the work of the brothel by their rites. But do not the Christian priests invoke the aid of God for the destruction of men in battle and did not some of them sing Te Deums over a victory won by the massacre of men and the starvation of women and children? The Taoist who believes only in the Impersonal Tao is more consistent and the Vedantin who believes that the Supreme is beyond good and evil, but that the Cosmic Force the Supreme has put out here works through the dualities, therefore through both good and evil, joy and suffering, has a thesis which at least accounts for the double fact of the experience of the Supreme which is All Light, All Bliss and All Beauty and a world of mixed light and darkness, joy and suffering, what is fair and what is ugly. He says that the dualities come by a separative Ignorance and so long as you accept this separative Ignorance, you cannot get rid of that, but it is possible to draw back from it in experience and to have the realisation of the Divine in all and the Divine everywhere and then you begin to realise the Light, Bliss and Beauty behind all and this is the one thing to do. Also you begin to realise the one Force and you can use it or let it use you for the growth of the Light in you and others — no longer for the satisfaction of the ego and for the works of the ignorance and darkness. As to the dilemma about the cruelty of things, I do not know what answer Ramdas would give. One answer might be that the Divine within is felt through the psychic being and the nature of the psychic being is that of the divine light, harmony, love, but it is covered by the mental and separative vital ego from which strife, hate, cruelty naturally come. It is therefore natural to feel in the kindness the touch of the Divine, while the cruelty is felt as a disguise or perversion in Nature, although that would not prevent the man who has the realisation from
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feeling and meeting the Divine behind the disguise. I have known even instances in which the perception of the Divine in all ac companied by an intense experience of universal love or a wide experience of an inner harmony had an extraordinary effect in making all around kind and helpful, even the most coarse and hard and cruel. Perhaps it is some such experience which is at the base of Ramdas’s statement about the kindness. As for the Divine working, the experience of the Vedantic realisation is that behind the confused mixture of good and evil something is working that he realises as the Divine and in his own life he can look back and see what each step, happy or unhappy, meant for his progress and how it led towards the growth of his spirit. Naturally this comes fully as the realisation progresses; before that he had to walk by faith and may have often felt his faith fail and yielded to grief, doubt and despair for a time. As for my writings, I don’t know if there is any that would clear up the difficulty. You would find mostly the statement of the Vedantic experience, for it is that through which I passed and, though now I have passed to something beyond, it seems to me the most thorough-going and radical preparation for whatever is Beyond, though I do not say that it is indispensable to pass through it. But whatever the solution, it seems to me that the Vedantin is right in insisting that one must, to arrive at it, admit the two facts, the prevalence of evil and suffering here and the experience of that which is free from these things — and it is only by the progressive experience that one can get a solution — whether through reconciliation, a conquering descent or an escape. If we start from the basis taken as an axiom that the prevalence of suffering and evil in the present and in the hard, outward fact of things, disproves of itself all that has been experienced by sages and mystics of the other side, the realisable Divine, then no solution seems possible. 15 April 1934
J. Krishnamurti
At one time I tried to come into imaginative contact with J. Krishnamurti. I imagined as follows: He has acquired a quiet
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mind and a semi-quiet vital and has glimpses through them of the Self. He receives some things intuitively in his mind. But he goes no further than that. He has neither the knowledge nor the power nor bliss of the higher planes.
What he speaks is all purely mental — if he has any glimpses of realisation, they are in the mind only. 4 September 1933
*
I don’t think there is much either in this man himself or in his teachings. It does not seem to me that he is a yogi in the true sense of the word but rather a man with some intellectual ability who is posing as a spiritual teacher. His photograph gives an impression of much pretension and vanity and an impression also of much falsity in the character. As for what he teaches, it does not hang together. If all books are worthless, why did he write a book and one of this kind telling people what they should do, what they should not do and if all teachers are unhelpful, why does he take the posture of a teacher since according to his own statement that cannot be helpful to anybody? Krishnamurti was, before he broke away on his own, certainly the disciple of two Gurus, Leadbeater and Annie Besant: if he has denounced Mrs. Besant, Krishnaprem is quite entitled to denounce him as a gurudrohī. 9 December 1949
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