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Remarks on the Current State of the Sadhana, 1931 - 1947
1931
I am surprised at Tagore’s remark1 about the two years; he must have greatly misunderstood or misheard me. I did tell him that I would expand only after making a perfect (inner) foundation here, but I gave no date. I did give that date of two years long before in my letter to Barin,2 but I had then a less ample view of the work to be done than I have now — and I am now more cautious about assigning dates than I was once. To fix a precise time is impossible except in the two regions of certitude — the pure material which is the field of mathematical certitudes and the supramental which is the field of divine certitudes. In the planes in between where life has its word to say and things have to evolve under shock and stress, Time and Energy are too much in a flux and apt to kick against the rigour of a prefixed date or programme. 16 August 1931
1932
You will say, "But at present the Mother has drawn back and it is the supramental that is to blame, because it is in order to bring down the supramental into matter that she retires." The supra mental is not to blame; the supramental could very well have come down into matter under former conditions, if the means created by the Mother for the physical and vital contact had not been vitiated by the wrong attitude, the wrong reactions in the Asram atmosphere. It was not the direct supramental Force
1 Rabindranath Tagore remarked to someone in 1931 that Sri Aurobindo told him in 1928 that he would "expand" after two years. — Ed. 2 In a letter written in Bengali to his brother Barindra Kumar Ghose in 1920, Sri Aurobindo said that it might take him "another two years" to complete his sadhana. — Ed.
Page – 319 that was acting, but an intermediate and preparatory force that carried in it a modified Light derived from the supramental; but this would have been sufficient for the work of opening the way for the highest action, if it had not been for the irruption of these wrong forces on the yet unconquered lower (physical) vital and material plane. The interference was creating adverse possibilities which could not be allowed to continue. The Mother would not have retired otherwise; and even as it is it is not meant as an abandonment of the field but is only (to borrow a now current phrase from a more external enterprise) a temporary strategic retirement, reculer pour mieux sauter. The supramental is therefore not responsible; on the contrary, it is the descent of the supramental that would end all the difficulty. 12 January 1932
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Our object is the supramental realisation and we have to do whatever is necessary for that or towards that under the conditions of each stage. At present the necessity is to prepare the physical consciousness; for that a complete equality and peace and a complete dedication free from personal demand or desire in the physical and the lower vital parts is the thing to be established. Other things can come in their proper time. What is the real need now is not insistence on physical nearness, which is one of those other things, but the psychic opening in the physical consciousness and the constant presence and guidance there. 16 February 1932
*
If the attainment of supermind does not take us to the last stage of perfection in the objective side of life, if even after its attainment we have to satisfy ourselves with a little more clarity with possibilities and probabilities (as you yourself have said), how can it be called the last and the perfect truth?
I have never said that I wrote from the supermind, so the question does not arise. You seem to be very much in a hurry to get at the supermind. I have said that it cannot be done like that, a patient preparation
Page – 320 of the nature is needed and I am concerned with that now.
If divinisation of life keeps us in the same condition of death, disease and physical incapacity, how can it be called divinisation at all?
What do you mean by divinisation of life? Death and disease can only disappear by divinisation of the body — and that is not yet here. 2 March 1932
*
I am not very impatient about the supermind, but the patient preparation of the nature that you want will go on even if other sides are developing.
I don’t know what you mean by developing sides. I am concerned with preparing the nature for the supramental possibility — however long that may take — and I have no time or energy to waste on side issues. That preparation is the only thing I can recommend to you; all the "sides" necessary will come with it.
I know that the supermind is not near and I know that I am impatient — but not especially for supermind.
My answer stands. I have repeatedly said recently that we are trying against great difficulties to bring down the supramental into the physical plane. If the supramental were already there, the body divinised, matter transformed, there would be no difficulty and no need of the endeavour. I would recall to you what I said in my letter to X3 that it was not the direct supramental Force which was working up till now but a preparatory Force that carried in it a modified Light derived from the supramental. The direct Force can begin working only when the mind, vital and physical are sufficiently ready. 3 March 1932
*
3 See the letter of 12 January 1932 on pages 319 20. — Ed.
Page – 321 I must remind you that I have been an intellectual myself and no stranger to doubts — both the Mother and myself have had one side of the mind as positive and as insistent on practical results and more so than any Russell can be. We could never have been contented with the shining ideas and phrases which a Rolland or another takes for gold coin of Truth. We know well what is the difference between a subjective experience and a dynamic outward-going and realising Force. So although we have faith — and who ever did anything great in the world without having faith in his mission or the Truth at work behind him? — we do not found ourselves on faith alone but on a great ground of knowledge which we have been developing and testing all our lives. I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane. That is why I am not alarmed by the aspect of the world around me or disconcerted by the often successful fury of the adverse Forces who increase in their rage as the Light comes nearer and nearer down to the field of earth and Matter. If I believe in the probability and not only the possibility, if I feel practically certain of the supramental descent — I do not fix a date, — it is because I have my grounds for the belief, not merely a faith in the air. I know that the supramental descent is inevitable — l have faith in view of my experience that the time can be and should be now and not in a later age. But even if I knew it to be for a later time, I would not swerve from my path or be discouraged or flag in my labour. Formerly I might have been, but not now after all the path I have traversed. When one is sure of the Truth, or even when one believes the thing one pursues to be the only possible solution, one does not stipulate for an immediate success, one travels towards the Light taking as well worth facing every risk of the adventure. Still, like you, it is now in this life that I insist on it and not in another or in the hereafter. 30 August 1932
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Page – 322 I pray for the quiet strength, faith and wisdom I need to help me pass over this exceedingly difficult period of worries and unquietness and the feeling of physical unwellness and other unpleasantnesses.
But those are the ideas and feelings that always rise up in you when the adverse force presses on you and you give ear or even partly listen to its suggestions. You yourself have given the answer to it — the solutions suggested by these forces are not solutions at all. No doubt, the period is very difficult, not only for you but for everybody, — but the struggle in the material plane was bound to be difficult and prolonged, it is the cause of the whole problem, the critical stage of the whole action, because the victory there would decide everything for good and all. 24 November 1932
*
Is it possible for you to give us an idea when the supramental descent will come to pass? Will it be within a decade? And will the result of the completion of your yoga be, as I once asked Mother also, a power to transform us in spite of ourselves? Even at present your power does nothing else, but you leave us still the possibility to resist.
I suppose the (vital’s) will to resist will disappear: I don’t know about the date — dates are things that one ought not to fix too rigidly; but I certainly hope we won’t have to wait for a decade! Let us be more sanguine and put the beginning of the decade and not its end as the era of the Descent. It is more likely then to make haste. December 1932
1933
As for faith, you write as if I had never had a doubt or any difficulty. I have had worse than any human mind can think of. It is not because I have ignored difficulties, but because I have seen them more clearly, experienced them on a larger scale than anyone living now or before me that, having faced and measured them, I am sure of the results of my work. Even if I still saw the
Page – 323 chance that it might come to nothing (which is impossible), I should go on unperturbed, because I would still have done to the best of my power the work that I had to do and what is so done always counts in the economy of the universe. But why should I feel that all this may come to nothing when I see each step and where it is leading and every week and day — once it was every year and month and hereafter it will be every day and hour — brings me so much nearer to my goal? In the way that one treads with the greater Light above, even every difficulty gives its help and has its value and the Night itself carries in it the burden of the light that has to be. As for your own case, it comes to this that experiences come and stop, there are constant ups and downs, in times of recoil and depression no advance at all seems to have been made, there is as yet no certitude. So it was with me also, so it is with everyone, not with you alone. The way to the heights is always like that up to a certain point, but the ups and downs, the difficulties and obstacles are no proof that it is a chimera to aspire to the summits. 5 January 1933
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I am afraid I cannot endorse your reading of the situation, at least so far as the Mother and myself and the prospects of the work are concerned. I can agree only that we have had a heavy time of it recently and that there has been a strong attack on the plane of the physical and material — but that (heavy attacks) is a thing we have been accustomed to for the last 20 years and it has never prevented us from making any necessary advance. I have never had any illusions about the path being comfortable and easy — I knew all along that the work could only be done if all the essential difficulties rose and were faced — so their rising cannot tire or dishearten me — whatever obstinacy there may be in the difficulties whether our own or in the sadhaks or in Nature. . . . No, I am not tired or on the point of giving up. I have made inwardly steps in front in the last two or three months which had seemed impossible because of the obstinate resistance for
Page – 324 years together and it is not an experience which pushes me to despair and give up. If there is much resistance on one side, there have been large gains on the other — all has not been a picture of sterile darkness. You yourself are kept back only by the demon of doubt which bangs on you each door as you are opening it — you have only to set about resolutely slaying the Rakshasa and the doors will open to you as they have done to many others who were held up by their own mind or vital nature. 12 January 1933
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When shall the victory of Supermind manifest on Earth?
One can only say that it advances, but to fix — or at least to proclaim — a time is not permitted — for which there are many good occult reasons. 23 March 1933
*
What are the conditions for the descent of the Higher Consciousness in the Asram atmosphere? Or is it already there? Is it good to call it down for all?
The Higher Consciousness is there already — it depends on the sadhak how much (or little) he receives of it and in what way. The supramental consciousness is not yet down in the material, but it is no use calling that for all, — hardly anyone could receive it at present. But up to just below that all is there. It is a question of receiving, not of calling down, for that each has to open — by whatever degrees — and call it into himself. 30 June 1933
*
Is it mostly the Mahasaraswati aspect of the Mother that works in our sadhana here?
At present since the sadhana came down to the physical consciousness — or rather it is a combination of Maheshwari Mahasaraswati forces. 25 August 1933
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Page – 325
You wrote to me yesterday, "Now there is a sufficient descent of Light and Power."4 Does this show that the psychisation of the sadhaks is advancing?
Yes, there has been some progress in that respect and all progress in the psychic or spiritual consciousness of the sadhaks makes the descent more easy. But the main cause is that the Overmind principle which is the immediate secret support of the present earth-nature with all its limitations is more and more undergoing the pressure of the Supramental and letting through a greater Light and Power. For so long as the Overmind intervenes (the principle of the Overmind being a play of forces, each trying to realise itself as the Truth) the law of struggle remains and with it the opportunity for the adverse Forces. 10 November 1933
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You say [in the preceding letter] that the Overmind, as a result of a pressure of the Supramental, is "letting through a greater Light and Power." Does this mean that a greater spiritual movement is going on at present in various places on earth where the people are receiving the new Light and Power?
No. It is only here that it can act for the present — in the forces outside, there is no preparation to receive it. 10 November 1933
*
No, the supramental has not descended into the body or into matter — it is only at the point where such a descent has become not only possible but inevitable — I am speaking of course of my own experience. But as my own experience is the centre and condition of the rest, that is sufficient for the promise. I am not able to answer your letter just now for it is full of bristling questions, but I shall do it today — in the course of the day. Only my difficulty is that you all seem to expect some kind of miraculous faery-tale change and do not realise that it is a rapid and concentrated evolution which is the aim of
4 See the letter of 9 November 1933 on page 640. — Ed.
Page – 326 my sadhana and that there must be a process for it, a working of the higher on the lower and a dealing with all the necessary materials — not a sudden fiat of the Creator by which everything is done on a given date. It is a suprarational but not an irrational process. What is to be done, will happen — perhaps with a rush even — but in a workmanlike way and not according to fancy. However I will try to explain all that as far as possible — in principle only of course — as far as it can be explained to the physical mind which has not yet any notion of what the supramental is. For the rest, I will try to meet the points you make. 14 November 1933
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As the moment of the possibility of the supramental Descent grows nearer, these forces have become more eager to keep hold on the Asram atmosphere and break the sadhana of anyone they can touch. Their main aim is to get as many as possible to leave the Asram so that they may not share in the descent and so that the descent itself may be delayed and disturbed by a constant tempest in the atmosphere. That is why I put the notice5 suggesting that the sadhaks should not admit these forces and need not. To be on guard and admit no violent and irrational movements, to be calm and insistent in faith and self-opening to us is all that is needed. 15 November 1933
1934
Is there any occult significance of yesterday’s date — the succession 1-2-34? The next date in this series will come in 11 years: 2-3-45.
1.2.34. It is supposed to be always a year of manifestation. 2.3.45 is the year of power — when the thing manifested gets full force. 4.5.67 is the year of complete realisation. 2 February 1934
*
5 The letter of 8 November 1933 on page 639 was posted on the Ashram notice board. — Ed.
Page – 327 It is true that there is an increasingly powerful descent of the Higher Force. Many now see the lights and colours around the Mother and her subtle luminous forms — it means that their vision is opening to supraphysical realities, it is not a phantasy. The colours or lights you see are forces from various planes and each colour indicates a special force. The supramental Force is descending, but it has not yet taken possession of the body or of matter — there is still much resistance to that. It is a supramentalised Overmind Force that has already touched and this may at any time change into or give place to the Supramental in its own native power. 14 September 1934
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I dreamed that I was at the Pranam ceremony this morning and at the time of making the usual obeisance to the Mother I offered her some flowers which she took in her hands. At that time she broke her customary silence and spoke to me some words of advice and encouragement, the purport of which was that I should stay here until a certain event which was to come after a few days (she mentioned the event but I do not remember what it was), about when I might return home and that even though I would not be living in the Asram, the progress of my sadhana would be assured.
There is indeed something preparing to descend and the dream was probably a suggestion to you to stay so as to receive its touch after which your sadhana could proceed at home without difficulty, as there would be Something else within you doing the sadhana with your constant assent as the one necessity. The only difficulty in the way of health is a certain obscurity in the body consciousness itself which makes it consent readily to habitual touches of the force that makes for illness; otherwise if the body consciousness as well as the mind and vital were open any illness that came would immediately be dissipated. Keep a quiet and steady will for the opening of the consciousness and the union and do not allow depression or any idea of frustration. Keep also a concentrated call in the heart. With those two things the result is sure. 18 September 1934
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Page – 328 X told me that this is the year of the manifestation of the Purushottama, Sri Aurobindo.6 Also that the Supramental Force is just now coming down. I feel my previous dream of darshan of Sri Aurobindo in a motor car and another dream of Sri Aurobindo signify this manifestation and the coming down of the Force before long. Am I right?
The motor car by itself only means a rapid progress. It is true that the Supramental Force is preparing its descent. 20 September 1934
* X speaks in very definite terms about this descent that has already come so close. He says it will bring about the final change. Is what he says true? If so, why am I still ignorant of it?
It would not necessarily be known by everybody beforehand. Besides even if the descent were here one would have to be ready before one could get the final change. 14 October 1934
*
It feels as if the Pure Existence is descending into the being. I can feel it manifesting — but then something asks how this can be possible, for the vital and the physical are not yet filled with it.
The Pure Existence is not something abstract but substantial and concrete. Moreover it is descending into the body, so it is quite natural to feel it materially. 16 October 1934
*
I do not know who was X‘s informant, but certainly the Mother never said to anybody that the Supermind was to descend on the 24th November. Dates cannot be fixed like that. The descent of the supermind is a long process or at least a process with a long preparation and one can only say that the work is going
6 The person referred to here as X was the recipient of the letter of 2 February 1934, published on page 327. — Ed
Page – 329 on sometimes with a strong pressure for completion, sometimes retarded by the things that rise from below and have to be dealt with before farther progress can be made. The process is a (spiritual) evolutionary process concentrated into a brief period — it could be done otherwise (by what men would regard as a miraculous intervention) only if the human mind were more flexible and less attached to its ignorance than it is. As we envisage it, it must manifest in a few first and then spread, but it is not likely to sweep over the earth in a moment. It is not advisable to discuss too much what it will do and how it will do it, because these are things the Supermind itself will fix, acting out of that Divine Truth in it, and the mind must not try to fix for it grooves in which it will run. Naturally, the release from subconscient ignorance and from disease, duration of life at will, and a change in the functioning of the body must be among the ultimate results of a supramental change; but the details of these things must be left for the supramental Energy to work out according to the truth of its own nature. 18 October 1934
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When I wrote in my letter about the supermind and the obstinate resistance,7 I spoke of course of something I had already spoken of before. I did not mean that the resistance was of an unexpected character or had altered anything essential. But in its nature the descent is not something arbitrary and miraculous, but a rapid evolutionary process compressed into a few years which proceeds by taking up the present nature into its Light and pouring its Truth into the inferior planes. That cannot be done in the whole world at a time, but is done like all such processes first through selected Adharas and then on a wider scale. We have to do it through ourselves first and through the circle of sadhakas gathered around us in the terrestrial consciousness as typified here. If a few open, that is sufficient for the process to be possible. On the other hand if there is a general misunderstanding and resistance (not in all, but in many), that makes it difficult and
7 See the letter of 17 October 1934 on pages 44 45. — Ed.
Page – 330 the process more laborious, but it does not make it impossible. I was not suggesting that it has become impossible, but that if the circumstances are made unfavourable by our being unable to concentrate enough on this thing of capital importance and having too much work to do of an irrelevant kind, the descent was likely to take longer than it would do otherwise. Certainly, when the supramental does touch earth with a sufficient force to dig itself in into the earth consciousness, there will be no more chance of any success or survival for the Asuric Maya. The rest that I spoke of about the human and the divine had to do with the intermediate period between before it is down. What I meant was that if the Mother were able to bring out the Divine Personalities and Powers into her body and physical being, as she was doing for several months without break some years ago, the brightest period in the history of the Asram, things would be much more easy and all these dangerous attacks that now take place would be dealt with rapidly and would in fact be impossible. In those days when the Mother was either receiving the sadhaks for meditation or otherwise working and concentrating all night and day without sleep and very irregular food, there was no ill-health and no fatigue in her and things were proceeding with a lightning swiftness. The power used was not that of the Supermind, but of the Overmind, but it was sufficient for what was being done. Afterwards because the lower vital and the physical of the sadhaks could not follow, the Mother had to push the Divine Personalities and Powers through which she was doing the action behind a veil and come down into the physical human level and act according to its conditions and that meant difficulty, struggle, illness, ignorance and inertia. All has been for long slow, difficult, almost sterile in appearance. Nevertheless our work was going on behind that appearance and now it is again becoming possible to go forward. But for the advance to be anything like general or swift in its process, the attitude of the sadhaks, not of a few only, must change. They must cling less to the conditions and feelings of the external physical consciousness and open themselves to the true consciousness of the Yogin and sadhaka. If they did that,
Page – 331 the inner eye would open and they would not be bewildered or alarmed if the Mother again manifested externally something of the Divine Personalities and Powers as she did before. They would not be asking her to be always on their level, but would be glad to be drawn swiftly or gradually up towards hers. The difficulties would be ten times less and a larger easier securer movement possible. This was what I meant and I suppose I manifested some impatience at the slowness of so many to realise what is after all a logical conclusion from the very principle of our Yoga which is that of a transformation, all that is disharmonious in human nature being enlightened out of existence, all that makes for harmony being changed into its divine equivalent, purer, greater, nobler, more beautiful and much being added which has been lacking to the human evolution. I meant that things could move more swiftly towards this if the sadhaks had a less ignorant attitude, but if they could not yet reach that, we had of course to go on anyhow until the supramental descent came down to the material level. Finally, you must get rid of this gratuitous tendency to despair. The difficulty for you has been created by the indulgence given to this formation I speak of; that finally dismissed, the difficulty would disappear. Progress might be slow at first, but progress would come; it would quicken afterwards and, with the supramental force here, there would be for you as for others the full speed and certitude. 18 October 1934
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I was reading a book about the Great War, which I found interesting. I hope you don’t mind if I read such books. Do not punish me for that. I mean, there seems to be a counterpart of punishment in the supramental, a withdrawing of its protection or help which results in attacks, depressions, illnesses, etc.
But it is not the supramental that is acting at present — the supra mental won’t act until it is rooted and established in Matter. If it were the supramental, you would not be having these difficulties. It is at most the cosmic Overmind that is able to act now, but
Page – 332 even there there is no idea of punishment; it is a play of forces and when the force of the physical consciousness becomes too prominent it acts according to its dharma and the other forces are covered over for the time. Our own force acts in this play of forces to help the sadhak through till he gets himself into the silence within and the cosmic consciousness as a whole with the Higher Force action to regulate and harmonise the progress — after which it is plainer sailing. There can be no question of our withdrawing protection and help. As for your reading these books, we have no objection at all, so long as you feel the need of it. When the inner life becomes more active again, you can either drop them again or make all mental activity a part of the sadhana according to your condition and inner impulse at the time. 25 October 1934
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I have felt bound to explain so much [about the behaviour of certain sadhaks] though I would have preferred not to write about these things. I do hope you will throw all that behind you. I feel a great longing that the sadhaks should be free of all that. For so long as the present state of things continues with fires of this kind raging all around and the atmosphere in a turmoil, the work I am trying to do, certainly not for my own sake or for any personal reason, will always remain under the stroke of jeopardy and I do not know how the descent I am labouring for is to fulfil itself. In fact, the Mother and I have to give nine tenths of our energy to smoothing down things, to keeping the sadhaks tolerably contented etc. etc. etc. One-tenth and in the Mother’s case not even that can alone go to the real work; it is not enough. It is not surprising either that you should feel it difficult to get on in all this. But then why not push these things away from you and keep a clear field in you for the Divine? That, if everybody, or even a sufficient number could do it, would be the greatest help I could receive. 26 October 1934
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Page – 333 I have already spoken about the bad condition of the world; the usual idea of the occultists about it is that the worse they are, the more is probable the coming of an intervention or a new revelation from above. The ordinary mind cannot know — it has either to believe or disbelieve or wait and see. As to whether the Divine seriously means something to hap pen, I believe it is intended. I know with absolute certitude that the supramental is a truth and that its advent is in the very nature of things inevitable. The question is as to the when and the how. That also is decided and predestined from somewhere above; but it is here being fought out amid a rather grim clash of conflicting forces. For in the terrestrial world the predetermined result is hidden and what we see is a whirl of possibilities and forces attempting to achieve something with the destiny of it all concealed from human eyes. This is however certain that a number of souls have been sent to see that it shall be now. That is the situation. My faith and will are for the now. I am speaking of course on the level of the human intelligence — mystically rationally, as one might put it. To say more would be going beyond that line. You don’t want me to start prophesying, I suppose? As a rationalist, you can’t. 25 December 1934
*
What did you imply when you wrote to me that I was in the physical consciousness? Did you mean that I am living like an animal or vegetating like a plant and did you suggest that I should come out of the physical consciousness and live on the mental level?
I am myself living in the physical consciousness and have been for several years. At first it was a plunge into the physical — into all its obscurity and inertia, afterwards it was a station in the physical open to a higher and higher consciousness and slowly having fought out in it the struggle of transformation of the physical consciousness with a view to prepare it for the supramental change. It is possible to go back to the mental level where one receives all the mental realisations readily enough if the mind is
Page – 334 open and bright. But it is not the course that the sadhana usually follows. 29 December 1934
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When the sadhana is going on in the physical plane, is it necessary for all the sadhaks to come down into the physical consciousness, or only those who have much inertia and impurity in them, as in my case?
It is a little difficult to say whether all have to come down totally into the physical. The Mother and I had to do it because the work could not be otherwise done. We had tried to do it from above through the mind and higher vital, but it could not be because the sadhaks were not ready to follow — their lower vital and physical refused to share in what was coming down or else misused it and became full of exaggerated and violent reactions. Since then the sadhana as a whole has come down along with us into the physical consciousness. Many have followed — some unluckily without sufficient preparation in the mind and vital, some holding on to the vital and mind and living still between the three, some totally but with a prepared mind and vital. The total descent into the physical is a very troublesome affair — it means a long and trying period of difficulty, for the physical is normally obscure, inert, impervious to the Light. It is a thing of habits, very largely a slave of the subconscient and its mechanical reactions. It is less open to violent attacks than the vital except in the way of illness and some other movements, but it is dull and dreary to have these — until the Light, the Peace, the Power, the Joy can come down from above and fix themselves. We would have preferred to do all the hard work ourselves there and called others down only when an easier movement was established, but it did not prove possible. I don’t think it has anything to do with impurity. Only you came down a little too soon. At the moment it happened, the peace and silence of the Atman and the movement upward to realisation of the Self above the head in the higher consciousness were about to establish themselves. If that had been done first, it would have been less difficult. It means a great struggle
Page – 335 against the inertia to get these things done — but you have only to persevere and done they will surely be. Then things will be much more easy for you. 31 December 1934
1935
After November the push for descent stopped and the resistance of material Nature arose — that is always a sign of something that has still to be conquered before the descent can be complete. In the silence the necessary preparation is being done. No doubt, I expect something to be done by the 21st, but I say nothing because I do not want to raise the buzz again — it is not good for the realisation that there should be any buzz about it. 2 February 1935
*
I hear you are having a tough fight with the forces.
Very beastly — these forces. One can’t advance a single step without their throwing their shells and stink-bombs. However like General Joffre, I advance. "Nous progressâmes." 1 March 1935
*
This [February] darshan day was not so marvellous as November and I thought that during the interval I had not made much progress.
The period since November has been a general period of difficulty and the resistance of the physical Nature to the change demanded of it. That is the reason why there was not the same movement as before November in you, — it is not due to any cause personal to you. 11 March 1935
*
Why so many illnesses all of a sudden? Is the supramental too near?
No, it is the material which has become too uppish.
Page – 336 People are saying that the supramental has come down into the physical, evidenced by greater peace and calm.
Into whose physical? I shall be very glad to know — for I myself have not got so far, otherwise I would not have a queasy eye. But if you know anybody who has got it (the Supramental in the physical, not the eye) tell me like a shot. I will acclaim him "Grand First Supramental" at once. 17 March 1935
*
It seems to take a lot more effort to free myself from sexual and other problems now than ever before. Even in the very beginning it was easier for me.
The greater difficulty is because the sadhana is now taking place directly on the physical plane, where the force of a habit or habitual movement once formed is very great. When the sadhana is taking place on the mental or vital plane, it is more easy to control or change, because the mind and vital are more plastic than the physical. But on the other hand if something is definitely gained on the physical plane, there is a more lasting and complete fulfilment than when it is on the mental or vital alone. 19 March 1935
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What does supramentalisation mean exactly? We know by your own statements that you have achieved that. Is it then supramentalisation in parts? You want transformation of everything — mental to physical?
Achieved what? What statement? What are these wild assertions? I spoke of an overmind Force which is getting supramentalised in parts.
Does it mean that some parts of your being are supramental but that the physical is not yet supramentalised?
Overmind in process of supramentalisation, not supramental.
Page – 337
How can it be possible — realisation in parts — in your case?
Why not? Always the idea that there must be an instantaneous absolute miracle or else nothing! What about process in things? You are ignorant of all that is between supreme Spirit and matter, it seems. You know nothing of the occult processes of mind, life and all the rest — so you can think only of miraculous divinity or else law of matter as known to Science. But for supramental Spirit to work itself out in matter it must go through a process of transforming the immediate mental, vital and other connections, must it not — so why should not the process be in parts? Immortality also can come by parts. First the mental being becomes immortal (not shed and dissolved after death), then the vital, while the physical comes only last. That is a possible evolution, recognised by occult science. 27 March 1935
*
Above all, you have the direct Intuition to fall back upon.
I haven’t — not just now at any rate. I am too busy handling the confounded difficulties of Matter. The material is subconscious and I would have to be subconscious myself to get its true intuition. I prefer to wait for the supramental. 4 April 1935
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The way you are hammering the supramental on us in every thing, every problem, every difficulty, as the solution to all riddles, panacea for all ills, one almost thinks that its descent will make all of us "big people" overnight.
My insistence on the supramental is of course apo-diaskeptic. Don’t search for the word in the dictionary. I am simply imitating the doctors who when they are in a hole protect themselves with impossible Greek. Peace, supramental if possible, but peace anyhow — a peace which will become supramental if it has a chance. The atmosphere is most confoundedly disturbed, that is why I am ingeminating "peace, peace, peace!" like a summer dove or an intellectual under the rule of Hitler. Of course, I am not asking you to become supramental offhand. That is my
Page – 338 business, and I will do it if you fellows give me a chance, which you are not doing just now (you is not personal, but collective and indefinite) and will do less if you go blummering into buzzific intensities. (Please don’t consult the dictionary, but look into the writings of Joyce and others.) 9 April 1935
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It is you who will bring down the Supramental but my question was whether that descent is quite independent of the conditions of the sadhaks; whether our impurities, turmoil, crowings for "buzzific intensities", our social talks, social dinners now and then are going to stand in the way or whether it will come anyhow.
I presume it will come anyhow, but it is badly delayed because, if I am all the time occupied with dramas, hysterics, tragi-comic correspondence (quarrels, chronicles, lamentations), how can I have time for this — the only real work, the one thing needful? It is not one or two, but twenty dramas that are going on. 11 April 1935
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People say that it will be one century, if not more, before the supramental descends!
One day, one week, one month, one year, one decade, one century, one millennium, one light year — all is possible. Then why do people choose one century? 12 April 1935
*
It seems something very striking and luminous has happened today. Have you achieved some great victory? How many millions of hostile forces have you crushed? At evening meditation the Mother had an appearance sparkling like gold beams. On other days she looks tired, tired of the job, and would like to give it up saying, "Oh, you sadhaks, you are all hopeless!"
It would be very natural if Mother felt like that! Never has there been such an uprush of mud and brimstone as during the past
Page – 339 few months. However the Caravan goes on and today there was some promise of better things. 19 April 1935
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I was surprised to hear that such a bad time was hanging over our head. But surely it means that the greater the light descending, the greater the velocity, the greater the resistance — law of physics, isn’t it?
In a certain sense it is true, but it was not inevitable — if the sadhaks had been a less neurotic company, it could have been done quietly. As it is there is the Revolt of the Subconscient.
In one letter you wrote that you were able to push on; in another that the hostile forces were out of date [p. 639]. That was a year ago. When we read this we thought that it would be merry Christmas henceforth. But now I again feel a bit despondent because you speak of the confounded atmosphere, "the uprush of mud" and the attacks.
When I said "out of date", I did not mean that they are not going on, but they ought not to be going on — they were only kept up by the sadhaks opening themselves to them and so retaining them in the atmosphere. I thought that was clear from what I said — but the sadhaks seem always to put a comfortable interpretation even on uncomfortable statements.
I have heard that even X had a terrible attack recently. He almost left the Asram! Y wanted to commit suicide, and Z is in revolt!
There are only 2 or 3 in the Asram to whom this word "even" would apply. I won’t mention their names less the devil should be tempted to try with them also. A solid mind, a solid nervous system and a steady psychic flame seem to be the only safeguard against "terrible attacks".
And all this despite your continuous day and night fight!
If such things did not happen, there would be no need of a fight
Page – 340 day and night. You put the thing in an inverse order. (I take no responsibility for the statements you make, of course. They stand on the credit of the reporters.)
Since the descent of the Supermind will quicken up all the processes, why not take an axe of retrenchment . . .
How? I am not Hitler.
and cut off all impeding elements ruthlessly so that among a very few chosen disciples, the whole work may go on most concentratedly and rapidly? When the miracle is achieved, all of us will flock back and achieve everything as by a miracle!
Things cannot be done like that. You might just as well ask the Mother and myself to isolate ourselves in the Himalayas, get down the supramental, then toss everybody up in a blanket into the Supreme. Very neat but it is not practical. 20 April 1935
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Since yesterday evening there has been a strong uprising of the subconscient inertia.
The subconscient difficulty is the difficulty now — because the whole struggle in the general sadhana is now there. It is in the subconscient, no longer in the vital or conscious physical that the resistance is all massed together. 30 April 1935
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Between last November and February I suffered a good deal on account of my emotional and vital defect. Now the chief difficulty is in the gross physical — weakness, pain, lethargy and sicknesses.
The main difficulty in the general sadhana also is now in the physical. From November last there has been much struggle and obstruction on the most physical plane — the material consciousness. 7 May 1935
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Page – 341
It seems another victory has been won by you? Some people saw a red-crimson light around the Mother a few days back. What does it signify?
??? Great Heavens! which? who? But there is nothing new in that. It was coming down before Nov. 24, but afterwards all the damned mud arose and it stopped. But there are two red crimson lights. One is supramental Divine Love. The other is the supramental physical Force. 14 May 1935
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It seems to me that my sadhana has come to a standstill. Is it because of the physical tamas?
It is probable that you have come in contact with a new layer of the physical consciousness which is more material than the rest, perhaps with the subconscient itself (it is with the subconscient that the sadhana is now concerned in the Asram itself). The first result is the purely negative or stand-still condition you describe. You have to call down the Force and the Light here, so that this too may become a part of the Divine Consciousness. If it is the subconscient, then you must be on your guard against all negative feelings such as the sense that all is gone, or the uselessness of life or the frustration or uselessness of sadhana, helplessness, incapacity etc. These things come naturally to one who does not understand. But they are false appearances. Remaining quiet and keeping the faith that there is the Divine Guidance behind, one has to do what is needed till the phase is over. 27 May 1935
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We hear you are tremendously busy; hot speculations are in the air about near descents.
No, thank you, sir! I have had enough of them — the only result of the last descent was an upsurging of subconscient mud.
In the upshot many crashes and shipwrecks are apprehended.
What an appetite for crashes!
Page – 342 Please tell us something so that we may prepare ourselves in time to bear the pressure of the descent.
No pressure! I am simply busy trying to get out of the mud — in other words to see if the damned subconscient can be persuaded to subside into something less dangerous, less complexful and more manageable. 27 May 1935
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A number of people have left recently. Is it "sifting", or is it the "pressure"? But does the pressure work to oust people, or is it a corresponding pressure from other forces which makes them go?
The "Pressure" from above does not work to send people away — it is the pressure of the wrong forces. As for sifting, that is an idea which is very widespread; — but what is meant by sifting? Were the people who have gone out the most unfit for Yoga and are those who remain the ones fit for Yoga — is that the idea? I don’t think anybody could make the facts work out to mean that. Then what is the idea? It is true that this has been a very difficult time, but that is only because the sadhana has proceeded by a de scent into a lower and lower plane where the forces of Darkness are more and more at home, and it is now in the subconscient where lies the root of all the difficulties. But on the other hand the Power descending also is greater. If many people have gone and many are having great difficulties, also many have opened to experience and progress who were stagnant for years together. There is a loss account but a gain account also. 8 June 1935
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They say that you are now handling the lower vital and so the general trouble. True?
Subconscient vital physical — the lower vital is irrational, but not so utterly "without reason" as that. 8 July 1935
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Page – 343 Some time back you wrote to me: “Never has there been such an uprush of mud and brimstone as during the past few months. However the Caravan goes on and today there was some promise of better things.”8 What about the uprush of mud? Has it settled down, and are people now floating in the flood of the Supramental?
It is still there, but personally I have become superior to it and am travelling forward like a flash of lightning, that is to say, zigzag, but fairly fast. Now I have got the hang of the whole hanged thing — like a very Einstein I have got the mathematical formula of the whole affair (unintelligible as in his case to anybody but myself) and am working it out figure by figure. As for people, no! they are not floating in the supramental — some are floating in the higher mind, others rushing up into it and flopping down into the subconscient alternately, some swinging from heaven into hell and back into heaven, again back into hell ad infinitum, some are sticking fast contentedly or discontentedly in the mud, some are sitting in the mud and dreaming dreams and seeing visions, some have their legs in the mud and their head in the heavens, etc. etc., an infinity of combinations, while many are simply nowhere. But console yourself — these things, it seems, are inevitable in the process of great transformations. 16 August 1935
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You say, “I have become superior to it and am travelling for ward . . . fast,” but you have been always superior and always travelling fast all your life.
[Underlining “always superior and always travelling fast”:] Rubbish!
How is it going to affect us?
If my being able to solve the problem of the subconscient in the sadhana is of no importance, then of course it won’t affect anybody. Otherwise it may.
8 See the letter of 19 April 1935 on pages 339 40. — Ed.
Page – 344 From the condition of the people you enumerate, there is not much hope left nor does it show that your travelling fast has speeded them up.
That is of no importance at present. To get the closed doors open is just now the thing to be done and I am doing it. Speeding people through them can come in its own time when the doors and the people are ready.
What is the mathematical formula that you have all of a sudden found out? Let us have it in a tangible form, if possible.
I told you it was unintelligible to anybody but myself, so how the deuce do you expect me to give it to you in a tangible form? 17 August 1935
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I beg to be pardoned for one thing. Today I mentioned to somebody what you said about yourself that you are travelling fast. Has it been a great mistake to let it out? Is it absolutely private?
No — only you must not tell it to too many people. It is only because I don’t want speculation or gossip about such things as that spoils the atmosphere. 20 August 1935
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The darshan atmosphere and its influence seem to be waning away so soon! Old friends or foes are stepping in.
There is always an adverse movement after the darshan, the revanche of the lower forces. I had a stoppage myself, but I am off again riding on the back of my Einsteinian formula. 23 August 1935
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Do tell me please if you are getting anything solid from this nebulous supramental. X9 tells me you have scaled and winged
9 The recipient of the letters of July and August 1935 on pages 343 45. — Ed.
Page – 345
like lightning on its pinions. Have you really? Was it something like motion on a sort of marvellous Calm which seems like motion through some supramental jugglery of consciousness? Some enlightenment on this bewildering problem would be highly edifying even to the mentals and humans, you may be sure. Also, Y has to be gagged somehow. He talks of nothing but the supramental. And what am I to answer?
You have created your own “bewildering problem” by supplying your own data! There is nothing nebulous about the supramental, its action depends on the utmost precision possible. As for solidity, since I have got many solid things from much lower forces, I do not see why the highest ones should only give nebulosities. But that seems the human mind’s position, only what is earthy is solid, what is high is misty and unreal — the worm is a reality, but the eagle is a vapour! However, I have not told X that I am scaling and winging — on the contrary I am dealing with very hard practical facts. I only told him I had got the formula of solution for the difficulty that had been holding me up since last November and I am working it out. To return to the supramental — the supramental is simply the direct self-existent Truth-Consciousness and the direct self effective Truth-Power. There can therefore be no question of jugglery about it. What is not true is not supramental. As for calm and silence, there is no need of the supramental to get that. One can get it even on the level of Higher Mind which is the next above the human intelligence. I got these things in 1908, twenty-seven years ago and I can assure you they were solid enough and marvellous enough without any need of supramentality to make it more so! Again, a calm that “seems like motion” is a phenomenon of which I know nothing. A calm or silence which can support or produce action — that I know and that is what I have had — the proof is that out of an absolute silence of the mind I edited the Bande Mataram for four months and wrote 61 2 volumes of the Arya, not to speak of all the letters and messages etc. etc. I have written since. If you say that writing is not an action or motion but only something that seems like it, a jugglery
Page – 346 of the consciousness, — well, still out of that calm and silence I conducted a pretty strenuous political activity and have also taken my share in keeping up an Asram which has at least an appearance to the physical senses of being solid and material! If you deny that these things are material or solid (which of course metaphysically you can), then you land yourself plump into Shankara’s illusionism, and there I will leave you. You will say however that it is not the Supramental but at most the Overmind that helped me to these non-nebulous motions. But the Supermind is by definition a greater dynamic activity than mind or Overmind. I have said that what is not true is not supramental; I will add that what is ineffective is not supramental. And finally I will conclude by saying that I have not told X that I have taken possession of the supramental — I only admit to be very near to it or at least to its tail. But “very near” is — well, after all a relative phrase like all human phrases. I don’t know how you are to “gag” Y. You might perhaps try my two formulas, but it is doubtful. Or perhaps you might tell him that the supramental is silence — only, it would be untrue! So I leave you in your fix — there is no other go. At least until I have firm physical hold of the tail of the supramental and can come and tell the mentals and humans — no doubt in language which will be unintelligible to them, for they have totally misunderstood even the little I have already written about it. 23 August 1935
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Are there many sadhaks here who are under the same spell of inertia as I?
Yes — it is a natural result of the consciousness’s descent into the physical and the struggle with the subconscient resistance. Only its form varies with different people. 4 September 1935
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How curious it is that something prevents my ascension. For everything in the lower nature can best be dealt with from above. So why does it hinder my ascent?
Page – 347 It happened in the same way with myself. I had to come down into the physical to deal with it instead of keeping the station always above. Of course if you can keep the station above so much the better, but as almost everybody is down in the physical, it is a little difficult perhaps. 5 September 1935
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A suggestion has come to me that you are working directly with the supramental power. That is why the resistance is so stormy and the attacks so violent. Is this true?
I suppose so. Only that must not be accepted as a reason for passive acquiescence. 7 September 1935
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When will our difficulties be over?
That cannot be said. The difficulties are not likely to cease until the material resistance has been entirely conquered in principle. 11 September 1935
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X has made the following remark: “The present preparation is going on to bring down the Supermind into the physical of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.” Is it correct?
[Sri Aurobindo bracketed “The present preparation is going on to bring down the Supermind into the physical”, and wrote:] Not quite correct in all points. The things to be brought down were in us no doubt — but not all outwardly manifested, from the beginning. Of course X‘s statement is altogether true only as far as the bracket goes. 14 September 1935
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When you wrote “as far as the bracket goes”, did you not notice that you cut off the last part of X‘s statement?
Yes, of course. What is being done is meant to prepare the manifestation of the supermind in the earth consciousness down
Page – 348 to Matter itself, so it can’t be for the physical of myself or the Mother alone.
Most of us know that the Supermind will be brought down into “the physical”. But what X means is that the present preparation is going on to bring down the Supermind not into our physical but into yours and the Mother’s.
If it comes down into our physical it would mean that it has come down into matter and so there is no reason why it should not manifest in the sadhaks.
X says further: “The Supermind will not descend into any of the sadhaks. I have read in the Arya about the nature of the Supermind. It is so great that no human being can bear it in itself.”
I do not know to what passage of the Arya the reference is. It is certain that the Supermind is far above the human mind and cannot be grasped by the human mind. That is the reason why this Yoga has to be undertaken — so as to make man grow out of the human mind and prepare him for supermind.
For myself all I have to say is that if you were not already supramentalised you would never have called yourself a superman.
I don’t know that I have “called” myself a superman. But certainly I have risen above the ordinary human mind, otherwise I would not think of trying to bring down the supermind into the physical.
I refuse to accept what you wrote yesterday: "The things to be brought down were in us no doubt” [p. 348]. Those things were not only in you but were created by you. If you put it like that it can only be because of the conditions of the earth nature. From the point of view of the supramental truth, you are the creator of the supramental plane.
Page – 349 That is another matter. The supermind plane is a plane above, its nature is not yet manifested in the material world, which has manifested matter, life and mind, and something of what is between mind and supermind, but not supermind itself. 15 September 1935
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I don’t think X was referring to any particular passage of the Arya. But he has the impression that you have said that the supermind is so far above the human mind that the mind cannot grasp it. So he says that it is impossible for the supermind to come down into a human being. Have you spoken to him about this?
No. It was the old idea that human consciousness can reach and merge in the Sun (Supermind) — by Samadhi, I suppose — but cannot redescend from there. 15 September 1935
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You wrote a few days ago: “The difficulties are not likely to cease until they are conquered in principle” [cf. p. 348].10
I do not remember having written “in principle” or if so, there must have been other words also.
A week earlier you wrote: “as almost everybody is down in the physical, it is a little difficult perhaps” [p. 348]. But I was under the impression that some, like X, Y and Z, are always on the intuitive plane.
I am not aware that they or anybody lives constantly on the intuitive plane. All are at grips with the difficulties of the physical consciousness at present — though of course to one like Y the suggestion of revolt cannot come — at least it has never done so up to now. 16 September 1935
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What you wrote [on 11 September] was: “The difficulties
10 Quoting from memory, the correspondent omitted several words from Sri Aurobindo’s reply of 11 September 1935. — Ed.
Page – 350 are not likely to cease until the material resistance has been entirely conquered in principle.”
I see, but that was about another matter altogether. I meant that the difficulties in the physical (generally speaking, not in a particular case) could not be entirely absent so long as the material resistance to the supramental descent had not been overcome in principle. In principle means in essence, not in every detail of the coming development. 17 September 1935
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It seems to me that a direct Supermind Force is working, and that the lower nature is trying to accommodate itself to it.
Direct Supermind Force is not possible at this stage. It is only when the whole being down to the physical has accepted and assimilated the higher consciousness that it can come.
I understand that the transformation of the lower nature is not possible without the Supramental Force coming down and preparing the vessel for the complete perfection.
Complete perfection is another matter. What must first be done is the fullness of the higher consciousness between the mind and supermind. 17 September 1935
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When I wrote recently about a “direct Supermind Force”, I was thinking about something you wrote a week or two ago. When I asked whether the direct Supermind Force was acting in the Asram, you replied, if I remember correctly, “I suppose so, but it should not be an excuse for a passive acquiescence.”11 Also, when I began to feel a powerful, fiery keen force, I took it to be the Supermind.
Acting in the Asram means only acting in the earth consciousness to prepare its own possibility. The forces above the human
11 See the question and answer of 7 September 1935 on page 348. Quoting from memory, the correspondent made small but significant errors in his question and in Sri Aurobindo’s answer. — Ed.
Page – 351 mind, especially Overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind can be very intense and fiery. They have divine powers in them.12 18 September 1935
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You wrote that you are “trying to get the supermind down into the material”.13 We understand from this that the ascent has been done but the descent remains. It is something like our going up to you at Darshan and getting all the bliss, joy, Ananda, and then trying to bring these things down and not lose them as soon as one leaves your room. Also, you say in another letter that you have seen the supermind and are in contact with it without achieving it, while in your letter to X14 you write that you are very near the tail of the supermind. Sounds funny, no? Contact and no contact.
But supposing I reached supermind in that way, then under such conditions would it be probable that I should come down again at the risk of losing it? Do you realise that I went upstairs and have not come down again? So it was better to be in contact with it until I had made the path clear between S and M. As for the tail, can’t you approach the tail of an animal without achieving the animal? I am in the physical, in matter — there is no doubt of it. If I throw a rope up from Matter, noose or lasso the Supermind and pull it down, the first part of Mr. S that will come near me is his tail dangling down as he descends, and that I can seize first and pull down the rest of him by tail-twists. As for being in contact with it, well I can be in contact with you by correspondence without actually touching you or taking hold even of your tail, can’t I? So there is nothing funny about it — perfectly rational, coherent and clear. 15 September 1935
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You know we are hanging our hopes and aspirations on the invisible tail of the supramental. But do tell us how this
12 The preceding replies of 4 18 September were written to one correspondent. Those of 15 and 18 September that follow were written to another. — Ed. 13 See the letter of 29 August 1935 on pages 270 72. — Ed. 14 See the letter of 23 August 1935 on pages 345 47. — Ed.
Page – 352 omnipotent Mr. S will make us great sadhaks overnight. Is he going to burn up all our impurities by his blazing flame as Hanuman did Lanka or what?
If you expect to become supramental overnight, you are confoundedly mistaken. The tail will keep the H.F. [hostile forces] at a respectful distance and flap at you until you consent to do things in a reasonable time instead of taking 200 centuries over each step as you seem to want to do just now. More than that I refuse to say. What is a reasonable time in the supramental view of things I leave you to discover.
Your Overmental Force seems to have utterly failed in cases of idiots like us. Where then is the chance of this Mr. S which is only one step higher?
Overmind is obliged to respect the freedom of the individual — including his freedom to be perverse, stupid, recalcitrant and slow. Supermind is not merely a step higher than Overmind — it is beyond the line, that is a different consciousness and power beyond the mental limit. 18 September 1935
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Someone has told me that at present the Mother and you have started to send us down into the depth of the lower nature (for the purpose of transformation). Is it a fact?
We are sending nobody nowhere. The sadhana itself has come down into the depth of the physical and subconscient to make them open to what has to come down from above. That is all.
Is it true that the nearer the supramental descent, the greater the difficulties of those in whom it is to come down?
It is true, unless they are so surrendered to the Mother, so psychic, plastic, free from ego that the difficulties are spared to them. 4 October 1935
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Page – 353
Why not write something about the Supermind which these people find so difficult to understand?
What’s the use? How much would anybody understand? Besides the present business is to bring down and establish the Super mind, not to explain it. If it establishes itself, it will explain itself — if it doesn’t, there is no use in explaining it. I have said some things about it in past writings, but without success in enlightening anybody. So why repeat the endeavour? 9 October 1935
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To X‘s comment about “near descents”, you replied: “No, thank you, sir! I have had enough of them — the only result of the last descent was an upsurging of subconscient mud.”15 Are our present difficulties, attacks, etc. the result of the descent?
Not of the descent, but of the resistance to it.
What descent did you mean? The descent of what?
The general descent of the Supermind into Matter was the subject on which I was writing. 6 November 1935
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Yesterday you said that the Supermind descent into Matter is what is being attempted. If that is so, has the Supermind already conquered the mental plane, the vital plane and the subtle physical plane?
There can be no conquest of the other planes by the supermind, but only an influence, so long as the physical is not ready. Besides the Supermind did not attempt — it is we who are attempting.
Unless the mind and the vital are perfectly prepared how is it possible to bring the Supermind down into the physical or into Matter itself?
15 See the letter of 27 May 1935 on pages 342 43. — Ed.
Page – 354 And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared — for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared until these are ready. 7 November 1935
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If the progress of the transformation of the body is so slow that it cannot keep pace with that of the higher parts, it seems that at any given time it would always be behind the higher parts. For example, when the higher parts are overmentalised the body would be just beginning to be intuitivised. In the same way, when the higher parts are supramentalised, the physical consciousness would be just beginning to receive the overmental influence. The body would always be behind un less one stopped at each stage in order to deal with the body at that level, and proceeded only when that work was finished.
That is hardly possible. The body consciousness is there and cannot be ignored, so that one can neither transform the higher parts completely leaving the body for later dealing nor make each stage complete in all its parts before going to the next. I tried that method but it never worked. A predominant overmentalisation of mind and vital is the first step, for instance, when overmentalising, but the body consciousness retains all the lower movements unovermentalised and until these can be pulled up to the overmental standard, there is no overmental perfection, always the body consciousness brings in flaws and limitations. To perfect the overmind one has to call in the supramental force and it is only when the overmind has been partially supramentalised that the body begins to be more and more overmental. I do not see any way of avoiding this process, though it is what makes the thing so long. 18 November 1935
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Well sir, what about your brand new formula?16 How has it worked out? Are you still stuck up in the middle? Judging
16 See the letter of 16 August 1935 on page 344. — Ed.
Page – 356
from my own experience this Darshan [24 November 1935], it is hard to say.
My formula is working out rapidly, but it has nothing to do with any Darshan descent. It is my private and particular descent, if you like, and that’s enough for me at present. The tail of the supermind is descending, descending, descending. It is only the tail at present, but where the tail can pass, the rest will follow.
After so much expectation everything seemed so quiet. Already it seems as if the Darshan passed away long ago!
Quiet was all I wanted — there were so many alarums and excursions. Just before that it looked as if the 24th would be a day of mud, whirlpools and tempests (in certain quarters of course). However all quieted down by magic — and everything was peaceful, peaceful.
I hope others felt the Force, the Descent. Some say there was a descent; others say no.
How do they know either of them? Personal experience? Then it was a personal descent or a personal non-descent. No General de Bono yet.
Some say there was so much resistance that Sri Aurobindo could not do much in spite of himself.
Didn’t try, sir, so that’s bosh. The attempt to bring a great general descent having only produced a great ascent of subconscient mud, I had given up that as I already told you. At present I am only busy with transformation of overmind (down to the subconscient) into supermind; when that is over, I shall see if I can beat everyone with the tail of the supermind or not. At present I am only trying to prevent people from making hysterical subconscient asses of themselves, so that I may not be too much disturbed in my operations — not yet with too much success. 25 November 1935
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Page – 356 We are very happy — I believe it is due to the joy and harmony you have brought down in the atmosphere. Are the Mitra and Bhaga powers preparing to come down?
Well, it is what I am trying to bring down into the Asram atmosphere, for it is the condition for anything effective being collectively done. 25 November 1935
*
The descent of the Silence is not usually associated with sadness, though it does bring a feeling of calm detachment, unconcern and wide emptiness, but in this emptiness there is a sense of ease, freedom, peace. The absorption as if something were drawing deep from within is evidently the pull of the inmost being, the psychic. There is a psychic sadness often when this inmost soul opens and feels how far the nature and the world are from what they should be, but this is a sweet and quiet sorrow, not distressing. It must be something in the mind and vital which is not yet awake to what has happened within you and gives this colour of dissatisfied and distressed seeking. You have certainly made a great progress since you came and there is no reason to fear any setback of the sadhana. I don’t think you need attach any value to what X professes to think about the supramental. The descent of the supramental is an inevitable necessity in the logic of things and is therefore sure. It is because people do not understand what the supermind is or realise the significance of the emergence of consciousness in a world of “inconscient” Matter that they are unable to realise this inevitability. I suppose a matter-of-fact observer if there had been one at the time of the unrelieved reign of inanimate Matter in the earth’s beginning would have criticised any promise of the emergence of life in a world of dead earth and rock and mineral as an absurdity and a chimaera; so too afterwards he would have repeated his mistake and regarded the emergence of thought and reason in an animal world as an absurdity and a chimaera. It is the same now with the appearance of supermind in the stumbling mentality of this world of human consciousness and its reasoning ignorance. I do not know that the descent depends
Page – 357 on the readiness of the sadhaks of this Asram. It is likely that these things are determined from above rather than from below. That the descent is preparing and progressing is a fact; it is that which you feel and are justified in feeling. 1 December 1935
1936
A certain inertia, tendency to sleep, indolence, unwillingness or inability to be strong for work or spiritual effort for long at a time, is in the nature of the human physical consciousness. When one goes down into the physical for its change (that has been the general condition here for a long time), this tends to increase. Even sometimes when the pressure of the sadhana in the physical increases or when one has to go much inside, this temporarily increases — the body either needing more rest or turning the inward movement into a tendency to sleep or be at rest. You need not, however, be anxious about that. After a time this rights itself; the physical consciousness gets the true peace and calm in the cells and feels at rest even in full work or in the most concentrated condition and this tendency of inertia goes out of the nature. 9 January 1936
*
Is there any direct Supramental action upon the earth consciousness? Is that the reason why the resistance has increased? The earth consciousness seems to be too inert and obstinate. I gather that you started bringing down the Supramental into it in 1923.
Why not 1623? or since the beginning of the evolution? 7 February 1936
*
I gave 1923 as the year for the bringing down of the Supermind because I read that in 1923 you said that you were bringing it down. How can we presume that you started bringing it down much earlier unless we definitely know you have yourself spoken to this effect?
Page – 358 But who said that I started in 1923? The aim of bringing down the supramental was there long before. The effort to bring it down into the physical is on the contrary quite recent, during the last few years only. 8 February 1936
*
X wrote to you that he saw the Supermind descending into the earth consciousness. You wrote to him in reply that his vision and feeling were justifiable. But before the Supermind descends into the earth consciousness, do not the planes between mind and Overmind have to descend first?
They descended long ago. It does not mean that they are avail able to everybody or developed anywhere in their full power — only that they can be counted among the things to which one can reach by tapasya. For Supermind, it may be descending, but it may take long before it is available to the race. 7 April 1936
*
A friend wants to know many things: (1) Descent of the Supra M. Tail — on the slightest news of which he will give a gorilla jump to Pondy to set his nerves right! Is the Tail in view?
Of course. Coming down as fast as you fellows will allow.
(2) He wants your remarks on him which will prove “precious”.
Tell him I have grown chary of remarks. Remarks frighten the Sm. T. 17 May 1936
*
I shall see what can be done [about a promised piece of writing]. For some time however it has been difficult for me to put myself to any sustained intellectual work, because I am strongly taken up by a push to finish inwardly in myself what remained to be done in the way of transformation of the consciousness and, though this part of it is terribly difficult and arduous, I was
Page – 359 making so unexpected a progress that the consciousness was unwilling to turn away from it to anything else. So much hangs on this, the decisive victory, the power to remove the difficulties of others as well as my own (those that are still there, physical and other) that I was pushing for it like Mussolini for Addis Ababa before the rains. However, any night when there is a lull, I will see. 19 May 1936
*
No, it is not with the Empyrean that I am busy, I wish it were. It is rather with the opposite end of things — in the Abyss that I have to plunge to build a bridge between the two. But that too is necessary for my work and one has to face it. 29 May 1936
*
Is it true that a greater and vaster Force descended this Darshan [15 August 1936]?
It is not a question of descent. We are nurturing the Force and it grows necessarily stronger and has more effect. 21 August 1936
*
The last Darshan was good on the whole. I am not now trying to bring anything sensational down on these days, but I am watching the progress in the action of the Force and Consciousness that are already there, the infiltration of a greater Light and Power from above, and there was a very satisfactory crossing of a difficult border which promises well for the near future. A thing has been done which had long failed to accomplish itself and which is of great importance. I don’t explain now, because it forms part of an arranged whole which is explicable only when it is complete. But it gives a sort of strong practical assurance that the thing will be done. 26 August 1936
*
All in the Asram are not suffering from the sense of dullness
Page – 360 and want of interest, but many are because the Force that is descending is discouraging the old movements of the physical and vital mind which they call life and they are not accustomed to accept the renunciation of these things, or to admit the peace or joy of silence. 9 September 1936
*
We hear your Supermind is very near — not 50 years, we hope! Time to push us up a little, Sir, so that we may give you a proper reception, what?
That’s what the Force seems to be trying to do.
Don’t forget to make us feel at least the Descent. 30 years’ sadhana,17 by Jove!
30 years too little or too many? What would have satisfied your rational mind — 3 years? 3 months? 3 weeks? Considering that by ordinary evolution it could not have been done even at Nature’s express speed in less than 3000 years, and would ordinarily have taken anything from 30,000 to 300,000, the transit of 30 years is perhaps not too slow. 10 September 1936
*
In the evening meditation I saw a white cock in the physical and heard it crowing. I felt it as an indication of the dawn of the Supramental Descent. Was this a right feeling? What does the symbol indicate?
That is of course a symbol of triumph. It is true that a Force came down full of an intense white light which the Mother had never known to come down before and it seemed to have a supramental authority. Your feeling therefore was probably right. 10 September 1936
*
Yesterday after dusk, I felt as if some welcome revolution
17 See the letter of 4 April 1935 on page 374. — Ed.
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had taken place in the Divine order of things. I attended the meditation and felt the whole place filled with calm and silence. . . . Then descended a virāt mahāpurusa, Himalayan in proportions, in the form of Sri Aurobindo, who, as if finding the earth incapable of bearing his weight, stood behind the Mother and placed his hands on her shoulders. The whole world was surcharged with silence and Ananda. The sight is beyond my powers to describe. An immeasurable force rushed into me, wave upon wave. . . . Was my experience true?
The experience you had was a true one, for something came down at that meditation which had not come down before and your experience was a translation of this descent in your consciousness. That you should have become aware of it in this way shows that your stay here has been very profitable to you and prepared your consciousness for the true realisation. The capacity for it is now there in you. Your future sadhana should be a development from the experience to the realisation. 11 September 1936
*
I hear that you are now trying more for transformation of nature than for experience.
Because without transformation of nature, the blessed experience is something like a gold crown on a pig’s head — won’t do. Picturesque perhaps, but — 16 September 1936
*
The awakening in the subconscient is now the great and urgent necessity and it is that for which I am pressing most. 24 September 1936
*
If the pressure here has an effect on the outside world in some way, have incidents here any connections with outside happenings? For example, I noted that on the day X and Y went from here the Italians finally conquered Abyssinia. There is a story about an occultist in Ahmedabad (in the 16th century
Page – 362 or so) in which it is related that he was making and unmaking mats and accordingly the wall around the city which had been built during the day fell down during the night — at the time when he was taking away the chips of the mat.
The story of the occultist contains a truth, and it would be a mistake to suppose that there is no connection between the pressure here and outside happenings. But I don’t know about particular coincidences. The departure of X and Z does not seem easily relatable to the event in Abyssinia. 10 October 1936
*
I have just received your telegram communicating your disapproval of my proposed visit in November. Is it due to any wrong attitude on my part that you have not sanctioned the visit?
It is due to the fact that there have been for some time much struggle and tense conditions in the forces working in the Asram and your stay here would not be profitable to you at the moment. 3 November 1936
1937
One misgiving is pressing heavily on my soul. I sense and feel that the tone of your letters has suddenly become very grave — the owl-like severity with which you had once threatened me. I don’t know what I have done to deserve such a punishment. Or is it because you are getting supramentalised day by day that you are withdrawing yourself so? There must be a reason if my “sense feel” is correct. Well, if you want to press me between two planks and pulverize me . . .
I think your sense feel has been indulging in vain imaginations, perhaps with the idea of increasing your concrete imaginative faculty and fitting you for understanding the unintelligible. Anyhow disburden your soul of the weight. I am not owled yet, and my supramentalisation is going on too slowly to justify such apprehensions. Neither am I withdrawing, rather fitting myself for a new rush in the near or far future. So cheer up and send the
Page – 363 Man of Sorrows with his planks to the devil. 8 January 1937
*
What have you kept in store for us, Sir? Will the sadhaks tumble in this way one by one as your Supramental comes nearer and nearer? Then with whom will you enjoy your Supramental? Night and day you are soaring and soaring.
Romantic one! I am not soaring and soaring — I am digging and digging. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard” sort of affair. 11 March 1937
*
Do you see the great Tail yet?
Tail is there — but no use without the head. 16 March 1937
1938
Since we have to lead a life in a concentrated atmosphere, all the ugly things become at once prominent, and add to it the action of the Force on the subconscient for purging of all dross.
No doubt. Also in this atmosphere pretences and social lies are difficult to maintain. But if things become prominent, it is that people may see and reject them. If instead they cling to them as their most cherished possessions, what is the use? How is the purging to be done with such an attitude? 3 April 1938
*
You need not be afraid of losing anything great by postponing your return to Pondicherry. A general descent of the kind you speak of is not in view at the moment and even if it comes, it can very easily catch you up into itself whenever you come if you are in the right openness; and if you are not, then even its descending would not be of so urgent an importance, since it would take you some time to become aware of it or receive it. So there is no reason why you should not in this matter cleave
Page – 364 to common sense and the sage advice of the doctors. 1 August 1938
*
By the way, you had better hurry up with your Supermind descent, Sir. Otherwise Hitler, Mussolini & Co. will gunfire it like — !
What has Supermind to do with Hitler or Hitler with Supermind? Do you expect the Supermind to aviate to Berchtesgaden? How the devil can they gunfire S; their aeroplanes can’t even reach Pondicherry, much less the Supermind. The descent of S depends on S, not on Hitler or no Hitler. 16 September 1938
1944
There is another cause of the general inability to change which at present afflicts the sadhak. It is because the sadhana, as a general fact, has now and for a long time past come down to the Inconscient; the pressure, the call is to change in that part of the nature which depends directly on the Inconscient, the fixed habits, the automatic movements, the mechanical repetitions of the nature, the involuntary reactions to life, all that seems to belong to the fixed character of a man. This has to be done if there is to be any chance of a total spiritual change. The Force (generally and not individually) is working to make that possible, its pressure is for that, — for, on the other levels, the change has already been made possible (not, mind you, assured to everybody). But to open the Inconscient to light is a herculean task; change on the other levels is much easier. As yet this work has only begun and it is not surprising that there seems to be no change in things or people. It will come in time, but not in a hurry. As for experiences, they are all right but the trouble is that they do not seem to change the nature, they only enrich the consciousness — even the realisation, on the mind level, of the Brahman seems to leave the nature almost where it was, except for a few. That is why we insist on the psychic transformation
Page – 365 as the first necessity — for that does change the nature — and its chief instrument is bhakti, surrender, etc. 27 April 1944
*
I have explained to you why so many people (not by any means all) are in this gloomy condition, dull and despondent. It is the tamas, the inertia of the Inconscient, that has got hold of them. But also it is the small physical vital which takes only an interest in the small and trivial things of the ordinary daily and social life and nothing else. When formerly the sadhana was going on on higher levels (mind, higher vital etc.), there was plenty of vigour and verve and interest in the details of the Asram work and life as well as in an inner life; the physical vital was carried in the stream. But for many this has dropped; they live in the unsatisfied vital physical and find everything desperately dull, gloomy and without interest or issue. In their inner life the tamas from the Inconscient has created a block or a bottleneck and they do not find any way out. If one can keep the right condition and attitude, a strong interest in work or a strong interest in sadhana, then this becomes quiescent. That is the malady. Its remedy is to keep the right condition and to bring gradually or, if one can, swiftly the light of the higher aspiration into this part of the being also, so that whatever the conditions of the environment, it may keep also the right poise. Then the sunlit path should be less impossible. 16 June 1944
1945
I have no intention, I can assure you, of cutting off connection in the future. What restrictions there have been, were due to unavoidable causes. My retirement itself was indispensable; otherwise I would not now be where I am, that is, personally near the goal. When the goal is reached, things will be different. But as far as you are concerned, I have given to you what I have not given to others; what you have quoted about my connection with you is perfectly true; if it were false, why should I have persistently pressed you to remain with me always? Inwardly,
Page – 366 I have been constant in my desire and my effort to help you, not only from time to time, but daily and always. If you had an unprecedented peace for so long a time, it was due to my persistent inner pressure; I refuse to give up all the credit to my double, Krishna. 14 August 1945
1947
The extreme acuteness of your difficulties is due to the yoga having come down against the bedrock of Inconscience which is the fundamental basis of all resistance in the individual and in the world to the victory of the Spirit and the Divine Work that is leading toward that victory. The difficulties themselves are general in the Ashram as well as in the outside world. Doubt, discouragement, diminution or loss of faith, waning of the vital enthusiasm for the ideal, perplexity and a baffling of the hope for the future are the common features of the difficulty. In the world outside there are much worse symptoms such as the general increase of cynicism, a refusal to believe in anything at all, a de crease of honesty, an immense corruption, a preoccupation with food, money, comfort, pleasure to the exclusion of higher things and a general expectation of worse and worse things awaiting the world. All that, however acute, is a temporary phenomenon for which those who know anything about the workings of the world-energy and the workings of the Spirit were prepared. I myself foresaw that this worst would come, the darkness of night before the dawn; therefore I am not discouraged. I know what is preparing behind the darkness and can see and feel the first signs of its coming. Those who seek for the Divine have to stand firm and persist in their seeking; after a time, the darkness will fade and begin to disappear and the Light will come. 9 April 1947
*
If I had been standing on the Supermind level and acting on the world by the instrumentation of Supermind, that world would have changed or would be changing much more rapidly and in
Page – 367 a different fashion from what is happening now. My present effort is not to stand up on a high and distant Supermind level and change the world from there, but to bring something of it down here and to stand on that and act by that, but at the present stage the progressive supramentalisation of the Overmind is the first immediate preoccupation and a second is the lightening of the heavy resistance of the Inconscient and the support it gives to human ignorance which is always the main obstacle in any attempt to change the world or even to change oneself. I have always said that the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs such as the War is not the supramental but the overmind force, and that when it acts in the material world it is so inextricably mixed up in the tangle of the lower world forces that its results, however strong or however adequate for the immediate object, must necessarily be partial. That is why I am getting a birthday present of a free India on August 15, but complicated by its being presented in two packets as two free Indias: this is a generosity I could have done without, one free India would have been enough for me if offered as an unbroken whole. 7 July 1947
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