*   *  *

*   *  *

ceremonial habitual worship and fixed dogmas.

*   *  *

I do not take the same view of the Hindu religion as J. Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of man's spirituality with his endeavours that come in in trying to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral-temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance—crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral-temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit. The outer social structure which it built for its approach is another matter.

*   *  *

I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated. Even the Upanishads and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in seed. In this development the recent spiritual history of India is a very important stage and the names I mentioned had a special prominence in my thought at the time— they seemed to me to indicate the lines from which the future spiritual development had most directly to proceed, not staying but passing on. I may say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old, for humanity in the future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter.

*   *  *

If it is meant by the statement¹ that the form of religion is some-

     ¹ These comments are on the following statement of Mahatma Gandhi on Dr. Am-bedkar's view about change of religion:

    "But religion is not like a house or a cloak which can be changed at will. It is more an integral part of one's self than of one's body. Religion is the tie that binds one to one's creator, and while the body perishes as it has to, religion persists even after that."

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thing permanent and unchangeable, then that cannot be accepted. But if religion here means one's way of communion with the Divine, then it is true that that is something belonging to the inner being and cannot be changed like a house or a cloak for the sake of some personal, social or worldly convenience. If a change is to be made, it can only be for an inner spiritual reason, because of some development from within. No one can be bound to any form of religion or any particular creed or system, but if he changes the one he has accepted for another, for external reasons, that means he has inwardly no religion at all and both his old and his new religion are only an empty formula. At bottom that is, I suppose, what the statement drives at. Preference for a different approach to the Truth or the desire of inner spiritual self-expression are not the motives of the recommendation of change to which objection is made here;—-the object proposed is an enhancement of social status and consideration which is no more a spiritual motive than conversion for the sake of money or marriage. If a man has no religion in himself, he can change his credal profession for any motive; if he has, he cannot; he can only change it in response to an inner spiritual need. If a man has a bhakti for the Divine in the form of Krishna, he can't very well say, "I will scrap Krishna for Christ, so that I may become socially respectable."

*   *  *

Vairagya is certainly one way of progressing towards the goal —the traditional way and a drastic if painful one. To lose the desire for human vital enjoyments, to lose the passion for literary or other success, praise, fame, to lose even the insistence on spiritual success, the inner bhoga of yoga, have always been recognised as steps towards the goal—provided one keeps the one insistence on the Divine. I prefer myself the calmer way of equality, the way pointed out by Krishna, rather than the more painful one of Vairagya. But if the compulsion in one's nature or the compulsion of one's inner being forcing its way by that means through the difficulties of the nature is on that line, it must be recognised as a valid line. What has to be got rid of in that case is the note of despair in the vital which responds to the cry you speak of—that

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it will never gain the Divine because it has not yet got the Divine or that there has been no progress. There has certainly been a progress, this greater push of the psychic, this very detachment itself always growing somewhere in you. The thing is to hold on, not to cut the cord which is pulling you up because it hurts the hands, to keep the one insistence if all the others fall away from you.

    It is evident that something in you, continuing the unfinished curve of a past life, is pushing you on this path of Vairagya and the more stormy way of Bhakti,—in spite of our preference for a less painful one and yours also—something that is determined to be drastic with the outer nature so as to make itself free to fulfil its secret aspiration. But do not listen to these suggestions of the voice that says, "You shall not succeed and it is no use trying." That is a thing that need never be said in the Way of the Spirit, however difficult it may seem at the moment to be. Keep through all the aspiration which you express so beautifully in your poems; for it is certainly there and comes out from the depths, and if it is the cause of suffering,—as great aspirations are, in a world and nature where there is so much to oppose them—it is also the promise and surety of emergence and victory in the future.

*   *  *

I have objected in the past to Vairagya of the ascetic kind and the tamasic kind. By the tamasic kind I mean that spirit which comes defeated from life, not because it is really disgusted with life, but because it could not cope with it or conquer its prizes; for it comes to yoga as a kind of asylum for the maimed or weak and to the Divine as a consolation prize for the failed boys in the world-class. The Vairagya of one who has tasted the world's gifts or prizes but found them insufficient or finally tasteless and turns away towards a higher and more beautiful ideal or the Vairagya of one who has done his part in life's battles but seen that something greater is demanded of the soul, is perfectly helpful and a good gate to the yoga. Also the sattwic Vairagya which has learnt what life is and turns to what is above and behind life. By the ascetic Vairagya I mean that which denies life and world altogether and wants to disappear into the Indefinable—I object

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to it for those who come to this yoga because it is incompatible with my aim which is to bring the Divine into life. But if one is satisfied with life as it is, then there is no reason to seek to bring the Divine into life,—so Vairagya in the sense of dissatisfaction with life as it is is perfectly admissible and even in a certain sense indispensable for my yoga.

*   *  *

I quite acknowledge the utility of a temporary state of Vairagya as an antidote to the too strong pull of the vital. But Vairagya always tends to a turning away from life and the tamasic element in Vairagya—despair, depression, etc.—dilapidates the fire of the being and may lead in some cases to falling between two stools so that one loses earth and misses heaven. I therefore prefer to replace Vairagya by a firm and quiet rejection of what has to be rejected—sex, vanity, ego-centrism, attachment, etc.—but that does not include rejection of the activities and powers that can be made instruments of the sadhana and the divine work, such as art, music, poetry, etc., though these have to find a new spiritual or psychic base, a deeper inspiration, a turn towards the Divine or things divine. Yoga can be done without the rejection of life, without killing or impairing the life-joy or the vital force.

*   *  *

No, I didn't say that you chose the rajasic or tamasic Vairagya. I only explained how it came, of itself, as a result of the movement of the vital in place of the sattwic Vairagya which is supposed to precede and cause or accompany or result from a turning away from the world to seek the Divine. The tamasic Vairagya comes from the recoil of the vital when it feels that it has to give up the joy of life and becomes listless and joyless; the rajasic Vairagya comes when the vital begins to lose the joy of life but complains that it is getting nothing in its place. Nobody chooses such movements; they come independently of the mind as habitual reactions of the human nature. To refuse these things by detachment, an increasing quiet aspiration, a pure bhakti, an ardent surrender to the Divine, was what I suggested

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as the true forwarding movement.

*   *  *

There is the sattwic Vairagya—but many people have the rajasic or tamasic kind. The rajasic is carried by a revolt against the conditions of one's own life, the tamasic arises from dissatisfaction, disappointment, a feeling of inability to succeed or face life, a crushing under the grips and pains of life. These bring a sense of the vanity of existence, a desire to seek something less miserable, more sure and happy or else to seek a liberation from existence here, but they do not bring immediately a luminous aspiration or pure aspiration with peace and joy for the spiritual attainment.

*   *  *

The passage through sattwa is the ordinary idea of yoga, it is the preparation and purification by the yamaniyama of Patanjali or by other means in other yogas, e.g., saintliness in the bhakti schools, the eightfold path in Buddhism, etc., etc. In our yoga the evolution through sattwa is replaced by the cultivation of equanimity, samatd, and by the psychic transformation.

*   *  *

Obviously, the rajasic movements are likely to create more trouble in sadhana than the sattwic ones. The greatest difficulty of the sattwic man is the snare of virtue and self-righteousness, the ties of philanthropy, mental idealisations, family affections, etc., but except the first, these are, though difficult, still not so difficult to surpass or else transform. Sometimes, however, these things are as sticky as the rajasic difficulties.

*   *  *

Sannyasa does not take away attachment—it amounts only to running away from the object of attachment which may help but cannot by itself alone be the radical cure.

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This is a feeling (the unimportance of things in Time) that the ascetic discipline sometimes uses in order to get rid of attachment to the world—but it is not good for any positive or dynamic spiritual purpose.

*  *  *

The principle of life which I seek to establish is spiritual. Morality is a question of man's mind and vital, it belongs to a lower plane of consciousness. A spiritual life therefore cannot be founded on a moral basis, it must be founded on a spiritual basis. This does not mean that the spiritual man must be immoral —as if there were no other law of conduct than the moral. The law of action of the spiritual consciousness is higher, not lower than the moral—it is founded on union with the Divine and living in the Divine Consciousness and its action is founded on obedience to the Divine Will.

*  *  *

The beliefs you speak of with regard to right and wrong, beauty and ugliness etc. are necessary for the human being and for the guidance of his life. He cannot do without the distinctions they involve. But in a higher consciousness when he enters into the Light or is touched by it, these distinctions disappear, for he is then approaching the eternal and infinite good and right which he reaches perfectly when he is able to enter into the Truth-Consciousness or supermind. The belief in the guidance of God is also justified by spiritual experience and is very necessary for the sadhana; this also rises to its highest and completest truth when one enters into the Light.

    What you say about prayer is correct. That is the highest kind of prayer, but the other kind also (i.e., the more personal) is permissible and even desirable. All prayer rightly offered brings us closer to the Divine and establishes a right relation with Him.

    The obstacles you speak of are the ordinary obstacles in the sadhana, brought up by parts of the being, especially through vital disturbance and physical inertia, movements which have to be gradually worked out of the consciousness.

*  *  *

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I suppose each man makes or tries to make his own organisation of life out of the mass of possibilities the forces present to him. Self (physical self) and family are the building most make —to earn, to create a family and maintain it, work for or get some position in the means of life one chooses, in business, the profession, etc., etc. Country or humanity are usually added to that by a minority. A few take up some ideal and follow it as the mainstay of their life. It is only the very religious who try to make God the centre of their life—that too rather imperfectly, except for a few. None of these things are secure or certain, even the last being certain only if it is followed with an absoluteness which only a few are willing to give. The life of the Ignorance is a play of forces through which man seeks his way and all depends on his growth through experience to the point at which he can grow out of it into something else. That something else is in fact a new consciousness—whether a new consciousness beyond the earthly life or a new consciousness within it.

*  *  *

Family, society, country are a larger ego—they are not the Divine. One can work for them and say that one is working for the Divine only if one is conscious of the Divine Adesh to act for that purpose or of the Divine Force working within one. Otherwise it is only an idea of the mind identifying country etc. with the Divine.

*  *  *

Everything depends upon the aim you put before you. If, for the realisation of one's spiritual aim, it is necessary to give up the ordinary life of the Ignorance (sarhsdra), it must be done; the claim of the ordinary life cannot stand against that of the spirit.

     If a yoga of works alone is chosen as the path, then one may remain in the sarhsdra, but it will be freely, as a field of action and not from any sense of obligation; for the yogin must be free inwardly from all ties and attachments. On the other hand, there is no necessity to live the family life—one can leave it and take any kind of works as a field of action.

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     In the yoga practised here the aim is to rise to a higher consciousness and to live out of the higher consciousness alone, not with the ordinary motives. This means a change of life as well as a change of consciousness. But all are not so circumstanced that they can cut loose from the ordinary life; they accept it therefore as a field of experience and self-training in the earlier stages of the sadhana. But they must take care to look at it as a field of experience only and to get free from the ordinary desires, attachments and ideas which usually go with it; otherwise, it becomes a drag and hindrance on their sadhana. When one is not compelled by circumstances there is no necessity to continue the ordinary life.

     One becomes tamasic by leaving the ordinary actions and life, only if the vital is so accustomed to draw its motives of energy from the ordinary consciousness and its desires and activities that if it loses them, it loses all joy and charm and energy of existence. But if one has a spiritual aim and an inner life and the vital part accepts them, then it draws its energies from within and there is no danger of one's being tamasic.

*  *  *

It is not absolutely necessary to abandon the ordinary life in order to seek after the Light or to practise yoga. This is usually done by those who want to make a clean cut, to live a purely religious or exclusively inner and spiritual life, to renounce the world entiiely and to depart from the cosmic existence by cessation of the human birth and passing away into some higher state or into the transcendental Reality. Otherwise, it is only necessary when the pressure of the inner urge becomes so great that the pursuit of the ordinary life is no longer compatible with the pursuit of the dominant spiritual objective. Till then what is necessary is a power to practise an inner isolation, to be able to retire within oneself and concentrate at any time on the necessary spiritual purpose. There must also be a power to deal with the ordinary outer life from a new inner attitude and one can then make the happenings of that life itself a means for the inner change of nature and the growth in spiritual experience.

*  *  *

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As for your friend, it is not possible to say that she can come here; for that depends on many things which are not clearly present here. First, one must enter this Path or it must be seen that one is called to it; afterwards there is the question whether one is meant for the Ashram life here. The question about the family duties can be answered in this way—the family duties exist so long as one is in the ordinary consciousness of the grhastha ; if the call to a spiritual life comes, whether one keeps to them or not depends partly upon the way of yoga one follows, partly on one's own spiritual necessity. There are many who pursue inwardly the spiritual life and keep the family duties, not as social duties but as a field for the practice of Karmayoga, others abandon everything to follow the spiritual call or line and they are justified if that is necessary for the yoga they practise or if that is the imperative demand of the soul within them.

*  *  *

I don't remember the context; but I suppose, he means that when one has to escape from the lower Dharma, one has often to renounce it so as to arrive at a larger one, e.g., social duties, paying debts, looking after family, help to serve your country, etc., etc. The man who turns to the spiritual life, has to leave all that behind him often and he is reproached by lots of people for his A dharma. But if he does not do this A dharma, he is bound for ever to the lower life—for there is always some duty there to be done—and cannot take up the spiritual Dharma or can do it only when he is old and his faculties impaired.

*  *  *

You may get his photograph—it may help to see what kind of nature he has. But there is no need to go out of the way to persuade him; from his letter he does not seem altogether ready for the spiritual life. His idea of life seems to be rather moral and philanthropic than spiritual at present; and behind it is the attachment to the family life. If the impulse to seek the Divine of which he speaks is more than a mental turn suggested by a vague emotion, if it has really anything psychic in it, it will come

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out at its own time; there is no need to stimulate, and a premature stimulation may push him towards something for which he is not yet fit.

*  *  *

The true object of the yoga is not philanthropy, but to find the Divine, to enter into the divine consciousness and find one's true being (which is not the ego) in the Divine.

The "Ripus" cannot be conquered by damana, (even if it succeeds to some extent, it only keeps them down but does not destroy them); often compression only increases their force. It is only by purification through the divine consciousness entering into the egoistic nature and changing it that this thing can be done.

If he gives himself from deep within and is absolutely persevering in the Way, then only can he succeed.

*  *  *

The idea of usefulness to humanity is the old confusion due to second-hand ideas imported from the West. Obviously, to be "useful" to humanity there is no need of yoga; everyone who leads the human life is useful to humanity in one way or another.

     Yoga is directed towards God, not towards man. If a divine supramental consciousness and power can be brought down and established in the material world, that obviously would mean an immense change for the earth including humanity and its life. But the effect on humanity would only be one result of the change; it cannot be the object of the sadhana. The object of the sadhana can only be to live in the divine consciousness and to manifest it in life.

*  *  *

As to the extract about Vivekananda,¹ the point I make there

      ¹ "I have lost all wish for my salvation, may I be born again and again and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum-total of all souls,—and above all, my God the wicked, my God

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does not seem to me humanitarian. You will see that I emphasise there the last sentences of the page quoted from Vivekananda, not the words about God the poor and sinner and criminal. The point is about the Divine in the world, the All, sarvabhutdni of the Gita. That is not merely humanity, still less, only the poor or the wicked; surely, even the rich or the good are the part of the All and those also who are neither good nor bad nor rich nor poor. Nor is there any question (I mean in my own remarks) of philanthropic service; so neither daridrer sevd is the point. I had formerly not the humanitarian but the humanity view—and something of it may have stuck to my expressions in the Arya. But I had already altered my view-point from the "Our yoga for the sake of humanity" to "Our yoga for the sake of the Divine". The Divine includes not only the supracosmic but the cosmic and the individual—not only Nirvana or the Beyond but Life and the All. It is that I stress everywhere.

*  *  *

I do not remember what I said about Vivekananda. If I said he was a great Vedantist, it is quite true. It does not follow that all he said or did must be accepted as the highest truth or the best. His ideal of sevd was a need of his nature and must have helped him—it does not follow that it must be accepted as a universal spiritual necessity or ideal. Whether in declaring it he was the mouthpiece of Ramakrishna or not, I cannot pronounce. It seems certain that Ramakrishna expected him to be a great power for changing the world-mind in a spiritual direction and it may be assumed that the mission came to the disciple from the Master. The details of his action are another matter. As for proceeding like a blind man, that is a feeling that easily comes when a Power greater than one's mind is pushing one to a large action; for the

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mind does not realise intellectually all that it is being pushed to do and may have its moments of doubt or wonderment about it —and yet it is obliged to go on. Vedantic (Adwaita) realisation is the realisation of the silent static or absolute Brahman—one may have that and yet not have the same indubitable clearness as to the significance of one's action—for over one's action for the Adwaitin lies the shadow of Maya.

*  *  *

Today a Kanchanjungha of correspondence has fallen on my head, so I could not write about Humanity and its progress. Were not the later views of Lowes Dickinson grayed over by the sickly cast of a disappointed idealism? I have not myself an exaggerated respect for Humanity and what it is—but to say that there has been no progress at all is as much an exaggerated pessimism as the rapturous hallelujahs of the nineteenth century to a progressive Humanity were an exaggerated optimism. I shall manage to read through the chapter you sent mc, though how I manage to find time for these things is a standing miracle and a signal proof of a Divine Providence.

    Yes, the progress you are making is of the genuine kind,—the signs are recognisable. And after all, the best way to make Humanity progress is to move on oneself,—that may sound either individualistic or egoistic, but it isn't: it is only common sense. As the Gita says:

     "Whatever the best do is taken as the model by the rest."¹

       There are always unregenerate parts tugging people backwards and who is not divided? But it is best to put one's trust in the soul, the spark of the Divine within and foster that till it rises into a sufficient flame.

*  *  *

It is no use entertaining these feelings. One has to see what the world is without becoming bitter; for the bitterness comes from

¹ Yadyaddcarati hesfhastattadeuetaro janah.

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