Letters 1935

If one is vigilant and constantly keeps a watch over all the movements, the feeling of dullness will not come, experiences will not stop, and progress in the sadhana will not be affected.... For this he has of course to learn to observe things deep behind the surface layers.

That is all true and I am glad you have realised it.

On what a mute ocean do we float! Each day I find the water calmer than before.

It is true that peace and silence can always become deeper and wider and more intense.

It was a surprise to watch that my sadhana was going on even during the work although I made no conscious attempt to separate myself from the work.

It is a stage of detachment and separation which is necessary in Yoga. It is only so that freedom in the work can come.

It becomes clear now that I had some fundamentally wrong ideas about the old Yogas and Yogins.

I have heard that people from outside often find the sadhaks here full of an insufferable pride and arrogance, looking on all others as outsiders far below them! If it is so, it is a most foolish and comically ridiculous attitude. ... I have said that this Yoga is “new” because it aims at a change in this world and not only beyond it and at a supramental realisation. But how does that justify a superior contempt for the spiritual realisation which is as much the aim of this Yoga as of any other?

A time comes when one reaches a consciousness which is full of sheer silence, peace, bliss and freedom.

It is the goal for most Yogas, but for us it is the beginning and basis. For it is the state of spiritual liberation which was all they wanted.

What is the difference between the cosmic Divine and the Mother?

It is a matter of realisation. In the Yoga of the Gita the Cosmic Divine is realised as Vasudeva (Krishna). The Vaishnavas realise it as Vishnu, the Shaivas as Shiva, the Tantrics (Shaktas) realise the Devi (Goddess) as the Cosmic and even as the Transcendent Divine.

Sometimes in my forehead I feel as if a burning spark has entered, though it remains within only for a while. What is this spark?

A spark of the higher dynamic force, I suppose.

What is characteristic of the higher mind?

It is a mind of thought and knowledge and spiritual perception but spontaneously seeing the truth.

I think the sadhaks should [...] have no demands regarding the answers they receive from you. To ask questions urged by the vital ego will only disturb the sadhana.

It is so indeed because it is their mind and vital that put the question and the ego is always wanting to make use of the answer or the mental ignorance to distort it.

How does faith turn into knowledge?

Until we know the Truth (not mentally but by experience, by change of consciousness) we need the soul’s faith to sustain us and hold on to the Truth — but when we live in the knowledge, this faith is changed into knowledge. Of course I am speaking of direct spiritual knowledge.

I describe certain knowledge in my letters to you. When the letters come back to me, I just cannot believe that it was really I who wrote them. Why is this so?

The knowledge comes from above, — it is not yours in any personal sense.

"Y when he was here asked for Yoga. I told him how to make his mind silent and it became silent. He immediately got frightened and said, “I am becoming a fool, I can’t think”, so I took what I had given away from him. That is how the average mind regards silence."

If I start studying, it must be taken up as seriously as I did with the sadhana.

Study cannot take the same or greater importance than sadhana [...] If the sadhana were active then study can be done in the spare time i.e., in times not given to work or meditation.

I am much troubled by the frequency of mechanical thoughts.

Reject always without getting disturbed by the recurrences.

Why is my physical mind not happy with your answers to what I write?

Something in your physical mind stiffens and begins to defend its views. It is better to wait till it is more supple and plastic. Mental discussions are not good for sadhana but only for clarifying the intellect which is not so important at this stage as other things.

My mind has almost lost its power of memory. Can’t remember anything.

There is very often a complaint of this kind made during the course of the sadhana. I suppose that the usual action of memory is for a time suspended by the mental silence or else by the physical tamas.

There is a great mass of necessary information about the world, one’s body, the evolution of the earth, the history of the human race that one ought to learn and then also the training of the intellect to deal rightly with facts. [...] To neglect one’s studies as R and S have done is therefore a mistake.