Letters to a Young Disciple

I have been experiencing calm and silence, but the Ananda and love which I was feeling have disappeared.

The basis of calm and silence should be there first — otherwise the Ananda and love may take a too vital character and prove unstable.

Would you please indicate the difference between the psychic being and what is called the central being? Is our psychic a part of this central being and does it receive the Divine’s help through it? In Yoga, how does our central being stand in relation to the other parts of our being?

After death, when the vital retires to its vital plane, what does it do there till the psychic calls it back for the next life on the earth?

For most people the vital dissolves after a time as it is not sufficiently formed to be immortal. The soul descending makes a new vital formation suitable for the new life.

Can a beginner get a distinct answer from the Purusha?

The Purusha does not talk. It is a movement of consciousness — a movement of consent or refusal.

I find it difficult to keep myself free from feeling disgust for X whenever I see him. How am I to throw away such stupid reactions from my nature?

By having dislike and disgust for nobody — remembering that the Divine is in all.

One aspires for a thing for five minutes and afterwards for something else. Will this have the same effect as aspiring for one thing for a long time?

The order or time is of no importance. It is the force and sincerity of the aspiration itself that matters.

Aspiration is intense in the morning, then diminishes, and in the evening the consciousness becomes calm and quiet. Is this the rule in such matters?

It is quite usual to have such periods in the day. The consciousness needs time for rest and assimilation, it cannot be at the same pitch of intensity at all times.

I experience Love and Ananda, but they disappear after a while.

It is so with all spiritual experiences. The ordinary consciousness is not accustomed to hold them.

A fall in concentration is very upsetting.

Fall of the concentration happens to everybody [...]

How is one to remain quiet within even while carrying on all kinds of activities?

By having a separate consciousness calm and silent within, separate from the mental, vital or physical activity.

Today I felt as if someone other than myself was carrying out my actions. Of course I was there, but in the background. Was it not the Mother’s Force?

What you say amounts only to some glimpse of the cosmic Force behind all the actions.

Without the emptiness there can be no fullness.

How is it possible to have fullness and emptiness at the same time?

I meant that in the higher consciousness that simultaneous experience was quite natural. It is the same with complete rest and full activity, — experience of infinite impersonality and of the true person. All these (and many other things also) are to the mind incompatible, but in the higher consciousness they go together.

Since this morning there is a warm intoxication fringed with cooler peace. What is this simultaneous experience of the two contraries?

It is the Agni and the peace together.

Why do I have a station in the forehead centre instead of in the heart?

The station in the heart centre is for the psychic opening. What you are at present doing is the upward opening to the Self and for that the inner mind centre is the proper station.

Since the day before yesterday there is a feeling of a strong Force existing not only within me but around me up to a foot’s distance. The form of the force is very dense.

That is good — it must be the beginning of being conscious beyond the body.

Is it always necessary for us to understand what the Mother’s Force is doing in us for the progress of our Yoga?

Plenty of people progress rapidly without understanding what the Force is doing — they simply observe and describe and say “I leave all to the Mother”. Eventually knowledge and understanding come.

What is the meaning behind the Mother’s giving us flowers — I mean, what does she try to do to us?

Simply to put the power indicated upon you if you are willing to receive it. It is a progress suggested and offered.

What do you express through your poetry?

I am expressing spiritual truth or spiritual experience. It ought to be possible to read with the inner consciousness looking on and, as it were, seeing the act of reading. In the condition of absolute inner silence I was making speeches and conducting a newspaper, but all that got itself done without any thought entering my mind or the silence being in the least disturbed or diminished.

When you give us the red lotus which is the symbol of Sri Aurobindo, we receive from you the consciousness of the Supreme, don’t we?

I cannot give the consciousness of the Supreme, for who would be capable of receiving it? — When I give the red lotus I establish simply a relation between the sadhaks and Sri Aurobindo — or rather I renew this relation.

... when an impulse — desire for food or sex-urge or anything else — arises, should not one let it spread in full in oneself so that one might offer all of it to the Mother and aspire for its transmutation?

If you do that, the impulse may spread so far as to take hold of you and master you. If a wrong impulse comes, you must reject it as soon as you become aware of it.