Photo Collection
Sri Aurobindo, handwriting
Letters
It is the lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man — only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you,— blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.
Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 24. - Letters on Yoga
It is the lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man — only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you,— blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.
Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 24. - Letters on Yoga
Letter from Sri Aurobindo to Mrinalini
Correspondence with Nirodbaran
Correspondence with Nirodbaran
Prithwi Singh
When one is living in the world, one cannot do as in an Asram — one has to mix with others and keep up outwardly at least ordinary relations with others. The important thing is to keep the inner consciousness open to the Divine and grow in it. As one does that, more or less rapidly according to the inner intensity of the sadhana, the attitude towards others will change. All will be seen more and more in the Divine and the feeling, action etc. will more and more be determined, not by the old external reactions, but by the growing consciousness within you.
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.
The Mother finds that you have made considerable progress since you came here this time and that the opening in you is widening very much. The little difficulties and details you speak of are of very little importance. Let the consciousness grow within you as it is growing and the opening of the consciousness grow entirely wide.
Prithwi Singh
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 Dilip 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 chimera; 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 chimera. 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 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.
Prithwi Singh,
The Divine Force, not using the supramental Power, can certainly throw back the forces of Death and that has been done many times. But the Divine Force works here under conditions imposed by the Divine Will and Law; it has to take up an immense mass of conflicting forces, conditions, habits and movements of Nature and out of it arrive at the result of a higher consciousness on Earth and a higher state. If it were to act otherwise, then all would be done by a miracle or magic, no sadhana would be needed, no way beaten out for the process of spiritual evolution to follow; there would be no real transformation of consciousness, but only a temporary feat of force which having no basis in the substance of creation here would vanish as it came. Therefore conditions have to be satisfied, the work to be done has to be wrought out step by step. The powers that hold the field up to now have to be given their chance to oppose, so that the problem may be solved and not evaded or turned into a sham fight or unreal game without significance. Therefore there is a sadhana to be done, there is a resistance to be overcome, a choice made between the higher and the lower state. The Divine Power does the work, gives a protection and a guidance; but it is not here to use an absolute force — except when that is sanctioned by the Divine Wisdom and in the Light of that Wisdom justifiable. Then the decisive Power acts of itself and does what it has to do.
At the bottom of Pritwi Singh’s letter Sri Aurobindo wrote an answer:
Nothing needs to be done to bring the ascension — aspiration is sufficient. The object of the ascension is for the lower nature to join the higher consciousness so that (1) the limit or lid between the higher and the lower maybe broken and disappear (2) the consciousness may have free access to higher and higher planes (3) a free way may be made for the descent of the higher Consciousness into the lower planes.
I should like – and the Mother asks me – just to express a word of appreciation of the music yesterday. Your song to Mahakali was superb – full of a fine variety and great power. The Mother came up enthusiastic and said it was filled with a most wonderful life, energy and movement; one could feel the universal forces pouring themselves through it. Truly, you have opened your wings and soared into a larger ether.