Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
11. Visions and Symbols
Is the Presence of a physical nature or a spiritual fact? And is the physical sense accustomed or able to see or feel spiritual things – a spiritual Presence, a non-material Form? To see the Brahman everywhere is not possible unless you develop the inner vision – to do that you have to concentrate. To see non-material forms is indeed possible for a few, because they have the gift by nature, but most can’t do it without developing the subtle sight. It is absurd to expect the Divine to manifest his Presence without your taking any trouble to see it, you have to concentrate.
It simply means you have a subjective sense of Presence. But must a subjective sense of things be necessarily a vain imagination? If so, no yoga is possible. One has to take it as an axiom that subjective things can be as real as objective things. No doubt there may be and are such things as mental formations – but, to begin with, mental formations are or can be very powerful things, producing concrete results; secondly whether what one sees or hears is a mental formation or a real subjective object can only be determined when one has sufficient experience in these inward things.