Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
I see from your letters that you have not at all understood what I meant to say in mine,1 – which shows that I failed to make my meaning clear. I have therefore to write again about the Ananda and the conditions under which it can come. But there is a good deal of confusion here to be disentangled and I may not be able to finish tonight. In the meanwhile I think it better to make certain things clear.
First, it is a great exaggeration to deduce from your difficulties any idea of unfitness or of going away or being sent away or giving up the Yoga. I am certainly not going to pronounce you unfit because you want the Ananda; on such grounds I would have to pronounce myself unfit, because I have myself wanted it and many other things besides. And if I were to send you away because you are not entirely disinterested in the approach to the Divine, I should have, to be consistent, to send practically the whole Ashram packing. I do not know why you are allowing yourself to indulge in such black and despondent thoughts – there is no ground for them at all and I do not think I gave any ground for them in my letter. Whatever your difficulties, the Mother and I have every intention of seeing you through them, and I think that you too, whatever suggestions your vital depression may make to you at the moment, have every intention of going through to the end of the Path. I imagine you have gone too far on it to go back and, if you wanted to, your psychic being which has persistently pushed you towards it, would not allow such a retreat.
Next, it was not my intention to say that it was wrong to aspire for the Ananda. What I wanted to point out was the 
condition for the permanent possession of the Ananda (intimations, visits, downrushes of it one can have before); the essential condition for it is a change of consciousness, the coming of peace, light, etc., all that brings about the transition from the normal to the spiritualised nature. And that being so, it is better to make this change of consciousness the first object of the sadhana. On the other hand, to press for the constant Ananda immediately in a consciousness which is not yet able to retain it, still more to substitute for it lesser (vital) joys and pleasures may very well stop the flow of these spiritualised experiences which make the continuous ecstasy eventually possible. But I certainly never intended to say that the Ananda was not to be attained or to insist on your moving towards a nirānanda [blisslessness] Brahman. On the contrary, I said that Ananda was the crown of the Yoga, which surely means that it was part of the highest final siddhi [realization].
Whatever one wants sincerely and persistently from the Divine, the Divine is sure to give. If then you want Ananda and go on wanting, you will surely have it in the end. The only question is what is to be the chief power in your seeking, a vital demand or a psychic aspiration manifesting through the heart and communicating itself to the mental and vital and physical consciousness. The latter is the greatest power and makes the shortest way – and besides one has to come to that way sooner or later.
I may observe also that, from your own account, it was the psychic aspiration that began your push towards the Yoga.