Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
I did not write because I had absolutely no time – I could not have answered either of your letters and it could not be done in a short note.
It is perfectly possible to change one’s nature. I have proved that in my own case, for I have made myself exactly the opposite in character to what I was when I started life. I have seen it done in many and I have helped myself to do it in many. But certain conditions are needed. At present in this Ashram there is an obstinate resistance to the change of nature – not so much in the inner being, for there are good number who accept change there, but in the outer man which repeats its customary movements like a machine and refuses to budge out of its groove. Purani’s case does not matter – his vital has always wanted to be itself and follow its own way and his mental will cannot prevail over it. The difficulty is far more general than that.
That however would not matter – it would be only a question of a little more or less time, if the divine action were admitted wholeheartedly by the sadhaks. But the conditions laid down by them and the conditions laid down from above seem radically to differ. From above the urge is to lift everything above the human level, the demand of the sadhaks (not all, but so many) is to keep everything on the human level. But the human level means ignorance, disharmony, strife, suffering, death, disease – constant failure. I cannot see what solution there can be for such a contradiction – unless it be Nirvana. But transformation is heavily more difficult than Nirvana.
Your attitude towards any divine manifestation in the Mother’s external consciousness is illuminating, “terrifying not only to the Asuras, but to the sadhaks.” As yet it was only a limited and particular force – the Durga power! Others did not go so far as that, but they found her high, far-away, aloof, severe – asked what was the cause of her displeasure against them. And that comes to the same – to be severe against the Asuras is also to be severe against the sadhaks. A few struck a different note, delight at the greatness of the Power they felt, or, even when feeling nothing of that, a sense of the sudden lifting of obstacles. But that is not the general tone. It follows that the Mother cannot manifest anything in her external material because she has to keep on a level with the sadhaks. And what then? If she is not to be allowed to protect herself, the work, the sadhaks against the attacks of the Asuras on the physical plane – for it is there that there is the whole question – then what is to be done? what can be done? Nothing. We can only wait for the supramental descent – and that descent is methodical but slow, for the opposition to that too is obstinate in the material Nature.
However, we must go on and do what can be done under these difficult conditions. I do not know how far it is wise not to come to pranam – the result in others has not been brilliant – but if it is only for a few days and you insist, I shall not refuse. The real thing is however a change of the mental 
attitude – getting out of the world of ideas and feelings built by your mind which is a prison into a free turn and openness to the Divine that would be the most helpful to you. There would soon then be a compass and a rudder.