Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
I must again point out that I have never put any ban on bhakti, so there is no meaning in saying that I have lifted a ban which never existed. Also I am not conscious of having banned meditation either at any time – so the satirical praise of my mercifulness is out of place. I imagine I have stressed both bhakti and knowledge in my Yoga as well as works, even if I have not given any of them an exclusive importance like Shankara or Chaitanya. Also I think I have not imposed my own choice unduly upon anyone in the matter of sadhana. Those who wanted to go wholesale for works or wholesale for bhakti or japa or wholesale for meditation, I have left to do so without any interference, though not without any help I could give. I have latterly sometimes discounselled entire retirement, but that was because I did not want a repetition of the cases of Nalinbehari and others who, in spite of my warning, went in for it and came to grief. I have written what I thought when people asked me; but if they had no use for my ideas about things, why did they ask me?
My remarks about being puzzled were, by the way, mere Socratic irony. Of course, I am not in the least puzzled by the case either of Shankara or of Ramakrishna.
The difficulty you feel or any sadhak feels about sadhana is not really a question of meditation versus bhakti versus works, it is a difficulty of the attitude to be taken, the approach or whatever you like to call it. Yours seems to be characterised on one side by a tremendous effort in the mind, on the other by a gloomy certitude in the vital which seems to watch and mutter under its breath if not aloud, “Yes, yes, go ahead, my fine fellow, but – kichhui kakhano hay ni, kichhui hachchey nā, kichhui habay nā” [nothing has ever happened, nothing is happening and nothing will ever happen] and at the end of the meditation, “What did I tell you, kichhui holo nā [nothing happened]”. A vital so ready to despair that even after a “glorious” flood of poetry, it uses the occasion to preach the gospel of despair. I have passed through most of the difficulties of the sadhaks, but I cannot recollect to have looked on delight of poetical creation or concentration in it as something undivine and a cause for despair. This seems to me excessive. Even Shankaracharya.
If you can’t remember the Divine all the time you are writing, it does not greatly matter. To remember and dedicate at the beginning and give thanks at the end ought to be enough. Or at the most to remember too when there is a pause. Your method seems to me rather painful and difficult – you seem to be trying to remember and work with the same part of the mind. I don’t know if that is possible. When people remember all the time during work (it can be done), it is usually with the back of their minds or else there is created gradually a double consciousness – one in front that works, one within that witnesses and remembers. But this is only a comment – I am not asking you to try that. For usually it does not come so much by trying as by a very simple constant aspiration and will of consecration – which does bring its results, even if in some it takes a long time about it. That is a great secret of sadhana, to know how to get things done by the Power behind or above instead of doing all by the mind’s effort. Let me hasten to say, however, that I am not dogmatising – I don’t mean to say that the mind’s effort is unnecessary or has no result – only if it tries to do all by itself, that becomes a laborious effort for all except the spiritual athletes. Nor do I mean that the other method is the longed-for short cut; the result may, as I have said, take a long time. Patience and firm resolution are necessary in every method of sadhana.
Strength is all right for the strong – but aspiration and the Grace answering to it are not altogether myths. Again, you see, I am muddling the human mind – like Krishna of the Gita – by supporting contrary things at the same time. Can’t help it – it is my nature.
But I am unable to explain farther today – so I break off these divagations. I am rather too overburdened with “work” these two days to have much time for the expression 
of “knowledge”. This is simply a random answer.