Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1934 — 1935

Letter ID: 577

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

March 26, 1935

I had written last night a somewhat sad note which on second thoughts I did not send but I send today.

Today after meals I began japa and meditation, etc. of Mother after reading your Lights on Yoga and some lovely poems of Harin (though sometimes too ecstatic for poor Dilip) I fell to wondering whether Yoga was what you claimed: founded on any bed-rock of reality. Suchi’s and Sarala’s¹ case lent colour to this trend of thought in me. I was musing whether ecstasies about peace and light, etc. (however valid for the few who can live in such a subjective world of temporary bliss which the hard world of reality wrecks sooner or later as it did with Suchi and Sarala) are worth striving for with so much suffering and straining and seclusion from life, whether in this world created as it is such a citadel of bliss and light, etc., was not, when all was said, at the mercy of what you call the hostile forces and what we see to be the fabric and texture of the world.

Still I repeated Mother’s name and prayed on. I fell asleep, and then suddenly felt keenly conscious and the cycle currents and bhakti and weeping with waves which created almost a dizziness started. Only this time I was not afraid at all. I said again and again: I will surrender to this force of the Mother, if I die, why, I don’t care – but surrender I must unconditionally. And then it continued and deepened and I found a great relief – if not peace exactly – and certainly a sense of gratefulness for Mother’s sending it. What was more remarkable was however that after that, I saw Mother blessing me attending to trivial details of my scarf, etc. very lovingly and listening to my recital of this experience. She then said: Sit quiet and I will concentrate on your inside. So that is that. I need not be more prolix. You and she will understand. Of late I have been feeling very amorphous. This has given me some fresh lease of hope again. Believe me I will be grateful for that, anyway.

I am glad to hear of the experience. The Mother’s remark about concentrating on your inside is perhaps significant; for it is the inner realisation, [ease?], light, etc. that is the fundamental thing to be attained and which sadhana can undoubtedly give. Suchi had already attained to sufficient of it and Sarala also to an unexpected degree – so that what has happened did not come to them with a sense of wreck. Sarala, however affected outwardly, is conscious of an inner calm and of the abiding of the light both for him and her. Is not a thing which can abide like that in one of her emotional and agitated nature a reality as good as anything the outward life can give? And there is much more than that that Yoga can bring – even if the physical life with its transcience and shocks is a field that has still to be conquered.

¹ Suchi and Sarala were a French couple. Sarala was a good tailoress.

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