Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3

Letter ID: 687

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

January 16, 1936

Your letter on Grace. I will have to ponder it carefully. It seems to me now-a-days that it is best to silence this fellow mind somehow. It can understand practically nothing yet wants to prove everything with its blunt-spade. How to do it though? Last night I tried hard to meditate from 7.30 p.m. to silence this mind, etc. But got so fed up with the attempt that dropped off to sleep and too much sleep was the result after which I always feel seedy – as I do today. How to convert this activism in me to silence? That is the problem truly! Can you give some real advice, and better still some force? After such attempts I feel always listless verging on depression but I have resolved not to allow my depression to lead me to despair but strike it as I see it is all but useless to try to get out of the grip of this depressing fellow. My cold too has rein-forced it. However I won’t complain. I have prayed a lot today – some comfort to dwell on that – though Krishnaprem advocates the Upanishadic attitude “Awake! Arise” and not trust too much to Divine Grace. Raihana on the contrary believes in Grace. Hike to do that but find nothing which encourages me to such a faith, nor find any strength to entrust myself to the Upanishadic path of self-help. Anyhow try to send me a little force. What more can you do – since our mentality and ādhārs are so obstinately dark and unluminous not to be able to be up so much spiritually. However – cheeri – oh Guru – a la Cambridge. Could not do much meditation for the past two days with Mother thanks to this awful nuisance of cough – that is another irksome obstacle on top of my enough obstacles and to spare.

P.S. I sometimes marvel how this fellow Krishnaprem has got so much strength with an indifferent guru, while we have so little of it with a really wonderful guru!

To envy whom? A strong adept with an indifferent guru or a weak aspirant with a wonderful guru? Ah, there is the rub.

Let us not exaggerate anything. It is not so much getting rid of mental activity as converting it into the right thing. Krishnaprem has mental activity, but it is a mind that has gone inside and sees things from there, an intuitive mind; I have mental activity (in the midst of silence) whenever necessary, but it is a mind that [has] gone up and sees things from above, an overmind action. What has to be surpassed and changed is the intellectual reason which sees things from outside only, by analysis and inference – when it doesn’t do it rather by taking a hasty look and saying “so it is” or “so it is not”. But you can’t get the inner or upper mind unless this old mental activity becomes a little quiet. A quiet mind does not involve itself in its thoughts or get run away with them by them; it stands back, detaches itself, lets them pass without identifying itself, without making them its own. It becomes the witness mind watching the thoughts when necessary, but able to turn away from them and receive from within and from above. Silence is good, but absolute silence is not indispensable, at least at this stage. I do not know that to wrestle with the mind to make it quiet is of much use; usually the mind gets the better of that game. It is this standing back, detaching oneself, getting the power to listen to something else other than the thoughts of the external mind that is the easier way. At the same time one can look up, as it were, imaging to oneself the Force as there just above and calling it down or quietly expecting its help. That is how most people do it, till the mind falls gradually quiet or silent of itself, or else silence begins to descend from above. But it is important not to allow the depression or despair to come in because there is no immediate success; that can only make things difficult and stop any progress that is preparing.

The cough must be got rid of.

Krishnaprem’s objection to Grace would be valid if the religionists mattered, but in spiritual things they don’t. Their action naturally is to make a formula and dry shell of everything, not Grace alone. Even “Awake, Arise” leads to the swelled head or the formula – can’t be avoided when Mr. Everyman deals with things divine. I had the same violent objection to Gurugiri [profession of a guru], but you see I was obliged by the irony of things or rather by the inexorable truth to become a Guru and preach the Guruvada [the school of thought in which the help of the Guru is indispensable for spiritual life]. Such is Fate.

Shall send Force. But don’t wrestle too much; go slowly and let the Force work.