Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3

Letter ID: 846

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

October 22, 1936

“There is no love lost between me and the Mother,” said Saurin to me.

Well, you know Mother was not at all willing to have Saurin back here and would have sent him away – only very reluctantly gave him a chance. But she did not believe in his entire sincerity – in fact she saw in him something of hypocrisy which repelled her. He knew very well what he was saying when he spoke of the “no love lost”. He was no doubt in earnest about sadhana, but only in the sense of wanting to succeed and being prepared to make some sacrifices for that – but on a basis of ego. Yet he wrote that he was feeling Mother’s presence in him whenever he was having his experiences – a thing she did not find very credible. How could it be if there was “no love lost” etc.? The disturbance that came was not illness, Nirod could find no sign of illness anywhere. Fear of madness? He had it no doubt because of Premshankar’s affair. But in fact the fear was in the insincere part of his being, the fear of the descent. Because the Force was something beyond his personal control, because he felt that “something greater than himself” was there, it got terribly frightened. Mark that except this fear and nervous upheaval, there was nothing in the experience itself that was inconsistent with the experience being in true descent of Force, nothing that others have not had and had with joy and spiritual profit. But if he felt Mother’s presence so much, why this fear? It was the fear of this insincere part of him, partly in terror lest it might really be seized by the Divine Force and made to change, partly lest its insincerity and egoistic, ignorant self-sufficiency might have pulled down a wrong Force which would upset his balance altogether. All that was wrong within him was this fear and its results in the nerves and body. As soon as he knew he could go, this part at once threw its fear away and became exultant and all the trouble ceased. It seems to me that all that is clear. Of course the fear if it had remained might have produced anything, so strong it was; but up to the time of his going there was no sign of any real illness or disturbance of the brain – the body was sound, the brain clear. Of course, too, there was a part that regretted to have to go, but this was pushed behind by the part that gladly accepted the departure.