Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1933

Letter ID: 1138

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

September 14, 1933

Last night I had a terrible dream. J was telling me: “Have you heard what D has come to? He is totally insane and now lies down in the drains.” I was suddenly seized with fear, and thought: who knows if the same lot may not befall me! In the grip of that terrible fear I began to call you, but my voice wouldn’t come out. Then in two or three minutes it left me... Last few days, I have been rather depressed.

Is this due to some influence exerted unconsciously on the mind by D’s condition?

It is not D’s condition, but your “depression for the last few days” that opened the door to this nightmare. It simply seized hold of the idea about D in order to shove itself in farther and more forcibly.

Sometimes I doubt my call for spiritual life. Occasionally some peace comes down which perhaps comes from inactivity.

If you allow such absurd ideas to take hold of you and make you belittle an experience, it is no wonder you can’t progress. What is wrong with the peace that comes from inactivity? It is as good as any other.

So many thoughts have been invading me – hence my gloomy, cheerless and pessimistic attitude, I think. At such a time many tempting thoughts lure me to set the wheel back – but it is clear that I shall never step back. I must go on.

It is a formation of a hostile character that is wandering about the Ashram and taking hold of one after another telling them that they are not fit and won’t be able to do the Yoga and had better die or better go away or at least better be desperate. The only sensible thing is to kick these suggestions out of you without any ceremony and tell them that you have come here to succeed and not to fail.