Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1. 1933
Today I saw N with S at 6 a.m. It was at once clear that she has joined the hostile camp. I now hear that she is going away. Yet she herself had said recently that she will never leave you...
Perhaps you don’t know that N came as a temporary resident and stayed on simply because she did not care to go, finding herself at ease here. She was never permanently accepted.
And it cannot be denied that following a sincere call she came from her place to this far-off land, in quest of Truth.
How do you know it was a sincere call? She did not come to India to seek the Truth from a far land leaving her near and dear ones; she came in order to get away from her family life in which she was 
in furious conflict with most of her people. After she came to India she began wandering through various Ashrams – but was not satisfied with some and the others sent her away or perhaps entreated her to leave them. All the same there was a being within her which had pushed her to this life, so she had her chance – although the Mother never expected much of her nor were we at all certain about her staying or being able to go through. Her failure does not mean a definite frustration. The being that is in her will certainly have its way in this life or another – but it must be admitted that for this life the chances don’t look overbright.
Within a very short span of time we have seen some four or five departures among whom B had been here quite a number of years and he was not a weak adhar1 either. How is it that all of a sudden he opened the doors to undivine beings, when he was going so smoothly and confidently on one track?
B did not open all of a sudden. He had from the first a violent Asuric strain in his nature, as he himself knew and he was always trying to incarnate new Asuras in the plea of offering their mighty strength and power for the Divine Work. I don’t believe that at any time in his life he went “smoothly and confidently on one track” – it was from the beginning all leaps and shouts and catastrophes and upheavals. I thought I had destroyed the legend of his being a perfect Bhakta2 and strong Adhar.
Is the Divine so helpless against these forces or beings?
Do you expect the Divine to force a man into heaven against his own will?
You said the other day that we call in these forces by our habit, for the sake of drama, etc. It is true but isn’t it quite natural too since we are hardly transformed in our nature and aspiration, as yet?
To have weaknesses of the lower nature is one thing – to call in the hostile forces is quite another. Whoever does the latter, takes his risk. He is going towards the opposite camp – for the marks of the hostile Force are contempt of the Divine, revolt and hatred against the Mother, disbelief in the Yoga, assertion of ego against the Divine Being, preference of falsehood to Truth, seeking after false gods and rejection of the Eternal.
Am I then to suppose that N, B and others began to walk with hesitating steps, doubting at every step they had taken the Divine leading?
Not with hesitating but with hostile steps – away from the Truth.
As for N, one can hardly say that she took steps hesitating or not – most of her life was drifting in the current of her own impulses...
If after a few years of sincere sadhana I make a wrong movement under the influence of hostile forces, why does not the Divine come in with his power and save me, considering that I have been true to him at least for some time?
And what do you make of the free choice and the necessity of assent? Supposing the Divine does intervene and you say “Damn you I don’t want you – you are a nuisance and a lie. I want my own inspirations and the satisfaction of my ego,” and supposing you kick the Divine in the face when he stoops to help you and even when he lifts you up and sends the Black Force away, you call it back each time and rush back to embrace it. What then? That is what those who are under that influence do – D, N, others all did it.
I cannot believe that the Divine does not know our ultimate fate. Why then does the Divine accept me if he knows that I shall fail in the long run?
What is the long run?
May I know when and under what circumstances fulfilled, you send in your saving hand, in case one is assailed by 
such forces? I am convinced that no undivine powers can stand against you unless for some inscrutable reasons you have not helped or do not help.
It is when they refuse to be saved. B was saved several thousand times. Finally he said he would go on his own way, that the Divine in him was the true Divine and we were only indulging our outer personalities and he threatened to starve himself to death if we kept him here. What do you expect us to do under these circumstances? Yoga is an endeavour, a tapasya – it can cease to be so only when one surrenders sincerely to a higher Action and keeps the surrender and makes it complete. It is not a fantasia, devoid of all reason and coherence or a mere miracle. It has its laws and conditions and I do not see how you can demand of the Divine to do everything by a violent miracle.
I ask myself why I lose heart over cases which are apparently failures and not take courage from those who are going triumphantly.
I have never said that this Yoga was a safe one – no Yoga is. Each has its dangers as has every great attempt in human life. But it can be carried through if one has a central sincerity and a fidelity to the Divine. These are the two necessary conditions.
What a shock I got today when I saw that one of our bean-plants died! It was growing so luxuriantly and overnight, this was the state. J says it may be due to white ants – for which there is no remedy.
The only remedy is to find out the queen and kill it – if it is in the garden.
This case very significantly reminds me of all the cases I have written about.
Why not take it as a lesson in equanimity?