Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1. 1936
Letter ID: 1540
Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar
February 3, 1936
Regarding “how many Mothers are there?” K says that all Power, Force, Light in the universe belong to you and emanate from you. In that case, I asked him – “Does Raman Maharshi who is an aspirant of the Impersonal Brahman get a response from Mother and Sri Aurobindo?”
Who is the Mother and who is Sri Aurobindo? And who is this fellow you call the Impersonal Brahman?
K says, “Yes, because they are identified with the Supreme and the Supreme is static and dynamic at the same time.” I answered – maybe – especially when Krishna is supposed to have contained the whole universe in his mouth or when he says that whoever takes the name of the Divine, or offers a flower, etc., comes to his feet. Then why is it said again that he is an Overmind god? Doesn’t it mean that there is a greater godhead than Krishna?
What was said was that Krishna as a manifestation on earth opened the possibility of the Overmind consciousness here to men and stood for that, as Rama was the incarnation in mental Man. If Krishna was an Overmind “God”, that means he was not an Incarnation, not the Divine, but somebody else who claimed to be the Divine – i.e. he was a god who somehow thought he was God.
Somehow I can’t accept that people following other paths of sadhana are calling Mother and Sri Aurobindo and getting their help and Force. In that case wouldn’t all of them, except the worshippers of the Impersonal, be their disciples?
The Divine is neither personal nor impersonal, formless nor formed. He is the Divine. You talk of these distinctions as if they separated the Divine into so many separate Divines which have nothing to do with each other.
I continued, “My friend J.B. was having experiences which, Sri Aurobindo says, were coming from Mother, even before he was put in contact with them.”
If so, why were you so much flabbergasted when he wrote about 
them? What was the date on which they began in this vividness – not as a mental impression but as a concrete contact with the Divine Presence or the Force?
I have no objection to your being the Supreme, only it stupefies one to think of you as such!
But there was no question about my being the Supreme; the question was whether there was one Divine Mother or 20,000 Divine Mothers. At the same time I don’t see why it should stupefy one (you?), in spite of your absence of personal objections to think of me as such (the Supreme). Why, you are yourself the Supreme, aren’t you? Soaham, tattwam asi Nirada, ঈশ্বর কোন বেটা, আমিই ঈশ্বর (Vivekananda).1 আমি in this formula means not V but anyone, that is to say Nirod. Also vide Krishna Prem. So what’s this stupefaction about, I should like to know? When everybody is the Supreme and of everybody it can be said that he is God, why should I alone as such stupefy you?
Leave aside the question of Divine or undivine, no spiritual man who acts dynamically is limited to physical contact – the idea that physical contact through writing, speech, meeting is indispensable to the action of the spiritual force is self-contradictory, for then it would not be a spiritual force. The spirit is not limited by physical things or by the body. If you have the spiritual force, it can act on people thousands of miles away who do not know and never will know that you are acting on them or that they are being acted upon – they only feel that there is a force enabling them to do things and may very well suppose it is their own great energy and genius.
Mulshankar has a headache now and then, which he says, is due to exertion in shouting for the servant etc.
So why not give him a small bell from here?
Coconuts are rather hard to get in the hospital. Shall 
I ask Dyuman to supply two a day?
If he can find – in some seasons it is hardly possible to find them –
I find that workmen – carpenters – go to see him on their way home. Shall I ask Chandulal to forbid them?
Yes, of course. That should be strictly forbidden.
1 In italic are two Sanskrit formulas – “He am I” and “That art Thou” – with “O Nirod” tagged to the latter. The Bengali is Swami Vivekananda’s dictum: īśvara kona veṭā, āmii īśvara, “Who is this person Ishwara – I am Ishwara.”