Quite so. Stop thinking and become স্তব্ধ3Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1936
Letter ID: 1641
Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar
June 2, 1936
I am feeling dry, dry, dry. But a mood of meditation creeps over the dryness.
Well, that’s all right isn’t it?
I find that my point of concentration usually goes between the eyebrows.
A quite useful place for concentration – O.K. so far.
Nothing happens though at times a feeling of স্তব্ধতা1
Better and better!
I suppose that is enough for you, but unfortunately I want a little more.
Quite enough for a beginning – only at times, is insufficient; स्तब्धता2 is quite the best ground for experiences and everything else.
Can you tell me why no experience is coming to me and why those that I had long, long ago, have stopped?
Too big a riot of mental activity and vital jumping.
If no joy is felt out of a creation after so much labour, what’s the use, can you say?
The use of having no joy? It is no use.
I am thinking – after all what am I to do then? But thinking has no end either.
Quite so. Stop thinking and become স্তব্ধ3
Que faire? I suppose this dryness is due to your unexpected progress. That is the only consolation.
Dryness, no! that is part of your own pilgrimage. The rest may be due to Add. Ab. Quite a number of people are trying to become স্তব্ধ, wide etc. without ever having intended it. I like to think my march may have something to do with it.
Addis Ababa – how far?
Can’t say. My rapidity slowed down much after D turned turtle and the correspondence avalanche restarted. However “nous progressāmes.”4
Will you cast a glance at J’s story – Russian Cat, which even Tagore liked?
I shall try my Herculean best – I can’t promise more.
Please give me some force for poetry now – without it I don’t know how to come out of this condition.
All right – shall try that also.
1 stabdhatā: stillness.
2 stabdhatā: stillness.
3 stabdha: still
4 We have advanced.