Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2135

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

June 26, 1938

[Sri Aurobindo and the Mother]

I suppose Lalita has told you André’s opinion and treatment regarding auto-vaccine. You have no objection, I hope.

[Mother:] No, it is all right.

D’s bag and letter. I have to help you (helping Guru, I chuckle!) wherever you are likely to stumble in reading the letter.

In spite of your help I had a slow struggle with D’s hieroglyphics – but half way through Intuition came to my rescue and I swam through the rest.

You will find from the letter that he is a little or much upset by P.S.’s remark...

It seems to be more much than little. I don’t see why he should be upset by it at all.

I can’t say if P.S. has said it, nor can I judge D’s capacity to understand your Yoga.

The difficulty with D was that he had caught up ideas about Yoga from various quarters and stuck to his ideas like grim death, his mind refusing to understand my ideas and wilfully misunderstanding them. Thus he took Supermind for the Vedantic Nirguna Brahman, something dry and high and cold, and the psychic for a pale udasin nirlipta¹ business with no flame in it and persisted in such absurd ideas in spite of my denials. That obviously was not helpful.

I fear my capacity also is very poor in that direction. But is it necessary to “understand” your Yoga in order to practise it? As far as I understand, it is only your Supermind business that baffles us and some of us are sceptical about it...

Well, it may not be necessary to understand it, but it is advisable not to misunderstand it.

The scepticism is stupid, because how can one pronounce for or against about something one does not know or understand at all?

And some think it not worth while at present to bother about it.

Certainly it is better not to bother about it and to do what is immediately necessary. The attempt to understand has led many to take for the Supermind something that was not even spiritual and to suppose themselves supermen when all they were doing was to go headlong into the ultravital.

You have said that nobody knows or understands anything about it – but I think it is not even necessary, what?

Not at present.

If that is what was meant by P.S. I can see, but to say that D doesn’t understand your Yoga is rather – !

I don’t know what P.S. meant. I have explained in what sense D did not understand it. But how many do?

But – I ask you again – does one need to understand your Yoga in order to practise it? Or, how far should one understand, grasp and assimilate it?

If one has faith and openness that is enough. Besides there are two kinds of understanding – understanding by the intellect and understanding in the consciousness. It is good to have the former if it is accurate, but it is not indispensable. Understanding by the consciousness comes if there is faith and openness, though it may come only gradually and through steps of experience. But I have seen people without education or intellectuality understand in this way perfectly well the course of the Yoga in themselves, while intellectual men make big mistakes – e.g. take a neutral mental quietude for the spiritual peace and refuse to come out of it in order to go farther.

I admit that D, at times, was sceptical about some well-accepted things of Yoga, e.g. Force curing diseases etc. But that was scepticism rather than lack of understanding.

Well, but his scepticism was founded on ignorance and non-understanding.

Could you give some light for him and for me?

This is for you, not for him.

N and others are interested to see your answers to D. Will it be advisable to show them?

They might talk and it would reach P.S. and make matters worse.

Anilbaran gave me his novel to criticise. He says it is very impressive and he has seen my criticism of J’s poetry.

He says his own novel is very impressive? Or your criticism?

He says that I have a good critical faculty. So, Sir, that’s something, what?

Sometimes.

¹ Indifferent, aloof.

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