Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Letters
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To Barindra Kumar Ghose [7]1
Arya Office
Pondicherry
January 1923.
My dear Barin,
I have got a fuller idea from your letters
about
Krishnashashi’s collapse. The main cause is what I saw, the vehement and
unrestrained pressure and the vital uprush, overstraining and upsetting the
defective physical mind. There is no evil in the psychical
and mental or even
the vital being proper. The seat of the harm is evidently in the physico-vital
and the physical being. The physico-vital dazzled by the experiences began to
think itself a very interesting and important personage and to histrionise with
the experiences and play for that purpose with the body. This is a frequent
deviation of Yoga observable even in some who are considered great Sadhakas. It
is a kind of charlatanism of the vital being but would not by itself amount to
madness, though it may sometimes seem to go very near it. Ordinarily if the
physical mind is strong it either rejects or else keeps these demonstrations
within certain bounds. But in this case the physical mind also broke down. The
coarse kind of violence exhibited is due to the rough and coarse character of
the physical being,– so much I see but am not yet able to determine whether the
disorder is only psychic or, as was suggested in my last letter, there is some
defect in the brain which has come to the surface. I am concentrating daily and
those in Krishnagore have to help me by remaining calm and strong and
surrounding him with an unagitated atmosphere, also those who can, have to keep
a quiet concentration. He must be kept outwardly and inwardly under firm
control and check. If the disorder is only
psychic the violence will pass away and the other signs abate and less
frequently recur. But if there is some brain defect then
as I said, it may be a difficult affair. I can give final instructions only
after seeing how the malady goes.
As regards your own sadhana and those of others in
Bhowanipore I think it necessary to make two or three observations. First I have
for some time the impression that there is a too constant activity and pressure
for rapidity of progress and a multitude of experiences. These things are all
right in themselves, but there must be certain safeguards. First there should be
sufficient periods of rest and silence, even of relaxation, in which there can
be a quiet
assimilation. Assimilation is very important and periods necessary
for it should not be regarded with impatience as stoppages of the Yoga. Care
should be taken to make calm and quiet strength and inner silence, the basic
condition for all activity. There should be no excessive strain; any fatigue,
disturbance
, or inordinate sensitiveness of the nervous and physical parts, of
which you mention certain symptoms in your letters, should be quieted and
removed, as they are often signs of overstrain or too great an activity or
rapidity in the Yoga. It must also be remembered that experiences are only
valuable as indications and openings and the main thing always is the steady
harmonious and increasingly organised opening and change of the different parts
of the consciousness and the being.
Among Rati’s
experiences there is one paper headed
“surface consciousness”. What is described there is the nervous or physico-vital
envelope. This is the thing observed by the mediums
and it is by exteriorising
it to a less or greater extent that they produce their phenomena. How did Rati
come to know of it? Was it by intuition, by vision or by personal experience? If
the latter, warn him not to exteriorise this vital envelope for to do so without
adequate protection, which must be that of a person acquainted with these things
and physically present at the time, may bring about serious psychical dangers
and also injuries to the nervous being and the body or even worse.
Next about money matters. The sources you speak of as
supplementing the three thousand you propose to raise are almost all
uncertainties. As for instance Miss Hodgson’s money, which depends first on her
staying here and secondly on the life of her 
father, an aged and ailing man. I think it necessary to have some six thousand
actually in hand for the year after this. Of course you will raise as much as
you can in the time at your disposal. I believe if you can once begin to
materialise sums and send them here, the rest will come much more easily than
seems probable at present. It seems to me as regards the press that the terms
made with Amar were hardly precise enough and too unfavourable to you. Still
since it is done, let me know what sums are covered by Arun’s loan of two
thousand and what sums still remain to be raised and paid. When you have some
money in hand for the expenses here, can you send the smaller items in Mirra’s
list, the tooth powder etc.
As to Akhil Choudhury, my intention was that you should
meet him and report to me and afterwards I would decide. I was thinking of his
remaining at Krishnagore but Krishnashashi’s affair has disarranged everything.
I understand from Akhil’s letter that he has Rs.100/–. I think it would be best
for him to come here for a very short time. I shall see him personally and judge
what is best to be done. He must be prepared to go to Krishnagore or else, if I
find that he can go on by himself after a first touch from here, to return to
Chittagong. He should keep enough money to come here and return. Kshitish has
written asking to come here for a year and offering to pay all his expenses. I
shall decide about this hereafter. Purani will be coming in March and I don’t
want too many people here. But if Hrishikesh does not come, as I suppose he will
not, I may possibly decide to let Kshitish come for some time if not for a whole
year.
Aurobindo.