Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
SABCL 26
Fragment ID: 7670
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Sri Aurobindo — Unknown addressee
June 9, 1936
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In other Yogas does the silence descend or rather the mind goes into silence? It does not seem that there is anything like a process of anything descending in Rajayoga or Vedantic Jnanayoga. Moreover, in Rajayoga there is nowhere mention of silence in the waking consciousness – always it is a question of going into samadhi In the Jnanayoga, however, it seems as if the waking state becomes illumined and full of peace and brahmānanda.
I never heard of silence descending in other Yogas – the mind goes into silence. Since, however, I have been writing of ascent and descent, I have been told from several quarters that there is nothing new in this Yoga – so I am wondering whether people were not getting ascents and descents without knowing it! or, at least, without noticing the process. It is like the rising above the head and taking the station there – which I and others have experienced in this Yoga. When I spoke of it first, people stared and thought I was talking nonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old Yogas because otherwise one could not feel the universe in oneself or be free from the body consciousness or unite with the Anantam Brahman. But generally as in Tantric Yoga one speaks
of the consciousness rising to the brahmarandhra, top of the head, as the summit. Rajayoga of course lays stress on Samadhi as the means of the highest experience. But obviously if one has not the brāhmisthiti in the waking state, there is no completeness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks of being samāhita (which is equivalent to being in Samadhi) and the brāhmisthiti as a waking state in which one lives and does all actions.
9-6-1936
1 CWSA, volumes 29, 35: spoke
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. On Himself // SABCL.- Volume 26. (≈ 35 vol. of CWSA)
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