Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

SABCL 26

Fragment ID: 7834

Zeal and enthusiasm are all right and very necessary but the spiritual condition combines calm with intensity. Psychic fire is different – what you are speaking of here is the rajasic vital fire of self-exertion, aggressive self-defence, exerting lawful rights, etc.

I speak from my own experience. I have solid strength, but I have not much of the fire that blazes out against anybody who does not give me lawful rights. Yet I do not find myself weak or a dead man. I have always made it a rule not to be restless in any way, to throw away restlessness – yet I have been able to use my solid strength whenever necessary. You speak as if rajasic force and vehemence were the only strength and all else is deadness and weakness. It is not so – the calm spiritual strength is a hundred times stronger; it does not blaze up and sink again – but is steady and unshakable and perpetually dynamic.

21-10-1933