Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume II - Part 1

Fragment ID: 11320

What you describe in your letter as the response of the Divine would not be called that in the language of Yogic experience – this feeling of greater peace, light, ease, trust, difficulties lessening, certitude would rather be called a response of your own nature to the Divine. There is a Peace or a Light which is the response of the Divine, but that is a wide Peace, a great Light which is felt as a presence other than one’s personal self, not part of one’s personal nature, but something that comes from above, though in the end it possesses the nature – or there is the Presence itself which carries with it indeed the absolute liberation, happiness, certitude. But the first responses of the Divine are not often like that – they come rather as a touch, a pressure one must be in a condition to recognise and to accept, or it is a voice of assurance, sometimes a very “still small voice”, a momentary Image or Presence; a whisper of Guidance sometimes,– there are many forms it may take. Then it withdraws and the preparation of the nature goes on till it is possible for the touch to come again and again, to last longer, to change into something more pressing and near and intimate. The Divine in the beginning does not impose himself – he asks for recognition, for acceptance. That is one reason why the mind must fall silent, not put tests, not make claims – there must be room for the true intuition which recognises at once the true touch and accepts it.