Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Letters

Fragment ID: 15833

(this fragment is largest or earliest found passage)

Sri Aurobindo — Rene (Aga Syed Yakub)

October 27, 1929

René

Your cat and rat equation is, I suppose intended to describe the kind of reasoning by which the devil misleads the mind. At any rate, it is an apt description of the devil’s logic and the devil’s mathematics. there are fantastic and false ideas with which it is dangerous even to play. You see how successful this kind of devil’s reasoning has been with prashanta.

Prashanta presends to be pure and surrender to the will of God. How can he be pure when his whole trouble has come from the indulgence of impure desires? He pretends to act according to god’s will, but his actions are moved by three things, desire, vanity and self-will. The devil makes suggestions supports by one or another of these three motives and persuades him that it is the will of God.

Ignorance is not a slate of innocence or purity; that is an old blunder. Only a consciousness full of light can be pure. For instance, when you are conscious, your mind is clear and you have the right ideas about things and people; your mind is pure of ignorance. but when the mind is clouded by some impurity, say, anger, jealousy or pride or some unreasonsonable desire, you at once become ignorant and mistake and misunderstand everything.

Again, when your heart is turned to the Mother and satisfied with her love, when you are full of peace, contentment and happiness, then there is no room for wrong feelings and desires; your heart is pure.

That is what the Mother meant by purity; to be free from false ideas, wrong feelings, desires, demands etc. is to be pure.

Sri Aurobindo