Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1933-34

Fragment ID: 16103

1934

Even when the physical throws up inertia, is it not possible to cast off dullness and sorrow brought in by the inertia and continue maintaining our normal state of happiness?

Yes, but it needs a strong poise and great vigilance. Normally it is only after one has had a taste of dullness and inertia that one recovers.

It is the physical resistance which came up in you (the vital dissatisfaction with the emptiness giving it a chance) and the physical resistance there is an obstinate inertia. Its note is “stay where you are”. Probably you will have to resort to an active aspiration to get rid of the obstructive inertia.

The physical consciousness has a force of inertia which makes it always go on with its old conditions, movements, responses, habits even without sanction or any true utility in them.

It is the tendency of the physical to substitute its own inertia for the emptiness. The true emptiness is the beginning of what I call in the Arya “shama” – the rest, calm, peace of the eternal Self – which has finally to replace tamas, the physical inertia. Tamas is the degradation of shama, as rajas is the degradation of Tapas, the Divine Force. The physical consciousness is always trying to substitute its own inertia for the calm, peace or rest of the true consciousness, just as the vital is always trying to substitute its rajas for the true action of the Force.