Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Letters
Fragment ID: 22090
An Early Letter of Sri Aurobindo
Dear Friend,
I have shown your letter to A. G. and below I give you his answer to it.
Your letter is very interesting, because it shows that you have accurate intuitions which unfortunately your mind does not allow you to follow out. Your mind also interferes by giving your intuitions a mental form and mental consequences or conditions which are not correct.
You are quite right when you say that your sadhana will not open through the mind but through your psychic being. It is from there indeed that these guiding intuitions come.
Your intuition that in your case the effective impulse can best come from Mira2 (you can call her Mira Devi if you like but please don’t call her Madame!) is also perfectly correct. When she saw you from the window or the terrace on your last visit, she herself said to A.G., “This is a man I can change. But he is not yet ready.” But it was your mind that interfered when you thought it was necessary to sit in meditation with her in order to receive what she has to give. There is no such condition for her spiritual or psychic action and influence. It is true that she was not mixing with the sadhaks at that time, partly because they themselves were not ready to take the right relation and receive her influence, partly because the difficulties of the physical plane made it necessary for her to retire from all direct contact with anyone, as distinct from an indirect contact through A.G. Always however she was acting with him on the psychic and vital levels to do whatever might be possible at the time. All that is needed to receive a direct touch from her is to take the right relation to her, to be open and to enter her atmosphere. The most ordinary meeting or talk with her on the physical plane is quite enough for the purpose. Only the Sadhaka must be ready; otherwise he may not receive the impulse or may not be able to fulfil it or bear its pressure.
Also it will be a mistake if you make too rigid a separation between A.G. and Mira. Both influences are necessary for the complete development of the sadhana. The work of the two together can alone bring down the supramental Truth into the physical plane. A.G. acts directly on the mental and on the vital being through the illumined mind; he represents the Purusha element whose strength is predominantly in illumined (intuitive, supramental or spiritual) knowledge and the power that acts in this knowledge, while the psychic being supports this action and helps to transform the physical and vital plane. Mira acts directly on the psychic being and on the emotional vital and physical nature through the illumined psychic consciousness, while the illumined intuitions from the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force, representing the Shakti element is directly psychic, vital, physical and her spiritual knowledge is predominantly practical in its nature. It is, that is to say, a large and detailed knowledge and experience of the mental, vital and physical forces at play and with the knowledge that power to handle them for the purposes of life and of Yoga.
In your case what is strong in your nature is especially the dynamic mind, the vital force and the practical physical mind. The thinking mind in you in spite of the interest it has taken in religion and philosophy is not easily open to a true illumination. The other parts mentioned above could more easily accept the light, but they cannot find it for themselves because their whole strength and activity has been turned outwards. It is only the psychic being in you that has from time to time been giving you intuitions and turning you towards the Truth. But it could not come forwards and lead your life, because you have too much suppressed your emotional nature, dried up your surface mind and choked up with much rubbish the psychic fire. If once it can awaken entirely and come in front, it can transform the dynamic mental, the vital and the physical mind and through them make you an illumined instrument for the physical realisation of the Truth upon earth. This, as you can see from what has been said above about Mira’s force, makes your nature one which is specially meant for the kind of work she can best do.
You did not quite understand what A.G. had said about Brahmacharya. He did not mean that you should indulge the sexual impulse freely. On the contrary, if you have the impulse to cease from sexual life you should by all means do it. What he meant to say was that by Brahmacharya is generally understood a mental and moral control, a cessation because of a mental rule. Such a control, especially if undertaken from an ascetic or puritan attitude, only keeps chained or even suppresses the vital power behind the sexual impulse and does not really purify or change it. The true motive for overcoming the sexual impulse is the inner psychic and when that rises then comes the real will to an inner purity which makes it an inner necessity for the being to drop the animal sexual play and turn the life-force to greater uses. The vital power behind the sexual impulse is an indispensable force for the perfection of the nature and for the Yoga. Often it is those who because of the strong vital force in them are most capable of the supramental transformation of the physical nature that have the strongest sexual impulses. All lust, the sexual act and the outward-dragging impulse have to be thrown away by the Sadhaka, but the power itself has to be kept and transformed into the true force and Ananda. You are right in thinking that a certain fundamental purity in this respect is needed in order to approach Mira and have her help. It is not possible for her to have any relations with one who is full of coarse animal or perverted sexual impulses or unable because of them to have the true spiritual or psychic regard on women. But an absence of all sexual impulse is not necessary, still less an ascetic or puritanic turn in this matter. On the contrary neither the conventional Puritan nor the coarse animal man can receive anything from her.
This is what A.G. said about your letter. Now, since you have these intuitions, why not act on them? Why not try even from a distance to open yourself to receive any influence which may come to you by the mere fact of your having turned towards Mira and her knowing it? If nothing else happens, the necessary psychic preparation (so far your preparation has been only mental) may take place. At least, you could try it. Only do keep your mind quiet – not silent or blank – but put outside you; look at the thoughts if they rise, but wait for higher truth, for the psychic being to come forward, for the psychic intuition to speak, and when it comes do not let the mind meddle. If there is something not quite clear, wait for more light. Give your soul a chance, that is what is needed.
Sri Aurobindo
1 This letter, originally drafted by a sadhak, was almost completely rewritten by Sri Aurobindo. It is therefore treated as his own letter. It is published here for the first time.
2 During the early period of her stay at Pondicherry, the Mother was called Mira.