SRI AUROBINDO – Nirodbaran

Correspondence with
Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1934

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January 1, 1934

Is there any hint that the projection from the mind into the vital has been rather invited and encouraged by myself?

It came by being preoccupied too much with the difficulties of the nature. It is always better to dwell on the good side of things in yourself – I do not mean in an egoistic way, but with faith and cheerful confidence, calling down the positive experience of which the nature is already capable so that a constant positive growth can help in the rejection of all that has to be rejected. But in fact one gets often projected into the vital difficulties at an early stage and then instead of going from the mind into the psychic (through the heart) one has to go through the disturbed vital.

Is it possible to retrace one’s steps to the psychic? If so, how?

It can be done, if you refuse to be preoccupied with the idea of your difficulties and concentrate on really helpful and positive things.

Be more cheerful and confident. Sex and Doubt and Co. are there, no doubt, but the Divine is there also inside you. Open your eyes and look and look till the veil is rent and you see Him – or Her.

January 2, 1934

While meditating I saw among many things, a sea in flood. Just after it the silver disc of the sun flashing brilliantly.

The sea is the vital – the sun the first appearance of the Light of Truth over it.

January 13, 1934

Though you have given me permission to take a cup of tea, as soon as I face you I feel guilty.

If you feel like that, it is much better not to take tea.

S called me to see him. He offered me a cup of tea. Do you approve of my taking anything offered by him in future?

No.

It would be better not to take S’s things – this cooking has reawakened his greed of food and made him ill again, after I had completely cured him.

January 14, 1934

Can you spare me a canvas cot, if any? If you can, please sanction some mosquito frame arrangement too.

Ask for the canvas cot and a mosquito frame to be used with. Impossible to hang a mosquito frame on the independent principle

January 15, 1934

Last night I had a unique experience: I saw a skeleton standing by my bed, it seemed to resemble my father...

The skeleton was created by your fear.

I have heard that when someone dies with strong attachments, his spirit remains chained as it were to the object of his desire.

Yes.

But these spirits are supposed to be maleficent and their appearance also ugly. He seemed to have nothing of these. Did he mean any harm?

No they need not be.

No. The fear is absurd and has no ground.

What should I do if he comes again? Shall I face him and look intently at him and call your name?

The best is to ask what he wants. If there is anything malicious, then use the name.

January 18, 1934

C asked me whether I’d like to take up supervision work in the House-painting Department. But it’s a whole-time work, so other duties have to be given up. What should I do?

It may not be whole time. Speak to Rishabhchand and see what can be arranged.

In connection with that spirit, may I ask you if it was actually my father’s spirit even when it had no resemblance?

But if it had no resemblance, why did you take it for your father? It may have been only an ordinary being of the vital world.

Sometimes it appears that all efforts and aspirations are simply like so many stones thrown into the sea. And I feel that there is not a drop of devotion in me for you... I want some busy work that would carry me along with the stream. How to face this situation?

Mother says “Beware of what you talk. Also a certain kind of thoughts. It is very often talks one has that bring in this condition throwing one into the most ordinary and dry physical consciousness.” Recover your reading tendency, work and get rid of tamas.

January 19, 1934

I spoke to Rishabhchand. He would like to have a full-time worker. But Shanti wants me to do the garden work with him. I leave it to you.

Mother has written to Rishabhchand that you can be relieved from the office work but might not like to give up garden work, so he should try to arrange in such a way that the garden work could continue.

February 9, 1934

February 1934 I enclose a poem. The philosophical conception expressed therein may perhaps be wrong, because the Purusha is supposed to be inactive only giving sanction to Prakriti. Isn’t it so? I have represented the Lord with dynamism along with static poise.

That is the Sankhya Purusha – the Purusha of the Gita is Ishwara also. The objection as philosophy is correct. Poetically – the opening is heavy, but the rest is good.

There is a notion that with the approach of Darshan there is a greater descent of Force. I dont feel any difference. But they corroborate their theory by the evidence of an upheaval of vital troubles etc. I think one should feel more calm and peace. Which view do you subscribe to? And is it a fact that there is such a descent?

There is usually a descent, but there is also a great opposition to the descent at these times. Some feel the descent only, some feel the opposition only, some feel both the descent and the opposition.

February 10, 1934

With the taking up of the new work a calmness and ananda have descended on me and I have been surprisingly free from cravings and disturbing thoughts for a long time at a stretch. Is it due to the effect of the work or due to the descent of the Force you speak of?

The Force comes down as soon as it finds an opening and acts in the Adhara whenever it is ready. What determines the descent cannot always be mentally fixed. Aspiration, call, will, prayer, etc., create a favourable precondition in the head or heart or anywhere else and are sometimes the determining cause.

February 12, 1934

I am much better now. Shall I join work tomorrow?

Yes, if you are all right.

May I be permitted to see you on the 15th instant, the centenary of my arrival here?

[Sri Aurobindo underlined the word “centenary”, put an interrogation mark above it]

I say, you have not been here 100 years surely!

Mother won’t be free probably before 12.30, but if you like to come in and make pranam, you may do so.

February 13, 1934

I would surely like to come even if it be for a pranam. Please let me know the time through Nolini.

We had said, I think, after 12.30.

February 27, 1934

I have become a persistent tea-drinker, going against your instruction, though the mind does not see any harm in a cup of tea.

You can take. It is a question of self-mastery, that is all.

March 7, 1934

The peace and joy I was experiencing since Darshan, have, I find, left me all on a sudden since yesterday. But what actions of mine – conscious or unconscious – have caused the happy condition to withdraw?

A very small thing will sometimes bring a fall of consciousness when the thing is not yet pakka¹. One has to pick oneself up again quietly without minding the interruption.

Mother, from your look at pranam it seemed to me you didn’t or don’t like our taking food exclusive of Ashram food...

How did you read food into the Mother’s look? It was not there at all.

Often I have felt that you give sanction for these occasional feastings, but at the same time you don’t sanction... Intuitive perception of your wish, I must say, isn’t an easy thing. Why don’t you tell me clearly what I should do, insteading of leaving me to find out for myself?

Why don’t you go on what the Mother says instead of taking all this intuitive or inferential trouble?

Why do I come back so happy from D’s place? Is it due to what you call vital sympathy?

It may be a vital sympathy – but with no harm in it.

March 17, 1934

I send a poem, rather a long one. It’s addressed to P, can I send it to him?

Yes. The beginning of the poem seems to me to have some strength in it. The rest spins itself out rather thinly at too great a length. A more compact and original thought and expression are needed.

Is there not a difference between the sleep before 12 and after?

The sleep before 12 is supposed to be the best.

I had a very peculiar dream last night. I’m almost ashamed to write about it. I heard someone saying to me in Bengali, “In Shiva’s ansha² is your birth”, as soon as I got up I was in a flood of joy and devotion for Shiva.

Everyone’s inner being is born in the ansha of some Devata.

Birth and tradition of this life are not everything – there have been previous lives also which one carries on into this one and a future also which is already existent in the present.

March 20, 1934

I send you one more poem. But there seems to be hardly any originality in the idea itself – boat, boatman, etc., reminds one of Rabindranath, doesn’t it? I would like to have your opinion.

In the ideas and images there is not much originality and I cannot say Tagore is not there in his ubiquitous glory. But it is well written a11 the same.

March 21, 1934

Last night in a half-sleepy state in meditation, I had a vision of Sri Krishna playing on his flute in his usual pose. The likeness was as represented in current paintings. So I rather hesitate to accept it as a vision at all. But I wonder, even if the vision were true, why should Krishna appear when I have been trying to see Shiva?

If it was like the pictures, it may have been a mental image. On the other hand it may not have been, especially as you did not ask for it. Krishna may have appeared in that form because for your mind it was easiest.

I am surprised to see that within a few days J has written more poems than my whole output in a year. No, I am not jealous but I wonder how and why I don’t get sufficient inspiration.

Your poems are well enough – but for both J and yourself, what has to be seen is whether it comes to something original and substantial. At present what both are doing is only prentice-work.

March 27, 1934

For a week or so I have not been able to write a single line. But it struck me – why not try something in prose which, I suppose, can be done even in the absence of any inspiration. But I am faced with the difficulty of a weak style, lack of plots and the thought of a failure.

You can try – making it the object to get rid of the defects of style and structure.

Will you kindly give me some advice on this, as well as your Force for the necessary development? When the current of inspiration comes to a stop, I think sometimes that perhaps you have forgotten me in your busy moments.

It does not depend on that at all. It depends on a certain state of receptivity – an opening of the channel between the inner plane where the inspiration comes and the outer through which it has to pass.

March 29, 1934

I have diarrhoea. I had toast and butter at A’s, and am having tea regularly at D’s. Is it due to either? But can the bowels be so sensitive as that by Yoga?

Yes, the bowels can be quite as sensitive as that – but it is probably some other cause. Diarrhoea may come from catching cold in the stomach or other reasons than food.

As regards the “opening of the channel”, can it be done sooner by more concentration, meditation, etc., disregarding the literary side for the time being?

One can get the power of receptivity to inspiration by concentration and meditation making the inner being stronger and the outer less gross, tamasic and insistent.

You have said that inspiration comes as a result of a certain state of receptivity. Are we supposed to be more receptive at times that we feel the inspiration descending?

Yes.

But the difference is hardly perceptible.

It only means that you cannot perceive it.

I have been faced with a doubt whether one can profit by writing poems, etc., as much (I mean spiritually) as one would if he had devoted that part of his time to sadhana – meditation, etc. In other words can literary activity be taken as part of one’s sadhana?

Any activity can be taken as part of the sadhana if it is offered to the Divine or done with the consciousness or faith that it is done by the Divine Power. That is the important point.

April 6, 1934

I send a poem. I wasn’t happy about it; it has too much of Rabindranath in it, I think.

I fear your opinion of it is correct. Evidently you have the writing capacity, but it does not come to much – at least in poetry – unless you have something to write of your own. For that you must wake up something in you that is not yet awake.

April 7, 1934

I am much encouraged to hear from you that I have the writing capacity. Since it’s there I can hope that it will express itself sooner or later in its own garb and form. The “inner soul of rhythm”, originality, etc., come, as you say, by the inflowering by yoga. I can wait my turn for that. But why do you say “you must...”? Doesn’t this “must” demand from one a conscious and concentrated effort to avoid the imitation and follow the unhewn path? And can one really do it in that way?

No. Must simply indicates what must happen or should happen. What you can do is to have a will that it should happen, settle within you. The will will bear fruit in time if it is of the right kind and especially if it becomes a Yogic will.

April 10, 1934

I send you a poem. I didn’t send it yesterday because it was the day of our vengeance³ and who knows my little verse may have been the last straw... But since all people profit at your expense, it wouldn’t be wiser for me to stand aloof. So the poem and your kind opinion on it.

My opinion is “good, but not good enough” – more stuff is needed.

It is good you did not throw your straw on the waters yesterday – the flood might have carried it away into the beginning of next week.

April 18, 1934

Is it not possible to keep Chere by Thy all-powerful Grace?

It would mean his cutting all outside ties. So long as the ties remain, the financial obligations also remain. I do not think he has advanced so far that he can cut away altogether and be free.

J says she was given a very small quantity of curry by A and her appetite is unappeased. It is very sad to see that in spite of your repeated directions and warnings (to the Dining Room workers), they forget this simple thing.

It is because D is no longer there. He was very careful in this matter as in all details – especially there in which the Mother had given special instructions. I shall write to A.

I find it rather inconvenient to imprison these bulky letters in a small envelope. You will see how many folds had to be made, it looks so ugly. Still I do it with difficulty.

Ugliness does not matter in this instance. The envelope system has been instituted so as to save a little the Mother’s time in the morning so that she may not have to cut short the little rest she has or else have to come very late for pranam.

April 21, 1934

I had a very unique experience last night, in the realm of poetry.

The inspiration came and as I sat down to write the whole thing dropped, so to say; I simply let myself be led to see how and when it’d end. Never before have I written a whole poem in this way. I was very joyous and recovered all lost hope.

Why is it that people get so much joy out of writing a poem?

It is the joy of creation partly, partly the joy or “enthousiasmos” the sense of exaltation and Ananda which always comes when one is freely and powerfully used by a greater Force.

Does this spontaneous, automatic inpouring depend on some inner state?

It does not depend on any inner spiritual state, but on an opening to some supraphysical plane of inspiration.

April 23, 1934

I had a very peculiar dream last night:

I was going away somewhere much dejected and disappointed. The road I took was most gorgeous reminding me of that of the Lake Districts of Scotland; I had proceeded far; suddenly J came up running and said – “The one whom you wanted has come and is waiting for you.” I turned back but found nobody. More disappointed I was just going away when a woman’s form with a child in her lap appeared as if from nowhere. I fell at her feet saying “O Mother, you have come then?” with such an ecstasy and fervour that words can’t convey. “Are you going to leave me? Will you come often?” I asked. “I shall come nine or ten times a day.” With this reply she vanished and the dream ended. Who is this form and what is the meaning of this? And why the child?

The child was your psychic being. It was the Mother you saw and she brought it to you – that is, put you in close contact with it.

I am very, very happy, as if some secret fountain has been unsealed. One should remain as quiet as possible holding within oneself all the rapture, shouldn’t one?

Yes.

Is this a simple vital joy or a joy of writing poetry?

It is not vital at all, though the vital may share in it.

April 24, 1934

Sending you the poem I had spoken of. What an “enthousiasmos” I felt when I wrote it!

Yes, this time you had undoubtedly a living inspiration.

I am happy, happy, but I am afraid at the same time lest it should disappear by some inadvertent action of mine. It is generally supposed that the Divine also deliberately leads us through alternating states of joy and despair to make us strong or to test us. Is it true? If so, I cannot pray to you to give me such an uninterrupted bliss!

It is not a law, but it happens so because of the difficulty of human nature. If all were led by the psychic being with its faith, surrender, one-pointed will to the Divine, there would still be ups and downs of a slighter character, but no need for states of despair.

April 27, 1934

X was coming from the Ashram at 9 p.m. and was molested by a ruffian in front of Nolini’s room. She called him and then the boy disappeared.

I am simply dumb-founded by the news. To think that someone – maybe a fuffian or a devil – should attack a Sadhika under your very roof – is it not surprising? I hear and believe too that you give a veil of protection around us. Is it so ineffective that even when one doesn’t go out of one’s way, some hostile beings should attack the very physique and especially that of ladies? Then each lady must stop walking alone or each must have somebody by her. I wonder how long it’ll take to free the atmosphere from these seen vital forces.

When the sadhaks get rid of the unseen ones in themselves and in the atmosphere of the Ashram.

I am afraid there will be now an apprehension and a nervousness among all the sadhikas.

The Mother has constantly told the sadhikas who approached her about it that they should not be out alone or without a sadhak to accompany them after 8 o’clock – even after dusk it is not so very safe. After 9 o’clock any woman out alone can easily be taken for a bad character and even questioned by the police. The reason is that when the streets are otherwise deserted, it is largely drunkards, bad characters that come abroad or people like the Topa boys who are little better than criminals. Pondicherry is not a place where women can walk about alone at night. Only two or three days ago S asked whether they could not go out to enjoy the moonlight at 9 if there were 2 or 3 sadhikas together and Mother forbade it unless there was a sadhak with them, so they are going with the Doctor.

I do not know why you should consider that a sadhak or Sadhika can count, whatever he does and whatever the conditions, on an absolute protection and immunity. There are conditions under which there is an absolute safety – if the sadhaks are sadhaks through and through, if they have a pure and complete faith etc. Or if a Sadhika has got rid of sex impulses and sex appeal and lives in the Mother or with the Mother in her, or even if she has a perfect fearlessness, inner strength and courage, then she would be able to walk about unchallenged even in Pondicherry. But conditions are not like that here – as yet at least – the wrong forces are here inside the Ashram as well as outside – under such circumstances, the protection, though it can still act, acts on conditions and within limits.

April 29, 1934

X, I think, is more or less free from sex and tries to live in the Mother.

More or less? tries? that was not what I said. I spoke of freedom from sex and living in the Mother.

I cannot forget a nice dream I had in the first year of my stay in England. Buddha was sitting in “padmasan” and was giving me a red lotus. Was it a forecast of my later spiritual life?

I suppose so.

May 1, 1934

Suddenly I have dropped from a state of exaltation and peace to that of depression. The soaring, the days of exaltation seem to be so unreal – almost a chimera beside this world of reality.

?

[Sri Aurobindo underlined “world of reality”.]

It is surprising that I cannot live in one state for more than a few days, and yet this dejection, sadness seems so foreign to my nature!

Why do you give way to it, then? You ought to be able to detach yourself from it, see it as an intrusion and fling it out.

May 4, 1934

Would you suggest a way to increase thought-power in poetry?

There is no device for that. You have to open from within to a deeper or higher source of inspiration or grow from within into a deeper or higher consciousness – there is no other way for it.

May 10, 1934

I seem to be contented with myself, in peace and bliss and have nothing to pray for. Is this not tamasic peace in a sattwic garb?

It is far more favourable to spiritual progress than being miserable and depressed or in vital revolt and agitation and disturbance.

I have ceased even to aspire, believing that you will give me inspiration. I simply refuse to make even a mental effort.

Mental effort is one thing and aspiring and holding yourself in readiness is another.

Need one aspire even for writing poetry?

Aspiration is an essential part of the sadhana.

If one waits calmly, does not the Grace descend by itself without our asking?

Not unless one is in a state of Grace – in a psychic condition.

If a person asks for something and doesn’t get it, he is likely to get disappointed...

If he asks with the vital, yes.

Your mind is too active in these matters. Get your mind silent, learn to feel within, to aspire from within – then things will come more easily.

May 14, 1934

I woke up from sleep with a touch of sadness caused by some depressive dreams at night, dreams which have no correspondence in real life. For instance I saw H going to a pub and getting heavily drunk, D running after a girl in a drunken condition. Aren’t these dreams a sufficient cause to awake one to a sadness?

Not unless you believe that they point to something real in the physical life. Why should one be sad for a mere dream?

Am I seeing my own condition in others’ forms?

No. These are dreams on the vital plane. Such dreams may be mere formations in the vital without any actual value, they may point to something in the persons seen which was there in the past, in some cases they indicate possibilities of the future, in others things going on in the present (the last is rare, but does happen), but not always in the forms suggested by the dream. It is such things that happen on the vital plane, very rarely (though that too does happen) on the physical plane. But also they may be merely possibilities conjectured by one’s own vital mind about people. So one must know which it is of these various possibilities before getting sad about dreams! For instance in H’s case it is evidently an impression of something in his nature and habits that you knew to have been there in the past and which you know is not there at present.

I have been thinking whether I would not profit more by spending the time I use for writing in doing meditation instead. Has the writing work any spiritual value?

No present value spiritually – it may have a mental value. It is the same with the work – it has a value of moral training, discipline, obedience, acceptance of work for the Mother. The spiritual value and result come afterwards when the consciousness in the vital opens upward. So with the mental work. It is a preparation. If you cannot yet do it with the true spiritual consciousness, it, the work as well as the mental occupation, must be done with the right mental or vital will in it.

The Mother says in her Prayers and Meditations that experience is willed by the Divine. Am I then to suppose that dearth or abundance of experiences is, in any given case, willed by the Divine?

To say so has no value unless you realise all things as coming from the Divine. One who has realised as the Mother had realised in the midst of terrible sufferings and difficulties that even these came from the Divine and were preparing her for her work can make a spiritual use of such an attitude. For others it may lead to wrong conclusions.

May 22, 1934

In some cases you don’t seem to like people to be engrossed in literary work. Can it be taken as a general rule?

There is no general rule; the mind is always trying to build general rules. The thing done may be the same, but it is done in different ways according to the circumstances and the nature of the people.

Well, Dilip had to work in spite of your Grace. So may I ask you in the vein of Arjuna – but alas, not with that love and surrender! – to give me one direct and decisive rule to follow in this path of poetic activity? My aspiration for your Grace and blessings in this mental occupation, is as great as for spiritual progress.

Aspire for the opening to the right plane of inspiration. You forget that D got his opening by grace and never lost it – all his work only helps him to utilise and develop what is already there.

May 26, 1934

The popular idea is that the more one is rich in practical experiences of life, the more successful he is in literary pursuits; for, then he will be able to write better, tackle various problems of life in a better way.

Why should a creative artist write only about problems?

A littérateur of Bengal, B, used to say that it is simply unthinkable that living in entire seclusion in Pondicherry or the Himalayas one can write anything in prose or poetry. His experience is sure to be limited.

What a stupidly rigid principle! Can B really write nothing except what he has seen or experienced? What an unimaginative man he must be! And how dull his stories must be and how limited.

I wonder whether Victor Hugo had to live in a convicts’ prison before he invented Jean Valjean. Certainly one has to look at life, but there is no obligation to copy faithfully from life. The man of imagination carries a world in himself and a mere hint or suggestion from life is enough to start it going. It is recognised now that Balzac and Dickens created on the contrary their greatest characters which were not at all faithful to life around them. Balzac’s descriptions of society are hopelessly wrong, he knew nothing about it, but his world is much more striking and real than the actual world around him which he misrepresented – even life has imitated the figures he made rather than the other way round. Besides who is living in entire seclusion in Pondicherry? There are living men and women around you and human nature is in full play here as well as in the biggest city – only one has to have an eye to see what is within them and an imagination that takes a few bricks and can make out of them a great edifice – one must be able to see that human nature is one everywhere and pick out of it the essential things or the interesting things that can be turned into great art.

In the evening when you come on the terrace – as I look at you, the horizon behind, divides distinctly into two colours: pale pink and pale blue. Is it simply due to my gazing fixedly at you, Mother?

In that case everybody who looks fixedly at the Mother on the roof would see a horizon of pale pink and pale blue. I doubt if it is the case.

May 31, 1934

You didn’t tell me the significance of the colours.

Pink is the psychic colour – pale blue may be the higher mind – but blue has several significances, so it is not certain.

I hear B left because he couldn’t conquer sex-impulse within some specified period?

B left out of ambition, not because of sex.

June 6, 1934

Nirod,

You can write to C that it is obvious he must stop this thing if he is to make any progress in his sadhana. Sexuality even of the natural kind is an obstacle, but unnatural practices like these are a much greater obstacle – they bring greater reactions, make the will weak and bring a habitual subjection to the lower forces. He has allowed himself to relax his will and as a result the forces he had kept in check here have rushed up with a double force and brought up everything in that line to which his lower vital had been at any time open. He must stop it at once! If it is idleness that makes him like that let him keep himself busy. But most of all he must once more fix his will, realise that he must stop yielding and make up his mind to give no indulgence whatever.

Sri Aurobindo

June 8, 1934

In the afternoon I felt a descent of Ananda. In sheer joy, I could have embraced the earth itself Ramakrishna is said to have gone into ecstasy at the sight of clouds. My ecstasy, if you will excuse my impudence, was of the same kind.

It is Ananda in the mind and vital.

No apology necessary. The Ananda is the same for everyone, whether Ramakrishna or another.

To relieve myself in some way of this rapture, I wanted most unfortunately to express it in a verse with the consequent loss of the rapture.

What was the necessity of that? And why did you want to relieve yourself of the rapture?

For some time past the inspiration has stopped. Find it rather painful.

You must remember that you are not a “born” poet – you are trying to bring out something from the Unmanifest inside you. You can’t demand that that should be an easy job. It may come out suddenly and without apparent reason like the Ananda – but you can’t demand it.

The pangs of delivery cannot always be avoided.

To acquire a good style in prose I am reading any and every book in Bengali.

Any and every! That is more likely to spoil the style.

But I don’t want to lose the peace and the joy I am in now. If you think that over-reading or reading anything will lower the consciousness I shall lessen the activity.

I do not know whether the peace and joy will stand over-reading. It may if it is very strong.

June 9, 1934

My friend C is extremely troubled by his own defects and is in utter despair and thinks of putting an end to his life. What should I tell him?

You have seen my answer I suppose. You can add that despair is absurd and talks of suicide quite out of place. However a man may stumble, the Divine Grace will be there so long as he aspires for it and in the end lead him through.

Last night I woke up suddenly in a condition of deep ecstasy. My room seemed to be quite different; it was pervaded by your presence. I felt I was lying in an immense cradle of that presence. I wonder if the condition was a stupefaction of the senses due to an interruption of sleep or a simple imagination.

What on earth is this nonsense? Do you mean that an experience of the pervading Presence can only be due to a stupefaction of the senses, an interruption of sleep or a simple imagination?

When you get experiences, especially such experiences, take them as they are. Why these mental mystifications?

If my Ananda was vital and mental, is there a psychic Ananda too?

I did not say it was vital and mental, but that it was Ananda manifesting itself in the mental and vital – a quite different thing; for the one Ananda (the true thing) can manifest in any part of the being.

June 19, 1934

If you think that my Sunday feasts may harm me, I will stop them, or at least make them infrequent.

But do you not feel yourself whether it harms or not? These things are of small importance to those who are still in the ordinary mind, important only to those who have begun to live within or to have major experiences. The latter is your case since you lived several days with the Ananda in you.

June 20, 1934

You mean that these feasts are not good for me?

Yes.

Is Ananda a major experience?

Light, Peace, Force, Ananda constitute the spiritual consciousness; if they are not among the major experiences, what are?

There is no doubt that there is a craving for relishing dishes and then it is not far to seek an excuse.

Probably the cessation of the meal would make your vital uncomfortable – so it may be better to continue.

June 25, 1934

Last night I dreamed that C had come to me and I took hold of his hand: I opened my eyes; there was no C! But I felt that he had possessed me just as a spirit would have done. I wanted to cry for Mother but he wouldn’t allow me.

It was not C at all, but some vital force taking his form. These are things that happen when you enter the vital world. The only thing needed is not to be afraid and to call on the Mother.

July 6, 1934

Last two weeks what misery and wretchedness I have gone through! On close inspection I find that the only unusual thing I have done is having meals at D’s place, cooked by Nishikanta.

It may have helped, but it is not likely to be the main cause. Something in the atmosphere probably to which you opened yourself.

Or is it not due to food at all? I have heard that at the time of Darshan all our cravings are thrown up.

There is no such inevitable rule. It is true that attacks are frequent at that time, but one need not admit them.

July 9, 1934

D was saying, “What is food-desire after all, for me? I can give it up at once.” How far is this view correct? Or is the vital having its play out under this pretext?

It is a self-deception of the vital, “I have no attachment, so I can go on indulging myself!” But in practice the attachment is there, however lofty the attitude.

July 25, 1934

I don’t know what I should do in order to utilise time to my best advantage. Shall I begin by stopping all reading during work? Please give me the right attitude and interest in work.

So long as work or reading either is done merely to utilise time, the right attitude can hardly come or the interest. Work must be done either for pleasure in it or with some purpose beyond itself.

July 28, 1934

Mother, there are days when I am awfully afraid to go to pranam, lest I should have the misfortune to see your grave face, with no smile at all. All my despair, melancholy, etc., is intensified after that, while your smile disperses all gloom.

All this about the Mother’s smile and her gravity is simply a trick of the vital. Very often I notice people talk of the Mother’s being grave, stern, displeased, angry at Pranam when there has been nothing of the kind – they have attributed to her something created by their own vital imagination. Apart from that the Mother’s smiling or not smiling has nothing to do with the sadhak’s merits or demerits, fitness or unfitness – it is not deliberately done as a reward or a punishment. The Mother smiles on all, without regard to these things. When she does not smile, it is because she is either in trance or absorbed, or concentrated on something within the sadhak that needs her attention – something that has to be done for him or brought down or looked at. It does not mean that there is anything bad or wrong in him. I have told this a hundred times to any number of sadhaks – but in many the vital does not want to accept that because it would lose its main source of grievance, revolt, abhiman⁴, desire to go away or give up the Yoga, things which are very precious to it. The very fact that it has these results and leads to nothing but these darknesses ought to be enough to show you that this imagination about Mother’s not smiling as a sign of absence of her grace or love is a device and suggestion of the Adversary. You have to drive away these things and so give some chance for the psychic with its deeper and truer love and surrender to come forward and take up the Adhar as its kingdom.

C asks your opinion about his taking a job in the detention camp. How does he hope to get it being a police-suspect himself?

I forgot to write about this. You had better tell C that I do not look with approval on this idea of the post in the detention camp. Even if he got it, it may lead to very undesirable things.

August 8, 1934

Last night as I was going to bed, I prayed for your light in the subconscient. Strange to say, all the troubles and turmoils were thrown up in response as it were, to the prayer. I had even emissions in dream. And this has happened more than once. Is there any coincidence or is really the effect of your response?

The prayer brings a Force which presses on the subconscient and by that pressure these things come up. The emissions are of no great importance provided they are not frequent, but they indicate the presence of the sex-impulse there. Many are able to get a control by putting a strong will on the sex-organ or sex-centre before sleeping, but then succeed only after a time. With some it does not succeed because the will in them is not strong enough or not trained up or they have not the habit of controlling the lower movements.

August 17, 1934

During this Darshan, instead of Ananda, Force or Light I felt a great dryness.

It depends upon your condition whether the Ananda or Force or Light descends or whether the resistance rises. It is the resistance of the ordinary physical consciousness ignorant and obscure that seems to have risen in you. The period of the 15th is a period of great descents but also of great resistances. This 15th was not an exception.

It is exactly one and a half years since I have been here. Unfortunately I cannot detect any sign of progress, everything is status quo, so to say.

You have had some experiences which are signs of a future possibility. To have more within the first 1.5 years, it would be necessary to have the complete attitude of the sadhak and give up that of the man of the world. It is only then that progress can be rapid from the beginning.

I was simply staggered by C’s sex abnormalities and would absolutely despair of him unless I knew that your protection and blessings are with him.

Yes, he is a phenomenon in that way – but there is something very sincere somewhere in him. Let us hope the inner man will soon get the better of the outer.

August 21, 1934

I would like to know why the resistance rushed up on 15th August. You said it depends on one’s condition. It is true that I indulged in food or in mental questionings and these last few months were very lax.

Laxity and a self-externalising consciousness more occupied with outer than with inner things.

I have resolved to abstain from Sunday indulgences or make them as infrequent as possible. I have already resisted many hankerings for a cup of tea.

About food, tea etc. the aim of Yoga is to have no hankerings, no slavery either to the stomach or the palate. How to get to that point is another matter – it depends often on the individual. With a thing like tea, the strongest and easiest way is to stop it. As to food the best way usually is to take the food given you, practise non-attachment and follow no fancies. That would mean giving up the Sunday indulgence. The rest must be done by an inner change of consciousness and not by external means.

After Darshan, I have been trying every day not to go to D’s, but somehow find myself there...

If you get something by the darshan, it is better to go home and absorb it; if not, it does not matter. Only you have to take care not to absorb deleterious influences at the gathering – I mean, moods of doubt, depression, indifference to things spiritual etc., etc.

There are some people who are very free with their palate and yet are not the worse for it.

How do you know they are not any the worse in the Yogic sense?

This is what you mean, I suppose, by the term “complete attitude of the sadhak” – giving up all these things. If not, I would request you to elaborate it a little.

All these are external things that have their use. But what I mean is something more inward. I mean not to be interested in outward things for their own sake, following after them with desire, but at all times to be intent on one’s soul, living centrally in the inner being and its progress, taking outward things and action only as a means for the inner progress.

The question of food is to some extent within one’s control, but what to do with the habitual movement of the mind?

Detach yourself from it – make your mind external to you, something that you can observe as you observe things occurring in the street. So long as you do not do that, it is difficult to be the mind’s master.

People say that one shouldn’t read when one is at work. I have already told you that I read.

Usually reading when at work is not desirable. I don’t remember just now what your work is.

August 25, 1934

When I have given up all reading, and taken up work seriously, just then an accident!⁵ People say it is a good sign! I attribute it to my carelessness.

How?

It should rather be a warning to be careful than a good sign.

Tomorrow being Sunday, may I take rest?

It is better to take rest, if you feel better when at rest.

August 27, 1934

I could not sleep last night, though there was no pain. In the afternoon I had a cup of tea. Do you think it was responsible? It is true that a sense of nervous exhaustion sets in after taking it. I wanted to stop it after your writing but here I am again!

Certainly, you should not have taken tea in these circumstances. It is not good for the nerves.

All trouble comes at night! I was a little mortified to think that you can’t or won’t give me some sleep. After all, I may be responsible for it.

It is your nerves that are responsible – they have too little resistance probably to pain and illness and are too easily restless. Relax yourself at night and don’t struggle to sleep – but relax with all the mind and nerves and body quiet and let sleep come.

August 31, 1934

Looking at my wound, one would think that it is the work of some hostile force which while being compelled to leave me, gave the last kick in parting. Some say it is. Do you think so?

These things usually come from some adverse force.

Many people show signs of progress after an illness. May I not expect some? Give me thy blessings that I may be cured without any complication setting in.

It is true that one can use an illness in that way – though to advance without illness is better.

September 8, 1934

I saw what you wrote to T about reading. I wonder if it applies to me also.

What is written for T is not meant for you. T has got into a movement of consciousness in which reading is no longer necessary and would rather interfere with his consciousness. There is no objection to your reading provided it does not interfere with your meditation.

I should like to be a literary man. Do you approve?

It depends on what kind of “literary man” you want to be, ordinary or Yogic.

September 11, 1934

What did you mean by a Yogic “literary man”? I find here that sadhaks who have flourished as literary men have read a lot – N, A, D etc.

A literary man is one who loves literature and literary activity for its own sake. A Yogic “literary man” is not a literary man at all, but one who writes only what the inner will and Word wants to express. He is a channel and an instrument of something greater than his own literary personality.

Of course the literary man and the intellectual love reading – it is their food. But this is quite apart from writing. There are plenty of people who never wrote a word in the literary way, but were enormous readers. One reads for ideas, for knowledge, for the stimulation of the mind by all that the world has thought or is thinking. I never read in order to create. As the Yoga increased, I read very little, for when all the ideas in the world come crowding in one, there is not much need of food there. At most an utility for keeping oneself informed of what is happening in the world – but not as food for one’s own seeing of the world and Truth and things.

I have found that one’s reading does not always help one in expressing the thoughts in the most effective way. So also with writing poetry, we have the ideas, words, thoughts, yet we can’t write a poem as poets do.

Poetry especially – even perfect expression of any kind comes by inspiration, not by reading. Reading helps only to acquire a language or to get the technique of literary expression. Afterwards, one develops one’s own use of the language, one’s own style, one’s own technique. It is a decade or two since I stopped all but the most casual reading, but my power of poetical and perfect expression has increased tenfold. What I wrote with some difficulty, often great difficulty, I now write with ease. I am supposed to be a philosopher, but I never studied philosophy – everything I wrote came from Yogic experience, Knowledge and inspiration. So too my greater power over poetry and perfect expression was acquired in these last days not by reading and seeing how other people wrote, but from the heightening of my consciousness and the greater inspiration that came from the heightening.

What is it then that operates behind? Reading, natural talent or painstaking labour?

Reading and painstaking labour are very good for the literary man, but even for him, they are not the cause of his good writing, only an aid to it. The cause is within himself – as to “natural” I don’t know. Sometimes, the talent is inborn and ready for expression, then you call it natural. Sometimes, it awakes from within afterwards but I suppose then also it is natural, though from a till then hidden nature.

I am ashamed to say that I couldn’t follow your advice about tea. I fell a victim to the temptation. If I would really profit by giving it up I shall do so.

If you can give up, it is all right – if you can’t or have to force yourself too much, wait till you can. The important thing is the opening of the inner being.

September 18, 1934

Since I seem to have a possibility of opening in the direction of poetry, may I not direct my aspiration mainly towards it?

It seems to me that the aspiration should be mainly directed to the full opening of the Adhar to the divine Force.

October 1, 1934

Had a severe headache after pranam. Why?

Some mental resistance probably.

October 3, 1934

Sri Aurobindo,

Last night I had a dream of a mixed character. I saw that many of us have assembled and are expecting you to come down amongst us. A great expectancy was in the air, a great excitement, because a Force was to descend.

This is also in the vital.

You came, but we didn’t know how or when. Suddenly we found that Nolini had fallen senseless on the ground, and you were lying beside him, which gave us the impression that you were transmitting your Force into him. Then somebody came and separated us from you by drawing a screen, saying or suggesting that this was the Force that was expected to come down.

After a while some of us went to see you again, and saw you passing by. To our great delight and surprise your feet were just the colour of lotus – so soft, tender, beautiful. Unfortunately I couldn’t make much of your face. So this was the dream, though not accurate, perhaps.

Dreams of this kind in the vital plane are very common. They correspond to something that has happened there, but the forms are often partly supplied by the subconscient mind and partly true. The “supplied forms” have then to be taken as symbolic, while the rest actually happened in that plane. N’s falling down etc. and the drawing of the screen seem to be of the supplied kind. The rest seems to be of a more direct character.

October 11, 1934

I have been rather clumsy in expressing my thoughts. Somehow I feel a great resistance and words simply won 7 come. The same resistance everywhere!

It is the negative resistance mostly of the physical mind and vital physical – a resistance of inertia, of অপ্রকাশ⁶ and অপ্রবৃত্তি⁷ against any idea of any possibility of being other than they are. It often comes when the keenness of the vital resistances is no longer there.

October 15, 1934

I notice that a definite and marked despair has come over me, making me realise constantly how limited and meagre are my powers and possibilities. Whatever I produce is most mediocre.

Even supposing what you produce is not something extraordinary – what does it matter? Do your best and leave it to the Power to improve your best.

I feel quite helpless and without force and energy, without aspiration or faith. I would like to know if and how one is responsible for such a condition. Shall I persist in meditation or try to replace it by some reading?

These things must be the result either of desires or of inertia or of vital restlessness. If you stop meditation, I do not see how you are going to get rid of these things. It is only by bringing in a higher consciousness that you can get rid of the habitual conditions of the old consciousness.

October 17, 1934

Last night I dreamt of two huge snakes with their hoods spread out and when I woke up, what did I see to my utter surprise – again two similar snakes standing by my bed. On looking closely I found two parallel beams of light fallen on the curtain. Due to the movement of the curtain, it looked like the swaying of the snakes. But I still can’t believe that they were mere beams of the street light, and not a vision of snakes.

It is not a vision. Very often what one sees at the moment of waking prolongs itself into the waking state until the full ordinary consciousness comes back. Here it was farther prolonged by finding a physical support in the beams of light. I have often seen in the early stages that a subtle image takes advantage of something physical to make itself more durable and concrete even in the full waking state. The snakes here were probably Energies, not of the harmful kind.

October 24, 1934

Last night I was in a mood of depression. To get out of it I tried to meditate. After half an hour’s struggle I had to give it up, with more depression as a consequence. Then various unwholesome thoughts began pouring in: it is simply futile to make any effort for anything. Especially as one sits to meditate, one thought after another surges up. What a terrible tug-of-war I had with the mind! Some days pass simply in unsuccessful efforts and one has to leave meditation in utter disgust. One is thus forced to the conclusion that our efforts, however keen and earnest, are after all impotent. If the higher Power wills, it comes in a second. But the Power not only doesn’t will it, but keeps the door tightly shut, at the same time asking us to knock against it with all our might, knowing fully well that we are going to be baffled. Why this costly joke?... In this vein I went on till I again reached the conclusion that all efforts are useless, useless! And with that conclusion I slept a most disturbed sleep of depression, inertia and restlessness.

These are the thoughts of depression, but the impression is still settled in the mind that though efforts have to he made, they will bear no fruit whatsoever and they can do mighty little...

One can either use efforts and then one must be patient and persevering, or one can rely on the Divine with a constant call and aspiration. But then the reliance has to be a true one not insisting on immediate fruit.

All that is the physical mind refusing to take the trouble of the labour and struggle necessary for the spiritual achievement. It wants to get the highest, but desires a smooth course all the way. “Who the devil is going to face so much trouble for getting the Divine?” – that is the underlying feeling. The difficulty with the thoughts is a difficulty every Yogi has gone through – so is the phenomenon of a little result after some days of effort. It is only when one has cleared the field and ploughed and sown and watched over it that big harvests can be hoped for.

October 26, 1934

Dilip told us today that you were trying to bring down the personality of Durga on the puja day.

There was no trying – it came down.

When I came for pranam, your appearance made me feel that you were Durga herself though I have not the faintest idea of what the Goddess looks like. Later I told Nishikanta my impression. He said he too had a similar feeling. I don’t know whether such a feeling arose out of the association with the puja on that day, or quite independently of it.

All that is the silliness of the physical mind which thinks itself very clever in explaining away the inner feeling or perception.

One can’t take such feelings very seriously (perhaps you will rebuke me for it) because they are so vague, abstract and momentary! It is difficult to distinguish the border line between imagination, intuition and feelings unless they are substantiated by something like a concrete vision.

What else do you expect the first touches to be?

To give you one instance: I heard as if the Goddess Bhagawati⁸ were telling me, “I am coming”, and many other things which I don’t remember now.

These things are at least a proof that the inner mind and vital are trying to open to supraphysical things. But if you belittle it at once the moment it starts how can it ever develop?

Now, in what light should I take it? If I take it as a reflected response of my own nature’s restlessness, shall I be wrong?

Yes, quite wrong.

You have shown two ways of sadhana: one of effort, another of reliance on the Divine with constant call. But aren’t they really the same? How do they differ? Constant call and aspiration means the constant acceptance of Truth and rejection of falsehood, which means a constant effort at rejection and acceptance since our mind being what it is, will always run after physical things and its pleasure. Is there any less effort in this method?

Much less. The other is a constant effort to get things down and pull down what one wants. Acceptance and rejection are quite a different thing.

October 27, 1934

P has chronic stomach ulcer. You have cured many incurable and curable diseases, so any chance for him?

It depends on himself. Anyway I suppose it is not a thing that kills quickly? People thrive on it for 30 years sometimes. Isn’t it a question of care and diet – or supposed to be so? Punuswami who comes here has had it and is still alive and doing his work, so is K who was here once. But I can’t promise to cure it – I tried with K but it comes back when he is off his guard. If a man is very receptive, it is another matter.

October 30, 1934

I have started concentrating in the heart now. Last Sunday while I was meditating I had the vision of Sri Aurobindo’s face floating before me for about an hour or so, accompanied by a deep joy. I was fully conscious, but the body became as if dead, all movements stopped and what a rapture it gave me.

That was very good!

...Has anything opened up in me, really? Or is it only a momentary phase of a descent like Peace or Ananda? But I feel as if you have given me a lift forward – the fulfilling of your promise – I am coming. Am I right?

It looks like it. At any rate there is evidently an opening in the heart-centre or you would not have had the change or the vision with the stilling of the physical consciousness in the body.

November 7, 1934

For quite a number of days I was free from vital thoughts and impulses. But they seem again to raise their heads ...I sat down to meditate thinking that the wave would pass over my head if I plunged it deep down. The meditation was over when another huge wave swept me away, as it were.

Why these impulses after meditation?

They come in order to disturb or obstruct the meditation and if there are any results gained from it or about to be gained, to come across them.

I am trying to be silent within, but the mood of jocularity persists. Is it not, however, a sign of cheerfulness?

Not always – moreover the cheerfulness is vital. I do not say that it should not be there, but there is a deeper cheerfulness, an inner সুখহাস্য⁹ which is the spiritual condition of cheerfulness.

November 10, 1934

My birthday falls on the 17 th. Hope my name is there?

It is there. On the 17th after 12.

About five minutes before the end of the evening meditation, I felt such a pressure on the head as if it would burst or I would tumble down. I was then forced to open my eyes to relieve the pressure. Was it because my capacity to contain the Force was limited?

Probably the accumulated Force became more than the physical being could receive. When that happens, the right thing to do is to widen oneself (one can learn to do it by a little practice). If the consciousness is in a state of wideness, then it can receive any amount of Force without inconvenience.

I had a dream that I had gone home. My mother seeing me after a long time clasped me and pressed me so hard that I got afraid and began to call you. Is it that my vital went there or that the vital spirit of my mother came here and attacked me in this way?

It is probable that it was not your mother at all but a vital Force taking- her shape so as to have a hold on you.

November 11, 1934

P.S. was telling me that cultivation of literature here hasn’t much sense, since none will be able to get first class, or outclass Tagore. He must always remain the only brilliant star in literature. Others won’t even get a chance to shine by his side, not to speak of outshining him. Only Dilip can be somehow given a second class privilege, but that too for his prose, and not for poetry.

He further asserts that Yoga has no power to bring any pursuit – literature, painting, etc. to a height of perfection.

I don’t agree with P.S. If a man has a capacity for poetry or anything else, it will certainly come out and rise to greater heights than it would have done elsewhere. Witness D who was unable to write poetry till he came here though he had the instinct and the suppressed power in him, N whose full flow came only here. A, P whose recent poems in Gujerati seem to me to have an extraordinary beauty – though I admit that I am no expert there. H wrote beautifully before but the sovereign excellence of his recent poetry is new. There are others who are developing a power of writing they had not before. All that does not show that Yoga has no power to develop capacity. I myself have developed many capacities by Yoga. Formerly I could not have written a line of philosophy – now people have started writing books about my philosophy to my great surprise. It is not a question of first class or second class. One has to produce one’s best and develop – the “class” if class there must be will be decided by posterity. Tagore himself was once considered second class by any number of people and the nature of his poetry was fiercely questioned – until the Nobel prize and consequent fame ended their discussions. One has not to consider fame or the appreciation of others, but do whatever work one can do as an offering of one’s capacity to the Divine.

Of course, P.S. qualified his statement by saying that Supramental Force may do miracles. Such being the case, why not then direct one’s energies towards spiritual achievements?

Certainly the energies should be directed towards spiritual achievement here – other things can only be a corollary or else something developed for the service of the spiritual Force.

I suppose he didn’t mean born poets like Harindra and Nishikanta but the common herd like us who have no inborn talents, but who nevertheless aspire to be literary men. But even then, one cannot agree, for if Yoga can only raise geniuses to super-geniuses and cannot make crowns out of clay, well –

Well, of course the first business of Yoga is not to make geniuses at all, but to make spiritual men – but Yoga can do the other thing

November 14, 1934

I have four rupees with which I wanted to buy something for you on my birthday. But an impulse has come to offer something to the sadhaks. So I asked D if biscuits could be managed. Do you approve of my proposal?

Yes – although it is not according to rule or precedent.

I showed Dilip and others what you wrote about literature vs. Yoga. I hope it wasn’t wrong.

No.

December 4, 1934

This time I had a great Ananda at Darshan. At the very sight of you I seemed to have seen Shiva himself! And what a rapture it was! Especially your last look seemed to have taken me into another world, so much so that I did not even know who I was. It seemed you were drawing my inside out by your fixed gaze, very much as a python enchants its prey by the magnetic look!

All these happy impressions and recollections were with me vividly for 2 or 3 days. Then I found that all that consciousness has evaporated – and I have passed these days most passively, without any strong aspiration. But I marked that there was no depression. Only today it tried to overtake me, but so far it is unsuccessful. I expected so much from this Darshan, but it seems all has been spoiled!

There is no reason to be discouraged by what you call the evaporation of the consciousness that you got on the darshan day. It has not evaporated but drawn back from the surface. That usually happens – when there is not the higher consciousness or some experience. What you have to learn is not to allow depression, but remain quiet allowing time for the assimilation and ready for fresh experience or growth whenever it comes.

I have written only one side of the picture of the Darshan. May I know if you have discovered any fresh signs of hope?

For my part, I see plenty of signs of hope.

December 8, 1934

During the evening meditation I was wondering why I was not able to find the rasa¹⁰ of life. Many have found it in poetry, some in painting, others in physical work through which they can offer themselves easily and joyously to the Divine. The consecration becomes ever so much easier through works for which they have an affinity whereas to people like me who have no definite tendencies in any single pursuit, consecration becomes doubly difficult. I was thinking of praying to you to let me find rasa in work, when I had this experience:

I felt that my mind was divided into two parts – the inner absolutely silent, not disturbed by anything; the surface mind (physical?) thinking at random of many things which were passing by like a cinema film. Previously the whole being was mixed up with all those thoughts with a resultant turmoil. But this time the inner mind seemed to be detached. As soon as the outer thoughts cropped up it tried to see if all this was a forced condition of mind, – but no, the silence was really there and intact. This continued as long as the meditation lasted. I would like to have your corroboration on the matter. I wonder how these experiences suddenly drop in. I don’t know that I opened myself today specially to such an experience!

The consciousness from which these experiences come is always there pressing to bring them in. The reason why they don’t come in freely or stay is the activity of the mind and vital always rushing about, thinking this, wanting that, trying to perform mountaineering feats on all the hillocks of the lower nature instead of nourishing a stronger and simple aspiration and opening to the higher consciousness that it may come in and do its own work. Rasa of poetry, painting or physical work is not the thing to go after. What gives the interest in Yoga is the rasa of the Divine and of the divine consciousness which means the rasa of Peace, of Silence, of inner Light and Bliss, of growing inner Knowledge, of increasing inner Power, of the Divine Love, of all the infinite fields of experience that open to one with the opening of the inner consciousness. The true rasa of poetry, painting or any other activity is truly found when these things are part of the working of the Divine Force in you and you feel it is that and it exists in the joy of that working.

This condition you had of the inner being and its silence – separated from the surface consciousness and its little restless workings – is the first liberation, the liberation of Purusha from Prakriti, and it is a fundamental experience. The day when you can keep it, you can know that the Yogic consciousness has been founded in you. This time it has increased in intensity, but it must also increase in duration.

These things do not “drop” – what you have felt was there in you all the time, but you did not feel it because you were living on the surface altogether, and the surface is all crowd and clamour. But in all men there is this silent Purusha, base of the true mental being, the true vital being, the true physical being. It was by your prayer and aspiration that the thing came, to show you in what direction you must travel in order to have the true rasa of things, for it is only when one is liberated that one can get the real rasa. For after this liberation come others and among them the liberation and Ananda in action as well as in the static inner silence.

December 11, 1934

I am much delighted by yesterday’s letter, and wiser too. But my point was a little different; perhaps I could not make it clear. What I meant is this: If a sadhak is asked to offer himself through a work for which he has a natural liking, the offering becomes a joyous and consequently an easier one. The very rasa of the Divine for which we are all here, first and last, can be had and tasted more quickly and less laboriously through such a work. For instance, if Dilip were to transfer his allegiance to another deity, say one who presides over the control of servants (if there be any), well, you can imagine the results! (Yesterday itself he said that if he is asked to do Yoga working at the timber godown, he will have to look for a rope for his neck!)...

It is not a question of liking but of capacity – though usually (not always) liking goes with the capacity. But capacity can be developed and liking can be developed or rather the rasa you speak of. One cannot be said to be in the full Yogic condition – for the purposes of this Yoga – if one cannot take up with willingness any work given to one as an offering to the Divine. At one time I was absolutely unfit for any physical work and cared only for the mental, but I trained myself in doing physical things with care and perfection so as to overcome this glaring defect in my being and make the bodily instrument apt and conscious. It was the same with some others here. A nature not trained to accept external work and activity becomes mentally top-heavy – physically inert and obscure. It is only if one is disabled or too physically weak that physical work can be put aside altogether. I am speaking of course from the point of view of the ideal – the rest depends upon the nature.

As for the deity presiding over control of servants, godown work as well as over poetry or painting, it is always the same – the Shakti, the Mother.

... The day when I am able to keep the experiences, only then the Yogic consciousness will be founded in me!! But that day seems to be an ever-receding one, for it seems there are many sadhaks living here for four to five years who still haven’t established themselves in this inner silence!

There are many who have not even got it – even most. But I was not laying stress on silence but on the separate awareness of the inner being.

I would like to know if experiences of this kind effect a lasting result in the way of raising one’s consciousness higher, or is it simply the result of preceding days of prayer and aspiration and nothing more, coming and going just like a shower of rain on a parched plot of sandy tract?

They come first in this isolated way, afterwards more frequently and for longer periods, then they settle. In some they settle at once, but that is rare. In some they persist recurring till they are settled, that is less rare. In others the occurrence is at first at long intervals and waits for the consciousness to be ready.

I cannot quite follow you when you say, “... to show you in what direction you must travel.” Does it imply that I should first establish myself in the inner consciousness? But surely that is the primary concern of everyone, as well as mine!

Yes, but I was not writing to everyone and everyone had not asked for the রস [rasa] in work.

Will it do any harm if I show some parts of my letter which deal with my personal experiences?

It is not of much importance whether you can show or not. Just as you feel about it. Later on it may become necessary for you to keep all your personal experiences to yourself.

December 12, 1934

What do you think of this [a letter from C]? Isn’t it appalling that a small job and a little money in his hands have brought him to this pass? ...Is it right to suppose that the Divine will is behind it in order to exhaust an abnormal propensity? I write so because I read in Bejoykrishna’s biography of a Mahapurush, that in his ascetic wanderings the Mahapurush met a woman and lived with her, for 3 years, a most passionate life. Then he got terribly disgusted and ran away. Behind it, the Mahapurush sees the Will of the Divine or his Guru who led him to exhaust his propensity through excessive indulgence. Even if it be true, it seems to be rather an abnormal remedy, because to our experience we find the more a desire is satisfied the more it flares up. But the working of the Divine may be quite different! What would you say?

It may be true of this Mahapurush or of other well-known cases, because the spiritual impulse is strong in them and survives; but what of those in whom the desire persists or even grows?

But what to do now with C? He may turn desperate and try to satisfy his lower propensity which will totally finish him. Do save him, or at least give him a thunder. These cases are very queer indeed – on one side such a bhakti, aspiration, and on the other –!!

He will have to fight it out. You can tell him whatever happens not to despair. I don’t think thunder is of much use.

Today I was very quiet in meditation and saw the full moon with cross stripes over it.

Full moon = spiritual consciousness. Cross is the symbol of the triple Divine – transcendent, cosmic, individual.

December 14, 1934

Last night I had a dream that you had come out of your seclusion for once; you were tall, quite young, but very dark. I began to wonder if this was Sri Aurobindo of former years!

No. It is not likely. It is probably some subtle physical form – the one corresponding to the Shiva element in me. I have seen myself like that sometimes and it was always the Shiva formation.

The dream ended, but recurred soon after when I saw that you have appeared before my closed eyes exactly the same in appearance as we see you during Darshan. The vision remained for some time. The joy was not as intense as on a previous occasion. Was it because I made some intentional movements in order to test the strength of the vision?

Maybe. The consciousness was probably nearer to the gross physical which is less responsive than the inner physical being.

Mother, it seemed by your looks at pranam that you didn’t approve of some of my movements. Is it true?

No. It was probably some idea of your own that put that appearance on the Mother’s looks.

Is it unnecessary to write about these dream-experiences?

No – it is useful to write.

December 15, 1934

I have done a great offence today by taking restaurant food – which is strictly forbidden by you...

I thought not to write about it, but to resolve not to repeat the offence. But that wouldn’t be the right attitude. And by writing to you, I guard myself against any future like-occurrence.

It is always better to say.

December 16, 1934

I have to resume the thread of work vs. meditation, because of some fresh questionings in my mind. It is quite evident that you give the preference to Karma, but is it possible to attain the highest realisation in your Yoga through work alone, or is work to be used only as a means up to a certain stage and then left aside, as Ramakrishna said in his well-known analogy of a pregnant woman and the gradual falling off of her work with the nearing of her full term?

Am I Ramakrishna or is there no difference between my Yoga and his?

If I remember right, you wrote to me that work is only a means for the preparation of the spiritual life; otherwise, it has no spiritual value.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined “only” and put an interrogation mark above it.]

Lord God! when did I make this stupendous statement which destroys at one fell swoop the two volumes of the Essays on the Gita and all the seven volumes of the Arya? Work by itself is only a preparation, so is meditation by itself, but work done in the increasing Yogic consciousness is a means of realisation as much as meditation is.

In Dilip’s letter also you say that work helps to prepare for the direct contact with the inmost. In another, you say that work prepares for the right consciousness to develop – which means the same thing...

I have not said, I hope, that work only prepares. Meditation also prepares for the direct contact. If we are to do work only as a preparation and then become motionless meditative ascetics, then all my spiritual teaching is false and there is no use for supramental realisation or anything else that has not been done in the past.

My own impression is that work is an excellent means as a preparation, but the major experiences and realisations are not likely to come in during work. My little experience corroborates me, because whatever drops of Ananda descended on me, were mostly during meditation. Only once did I have 2 minutes Ananda during work.

I see. When the time for preparation is over, one will sit immobile for ever after and never do any work – for, as you say, work and realisation cannot go together. Hurrah for the Himalayas!

Well, but why not then the old Yoga? If work is so contrary to realisation! That is Shankara’s teaching.

The main difference between the two, is that in work the attention is bound to be diverted. While working with the hand, utter the name of Hari with the mouth – this attitude is quite possible, but only as a preparation, and not effective for the realisation – which meditation alone can bring; because the whole being is absorbed into the engrossing meditation of the Beloved.

In that case I am entirely wrong in preaching a dynamic Yoga – Let us go back to the cave and the forest.

My theory about work hampering one-pointed concentration finds some support, I think, from your own example. (I proceed very cautiously, though).

?

[Sri Aurobindo underlined «cautiously» and put a question mark above it.]

You have said that 9/10 of your time is spent in doing correspondence, works, etc., whereas only 1/10 is devoted to concentration. One naturally asks, why should it not be possible for you to do concentration and work at the same time?

For me, correspondence alone. I have no time left for other “works etc.” Concentration and meditation are not the same thing. One can be concentrated in work or bhakti as well as in meditation. For God’s sake be careful about your vocabulary, or else you will tumble into many errors and loosenesses of thinking.

If I devoted 9/10 of my time to concentration and none to work – the result would be equally unsatisfactory. My concentration is for a particular work – it is not for meditation divorced from life. When I concentrate I work upon others, upon the world, upon the play of forces. What I say is that to spend all the time reading and writing letters is not sufficient for the purpose. I am not asking to become a meditative Sanyasi.

Did you not retire for five or six years for an exclusive and intensive meditation?

I am not aware that I did so. But my biographers probably know more about it than I do.

If the Supramental Divine himself differentiates between work and concentration and finds it difficult to radiate his force among the few sadhaks contemporaneously with his work of correspondence, etc., what about undivines and inframentals like us?

Between concentration on correspondence alone and the full many-sided work – not between work and correspondence.

It does not mean that I lose the higher consciousness while doing the work of correspondence. If I did that, I would not only not be supramental, but would be very far even from the full Yogic consciousness.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined the phrase “contemporaneously with his work of correspondence” and commented:]

Say “by correspondence alone”. If I have to help somebody to repel an attack, I can’t do it by only writing a note. I have to send him some Force or else concentrate and do the work for him. Also I can’t bring down the Supramental by merely writing neatly to people about it. I am not asking for leisure to meditate at ease in a blissful indolence. I said distinctly I wanted it for concentration on other more important work than correspondence.

The ignorance underlying this attitude is in the assumption that one must necessarily do only work or only meditation. Either work is the means or meditation is the means, but both cannot be! I have never said, so far as I know, that meditation should not be done. To set up an open competition or a closed one between works and meditation is a trick of the dividing mind and belongs to the old Yoga. Please remember that I have been declaring all along an integral Yoga in which Knowledge, Bhakti, works – light of consciousness, Ananda and love, will and power in works – meditation, adoration, service of the Divine have all their place. Have I written seven volumes of the Arya all in vain? Meditation is not greater than Yoga of works nor works greater than Yoga by knowledge – both are equal.

Another thing – it is a mistake to argue from one’s own very limited experience, ignoring that of others, and build on it large generalisations about Yoga. This is what many do, but the method has obvious demerits. You have no experience of major realisations through work, and you conclude that such realisations are impossible. But what of the many who have had them – elsewhere and here too in the Ashram? That has no value? You kindly hint to me that I have failed to get anything by works? How do you know? I have not written the history of my sadhana – if I had, you would have seen that if I had not made action and work one of my chief means of realisation – well, there would have been no sadhana and no realisation except that, perhaps, of Nirvana.

I shall perhaps add something hereafter as to what works can do, but no time tonight.

Do not conclude however that I am exalting works as the sole means of realisation. I am only giving it its due place.

You will excuse the vein of irony or satire in all this – but really when I am told that my own case disproves my whole spiritual philosophy and accumulated knowledge and experience, a little liveliness in answer is permissible.

December 19, 1934

I had expected the blows and enjoyed them. Only one blow I did not expect, nor did I seem to deserve it. It is where you say that I have hinted that you “have failed to get anything by works”.

Anything except preparation at any rate? for works can only prepare.

I send you the letter of the 16th for a little correction. In one place all of us stumbled. You have written: “It does not mean that I use the higher...” Use does not seem to make any sense here.

Because you have turned “lose” into “use”. No wonder everybody stumbled over that hitch.

If you have time, please complete the letter tonight.

None tonight.

December 21, 1934

It seems I had the same experience again. In the meditation I felt that something descended, and the body became silent, i.e. it seemed to me that it was something apart from me. Along with this the inner silence began.

i.e. The real self (Atman or Purusha) is not the body – the body is something separate, a part of the being, but a part of Prakriti, not the true self or Purusha.

I also tried to imagine your presence before me, but the appearance soon became obliterated into a nothingness, so to say. But is it harmful to test the experience as I did? Should I have remained absolutely silent and calm?

It is best to remain silent. To test the experience may lead to a mental activity which will break it. That it did not do so in this case, shows that the power of silence that came down must have been very strong and imperative.

You said before that this condition was of the inner being and its silence, the separation of Purusha from Prakriti.

Yes, but it seems also to be the beginning of liberation from identification with the body consciousness. That easily comes with the Purusha-consciousness in the inner being.

Is this inner being or the Purusha the same as the psychic being?

No, not necessarily – the inner being is composed of the inner mental, the inner vital, the inner physical. The psychic is the inmost supporting all the others. Usually it is in the inner mental that this separation first happens and it is the inner mental Purusha who remains silent, observing the Prakriti as separate from himself. But it may also be the inner vital Purusha or inner physical or else without location simply the whole Purusha-consciousness separate from the whole Prakriti. Sometimes it is felt above the head – but then it is usually spoken of as the Atman and the realisation is that of the silent Self.

I am fortunate to have the same experience repeated so soon.

Yes, it proves that the Yogic consciousness is beginning to grow in you.

Last night as I returned from a walk, at 11.30 p.m., and sat down in my chair, I felt, all on a sudden, your presence in the room and I was so very happy. Did you really visit me?

Yes,

December 22, 1934

In your letter on meditation and work, you say, “... afterwards meditation has to build laboriously a big superstructure on that foundation. It is very indispensable...”

“It” obviously refers to “the building of the superstructure”.

You have written: “Those who do work for the Mother in all sincerity are prepared by the work itself for the right consciousness even if they do not sit down for meditation.” Yet in another letter you say: “It may be necessary for an individual here and there to plunge into meditation for a time.”

This applies to a certain number of people – it does not lay down non-meditation as a principle. Note the “even if” which gives the proper shade.

To “plunge into” means to do meditation alone – for a time only.

These statements would obviously mean that meditation is not indispensable, for sincere workers, I mean.

I do not mind if you find inconsistencies in my statements. What people call consistency is usually a rigid or narrow-minded inability to see more than one side of the truth or more than their own narrow personal view or experience of things. Truth has many aspects and unless you look on all with a calm and equal eye, you will never have the real or the integral knowledge.

But when I wrote to you that I didn’t feel like meditating, you replied, “I don’t see how you can change your lower consciousness without it”; and when I got back the urge to meditate you again said, “That is the only thing to do.”

Perhaps there was a stress on the “you”.

I have hardly any time for meditation because till 9.30 p.m. I am simply cramped with work, classes, etc. After that I read a little or jump straight into bed and fall into a state of “Sachchidananda”, as Barinbabu terms it. Now how to reconcile the two?

Half an hour’s meditation in the day ought to be possible – if only to bring a concentrated habit into the consciousness which will help it, first to be less outward in work and, secondly, to develop a receptive tendency which can bear its fruits even in the work.

In her Prayers and Meditations, under 8th October, 1914 the Mother says: “The joy that is contained in activity is compensated and balanced by the perhaps still greater joy contained in withdrawal from all activity...” This state of greater joy, Mother explains, is that state of Sachchidananda and the withdrawal is not an inner detachment during work. Does it not suggest then that there is a joy in non-activity superceding that of activity? If such be the case, one would naturally aspire for this far greater joy, which is the aim and purpose of our sadhana, isn’t it so?

Do you think the Mother has a rigid mind like you people and was laying down a hard and fast rule for all time and all people and all conditions? It refers to a certain stage when the consciousness is sometimes in activity and when not in activity is withdrawn in itself. Afterwards comes a stage when the Sachchidananda condition is there in work also. There is a still farther stage when both are as it were one, but that is the supramental. The two states are the silent Brahman and the active Brahman and they can alternate (1st stage), coexist (2nd stage), fuse (3rd stage). If you reach even the first stage then you can think of applying Mother’s dictum, but why misapply it now?

Is it possible to have the highest Sachchidananda realisation in work?

Certainly it is realisable in work. Good Lord! how could the integral Yoga exist if it were not?

I regret to say that I haven’t read your Arya and Essays on the Gita. So I don’t know what you have said or how far, about the possibilities of yogic work. I have only a rough idea. Others’ experiences are others’...

Not the less true for that!

By the way, Rishabhchand remarked that many are wavering between meditation vs. work. What do you think of that? In spite of the 7 volumes of Arya, 2 volumes of Essays on the Gita and repeated stress on work, your sadhaks are wavering!!

My sadhaks are like that.

So may I request you to thrash out the whole thing beyond doubt, question, wavering, etc., with that addition you said you’d make? Please consider that your yoga is absolutely new – the Karma part of it, I mean.

Karmayoga is as old as the hills. What is this nonsense about its absolute newness? Donner-wetter! Tausend Teufel!¹¹

If we with our old ideas, are bewildered and question you repeatedly about it, please excuse us.

Yes, but if I have to write the same thing over and over again for each sadhak, – well!

Let one thing be clear – I do not mean by work action done in the ego and the ignorance, for the satisfaction of the ego and in the drive of rajasic desire. There can be no karmayoga without the will to get rid of ego, rajas and desire which are the seals of ignorance.

Another thing, I do not mean philanthropy or the service of humanity or all the rest of the things – moral or idealistic – which men substitute for the deeper truth of works.

I mean by work action done for the Divine and more and more in union with the Divine – for the Divine alone and nothing else. Naturally that is not easy at the beginning, any more than deep meditation and luminous knowledge are easy or even true love and bhakti are easy. But like the others it has to be begun in the right spirit and attitude, with the right will in you, then all the rest will come.

Works done in this spirit are quite as effective as bhakti or contemplation. One gets by the rejection of desire, rajas and ego a peace and purity into which the peace ineffable can descend – one gets by the dedication of one’s will to the Divine, by the merging of one’s will in the Divine will the death of ego and the enlarging into the cosmic consciousness or else the uplifting into what is above the cosmic, – one experiences the separation of Purusha from Prakriti and is liberated from the shackles of the outer nature; one becomes aware of one’s inner being, and feels the outer as an instrument; one feels the universal Force doing one’s works and the self or Purusha watching or witness but free; one feels all one’s works taken from one and done by the universal or the supreme Mother or by the Divine Power controlling and acting from behind the heart. By constant reference of all one’s will and works to the Divine, love and adoration grow, the psychic being comes forward. By the reference to the Power above one can come to feel it above and its descent and the opening to an increasing consciousness and knowledge. Finally works, bhakti and knowledge join together and self-perfection becomes possible – what we call the transformation of the nature.

These results certainly do not come all at once; they come more or less slowly, more or less completely according to the condition and growth of the being. There is no royal road to the divine realisation.

This is the karmayoga as it is laid down in the Gita and developed by myself in the Arya. It is founded not on speculation and reasoning but on experience. It does not exclude meditation and it certainly does not exclude bhakti, for the self-offering to the Divine, the consecration of all oneself to the Divine which is the very essence of this karmayoga are essentially a movement of bhakti. Only it does exclude a life-fleeing exclusive meditation or an involved Bhakti shut up in its own inner dream taken as the whole movement of the Yoga. One may have hours of pure absorbed meditation or of the inner motionless adoration and ecstasy, but they are not the whole of the integral Yoga.

December 25, 1934

Here am I, with all my doubts and questionings about work vanished, an absolute slave of Thine, for whatever work you choose to throw me in: from the cleaning of the sewage to anything honourable and respectable...

But please tell me, is it because of the lack of right attitude that I haven’t yet had any experience at work?

Yes.

I read somewhere that only when one has developed a strong hatred towards lower troubles one can conquer them.

That is not true. Indifference is sufficient.

Do you think learning sitar will be useful for me?

I don’t see much use in sitarring – but if you do!

Your German has become Greek to me, Sir! It is illegible. Dilip wants to know if one is “Teufel” meaning “fiend”.

[The words in italics are mine. Sri Aurobindo filled in the gaps.]

These are swearings in German. Donner wetter (thundering weather!)

Tausend Teufel! (thousand devils = French “Mille diables!”)

December 26, 1934

Today I lost my temper in my carpentry work over a workman’s disobedience and insolence. He refused to clean the place at the end of the work; I insisted and had it done. Perhaps I did wrong by losing my temper, but how can a worker be rude and insolent? Chandulal said the other day that in such cases he always calls you for aid, and is rescued.

Yes, that was the mistake. It was not a mistake to insist (quietly, but firmly, it should be) on his doing his duty – but by losing the temper you raise issues and make it a case of Greek meets Greek. Besides that, you must learn to use a silent inner force on the man or else call in the Mother’s force, as C suggested. It may not be successful at first through want of practice and skill in the handling, but when you become an expert in that Yogic way, you will be surprised at the additional power of effectuation it brings. In all action the Yogin uses this inner force to support the outer means – it is the difference between Yogic and ordinary action.

Just today I signed my bond of Karmayoga, and today comes the test in which I’ve failed! and I am almost tempted to say, By Jove, this is “Karmayoga”!

If this is Karmayoga, why not do it through literature where one doesn’t face such troubles? D and others will surely have transformation of nature without having to fight so many complicated factors?

They have plenty of complicated factors to fight and their confinement to literature does not make their fight any easier. Work like this gives much more opportunities of inner change – provided one is ready to take advantage. You are making good progress, and I think if you had remained only a literary gent or only a medical gent, it would have taken longer.

When I wrote about the absolute newness of your Yoga, you swore at me in German.

Not my Yoga – Karmayoga! The Karmayoga element in my Yoga is not new.

Yes, in the Gita it is there, to be sure, but has it been done through timber-cutting, bread-kneading, cooking, etc., etc.?

There is nothing new in that either. It has always been a rule of Karmayoga that one must be ready to do any work for the Divine or with the spiritual consciousness.

Janakas, Arjunas might, but not Nirods or Rama Shyama!¹²

Why not Rama Shyama? Plenty of Ramas and Shyamas have done that kind of karmayoga and done it easily enough.

December 29, 1934

I can quite understand that the inner knowledge comes with the growth and heightening of consciousness. But what about the outer knowledge – what we ordinarily call knowledge?

The capacity for it can come with the inner knowledge. E.g. I understood nothing about painting before I did Yoga. A moment’s illumination in Alipore jail opened my vision and since then I have understood with the intuitive perception and vision. I do not know the technique, of course, but I can catch it at once if anybody with knowledge speaks of it. That would have been impossible to me before.

Suppose you had not studied English literature; would it be still possible for you to say something about it by Yogic experience?

Only by cultivating a special siddhi¹³, which would be much too bothersome to go after. But I suppose if I had got the Yogic knowledge (in your hypothetical case) it would be quite easy to add the outer one.

I hope you won’t say like Ramakrishna that these things – outer knowledge, beauty of expression, thought-power, etc., don’t matter since they don’t lead us to the Divine. But you have said we are children of an intellectual age. Should we not follow in the footsteps of the Master?

Essentially Ramakrishna was right. The literature etc. belongs to the instrumentation of the Divine Life – It is of importance only if one accepts that aim and even so, not of importance to everybody. It is not necessary for instance for everybody to have a mastery of English literature or to be a poet or a scientist or acquainted with all science (an encyclopaedia in knowledge). What is more important is to have an instrument of knowledge that will apply itself accurately, calmly, perfectly to all that it has to handle.

Chand has sent a rupee to buy something for you on New Year’s day. I don’t know what to buy.

Nor do I.

¹ A commonly used Hindi word meaning “ripe”, “complete”, “perfect”.

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² Portion (generally part of the body or limb).

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³ Usually, nobody wrote letters to Sri Aurobindo on Sundays, but all took “vengeance” on Monday by sending double the quantity.

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⁴ Wounded pride, often engendered by a real or imagined offence committed by one’s lover; here it is the Divine who is the offending lover.

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⁵ While I was working in the timber godown, a heavy wooden beam fell on my big toe causing a black contusion.

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⁶ Aprakāś: obscurity, nescience.

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⁷ Apravritti: inertia, incapacity.

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⁸ One of the names of Durga.

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⁹ Sukhahāsya: smile of happiness.

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¹⁰ Relish, savour.

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¹¹ Thundering weather, thousand devils.

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¹² Janaka, king of Mithila during the time of the Ramayana, was famous for combining the knowledge of the Brahman with doing works of the world Arjuna was the famous companion of Sri Krishna in the battle of Kurukshetra. Rama Shyama: Tom, Dick and Harry.

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¹³ Occult power.

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