Sri Aurobindo

Autobiographical Notes

and Other Writings of Historical Interest

Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest

2.Early Letters on Yoga and the Spiritual Life 1911–1928

Extracts from Letters to the Mother and Paul Richard, 1911 – c. 1922

To the Mother and Paul Richard [3]

Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks. . . . And if there were not the strength and Ananda within, it would be harassing and disgusting work; but the eye of knowledge looks beyond and sees that it is only a protracted episode.

28 July 1915