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

To Barindra Kumar Ghose and Others, 1922–1928

To Barindra Kumar Ghose [14]¹

[7 June 1928]

The idea that comes to you to go away and try a severe asceticism, “to go my way to fight my battle alone and in my own way”, as you express it, is an error and the suggestion of an adverse force, and at the same time it points directly to the real difficulty in you that has stood blocking your progress. If you went, you would go very far not only from us but from the Yoga and be lost to the Path, and you would fare no better than now. The difficulties would be always with you or sleep for a time only to rise again in your nature. However hard the fight, the only thing is to fight it out now and here to the end.

The trouble is that you have never fully faced and conquered the real obstacle. There is in a very fundamental part of your nature a strong formation of ego-individuality which has mixed in your spiritual aspiration a clinging element of pride and spiritual ambition and is supported by a long-formed habit of leadership, self-confident activity and self-reliance. This formation has never consented to be broken up in order to give place to something more true and divine. Therefore, when the Mother has put her force upon you or when you yourself have pulled the force upon you, this in you has always prevented it from doing its work in its own way. It has begun itself building according to the ideas of the mind or some demand, trying to make its own creation in its “own way”, by its own strength, its own Sadhana, its own Tapasya. There has never been any real surrender, any giving up of yourself freely and simply into the hands of the Divine Mother. And yet that is the only way to succeed in the Supramental Yoga. To be a Yogi, a Sannyasi, a Tapaswi is not the object here. The object is transformation, and the transformation can only be done by a force infinitely greater than your own, it can only be done by being truly like a child in the hands of the Divine Mother.

The difficulties that shake you would be of no importance, if this central obstacle were removed. They come from the weakness of the external being which was always intense and eager, but built in too narrow a mould for the fulfilment of the inner urge and which has in addition been badly worn down by life. This could be mended; what it needs is to be at peace, to remain quiet and at rest, to open itself confidently without strain and harassing struggle to the Force and allow it to rebuild and strengthen and widen till a sufficient physical foundation is made. At present, under the pressure of the Force, it either falls into Tamas or, if the vital forces touch it, responds by a rajasic movement and is driven helplessly in these rajasic gusts. All this would easily change (naturally, not in a moment but steadily and surely) if the central difficulty is removed. It is for this that you ought to use your retirement, first of all, to face, see in its complete extent and conquer.

A complete will to surrender in the mind is the first condition, but not by itself sufficient. The trouble lies deeper than the surface mind and you have to find it out where it is and extirpate it. It is only when this has been done, that the help given you (and it was always there till now) can bear fruit in the true spiritual and psychic (not an ascetic) change of the recalcitrant parts of your nature.

Sri Aurobindo

¹ This letter, dated 7 June 1928, was written a year and a half before Barin’s departure. Part of it was included in the collection Bases of Yoga in 1936. This letter is preserved only in the form of handwritten, typed or printed copies. Whenever possible, the editors have collated several copies of each letter in order to produce an accurate text. – Ed.

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