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Sadhana in the Ashram
Communal Sadhana
In respect to Yoga, what is the meaning of communal sadhana?
There is no communal sadhana. It is the individuals who do the sadhana and that creates a collective atmosphere with a character and movements of its own.
In the commune can sadhaks help each other in their sadhana?
What commune? There is no commune here, there is only a group of people who are supposed to follow the same sadhana.
In what way?
Anyone can help another if he has the capacity. It has nothing to do with a "commune".
Not living in a commune, is it possible to reach the highest Truth?
The highest Truth is there for anyone who can reach it. 16 May 1933
Personal Difficulties and Progress in Yoga
You have now taken the right attitude, and if you keep it all will go better. It is to the divine Mother that you have come for Yoga, not for the old kind of life. You should also regard this as an Asram, not an ordinary Sansar, and in your dealings with others here strive to conquer anger, self-assertion and pride, whatever may be their attitude or behaviour towards you; for so long as you keep these moods, you will find it difficult to
Page – 634 make progress in the Yoga. 8 July 1932
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If the difficulties in my nature still persist after so many years of sadhana, how can I be certain of success? How can I think that I am fit for the Yoga?
The vital difficulties persist so long as one indulges in any way the lower nature — even after one has ceased indulging, they persist so long as there is anything in the lower consciousness which desires or regrets them or is still responsive to their touch when they return either as waves from the universal Prakriti or an attack by the hostile forces. If length of time in mastering the vital or transforming it were a proof of unfitness, then nobody in this Asram — or outside it — would be fit for the Yoga.
Until success actually comes, there is always the chance that it will not come at all.
The mind can argue like that about anything not yet actually realised and established beyond dispute and without flaw. But what one has to lean on in Yoga is not the reasonings of the physical mind, but faith in the soul and the secret certitude of the Spirit.
I want to have the Yogic consciousness at all times and never lose it. This constant moving between light and darkness, peace and struggle cannot be a proof of progress. In what way am I incorrect?
Absolutely incorrect. The progress of the sadhana is for most even such an alternation because it is precisely a struggle between the powers of Light and Darkness, those who want the divine transformation and those who want the continuance of the old ignorant Nature. At each step something has to be conquered from the hold of the Ignorance, something brought down from the Light above. When the whole nature is opened and the peace and equality are brought down into the vital and physical and settled there, then there is no inner disturbance, but the struggle
Page – 635 continues until there is the beginning of the supramental transformation. 20 July 1933
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How is it that many sadhaks who had a strong spiritual tendency before coming to the Asram have got stuck in vital difficulties after many years of sadhana?
It is because outside before people come here, they are quite satisfied with their inner spiritual experiences and there is no idea of changing or attempt to change the vital. The moment this idea is imposed on the vital or the attempt begins all the vital difficulties begin. That is one reason, but by itself it would not have mattered so much, the difficulties would have appeared but they could have been conquered without so much trouble. But here owing to the wrong attitude of many sadhaks, their indulgence of the vital opposition and revolt, an atmosphere of extreme vital difficulty has been created and when one comes to stay here all that atmosphere throws itself upon him and it is only by a great and prolonged struggle that he can get back to the spiritual simplicity and straightforward aspiration or the psychic poise. 18 July 1934
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I do not see why your having difficulties or the external consciousness denying the inner truth should prevent you from calling our help. At that rate hardly anybody could call for help. Almost everybody in the Asram except a few have this difficulty of the external consciousness denying or standing in the way of the inner experience and trying to cling to its old ways, ideas, habits and desires. This division in human nature is a universal fact and one should not make too much of it. Once the Peace and Power are there, it is best to trust to that to remove in time the opposition and enlighten and occupy the external nature. 19 July 1934
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You have often spoken of the Man of Sorrows in connection
Page – 636 with me. But I was a cheerful fellow at school and college. So I am afraid he is a contribution, partly at least, of your Yoga.
Not of my Yoga, but of the blasted atmosphere that has been created here by the theory that revolt, doubt and resultant sorrow and struggle and all that rot are the best way to progress. The Asram has never been able to get out of it, but only some people have escaped. The others have opened themselves to the confounded Man of Sorrows and got the natural consequence. But why the devil did you do it? The Man of Sorrows is a fellow who is always making a row in himself and covering himself with sevenfold overcoats of tragedy and gloom and he would not feel his existence justified if he couldn't be colossally miserable — when he gets on people's backs he puts the same thing on them. Yoga on the other hand tells you even if you have all sorts of unpleasantnesses to live in the inner sunlight, your own or God's. At least most Yogas do except the Vaishnava — but the Yoga here is not a Vaishnava Yoga. 19 June 1935
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All I want to know is whether the whole of my being wants God or not. I am always saying, "I have come here to attain God." But perhaps this is just self-deception.
I have already answered your question. You came because your soul was moved to seek the Divine. That some part of your vital has strong attachments to the people you left behind, is a fact, but it does not make your soul's seeking unreal. If the presence and persistence of vital difficulties were to prove that a sadhak is "unfit" and has no chance, then only one or two in the Asram — and perhaps not even they — would survive the test. The feeling of dryness and not being "able to aspire" is also no proof. Every sadhak gets periods and even long periods of such emptiness. I could point to some who are considered among the most "advanced" sadhaks and yet are not free yet altogether from the family instinct. It is therefore quite unreasonable to be upset because these reactions still linger in you. These reactions come and go, but the need of the soul is permanent, even when covered
Page – 637 up and silent, and will always stay and reemerge. 24 June 1935
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A vast abyss has opened its jaws to swallow X for ever. I tell you, Sir, it will be a pathetic failure on the part of the Divine.
Rubbish! It will be a failure on the part of X. I don't profess to transform men against their will. 1 September 1935
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If I want to hang myself, would you say, "I can't help him against his will"?
If that were your will and not merely an impulse of the vital being, nobody could stop you. 2 September 1935
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All who come here did not come with a conscious seeking for the Divine. It is without the mind knowing it the soul within that brought them here. In your case it was that and the relation your soul had with the Mother. Once here the force of the Divine works upon the human nature till a way is opened for the soul within to come out from the veil. The conscious seeking for the Divine does not by itself prevent the struggle with the ignorance of the nature; it is only self-giving to the Mother that can do that. 7 November 1935
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Why is the sex-force working so vehemently now? Does it mean that the supramental also is vehemently descending? Or at least some Divine Force, giving a last kick at the sex-force?
The Divine Force has nothing to do with it. It is the sex and other lower forces that are attacking in order to make it impossible for the Divine Force to do its work or the Supramental to descend. They hope to prevent it altogether or, if by some miracle it still descends, to limit its extension and prevent anything more than an individual achievement. 6 August 1937
Page – 638 The Supramental Evolution, the Ashram and the Hostile Forces
With Sri Aurobindo and the Mother so close to us here, how is it that we continue to fall into darkness and sorrow — even into struggles with the hostile forces?
You are right. The hostile forces, their attacks, their suggestions ought now to be superannuated, out of date, out of place here in this sadhana. If somebody would realise that and fulfil it in his sadhana, the others might perhaps get strength to follow. At present these things are still here because the sadhaks open themselves to them, out of habit, out of desire, out of attraction for the drama of the vital, out of fear, out of passive response and unresisting inertia. But there is no real necessity for them any longer or true justification for their presence here, — the outer world is a different matter. The sadhana could very well go on and should go on as an unfolding, a natural falling away of defects and difficulties, a coming of greater and greater light and power and peace and transformation. 8 November 1933
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Many people are experiencing acute difficulties. Is this the result of an inrush of forces or a pressure in the atmosphere?
It is not the pressure from above that creates difficulties. There is a strong resistance to change in the lower planes and certain Forces take advantage of it to throw in vortices of disturbance and try to upset as many people as possible. The only action of the Pressure from above on these is to push them out from the atmosphere of the person touched or from the atmosphere generally. After a time they are pushed out of the atmosphere of the person and can no longer work on him except from a distance with very slight effect. When that can be done generally — so as to push them to a distance from the atmosphere of the Asram, then all this trouble will cease. 9 November 1933
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Page – 639
You wrote, in the letter that was placed on the notice board,1 that there is not "any longer" a justification for the hostile forces here. That suggests that there has been some change in the atmosphere, which makes possible their elimination. But can they really be eliminated?
I wrote because now there is a sufficient descent of Light and Power, for one not to be subject to the ordeals and tests which the Hostile Powers are permitted to put when one has only the mental, or ordinary spiritual forces on the plane of mind, to support one's progress. If you look closely, you will see that when these Forces work now it is in a perfectly irrational, instinctive way, repeating always the same movements without any intellectual or higher vital power behind them. Theirs is now an irrational mechanical method which obscures more in the lowest physical and subconscient than anything else. That means that their true justification for being there is gone. 9 November 1933
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I have something to ask about your letter [of 8 November 1933] about the hostile forces. You write that they are "out of place here in this sadhana". But you go on to say that attacks continue because "the sadhaks open themselves to them, out of habit, . . . out of passive response and unresisting inertia". Please explain all this more clearly. Do you mean that the forces that were obstructing the sadhaks have been destroyed?
There is no question of destruction. There is only the question of their exclusion from the Asram. The things enumerated are not causes of the attacks, but they are the occasion, the weakness in the sadhaks that allows them when they could very well be dismissed. The hostile forces are there in the world to maintain the Ignorance — they were there in the sadhana because they had the right to test the sincerity of the sadhaks and their power and will to cleave to the Divine and overcome all difficulties. But this is only so long as the higher Light has not descended into the physical — now it is descending, it is sufficiently there
1 The letter of 8 November 1933 on page 639. — Ed.
Page – 640 for anyone to receive it more and more fully, so that the way becomes smooth and open, a progressive development and not a struggle. 10 November 1933
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Since I wrote to you last, the hostile force has been trying to prove that it still has a place in this world.
Even if it had a place in the world where men do not seek the Divine, it has no right of place in the Asram. 14 November 1933
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It seems to me that the evolution out of matter could have taken place without the hostile forces. It could have happened quickly, by the descent of the Supramental and other lights, powers and joy of the Transcendent.
Anything could have happened — but if the Supramental was to descend immediately, there was no need of matter or evolution — the only reasonable thing would have been to create a supra mental world at once without any slow evolution of matter, of life in matter, of mind in living matter or of the spiritual or supramental in spiritualised life in the material body.
Without the hostile forces and the self-contradictory consciousness of an exclusive division, avidyā, the manifestation would have been self-luminous and perfect and there would have been no need of an evolution from imperfection to perfection.
Obviously — but this world was created for evolution and not for an immediately luminous manifestation such as already exists on some other planes.
Whoever gave the hostile forces the power of avidyā to enter into and interfere with the earth-evolution has allowed tremendous pain and suffering to grow in the earth-conscious ness.
Page – 641 Avidya did not interfere with the earth evolution, it existed before the earth life was evolved in the form of Inconscience. The meaning of evolution is the evolving or slow manifestation of life, mind and conscious supermind out of matter with its original Inconscience. Avidya is one thing and the intervention of the hostile forces is another.
Even if the hostile forces go back to their own region, they will certainly wage war against the transformed divine world. The only way for God to save us from this would be for him to put some pressure on them for self-transformation.
It is supposed that the supramental Light and Force is to descend — if the descent is so complete that these forces are driven back to their own world, it is not likely that any efforts on their part would have any success. It is the darkness or the insufficient Light that gave them their chance to intervene. If there is the victory of the true light, they cannot any longer.
The Mother has said that the hostile forces are necessary in the life of the Asrama for testing the sincerity of the sadhakas.
The work of this Yoga and therefore the principle of the Asram life is to take the world as it is and deal with it by a trans formation of which the supramental descent is not the first but the final process. The presence of the hostile forces is a part of the world as it is and not to deal with them at all or to act as if they were not there would have been to leave the problem unsolved and the work undone. The sadhaks of the Asram are not spotless Saints or perfect born Yogis but men who carry in them their human nature and typify each in his own way what is in the world and what has to be changed. The influence of the hostile Forces was on them as on all human beings in a less or greater degree, and so long as they open themselves to that influence, it works on them as on the world, — it is only by a perfect sincerity and by a perfect opening to the Light that it can disappear. In that sense the presence of these forces is a test and the world that has to be changed being what it is and their
Page – 642 nature being what it is, it could not be otherwise.
I believe that each divine being has a hostile being associated with it for some unknown purpose in the Asrama.
It is not only in the Asram but everywhere that it is like that. It is a well-known principle of all occult knowledge that there are these two elements overstanding each seeker of the Truth.
The Mother once said that she never upheld the hostile forces, nor was she their Mother.
The hostile forces are upheld not by the Mother but by something in the sadhaks themselves which opens the doors to them by concentrated egoism, mental arrogance, vital revolt and many other things, e.g. lying, sex etc.
I remember how I was suddenly betrayed into the hands of the hostile forces when I came to the Budhi house. When I asked to be moved to a house near the Asrama, you ordered me to remain here.
The hostile forces were not in the Budhi house any more than in any other and being in a house near the Asram does not save anybody from their attacks — as is shown by the case of several who lived in houses near the Asram. Even to be in the central building does not necessarily save anybody from attacks. It depends on oneself, not on purely external things.
You have said that the hostile forces are no more necessary here in the Asrama. Will you let me know when they are going to be put out of the Asrama life altogether?
They are no more necessary if the sadhaks open to the Light that is descending — that was what I said — but if they do not open and go on exposing themselves, there will still be a possibility of their presence for some time to come.
Page – 643 Please give me the highest solutions and not temporary truths of a passing evolution.
The highest solutions cannot be brought in like that, as if one were acting in a clear field. If the "temporary" truths of the evolution could be got rid of so easily, there would have been no need of preparation or of a trying and difficult sadhana. It was necessary to deal with what had come into existence in the evolution so that the supramental descent might become possible. 9 December 1933
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What I meant in my first question [p. 641] was that, as far as I can see, evolution is not necessary for the divine manifestation. There is no question about the possibility of a non-evolutionary manifestation — but that is quite irrelevant, for this is an evolutionary manifestation and it was evidently intended to be so from the beginning.
But on account of the interference of an exclusive avidyā, the manifestation has been perverted into what it now is.
What do you mean by an interference? The exclusive Avidya, that is the Inconscience of Matter, was the starting point, not something that came in after life had begun.
If there had been a gradual descent of the supramental light in the beginning, the true life, mind and higher planes might have been released and organised.
A gradual descent of the Supramental Light into what? Matter being the starting point, life and mind had to evolve first — to begin with a supramental descent would have reversed the order of the creation.
Thus the hostile forces and the perversion that they bring might have been dispensed with.
Page – 644 All that depends on the original statement that it might have been otherwise — if a rapid supramental creation had been intended and not an evolution. As this is in its nature an evolutionary world, there is no practical use in pressing that possibility.
My point is that the hostile forces could have been dispensed with, and that they still can be dispensed with, at present.
As for what can be done at the present time, that is just what is being fought out. But there are two parties to the issue, the higher consciousness and the earth consciousness, the latter largely represented by the sadhaks here. If the earth consciousness is ready an easy descent is quite possible, but if it resists, then there is in the nature of things difficulty and struggle and the Asuric forces have their chance. 25 December 1933
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It may be that a God-man was created first. But by "interference" he degenerated into the present man in his surface mental and vital consciousness. And this same spirit of a self-contradictory hostile nature created in his surface consciousness the exclusive Avidya (vide Bible, Book of Genesis).
I am not aware of it — not on this earth at any rate. If he was a God-man, why did he allow the interference and degeneration in himself? The Bible to which you refer supposes Adam to have been innocent but ignorant in the beginning.
In 1926 you said that this creation was not intended to be as it is, but that a self-contradictory spirit interfered at a certain stage and perverted it.
My statement does not bear the meaning you give it.
Supposing that this physical body has evolved on this planet in the way understood by Darwin . . .
It has nothing to do with Darwin.
Page – 645
yet it seems from inner knowledge that it was essentially an action of the Supermind below, the Supermind above and the psychic being, and all the struggle and difficulty and delay that we see was caused by adverse forces of a consciousness of a self-contradictory nature.
I have no inner knowledge to that effect — that it was intended to be worked out by these three forces alone.
The whole thing looks like an intended perfect manifestation perverted in its surface mental and vital consciousness by the power of a self-contradictory hostile nature that was a possibility of God's being.
If it started from the Inconscience, it could not be a perfect manifestation from the beginning.
You say [p. 641] that in a supramental manifestation matter would not have been necessary. I suppose you meant that the darkness of matter was not necessary.
It would have been not matter but supramental substance.
You say that permission was given to the hostile forces to pervert the creation by a sort of beautiful Asuric stress.
What is this word beautiful? I never used it and it is an absurd epithet.
Also it seems that in this Asrama the hostile forces were allowed to move and play with the idea of testing the sadhaks.
Not at all — it is a law that grew up in the world, as I have said clearly, it seems to me, and as this Asram is part of the world, it worked here also.
At least the dangers of the hostile forces were not pointed out as clearly as they should have been.
That is false.
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