{"id":522,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=522"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:35","slug":"08-beginnings-of-yoga-vol-26-on-himself-volume-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/26-on-himself-volume-26\/08-beginnings-of-yoga-vol-26-on-himself-volume-26","title":{"rendered":"-08_Beginnings of Yoga.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\ns<\/font><\/span>ection
\n<\/font><\/span><\/b>TWO<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\nBEGINNINGS OF YOGA<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\nAN EARLY
\nEXPERIENCE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ<\/span>:<\/span> X says that it is written somewhere that you had a
\nrealisation in 1890.<\/span> <\/span>
\nIs<\/span> it true ?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A:<\/b>
\nA realisation in 1890? It does not seem possible. There was something, though I
\nwas not doing Yoga and knew nothing about it, in the year of my departure from
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

England<\/span>; I don’t remember which it was but probably 1892-93…. I don’t remember anything special in 1890.
\nWhere did he see this written?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n22-8-1936<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nGLIMPSES
\nOF SPIRITUAL POSSIBILITY<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Is it true that only those who had, before beginning their Sadhana,
\na clear knowledge of their spiritual possibility through a definite glimpse
\nreceived by the Divine Grace are able to stick to their path till the end, while
\nthose who had no such glimpse may get some experience but will not be able to
\nstick to their Sadhana?<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b>:
\nAt least I had no such glimpse before I started Yoga. I can’t say about others \u2014
\nperhaps some had \u2014 but the glimpse could only bring faith, it could not possibly
\nbring knowledge; know\u00adledge comes by Yoga, not before it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I repeat
\nthat all one needs to know is whether the soul in one has been moved to the Yoga
\nor not.<\/span><\/p>\n

5-5-1933<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Do you
\nthink that Buddha or Confucius or myself were born with a prevision that they or
\nI would take to the spiritual life? So long as one is in the ordinary
\nconsciousness, one lives the ordinary life. When the awakening and the new
\nconsciousness come, one leaves it \u2014 nothing puzzling in that.<\/span><\/p>\n

27-4-1936<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Page \u2013 75<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

THE ONE THING ESSENTIAL<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not
\nknow what X said or in which article, I do not have it with me. But if the
\nstatement is that nobody can have a successful meditation or realise anything
\ntill he is pure and perfect, I fail to follow it: it contradicts my own
\nexperience. I have always had realisation by meditation first and the
\npurification started afterwards as a result. I have seen many get important,
\neven fundamental realisations by meditation who could not be said to have a
\ngreat inner development. Are all Yogis who have meditated with effect and had
\ngreat realisations in their inner consciousness perfect in their nature ? It
\ndoes not look like it to me. I am unable to believe in absolute generalisations
\nin this field, because the development of spiritual consciousness is an
\nexceedingly vast and complex affair in which all sorts of things can happen and
\none might almost say that for each man it is different according to his nature
\nand that the one thing that is essential is the inner call and aspiration and
\nthe perseverance to follow always after it, no matter how long it takes, what
\nare the difficulties or impediments, because nothing else will satisfy the soul
\nwithin us.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If
\nabsolute surrender, faith, etc. from the beginning were essential for Yoga, then
\nnobody could do it. I myself could not have done it if such a condition had been
\ndemanded of me.<\/span><\/p>\n

8-3-1935<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE
\nFIRST CONCRETE REALISATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a more
\ndeep and spiritual sense a concrete realisation is that which makes the thing
\nrealised more real, dynamic, intimately present to the consciousness than any
\nphysical thing can be. Such a realisation of the personal Divine or of the
\nimpersonal Brahman or of the Self does not usually come at the beginning of a
\nSadhana or in the first years or for many years. It comes so to a very few; mine
\ncame fifteen years after my first pre-yogic <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 76<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nexperience in <\/span>London<\/span> and in the
\nfifth year after I started Yoga. That I consider extraordinarily quick, an
\nexpress train speed almost, although there may no doubt have been several
\nquicker achievements. But to expect and demand it so soon would be taken in the
\neyes of any experienced Yogi or Sadhak as a rather rash and abnormal impatience.
\nMost would say that a slow development is the best one can hope for in the first
\nyears and only when the nature is ready and fully concentrated towards the
\nDivine can the definitive experience come.<\/span><\/p>\n

June, 1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPERSONAL EFFORT AND ACTION OF GRACE<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the
\nway, what is this story about my four or five hours’ concentration a day for
\nseveral years before anything came down ? Such a thing never happened, if by
\nconcentration you mean laborious meditation. What I did was four or five hours a
\nday prāṇāyāma \u2014<\/i> which is quite another matter. And what flow do you
\nspeak of? The flow of poetry came down while I was doing prāṇāyāma,<\/i>
\nnot some years afterwards. If it is the flow of expe\u00adriences, that did come
\nafter some years, but after I had stopped the prāṇāyāma<\/i>
\nfor a long time and was doing nothing and did not know what to do or where to
\nturn once all my efforts had failed. And it came not as a result of years of
\nprāṇāyāma<\/i>
\nor concentration, but in a ridiculously easy way, by the grace either of a
\ntemporary Guru (but it was not that, for he was himself bewildered by it) or by
\nthe grace of the eternal Brahman and afterwards by the grace of Mahakali and <\/span>
\nKrishna<\/span>. So don’t try to turn me into an argument against the Divine, that
\nattempt will be perfectly ineffective.<\/span><\/p>\n

22-1-1936<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

What is
\nthe use of saying things if you deliberately misinterpret what I write ? I said
\nclearly that the prāṇāyāma<\/i> brought me nothing of any kind of spiritual
\nrealisation. I had stopped it long before. The Brahman experience came when I
\nwas groping for a way, doing no Sadhana at all, making no effort because I
\ndidn’t<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 77<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

know
\nwhat effort to make, all having failed. Then in three days I got an experience
\nwhich most Yogis get only at the end of a long Yoga, got it without wanting or
\ntrying after it, got it to the surprise of Lele who was trying to get me
\nsomething quite different. But I don’t suppose you are able to understand, so I
\nsay no more.<\/span><\/p>\n

24-1-1936<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Why did
\nnot everything open up in me like the painting vision and some other things ?
\nAll did not. As I told you I had to plod in many things. Otherwise the affair
\nwould not have taken so many years (30). In this Yoga one can’t take a short cut
\nin everything. I had to work on each problem and on each conscious plane to
\nsolve or to transform and in each I had to take the blessed conditions as they
\nwere and do honest work without resorting to miracles. Of course if the
\nconsciousness grows all of itself, it is all right, things will come with the
\ngrowth, but not even then pell-mell in an easy gallop.<\/span><\/p>\n

4-4-1935<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

It is not
\nthat there is anything peculiar to you in these difficulties; every Sadhak
\nentering the Way has to get over similar impediments. It took me four years of
\ninner striving to find a real Way, even though the divine help was with me all
\nthe time, and even then, it seemed to come by an accident; and it took me ten
\nmore years of intense Yoga under a supreme inner guidance to trace it out and
\nthat was because I had my past and the world’s past to assimilate and overpass
\nbefore I could find and found the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n5-5-1932<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I think
\nyou have made too much play with my phrase "an accident", ignoring the important
\nqualification, "it seemed<\/i> to come by an accident". After four years
\n <\/span>of 
\n<\/span>prāṇāyāma<\/i> and other practices on my own, with no other result than
\nan increased health and outflow of energy, some psycho-physical phenomena, a
\ngreat outflow of poetic creation, a limited power of subtle sight (luminous
\npatterns and figures, etc.) mostly with the waking<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 78<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

eye, I
\nhad a complete arrest and was at a loss. At this juncture I was induced to meet
\na man without fame whom I did not know, a Bhakta with a limited mind but with
\nsome experience and evocative power. We sat together and I followed with an
\nabsolute fidelity what he instructed me to do, not myself in the least
\nunderstanding where he was leading me or where I was myself going. The first
\nresult was a series of tremendously powerful experiences and radical changes of
\nconsciousness which he had never intended \u2014 for they were Adwaitic and Vedantic
\nand he was against Adwaita Vedanta \u2014 and which were quite contrary to my own
\nideas, for they made me see with a stupendous intensity the world as a
\ncinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal universality of the
\nAbsolute Brahman. The final upshot was that he was made by a Voice within him to
\nhand me , over to the Divine within me enjoining an absolute surrender to its
\nwill\u2014a principle or rather a seed force to which I kept unswervingly and
\nincreasingly till it led me through all the mazes of an incalculable Yogic
\ndevelopment bound by no single rule or style or dogma or Shastra to where and
\nwhat I am now and towards what shall be hereafter. Yet he understood so little
\nwhat he was doing that when he met me a month or two later, he was alarmed,
\ntried to undo what he had done and told me that it was not the Divine but the
\ndevil that had got hold of me. Does not all that justify my phrase "it seemed to
\ncome by an accident" ? But my meaning is that the ways of the Divine are not
\nlike those of the human mind or according to our patterns and it is impossible
\nto judge them or to lay down for Him what He shall or shall not do, for the
\nDivine knows better than we can know. If we admit the Divine at all, both true
\nreason and Bhakti seem to me to be at one in demanding implicit faith and
\nsurrender. I do not see how without them there can be avyabhicāriṇī bhakti <\/i>
\n(one-pointed adoration).<\/span><\/p>\n

May, 1932<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nDEFICIENCIES OF THE HUMAN GURU<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not
\nthe human defects of the Guru that can stand in the way when there is the
\npsychic opening, confidence and surrender<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 79<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

The
\nGuru is the channel or the representative or the manifestation of the Divine,
\naccording to the measure of his personality or his attainment; but whatever he
\nis, it is to the Divine that one opens in opening to him; and if something is
\ndetermined by the power of the channel, more is determined by the inherent and
\nintrinsic attitude of the receiving consciousness, an element that comes out in
\nthe surface mind as simple trust or direct unconditional self-giving, and once
\nthat is there, the essential things can be gained even from one who seems to
\nothers than the disciple an inferior spiritual source, and the rest will grow up
\nin the Sadhak of itself by the Grace of the Divine, even if the human being in
\nthe Guru cannot give it. It is this that X appears to have done perhaps from the
\nfirst; but in most nowadays this attitude seems to come with difficulty, after
\nmuch hesitation and delay and trouble. In my own case I owe the first decisive
\nturn of my inner life to one who was infinitely inferior to me in intellect,
\neducation and capacity and by no means spiritually perfect or supreme; but,
\nhaving seen a Power behind him and decided to turn there for help, I gave myself
\nentirely into his hands and followed with an automatic passivity the guidance.
\nHe himself was astonished and said to others that he had never met anyone before
\nwho could surrender himself so absolutely and without reserve or question to the
\nguidance of the helper. The result was a series of transmuting experiences of
\nsuch a radical character that he was unable to follow and had to tell me to give
\nmyself up in future to the Guide within with the same completeness of surrender
\nas I had shown to the human channel. I give this example to show how these
\nthings work; it is not in the calculated way the human reason wants to lay down,
\nbut by a more mysterious and greater law.<\/span><\/p>\n

23-3-1932<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nEXPERIENCE OF THE ADWAITIC SELF<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ<\/b>: I<\/span>
\nhave read what you wrote to X the other day about the way in which you had the
\nexperience of the Self; that such a thing could have happened seems to me almost
\nunthinkable!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\nPage – 80<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

A<\/b>:
\nI can’t help that. It happened. The mind’s canons of the rational and the
\npossible do not give spiritual life and experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ:<\/b><\/span> But can you
\nnot tell us what the experience was like? Was it by any chance like the one you
\nspeak of in your Uttarpara Speech \u2014 the Vasudeva experience ?<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b>:
\nGreat jumble-Mumble! What has Vasudeva to do with it ? Vasudeva is the name of <\/span>Krishna<\/span>, and in the Uttarpara I
\nwas speaking of <\/span>Krishna<\/span>, if you please.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/b><\/span>
\nBy the Self, I suppose, you mean the individual Self!<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b>:
\nGood Lord, no. I mean the Self, sir, the Self, the Adwaita, Vedantic, Shankar
\nSelf. Atman, Atman! A thing I knew nothing about, never bargained for, didn’t
\nunderstand either.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ:<\/b><\/span>
\nBut didn’t you begin Yoga later on in Gujerat ?<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b>:
\nYes. But this began in London, sprouted the moment I set foot on Apollo Bunder,
\ntouching Indian soil, flowered one day in the first year of my stay in Baroda,
\nat the moment when there threatened to be an accident to my carriage. Precise
\nenough?<\/span><\/p>\n

31-10-1935<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nREALISATION OF THE SELF AND LOVE FOR THE DIVINE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b><\/span>
\nDon’t you think your realisation of the Self helped you in your crucial moments,
\nkept up your faith and love?<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b>:
\nThat has nothing to do with love. Realisation of Self and love of the personal
\nDivine are two different movements.<\/span><\/p>\n

My struggle has never been about the Self. All that is perfectly
\nirrelevant to the question which concerns the Bhakta’s love for the Divine. <\/span><\/p>\n

Page – 81<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nQ<\/b>: But the sweet memory of that experience of the Self
\nmust have sustained you.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b>:
\nThere was nothing sugary about it at all. And I had no need to have any memory
\nof it, because it was with me for months and years and is there now though in
\nfusion with other realisations. My point is that there are hundreds of Bhaktas
\nwho have the love and seeking without any concrete experience, with only a
\nmental conception or emotional belief in the Divine to support them. The whole
\npoint is that it is untrue to say that one must have a decisive or concrete
\nexperience before one can have love for the Divine. It is contrary to the facts
\nand the quite ordinary facts of the spiritual experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

14-3-1936<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

THE
\nEXPERIENCE OF NIRVANA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have
\nnever said that things (in life) are harmonious now \u2014 on the contrary, with the
\nhuman consciousness as it is harmony is impossible. It is always what I have
\ntold you, that the human consciousness is defective and simply impossible \u2014 and
\nthat is why I strive for a higher consciousness to come and set right the
\ndisturbed balance. I don’t want to give you Nirvana (on paper) immediately
\nbecause Nirvana only leads up to Harmony in my communication. I am glad you are
\ngetting converted to silence, and even Nirvana is not without its uses \u2014 in my
\ncase it was the first positive spiritual experience and it made possible all the
\nrest of the Sadhana; but as to the positive way to get these things, I don’t
\nknow if your mind is quite ready to proceed with it. There are in fact several
\nways. My own way was by rejection of thought. "Sit down," I was told, "look and
\nyou will see that your thoughts come into you from outside. Before they enter,
\nfling them back." I sat down and looked and saw to my astonishment that it was <\/b>so; I<\/span> saw and felt concretely the
\nthought approaching as if to enter through or above the head and was able to
\npush it back concretely before it came inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

In three
\ndays \u2014 really in one \u2014 my mind became full of an <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 82<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

eternal
\nsilence \u2014 it is still there. But that I don’t know how many people can do. <\/b>One<\/span> (not a disciple \u2014 I had no
\ndisciples in those days) asked me how to do Yoga. I said: "Make your mind quiet
\nfirst." He did and his mind became quite silent and empty. Then he rushed to me
\nsaying: "My brain is empty of thoughts, I
\ncannot think. I am becoming an idiot." He did not pause to look and see where
\nthese thoughts he uttered were coming from! Nor did he realise that one who is
\nalready an idiot cannot become one. Anyhow I was not patient in those days and I
\ndropped him and let him lose his miraculously achieved silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The usual way, the easiest if one can manage it at all, is to call
\ndown<\/i> the silence from above you into the brain, mind and body.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nFREEDOM AND MASTERY OF MIND<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All
\ndeveloped mental men, those who get beyond the average, have in one way or other
\nor at least at certain times and for certain purposes to separate the two parts
\nof the mind, the active part which is a factory of thoughts and the quiet
\nmasterful part which is at once a Witness and a Will, observing them, judging,
\nrejecting, eliminating, accepting, ordering corrections and changes, the Master
\nin the House of Mind, capable of self-empire, sāmrājya.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The Yogi goes still farther; he is not only a master there, but even
\nwhile in mind in a way, he gets out of it as it were, and stands above or quite
\nback from it and free. For him the image of the factory of thoughts is no longer
\nquite valid; for he sees that thoughts come from outside, from the universal
\nMind or universal Nature, sometimes formed and distinct, sometimes unformed and
\nthen they are given shape somewhere in us. The principal business of our mind is
\neither a response of acceptance or a refusal to these thought-waves (as also
\nvital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form
\nto thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing Nature-Force. It was
\nmy great debt to Lele that he showed me this. "Sit in meditation," he said, "but
\ndo not think, look only at your mind; you will see thoughts coming into it,<\/i>
\nbefore they can <\/span><\/p>\n

Page – 83<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

enter
\nthrow these away from your mind till your mind is capable of entire silence." I
\nhad never heard before of thoughts coming visibly into the mind from outside,
\nbut I did not think either of questioning the truth or the possibility, I simply
\nsat down and did it. In a moment my mind became silent as a windless air on a
\nhigh mountain summit and then I saw one thought and then another coming in a
\nconcrete way from outside; I flung them away before they could enter and take
\nhold of the brain and in three days I was free. From that moment, in principle,
\nthe mental being in me became a free Intelligence, a universal Mind, not limited
\nto the narrow circle of personal thought as a labourer in a thought factory, but
\na receiver of knowledge from all the hundred realms of being and free to choose
\nwhat it willed in this vast sight-empire and thought-empire. I mention this only
\nto emphasise that the possibilities of the mental being are not limited and that
\nit can be the free Witness and Master in its own house. It is not to say that
\neverybody can do it in the way I did it and with the same rapidity of the
\ndecisive movement (for, of course, the latter fullest developments of this new
\nuntrammelled mental power took time, many years) but a progressive freedom and
\nmastery of one’s mind is perfectly within the possibilities of anyone who has
\nthe faith and the will to undertake it.<\/span><\/p>\n

5-8-1932<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nSILENCE
\nOF MIND BY DESCENT OF STILLNESS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I find
\nnothing to object to in Prof. Sorley’s comment on the still, bright and clear
\nmind, for it adequately indicates the process by which the mind makes itself
\nready for the reflection of the higher Truth in its undisturbed surface or
\nsubstance. One thing perhaps needs to be kept in view \u2014 this pure stillness of
\nthe mind is always the required condition, the desideratum, but to bring it
\nabout there are more ways than one. It is not, for instance, only by an effort
\nof the mind itself to get clear of all intrusive emotion or passion or of its
\nown characteristic vibrations or of the obscuring fumes of a physical inertia
\nwhich brings about the sleep or torpor of the mind instead of its wakeful
\nsilence that the thing can be done \u2014 for this is only the ordinary process of
\nthe Yogic path <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 84<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

of
\nknowledge. It can happen also by a descent from above of a great spiritual
\nstillness imposing silence on the mind and heart and the life stimuli and the
\nphysical reflexes. A sudden descent of this kind or a series of descents
\naccumulative in force and efficacy is a well-known phenomenon of spiritual
\nexperience. Or, again, one may start a process of one kind or another for the
\npurpose which would normally mean a long labour and be seized, even at the
\noutset, by a rapid intervention or manifestation of the Silence with an effect
\nout of all proportion to the means used at the beginning. One commences with a
\nmethod, but the work is taken up by a Grace from above, from That to which one
\naspires or an irruption of the infinitudes of the Spirit. It was in this last
\nway that I myself came by the mind’s absolute silence, unimaginable to me before
\nI had its actual experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE REAL DIFFICULTY<\/b>1<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sri
\nAurobindo has no remarks to make on Huxley’s comments with which he is in entire
\nagreement. But in the phrase "to its heights we can always reach", very
\nobviously "we" does not refer to humanity in general but to those who have a
\nsufficiently developed inner spiritual life. It is probable that Sri Aurobindo
\nwas thinking of his own experience. After three years of spiritual effort with
\nonly minor results he was shown by a Yogi the way to silence his mind. This he
\nsucceeded in doing entirely in two or three days by following the method shown.
\nThere was an entire silence of thought and feeling and all the ordinary
\nmovements of consciousness except the perception and recognition of things
\naround without any accompanying concept or other reaction. The sense of ego
\ndisappeared and the movements of the ordinary<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1<\/span><\/sup> These remarks were
\ndictated by Sri Aurobindo apropos of the phrase "to its heights we can always
\nreach" occurring in the following passage in The Life Divine<\/i>
\nquoted and commented upon by Aldous Huxley in his book. The Perennial
\nPhilosophy<\/i> (Chatto and Windus, London, 1946), p. 74:<\/span><\/p>\n

"The touch of Earth is
\nalways reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical
\nKnowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really
\nmas\u00adtered in its fullness \u2014 to its heights we can always reach \u2014 when we keep
\nour feet firmly on the physical. ‘Earth is His footing,’ says the Upanishad
\nwhenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe."<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe Life Divine<\/span><\/i> (Centenary
\nEdition, 1972), Ch. II, p. 11<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage –
\n85<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

life as
\nwell as speech and action were carried on by some habitual activity of Prakriti
\nalone which was not felt as belonging to oneself. But the perception which
\nremained saw all things as utterly unreal; this sense of unreality was
\noverwhelming and universal. Only some undefinable Reality was perceived as true
\nwhich was beyond space and time and unconnected with any cosmic activity, but
\nyet was met wherever one turned. This condition remained unimpaired for several
\nmonths and even when the sense of unreality disappeared and there was a return
\nto participation in the world-consciousness, the inner peace and freedom which
\nresulted from this realisation remained permanently behind all surface movements
\nand the essence of the realisation itself was not lost. At the same time an
\nexperience intervened: something else than himself took up his dynamic activity
\nand spoke and acted through him but without any personal thought or initiative.
\nWhat this was remained unknown until Sri Aurobindo came to realise the dynamic
\nside of the Brahman, the Ishwara and felt himself moved by that in all his
\nSadhana and action. These realisations and others which followed upon them, such
\nas that of the Self in all and all in the Self and all as the Self, the Divine
\nin all and all in the Divine, are the heights to which Sri Aurobindo refers and
\nto which he says we can always rise; for they presented to him no long or
\nobstinate difficulty. The only real difficulty which took decades of spiritual
\neffort to work out towards completeness was to apply the spiritual knowledge
\nutterly to the world and to the surface psychological and outer life and to
\neffect its transformation both on the higher levels of Nature and on the
\nordinary mental, vital and physical levels down to the subconscience and the
\nbasic Inconscience and up to the supreme Truth-Consciousness or Supermind in
\nwhich alone the dynamic transformation could be entirely integral and absolute.<\/span><\/p>\n

4-11-1946<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nINTELLECTUAL STATEMENT OF SPIRITUAL<\/span>
\nEXPERIENCE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not
\nthink, however, that the statement of supra-intellectual things necessarily
\ninvolves a making of distinctions in the terms of the intellect. For,
\nfundamentally, it is not an expression of<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 86<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

ideas
\narrived at by speculative thinking. One has to arrive at spiritual knowledge
\nthrough experience and a consciousness of things which arises directly out of
\nthat experience or else underlies or is involved in it. This kind of knowledge,
\nthen, is fun\u00addamentally a consciousness and not a thought or formulated idea.
\nFor instance, my first major experience \u2014 radical and overwhelming, though not,
\nas it turned out, final and exhaustive \u2014 came after and by the exclusion and
\nsilencing of all thought \u2014 there was, first, what might be called a spiritually
\nsubstantial or concrete consciousness of stillness and silence, then the
\nawareness of some sole and supreme Reality in whose presence things existed only
\nas forms but forms not at all substantial or real or concrete; but this was all
\napparent to a spiritual perception and essential and impersonal sense and there
\nwas not the least concept or idea of reality or unreality or any other notion,
\nfor all concept or idea was hushed or rather entirely absent in the absolute
\nstillness. These things were known directly through the pure consciousness and
\nnot through the mind, so there was no need of concepts or words or names. At the
\nsame time this fundamental character of spiritual experience is not absolutely
\nlimitative; it can do without thought, but it can do with thought also. Of
\ncourse, the first idea of the mind would be that the resort to thought brings
\none back at once to the domain of the intellect \u2014 and at first and for a long
\ntime it may be so; but it is not my experience that this is unavoidable. It
\nhappens so when one tries to make an intellectual statement of what one has
\nexperienced; but there is another kind of thought that springs out as if it were
\na body or form of the experience or of the consciousness involved in it \u2014 or of
\na part of that consciousness \u2014 and this does not seem to me to be intellectual
\nin its character. It has another light, another power in it, a sense within the
\nsense. It is very clearly so with those thoughts that come without the need of
\nwords to embody them, thoughts that are of the nature of a direct seeing in the
\nconsciousness, even a kind of intimate sense or contact formulating itself into
\na precise expression of its awareness (I hope this is not too mystic or
\nunintelligible); but it might be said that directly the thoughts turn into words
\nthey belong to the kingdom of intellect \u2014 for words are a coinage of the
\nintellect. But<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 87<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

is it so
\nreally or inevitably ? It has always seemed to me that words came originally
\nfrom somewhere else than the thinking mind, although the thinking mind secured
\nhold of them, turned them to its use and coined them freely for its purposes.
\nBut even otherwise, is it not possible to use words for the expression of
\nsomething that is not intellectual? Housman contends that poetry is perfectly
\npoetical only when it is non-intellectual, when it is nonsense. That is too
\nparadoxical, but I suppose what he means is that if it is put to the strict test
\nof the intellect, it appears extravagant because it conveys something that
\nexpresses and is real to some other kind of seeing than that which intellectual
\nthought brings to us. Is it not possible that words may spring from, that
\nlanguage may be used to express \u2014 at least up to a certain point and in a
\ncertain way \u2014 the supra-intellectual consciousness which is the essential power
\nof spiritual experience ? This, however, is by the way \u2014 when one tries to
\nexplain spiritual experience to the intellect itself, then it is a different
\nmatter.<\/span><\/p>\n

14-1-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nSILENCE AND ACTION<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since
\n1908 when I got the silence, I never think with my head or brain\u2014it is always in
\nthe wideness generally above the head that the thoughts occur.<\/span><\/p>\n

17-10-1933<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What you
\ndescribe is not at all a drawing away of life-energy;  <\/span>it is simply the effect of voidness and
\nstillness caused in the lower parts by the consciousness being located above. It
\nis quite consistent with action, only one must get accustomed to the idea of the
\npossibility of action under these conditions. In a greater state of emptiness I
\ncarried on a daily newspaper and made a dozen speeches in the course of three or
\nfour days \u2014 but I did not manage that in any way; it happened. The force made
\nthe body do the work without any inner activity. The drawing away of the
\nlife-energy leaves the body lifeless, helpless, empty and impotent, <\/span><\/p>\n

Page – 88<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

but it is
\nattended by no experience except a great suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n

13-5-1936<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

It ought
\nto be possible to read with the inner consciousness looking on and, as it were,
\nseeing at the act of reading. In the condition of absolute inner silence I was
\nmaking speeches and conducting a newspaper, but all that got itself done without
\nany thought entering my mind or the silence being in the least disturbed or
\ndiminished.<\/span><\/p>\n

27-10-1934<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When I
\ngot the emptiness, it lasted for years. Whatever else came, came in the
\nemptiness, and I could at any time withdraw from the activity into the pure
\nsilent peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

21-9-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nSELF-REALISATION AND<\/span> SENSE OF THE BODY<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> During the state of self-realisation
\nvery little sense remains of my body. I do not know what it does or holds or
\neven where it lies.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA<\/b>: That is usual. I was in that way unconscious of the
\nbody for many years.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

10-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nYOGIC
\nEXPERIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

Your
\nbells etc., mentioned by you as recent experiences were already enumerated as
\nlong ago as the time of the Upanishads as signs accompanying the opening to the
\nlarger consciousness, brahmaṇyabhivyaktikarāṇi yoge.<\/i> <\/b>
\nIf I<\/span> remember right your sparks come in the same list. The fact has been
\nrecorded again and again in Yogic literature. I had the same experience hundreds <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 89<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

of times
\nin the earlier part of my Sadhana. So you see you are in very honourable company
\nin this matter and need not trouble yourself about the objections of physical
\nscience.<\/span><\/p>\n

13-3-1931<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nremember when I first began to see inwardly (and outwardly also with the open
\neye), a scientific friend of mine began to talk of after-images \u2014 "these are
\nonly after-images"! I asked him whether after-images remained before the eye for
\ntwo minutes at a time \u2014 he said, "no", to his knowledge only for a few seconds;
\nI also asked him whether one could get after-images of things not around one or
\neven not existing upon this earth, since they had other shapes, another
\ncharacter, other hues, contours and a very different dynamism, life-movements
\nand values \u2014 he could not reply in the affirmative. That is how these so-called
\nscientific explanations break down as soon as you pull them out of their
\ncloudland of mental theory and face them with the actual phenomena they pretend
\nto decipher.<\/span><\/p>\n

19-2-1932<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I suppose
\nI have had myself an even more completely European education than you, and I
\nhave had too my period of agnostic denial, but from the moment I looked at these
\nthings I could never take the attitude of doubt and disbelief which was for so
\nlong fashionable in Europe. Abnormal, otherwise supraphysical experiences and
\npowers, occult or Yogic, have always seemed to me something perfectly natural
\nand credible. Consciousness in its very nature could not be limited by the
\nordinary physical human-animal consciousness, it must have the other ranges.
\nYogic or occult powers are no more supernatural or incredible than is
\nsupernatural or incredible the power to write a great poem or compose great
\nmusic; few people can do it, as things are, \u2014 not even one in a million; for
\npoetry and music come from the inner being and to write or to compose true and
\ngreat things one has to have the passage clear between the outer mind and
\nsome\u00adthing in the inner being. That is why you got the poetic power as<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 90<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

soon as
\nyou began Yoga, \u2014 Yogic force made the passage clear. It is the same with Yogic
\nconsciousness and its powers; the thing is to get the passage clear, \u2014 for they
\nare already within you. Of course, the first thing is to believe, aspire and,
\nwith the true urge within, make the endeavour<\/span>. <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

You ask
\nme whether you have to give up your predilection for testing before accepting
\nand to accept everything in Yoga a priori \u2014<\/i> <\/span>
\nand by testing you mean testing by the ordinary reason. The only answer I can
\ngive to that is that the experiences of Yoga belong to an inner domain and go
\naccording to a law of their own, have their own method of perception, criteria
\nand all the rest of it which are neither those of the domain of the physical
\nsenses nor of the domain of rational or scientific enquiry. Just as scientific
\nenquiry passes beyond that of the physical senses and enters the domain of the
\ninfinite and infinitesimal about which the senses can say nothing and test
\nnothing \u2014 for one cannot see and touch an electron or know by the evidence of
\nthe sense-mind whether it exists or not or decide by that evidence whether the
\nearth really turns round the sun and not rather the sun round the earth as our
\nsenses and all our physical experience daily tell us \u2014 so the spiritual search
\npasses beyond the domain of scientific or rational enquiry and it is impossible
\nby the aid of the ordinary positive reason to test the data of spiritual
\nexperience and decide whether those things exist or not or what is their law and
\nnature. As in Science, so here you have to accumulate experience on experience,
\nfollowing faithfully the methods laid down by the Guru or by the systems of the
\npast, you have to develop an intuitive discrimination which compares the
\nexperiences, see what they mean, how far and in what field each is valid, what
\nis the place of each in the whole, how it can be reconciled or related with
\nothers that at first might seem to contradict it, etc., etc., until you can move
\nwith a secure knowledge in the vast field of spiritual phenomena. That is the
\nonly way to test spiritual experience. I have myself tried the other method and
\nI have found it absolutely incapable and inapplicable. On the<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 91<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

other
\nhand, if you are not prepared to go through all that yourself, \u2014 as few can do
\nexcept those of extraordinary spiritual stature,\u2014 you have to accept the leading
\nof a Master, as in Science you accept a teacher instead of going through the
\nwhole field of Science and its experimentation all by yourself \u2014 at least until
\nyou have accumulated sufficient experience and knowledge. If that is accepting
\nthings a priori,<\/i>
\nwell, you have to accept a priori.<\/i> For I am unable to see by what valid
\ntests you propose to make the ordinary reason the judge of what is beyond it.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nYou quote the sayings of X and Y. I would like to know before assigning a value
\nto these utterances what they actually did for the testing of their spiritual
\nperceptions and experiences. How did X test the value of his spiritual
\nexperiences \u2014 some of them not easily credible to the ordinary positive mind any
\nmore than the miracles attributed to some famous Yogis? I know nothing about Y,
\nbut what were his tests and how did he apply them? What were his methods? his
\ncriteria? It seems to me that no ordinary mind will accept the apparition of
\nBuddha out of a wall or the half hour’s talk with Hayagriva as valid facts by
\nany kind of testing. It would either have to accept them a priori<\/i> or on
\nthe sole evidence of X, which comes to the same thing, or to reject them a
\npriori<\/i> as hallucinations or mere mental images accompanied in one case by an
\nauditive hallucination. I fail to see how it could "test" them. Or how was I to
\ntest by the ordinary mind my experience of Nirvana ? To what conclusion could I
\ncome about it by the aid of the ordinary positive reason ? How could I test its
\nvalidity ? I am at a loss to imagine. I did the only thing I could \u2014 to accept
\nit as a strong and valid truth of experience, let it have its full play and
\nproduce its full experiential consequences until I had sufficient Yogic
\nknowledge to put it in its place. Finally, how without inner knowledge or
\nexperience can you or anyone else test the inner knowledge and experience of
\nothers?<\/span><\/p>\n

18-11-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 92<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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