{"id":534,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:41","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=534"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:41","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:41","slug":"09-his-path-and-other-paths-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\/09-his-path-and-other-paths-vol-26-on-himself-volume-26","title":{"rendered":"-09_His Path and Other Paths.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\n
\n <\/font><\/span>Section Three<\/font><\/span><\/b> 
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nHIS PATH AND OTHER PATHS<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nSRI AUROBINDO’S
\nTEACHING AND<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n
\n\u00a0<\/span>METHOD OF SADHANA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/b>he teaching of
\nSri Aurobindo starts from that of the ancient sages of <\/span>India<\/span>
\nthat behind the appearances of the universe there is the Reality of a Being and
\nConsciousness, a Self of all things, one and eternal. All beings are united in
\nthat One Self and Spirit but divided by a certain separativity of
\nconsciousness, an ignorance of their true Self and Reality in the mind, life
\nand body. It is possible by a certain psychological discipline to remove this
\nveil of separative consciousness and become aware of the true Self, the
\nDivinity within us and all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sri
\nAurobindo’s teaching states that this One Being and Consciousness is involved
\nhere in Matter. Evolution is the me\u00adthod by which it liberates itself;
\nconsciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and once having appeared
\nis self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and
\ndevelop towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of
\nthis release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not
\nfinish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consciousness
\nwhich is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be
\ntowards the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the
\nconscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release
\nitself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection.<\/span><\/p>\n

But
\nwhile the former steps in evolution were taken by Nature without a conscious
\nwill in the plant and animal life, in man Nature becomes able to evolve by a
\nconscious will in the instrument. It is not, however, by the mental will in
\nman that this can be wholly done, for the mind goes only to a certain point and
\nafter that can only move in a circle. A conversion has to be made, a turning of
\nthe consciousness by which mind has to change into the higher principle. This
\nmethod is to be found through the ancient psychological discipline and practice
\nof <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 95<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Yoga.
\nIn the past, it has been attempted by a drawing away from the world and a
\ndisappearance into the height of the Self or Spirit. Sri Aurobindo teaches that
\na descent of the higher principle is possible which will not merely release
\nthe spiritual Self out of the world, but release it in the world, replace the
\nmind’s ignorance or its very limited knowledge by a supramental
\nTruth-Consciousness which will be a sufficient instrument of the inner Self and
\nmake it possible for the human being to find himself dynamically as well as
\ninwardly and grow out of his still animal humanity into a diviner race. The
\npsychological discipline of Yoga can be used to that end by opening all the
\nparts of the being to a conversion or transformation through the descent and
\nworking of the higher still concealed supramental principle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis, however, cannot be done at once or in a short time or by any
\nrapid or miraculous transformation. Many steps have to be taken by the seeker
\nbefore the supramental descent is possible. Man lives mostly in his surface
\nmind, life and body, but there is an inner being within him with greater
\npossibilities to which he has to awake \u2014 for it is only a very restricted
\ninfluence from it that he receives now and that pushes him to a constant
\npursuit of a greater beauty, harmony, power and knowledge. The first process of
\nYoga is therefore to open the ranges of this inner being and to live from there
\noutward, governing his outward life by an inner light and force. In doing so he
\ndiscovers in himself his true soul which is not this outer mixture of mental,
\nvital and physical elements but something of the Reality behind them, a spark
\nfrom the one Divine Fire. He has to learn to live in his soul and purify and
\norientate by its drive towards the Truth the rest of the nature. There can
\nfollow afterwards an opening upward and descent of a higher principle of the
\nBeing. But even then it is not at once the full supramental Light and Force.
\nFor there are several ranges of consciousness between the ordinary human mind
\nand the supramental Truth-Consciousness. These intervening ranges have to be
\nopened up and their power brought down into the mind, life and body. Only
\nafterwards can the full power of the Truth-Consciousness work in the nature.
\nThe process of this self-discipline or Sadhana is therefore long and difficult,
\nbut even a little of it is so much gained because it makes the ultimate <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 96<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\nrelease and perfection more possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are many things belonging to older systems that are necessary
\non the way \u2014 an opening of the mind to a greater wideness and to the sense of
\nthe Self and the Infinite, an emergence into what has been called the cosmic
\nconsciousness, mastery over the desires and passions; an outward asceticism is
\nnot essential, but the conquest of desire and attachment and a control over the
\nbody and its needs, greeds and instincts are indispensable. There is a
\ncombination of the principles of the old systems, the way of knowledge through
\nthe mind’s discernment between Reality and the appearance, the heart’s way of
\ndevotion, love and surrender and the way of works turning the will away from
\nmotives of self-interest to the Truth and the service of a greater Reality than
\nthe ego. For the whole being has to be trained so that it can respond and be
\ntransformed when it is possible for that greater Light and Force to work in the
\nnature.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this discipline, the inspiration of the Master, and in the
\ndifficult stages his control and his presence are indispensable \u2014 for it would
\nbe impossible otherwise to go through it without much stumbling and error which
\nwould prevent all chance of success. The Master is one who has risen to a
\nhigher consciousness and being and he is often regarded as its manifestation
\nor representative. He not only helps by his teaching and still more by his
\ninfluence and example but by a power to communicate his own experience to
\nothers.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is Sri Aurobindo’s teaching and method of practice. It is not
\nhis object to develop any one religion or to amalgamate the older religions or
\nto found any new religion \u2014 for any of these things would lead away from his
\ncentral purpose. The one aim of his Yoga is an inner self-development by which
\neach one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a
\nhigher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and supramental
\nconsciousness which will transform and divinise human nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Page –
\n97<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n


\nTHIS-WORLDLINESS, OTHER-WORLDLINESS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\nAND SRI
\nAUROBINDO’S YOGA<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

O<\/span>ne<\/span> thing I
\nfeel I must say in connection with your remark about the soul of <\/span>India<\/span> and
\nX’s observation about "this stress on this-worldliness to the exclusion of
\nother-worldliness". I do not quite understand in what connection his
\nremark was made or what he meant by this-worldliness, but I feel it necessary
\nto state my own position in the matter. My own life and my Yoga have always
\nbeen, since my coming to <\/span>India<\/span>,
\nboth this-worldly and other\u00adworldly without any exclusiveness on either side.
\nAll human interests are, I suppose, this-worldly and most of them have entered
\ninto my mental field and some, like politics, into my life, but at the same
\ntime, since I set foot on the Indian soil on the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, I
\nbegan to have spiritual experiences, but these were not divorced from this
\nworld but had an inner and infinite bearing on it, such as a feeling of the
\nInfinite pervading material space and the Immanent inhabiting material objects
\nand bodies. At the same time I found myself entering supraphysical worlds and
\nplanes with influences and an effect from them upon the material plane, so I
\ncould make no sharp divorce or irreconcilable opposition between what I have
\ncalled the two ends of existence and all that lies between them. For me all is
\nBrahman and I find the Divine everywhere. Everyone has the right to throw away
\nthis-worldliness and choose other-worldliness only, and if he finds peace by
\nthat choice he is greatly blessed. I, personally, have not found it necessary
\nto do this in order to have peace. In my Yoga also I found myself moved to
\ninclude both worlds in my purview \u2014 the spiritual and the material \u2014 and to try
\nto establish the Divine Consciousness and the Divine Power in men’s hearts and
\nearthly life, not for a personal salvation only but for a life divine here. This
\nseems to me as spiritual an aim as any and the fact of this life taking up
\nearthly pursuits and earthly things into its scope cannot, I believe, tarnish
\nits spirituality or alter its Indian character. This at least has always been
\nmy view and experience of the reality and nature of the world and things and
\nthe Divine: it seemed to me as nearly as possible the integral truth about them
\nand I have therefore <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 98<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

spoken of the
\npursuit of it as the integral Yoga. Everyone is, of course, free to reject and
\ndisbelieve in this kind of integrality or to believe in the spiritual necessity
\nof an entire other-worldliness altogether, but that would make the exercise of
\nmy Yoga impossible. My Yoga can include indeed a full experience of the other
\nworlds, the plane of the Supreme Spirit and the other planes in between and
\ntheir possible effects upon our life and the material world; but it will be
\nquite possible to insist only on the realisation of the Supreme Being or
\nIshwara even in one aspect, Shiva, Krishna as Lord of the world and Master of
\nourselves and our works or else the Universal Sachchidananda, and attain to the
\nessential results of this Yoga and afterwards to proceed from them to the
\nintegral results if one accepted the ideal of the divine life and this material
\nworld conquered by the Spirit. It is this view and experience of things and of
\nthe truth of existence that enabled me to write The Life Divine<\/i> and Savitri.<\/i>
\nThe realisation of the Supreme, the Ishwara, is certainly the essential thing;
\nbut to approach Him with love and devotion and bhakti,<\/i> to serve Him with
\none’s works and to know Him, not necessarily by the intellectual cognition, but
\nin a spiritual experience, is also essential in the path of the integral Yoga. <\/span><\/p>\n

28-4-1949<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

YOGA
\nOF DIVINE LIFE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

You have apparently
\na call and may be fit for Yoga; but there are different paths and each has a
\ndifferent aim and end before it. It is common to all the paths to conquer the
\ndesires, to put aside the ordinary relations of life, and to try to pass from uncertainty
\nto everlasting certitude. One may also try to conquer dream and sleep, thirst
\nand hunger, etc. But it is no part of my Yoga to have nothing to do with the
\nworld or with life or to kill the senses or entirely inhibit their action. It
\nis the object of my Yoga to transform life by bringing down into it the Light,
\nPower and Bliss of the divine Truth and its dynamic certitudes. This Yoga is
\nnot a Yoga of world-shunning asceticism, but of divine life. Your object, on
\nthe other hand, can only be gained by entering into <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 99<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\nSamadhi and ceasing in it from all connection with world-existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n


\nTHE WAY OUT AND THE WAY TO CONQUER<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a
\nrough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers
\nof darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we
\nhave to take it as it is and find out\u2014 if we reject the way out of the old
\nsages\u2014the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all
\na wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting
\ninto it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that
\nconquers.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n


\nMAYAVADA, NIRVANA AND SRI AUROBINDO’S YOGA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

About Nirvana :<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When
\nI wrote in the Arya,<\/i> I was setting forth an overmind view of things to
\nthe mind and putting it in mental terms, that was why I had sometimes to use
\nlogic. For in such a work \u2014. mediating between the intellect and the
\nsupra-intellectual \u2014logic has a place, though it cannot have the chief place it
\noccupies in purely mental philosophies. The Mayavadin himself labours to
\nestablish his point of view or his experience by a rigorous logical reasoning.
\nOnly, when it comes to an explanation of Maya, he, like the scientist dealing
\nwith Nature, can do no more than arrange and organise his ideas of the process
\nof this universal mystification; he cannot explain how or why his illusionary
\nmystifying Maya came into existence. He can only. say,. "Well, but \u00a0<\/span>it is there."\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Of
\ncourse, it is there. But the question is, first, what is it? Is it really an
\nillusionary Power and nothing else, or is the Mayavadin’s idea of it a
\nmistaken first view, a mental imperfect reading, even perhaps itself an
\nillusion? And next, <\/b>"Is<\/span>
\nillusion the sole or the highest Power which the Divine Consciousness or Super- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 100<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

consciousness possesses ?" The
\nAbsolute is an absolute Truth free from Maya, otherwise liberation would not be
\npossible. Has then the supreme and absolute Truth no other active Power than a
\npower of falsehood and with it, no doubt, for the two go together, a power of
\ndissolving or disowning the falsehood,\u2014 which is yet there for ever ? I
\nsuggested that this sounded a little queer. But queer or not, if it is so, it
\nis so \u2014 for, as you point out, the Ineffable cannot be subjected to the laws of
\nlogic. But who is to decide whether it is so? You will say, those who get
\nthere. But get where ? To the Perfect and the Highest, pūrṇam param<\/i>
\n? Is the Mayavadin’s featureless Brahman that Perfect, that Complete\u2014 is it the
\nvery Highest ? Is there not or can there not be a higher than that highest, parātparam<\/i>? That is not a question of logic, it is a question of spiritual fact, of a
\nsupreme and complete experience. The solution of the matter must rest not upon
\nlogic, but upon a growing, ever heightening, widening spiritual experience \u2014 an
\nexperience which must of course include or have passed through that of Nirvana
\nand Maya, otherwise it would not be complete and would have no decisive value.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now
\nto reach Nirvana was the first radical result of my own Yoga. It threw me
\nsuddenly into a condition above and without thought, unstained by any mental or
\nvital movement; there was no ego, no real world \u2014 only when one looked through
\nthe immobile senses, something perceived or bore upon its sheer silence a
\nworld of empty forms, materialised shadows without true substance. There was no
\nOne or many even, only just absolutely That, featureless, relationless, sheer,
\nindescribable, unthinkable, absolute, yet supremely real and solely real. This
\nwas no mental realisation nor something glimpsed somewhere above,\u2014 no abstraction,\u2014
\nit was positive, the only positive reality,\u2014 although not a spatial physical
\nworld, pervading, occupying or rather flooding and drowning this semblance of a
\nphysical world, leaving no room or space for any reality but itself, allowing
\nnothing else-to seem at all actual, positive or substantial. I cannot say there
\nwas anything exhilarating or rapturous in the experience as it then came to me,
\n\u2014 (the ineffable Ananda I had years afterwards),\u2014 but what it brought was an
\ninexpressible Peace, a stupendous silence, an infinity of release and freedom.
\nI lived in <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 101<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\nthat Nirvana day and night before it began
\nto admit other things into itself or modify itself at all, and the inner heart
\nof experience, a constant memory of it and its power to return remained until
\nin the end it began to disappear into a greater Superconsciousness from above.
\nBut meanwhile realisation added itself to realisation and fused itself with
\nthis original experience. At an early stage the aspect of an illusionary world
\ngave place to one in which illusion1<\/sup> is only a small surface
\nphenomenon with an immense Divine Reality behind it and a supreme Divine
\nReality above it and an intense Divine Reality in the heart of everything that
\nhad seemed at first only a cinematic shape or shadow. And this was no reimprisonment in the senses, no diminution or fall from supreme experience, it
\ncame rather as a constant heightening and widening of the Truth; it was the
\nspirit that saw objects, not the senses, and the Peace, the Silence, the
\nfreedom in Infinity remained always with the world or all worlds only as a
\ncontinuous incident in the timeless eternity of the Divine.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nNow, that is the whole trouble in my approach to Mayavada. Nirvana in my liberated
\nconsciousness turned out to be the beginning of my realisation, a first step
\ntowards the complete thing, not the sole true attainment possible or even a
\nculminating finale. It came unasked, unsought for, though quite welcome. I had
\nno least idea about it before, no aspiration towards it, in fact my aspiration
\nwas towards just the opposite, spiritual power to help the world and to do my
\nwork in it, yet it came \u2014without even a "May I come in" or a "By
\nyour leave". It just happened and settled in as if for all eternity or as
\nif it had been really there always. And then it slowly grew into something not
\nless but greater than its first self. How then could I accept Mayavada or
\npersuade myself to pit against the Truth imposed on me from above the logic of
\nShankara ?<\/span><\/p>\n

But
\nI do not insist on everybody passing through my experience or following the
\nTruth that is its consequence. I have no objection to anybody accepting
\nMayavada as his soul’s truth or his mind’s truth or their way out of the cosmic
\ndifficulty. I object<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup> In fact it is not an illusion in the
\nsense of an imposition of something baseless and unreal on the consciousness,
\nbut a misinterpretation by the conscious mind and sense and a falsifying misuse
\nof manifested .existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 102<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

to it only if somebody tries to push it
\ndown my throat or the world’s throat as the sole possible, satisfying and
\nall-comprehensive explanation of things. For it is not that at all. There are
\nmany other possible explanations; it is not at all satisfactory, for in the end
\nit explains nothing; and it is\u2014and must be unless it departs from its own logic
\n\u2014 all-exclusive, not in the least all-comprehensive. But that does not matter.
\nA theory may be wrong or at least one-sided and imperfect and yet extremely
\npractical and useful. This has been amply shown by the history of Science. In
\nfact, a theory whether philosophical or scientific, is nothing else than a
\nsupport for the mind, a practical device to help it to deal with its object, a
\nstaff to uphold it and make it walk more confidently and get along on its
\ndifficult journey. The very exclusiveness and one-sidedness of the Mayavada
\nmake it a strong staff or a forceful stimulus for a spiritual endeavour which
\nmeans to be one-sided, radical and exclusive. It supports the effort of the
\nMind to get away from itself and from Life by a short cut into superconscience.
\nOr rather it is the Purusha in Mind that wants to get away from the limitations
\nof Mind and Life into the superconscient Infinite. Theoretically, the way for
\nthat is for the mind to deny all its perceptions and all the preoccupations of
\nthe vital and see and treat them as illusions. Practically, when the mind draws
\nback from itself, it enters easily into a relationless peace in which nothing
\nmatters, \u2014for in its absoluteness there are no mental or vital values, \u2014and
\nfrom which the mind can rapidly move towards that great short cut to the
\nsuperconscient, mindless trance, suṣupti.<\/i> In proportion to the
\nthoroughness of that movement all the perceptions it had once accepted become
\nunreal to it \u2014 illusion, Maya. It is on its road towards immergence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mayavada
\ntherefore with its sole stress on Nirvana, quite apart from its defects as a
\nmental theory of things, serves a great spiritual end and, as a path, can lead
\nvery high and far. Even, if the Mind were the last word and there were nothing
\nbeyond it except the pure Spirit, I would not be averse to accepting it as the
\nonly way out. For what the mind with its perceptions and the vital with its
\ndesires have made of life in this world, is a very bad mess, and if there were
\nnothing better to be hoped for, the shortest cut to an exit would be the best.
\nBut my experience is <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 103<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

that there is something beyond Mind; Mind
\nis not the last word here of the Spirit. Mind is an ignorance-consciousness and
\nits perceptions cannot be anything else than either false, mixed or imperfect \u2014
\neven when true, a partial reflection of the Truth and not the very body of
\nTruth herself. But there is a Truth-Consciousness, not static only and
\nself-introspective, but also dynamic and creative, and I prefer to get at that
\nand see what it says about things and can do rather than take the short cut
\naway from things offered as its own end by the Ignorance.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nSHANKARA’S MAYAVADA AND INTEGRAL YOGA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I do not base my
\nYoga on the insufficient ground that the Self (not soul) is eternally free.
\nThat affirmation leads to nothing beyond itself, or, if used as a
\nstarting-point, it could equally well lead to the conclusion that action and
\ncreation have no signi\u00adficance or value. The question is not that but of the
\nmeaning of creation, whether* there is a Supreme who is not merely a pure
\nundifferentiated Consciousness and Being, but the source and support also of
\nthe dynamic energy of creation and whether the cosmic existence has for It a
\nsignificance and a value. That is a question which cannot be settled by
\nmetaphysical logic which deals in words and ideas, but by a spiritual
\nexperience which goes beyond Mind and enters into spiritual realities. Each
\nmind is satisfied with its own reasoning, but for spiritual purposes that
\nsatisfaction has no validity, except as an indication of how far and on what
\nline each one is prepared to go in the field of spiritual experience. If your
\nreasoning leads you towards the Shankara idea of the Supreme, that might be an
\nindication that the Vedanta Adwaita (Mayavada) is your way of advance.<\/span><\/p>\n

This
\nYoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its
\nobject is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine supramental
\nConsciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance
\nand imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ananda. But for that,
\nsurrender of the mortal mind, life and body to that Higher Consciousness is
\nindispensable, since it is too difficult <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 104<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

for the mortal human being to pass by its
\nown effort beyond mind to a supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is
\nno longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call
\nto such a change should enter into this Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

2-10-1938<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

THE
\nREALISTIC AND THE ILLUSIONIST ADWAITA<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere is possible a realistic as well
\nas an illusionist Adwaita. The philosophy of The Life Divine<\/i> is such a
\nrealistic Adwaita. The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is
\nitself real. The reality is the infinite and eternal Divine, infinite and
\neternal Being, Consciousness-Force and Bliss. This Divine by his power has
\ncreated the world or rather manifested it in his own infinite Being. But here
\nin the material world or at its basis he has hidden himself in what seem to be
\nhis opposites, Non-Being, Inconscience and Insentience. This is what we
\nnowadays call the Inconscient which seems to have created the material universe
\nby its inconscient Energy, but this is only an appearance, for we find in the
\nend that all the dispositions of the world can only have been arranged by the
\nworking of a supreme secret Intelligence. The Being which is hidden in what
\nseems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in
\nLife, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy
\nwhich creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect
\nof consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something
\nmore of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and
\nfinally a supramental Consciousness through which we become aware of the
\nReality, enter into it and unite ourselves with it. This is what we call
\nevolution which is an evolution of Consciousness and an evolution of the
\nSpirit in things and only outwardly an evolution of species. Thus also, the
\ndelight of existence emerges from the original insentience, first in the
\ncontrary forms of pleasure and pain, and then has to find itself in the bliss
\nof the Spirit or, as it is called in the Upanishads, the bliss of the Brah\u00adman.
\nThat is the central idea in the explanation of the universe put forward in
\n<\/font> The
\nLife Divine.<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 105<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tSHANKARA AND
\n\t\tILLUSIONISM<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tIn an article on Shankara’s philosophy in "Prabuddha Bharata", the
\n\t\twriter mentions, "not as understood by Sri Aurobindo". They think that
\n\t\tShankara’s philosophy is so much misunderstood. Perhaps it is some
\n\t\tBrahmavada or Bhaktivada that Shankara brings in at places in his
\n\t\twritings that he thinks have been missed. But I don’t think Vivekananda
\n\t\tor Ramakrishna were so much for Shankara’s philosophy<\/span><\/i>
\n\t\tin toto.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tA:<\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tThey want to show that Shankara was not so savagely illusionist as he
\n\t\tis represented \u2014 that he gave a certain temporary reality to the world,
\n\t\tadmitted Shakti, etc. But these (supposing he made them) are concessions
\n\t\tinconsistent with the logic of his own philosophy which is that only the
\n\t\tBrahman exists and the rest is ignorance and illusion. The rest has only
\n\t\ta temporary and therefore an illusory reality in Maya. He further
\n\t\tmaintained that Brahman could not be reached by works. If that was not
\n\t\this philosophy, I should like to know what was his philosophy. At any
\n\t\trate that was how his philosophy has been understood by people. Now that
\n\t\tthe general turn is away from the rigorous Illusionism, many of the Adwaitins seem to want to hedge and make Shankara hedge with them.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\tVivekananda accepted Shankara’s philosophy with modifications, the
\n\t\tchief of them being Daridra-Narayan-Seva which is a mixture of Buddhist
\n\t\tcompassion and modern philanthropy.<\/span><\/p>\n

8-2-1935<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tNEW ELEMENTS IN
\n\t\tSRI AUROBINDO’S YOGA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tBy
\n\t\ttransformation I do not mean some change of the nature \u2014 I do not mean,
\n\t\tfor instance, sainthood or ethical perfection or Yogic Siddhis (like the
\n\t\tTantrik’s) or a transcendental (cinmaya) <\/i>body. I use
\n\t\ttransformation in a special sense, a change of consciousness radical
\n\t\tand complete and of a certain specific kind which is so conceived as to
\n\t\tbring about a strong and assured step forward in the spiritual evolution
\n\t\tof the being of a greater and higher kind and of a larger sweep and
\n\t\tcompleteness than what<\/span> \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 106<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\ttook place when a mentalised
\n\t\tbeing first appeared in a vital and material animal world. If anything
\n\t\tshort of that takes place or at least if a real beginning is not made on
\n\t\tthat basis, a fundamental progress towards this fulfilment, then my
\n\t\tobject is not accomplished. A partial realisation, something mixed and
\n\t\tinconclusive, does not meet the demand I make on life and Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tLight of realisation is not the same thing as
\n\t\tDescent. Realisation by itself does not necessarily transform the being
\n\t\tas a whole; it may bring only an opening or heightening or widening of
\n\t\tthe consciousness at the top so as to realise something in the Purusha
\n\t\tpart without any radical change in the parts of Prakriti. One may have
\n\t\tsome light of realisation at the spiritual summit of the consciousness
\n\t\tbut the parts below remain what they were. I have seen any number of
\n\t\tinstances of that. There must be a descent of the light not merely into
\n\t\tthe mind or part of it but into all the being down to the physical and
\n\t\tbelow before a real transformation can take place. A light in the mind
\n\t\tmay spiritualise or otherwise change the mind or part of it in one way
\n\t\tor another, but it need not change the vital nature; a light in the
\n\t\tvital may purify and enlarge the vital movements or else silence and
\n\t\timmobilise the vital being, but leave the body and the physical
\n\t\tconsciousness as it was, or even leave it inert or shake its balance.
\n\t\tAnd the descent of Light is not enough, it must be the descent of the
\n\t\twhole higher consciousness, its Peace, Power, Knowledge, Love, Ananda.
\n\t\tMoreover, the descent may be enough to liberate, but not to perfect, or
\n\t\tit may be enough to make a great change in the inner being, while the
\n\t\touter remains an imperfect instrument, clumsy, sick or unexpressive.
\n\t\tFinally, transformation effected by the Sadhana cannot be complete
\n\t\tunless it is a supramentalisation of the being. Psychicisation is not
\n\t\tenough, it is only a beginning; spiritualisation and the descent of the
\n\t\thigher consciousness is not enough, it is only a middle term; the
\n\t\tultimate achievement needs the action of the supramental Consciousness
\n\t\tand Force. Something less than that may very well be considered enough
\n\t\tby the individual, but it is not enough for the earth-consciousness to
\n\t\ttake the definitive stride forward it must take at one time or another.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI have never said that my Yoga was something brand
\n\t\tnew <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 107<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tin all its elements. I have
\n\t\tcalled it the integral Yoga and that means that it takes up the essence
\n\t\tand many processes of the old Yogas \u2014 its newness is in its aim,
\n\t\tstandpoint and the totality of its method. In the earlier stages which
\n\t\tis all I deal with in books like the "Riddle"1<\/sup> or the
\n\t\t"Lights"2<\/sup> or in the new book to be published3<\/sup>
\n\t\tthere is nothing in it that distinguishes it from the old Yogas except
\n\t\tthe aim underlying its comprehensiveness, the spirit in its movements
\n\t\tand the ultimate significance it keeps before it \u2014 also the scheme of
\n\t\tits psychology and its working: but as that was not and could not be
\n\t\tdeveloped systematically or schematically in these letters, it has not
\n\t\tbeen grasped by those who are not already acquainted with it by mental
\n\t\tfamiliarity or some amount of practice. The detail or method of the
\n\t\tlater stages of the Yoga which go into little known or untrodden
\n\t\tregions, I have not made public and I do not at present intend to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI know very well also that there have been seemingly
\n\t\tallied ideals and anticipations \u2014 the perfectibility of the race,
\n\t\tcertain Tantric Sadhanas, the effort after a complete physical Siddhi by
\n\t\tcertain schools of Yoga, etc., etc. I have alluded to these things
\n\t\tmyself and have put forth the view that the spiritual past of the race
\n\t\thas been a preparation of Nature not merely for attaining the Divine
\n\t\tbeyond the world, but also for this very step forward which the
\n\t\tevolution of the earth-consciousness has still to make. I do not
\n\t\ttherefore care in the least, \u2014 even though these ideals were, up to some
\n\t\textent parallel, yet not identical with mine, \u2014 whether this Yoga and
\n\t\tits aim and method are accepted as new or not; that is in itself a
\n\t\ttrifling matter. That it should be recognised as true in itself by those
\n\t\twho can accept or practise it and should make itself true by achievement
\n\t\tis the one thing important; it does not matter if it is called new or a
\n\t\trepetition or revival of the old which was forgotten. I laid emphasis on
\n\t\tit as new in a letter to certain Sadhaks so as to explain to them that a
\n\t\trepetition of the aim and idea of the old Yogas was not enough in my
\n\t\teyes, that I was putting forward a thing to be achieved that has not yet
\n\t\tbeen achieved, not yet clearly visualised, even though <\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1<\/span><\/sup>
\n\t\tThe Riddle of This World<\/i> 2<\/sup> Lights on Yoga<\/i>
\n\t\t3<\/sup> The Bases of Yoga.<\/i> Sri Aurobindo’s letters compiled in
\n\t\tthese three books are now incorporated in Letters on Yoga<\/i>
\n\t\t(Centenary Edition, 1972), Vols. 22, 23 & 24.<\/span> \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 108<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tit is the natural but still secret outcome of all the
\n\t\tpast spiritual endeavour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIt is new as compared with the old Yogas:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t1. Because it aims not at a departure out of world
\n\t\tand life into Heaven or Nirvana, but at a change of life and existence,
\n\t\tnot as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and
\n\t\tcentral object. If there is a descent in other Yogas, yet it is only an
\n\t\tincident on the way or resulting from the ascent \u2014 the ascent is the
\n\t\treal thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the
\n\t\tdescent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the
\n\t\tascent that is the stamp and seal of the Sadhana. Even the Tantra and
\n\t\tVaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine
\n\t\tfulfilment of life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t2. Because the object sought after is not an
\n\t\tindividual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the
\n\t\tindividual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here,
\n\t\ta cosmic, not solely a supracosmic achievement. The thing to be gained
\n\t\talso is the bringing in of a Power of Consciousness (the Supramental)
\n\t\tnot yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the
\n\t\tspiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t3. Because a method has been preconized for achieving
\n\t\tthis purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it,
\n\t\tviz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature,
\n\t\ttaking up old methods but only as a part action and present aid to
\n\t\tothers that are distinctive. I have not found this method (as a whole)
\n\t\tor anything like it professed or realised in the old Yogas. If I had, I
\n\t\tshould not have wasted my time in hewing out a road and in thirty years
\n\t\tof search and inner creation when I could have hastened home safely to
\n\t\tmy goal in an easy canter over paths already blazed out, laid down,
\n\t\tperfectly mapped, macadamised, made secure and public. Our Yoga is not a
\n\t\tretreading of old walks, but a spiritual adventure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t5-10-1935<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tTRANSFORMATION AND PURIFICATION <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t"Transformation" is a word that I have brought in myself (like<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage \u2013 109<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

"Supermind") to express certain
\n\t\tspiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral Yoga. People are
\n\t\tnow taking them up and sing them in senses which have nothing to do with
\n\t\tthe significance which I put into them. Purification of the nature by
\n\t\tthe "influence" of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation;
\n\t\tpurification is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual
\n\t\tchange \u2014 the word besides has many senses and is very often given a
\n\t\tmoral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose. What I mean by
\n\t\tthe spiritual transformation is something dynamic (not merely
\n\t\tliberation of the Self or realisation of the One which can very well be
\n\t\tattained without any descent). It is a putting on of the spiritual
\n\t\tconsciousness dynamic as well as static in every part of the being down
\n\t\tto the subconscient. That cannot be done by the influence of the Self
\n\t\tleaving the consciousness fundamentally as it is with only purification,
\n\t\tenlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the vital. It
\n\t\tmeans a bringing down of the Divine Consciousness static and dynamic
\n\t\tinto all these parts and the entire replacement of the present
\n\t\tconsciousness by that This we find unveiled and unmixed above mind,
\n\t\tlife and body. It is a matter of the undeniable experience of many that
\n\t\tthis can descend and it is my experience that nothing short of its
\n\t\tfull<\/i> descent can thoroughly remove the veil and mixture and effect
\n\t\tthe full spiritual transformation. No metaphysical or logical reasoning
\n\t\tin the void as to what the Atman "must" do or can do or needs or needs
\n\t\tnot to do is relevant here or of any value. I may add that
\n\t\ttransformation is not the central object of other paths as it is of this
\n\t\tYoga \u2014 only so much purification and change is demanded by them as will
\n\t\tlead to liberation and the beyond-life. The influence of the Atman can
\n\t\tno doubt do that \u2014 a full descent of a new consciousness into the whole
\n\t\tnature from top to bottom to transform life here is not needed at all
\n\t\tfor the spiritual escape from life.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The words Supermind and supramental
\n\t\twere first used by me, but since then people have taken up and are using
\n\t\tthe word supramental for anything above mind. Psychic is ordinarily used<\/span> \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 110<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tin the sense of anything
\n\t\trelating to the inner movements of the consciousness or anything
\n\t\tphenomenal in the psychology; in this case I have made a special use of
\n\t\tit, relating it to the Greek word psyche meaning soul; but ordinarily
\n\t\tpeople make no distinction between the soul and the mental-vital
\n\t\tconsciousness; for them it is all the same. The ascent of the Kundalini
\n\t\t\u2014 not its descent, so far as I know \u2014 is a recognised phenomenon, there
\n\t\tis one that corresponds in our Yoga, the feeling of the consciousness
\n\t\tascending from the vital or physical to meet the higher consciousness.
\n\t\tThis is not necessarily through the cakras<\/i> but is often felt in
\n\t\tthe whole body. Similarly the descent of the higher consciousness is
\n\t\tnot felt necessarily or usually through the cakras <\/i>but as
\n\t\toccupying the whole head, neck, chest, abdomen, body.<\/span><\/p>\n

18-6-1937<\/font><\/span> \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tSPIRITUAL
\n\t\tCHANGE AND SUPRAMENTAL<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTRANSFORMATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

If
\n\t\tspiritual and supramental were the same thing, as you say my readers
\n\t\timagine, then all the sages and devotees and Yogis and Sadhaks
\n\t\tthroughout the ages would have been supramental beings and all I have
\n\t\twritten about the Supermind would be so much superfluous stuff, useless
\n\t\tand otiose. Anybody who had spiritual experiences would then be a
\n\t\tsupramental being; the Ashram would be chock-full of supramental beings
\n\t\tand every other Ashram in <\/span>
\n\t\tIndia<\/span>
\n\t\talso. Spiritual experiences can fix themselves in the inner
\n\t\tconsciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like; one can realise
\n\t\tthe Divine everywhere, the Self in all and all in the Self, the
\n\t\tuniversal Shakti doing all things; one can feel merged in the Cosmic
\n\t\tSelf or full of ecstatic Bhakti or Ananda. But one may and usually does
\n\t\tstill go on in the outer parts of Nature thinking with the intellect or
\n\t\tat best the intuitive mind, willing with a mental will, feeling joy and
\n\t\tsorrow on the vital surface, undergoing physical afflictions and
\n\t\tsuffering from the struggle of life in the body with death and disease.
\n\t\tThe change then only will be that the inner self will watch all that
\n\t\twithout getting disturbed or bewildered, with a perfect equality, taking <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 111<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tit as an inevitable part of
\n\t\tNature, inevitable at least so long as one does not withdraw to the Self
\n\t\tout of Nature. That is not the transformation I envisage. It is quite
\n\t\tanother power of knowledge, another kind of will, another luminous
\n\t\tnature of emotion and aesthesis, another constitution of the physical
\n\t\tconsciousness that must come in by the supramental change.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPHYSICAL
\n\t\tTRANSFORMATION AND SIDDHIS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe
\n\t\tphysical Nature does not mean the body alone but the phrase includes the
\n\t\ttransformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature \u2014 not
\n\t\tby imposing Siddhis on them, but by creating a new physical nature which
\n\t\tis to be the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution. I
\n\t\tam not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process.
\n\t\tMental or vital occult power can only bring Siddhis of the higher plane
\n\t\tinto the individual life \u2014 like the Sannyasi who could take any poison
\n\t\twithout, harm, but he died of a poison after all when he forgot to
\n\t\tobserve the conditions of the Siddhi. The working of the supramental
\n\t\tpower envisaged is not an influence on the physical giving it abnormal
\n\t\tfaculties but an entrance and permeation changing it wholly into a supramentalised physical. I did not learn the idea from Veda or
\n\t\tUpanishad, and I do not know if there is anything of the kind there.
\n\t\tWhat I received about the Supermind was a direct, not a derived
\n\t\tknowledge given to me; it was only afterwards that I found certain
\n\t\tconfirmatory revelations in the Upanishad and Veda.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t11-9-1936<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tABSENCE OF
\n\t\tDESCENT IN OLD YOGAS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/b>
\n\t\tIn other Yogas does the silence<\/span><\/i>
\n\t\tdescend
\n\t\tor rather the mind goes into silence ? It does not seem that there is
\n\t\tanything like a process of anything descending in Rajayoga or Vedantic Jnanayoga. Moreover, in Rajayoga there is nowhere mention of silence in
\n\t\tthe waking con\u00adsciousness \u2014 always it is a question of going into
\n\t\tsamadhi<\/span> \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tPage – 112<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n


\n\t\tIn the Jnanayoga, however, it seems as if the waking
\n\t\tstate becomes illumined and full of peace and brahmānanda.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tA<\/b>: I never heard of silence descending in other Yogas
\n\t\t\u2014 the mind goes into silence. Since however I have been writing of
\n\t\tascent and descent, I have been told from several quarters that there is
\n\t\tnothing new in this Yoga \u2014 so I am wondering whether people were not
\n\t\tgetting ascents and descents without knowing it! or at least without
\n\t\tnoticing the process. It is like the rising above the head and taking
\n\t\tthe station there \u2014 which I and others have experienced in this Yoga.
\n\t\tWhen I spoke of it first, people stared and thought I was talking
\n\t\tnonsense. Wideness must have been felt in the old Yogas because
\n\t\totherwise one could not feel the universe in oneself or be free from the
\n\t\tbody consciousness or unite with the Anantam Brahman. But generally as
\n\t\tin Tantric Yoga one speaks of the consciousness rising to the
\n\t\tbrahmarandhra,<\/i> top of the head, as the summit. Rajayoga of course
\n\t\tlays stress on Samadhi as the means of the highest experience. But
\n\t\tobviously if one has not the brāhmisthiti<\/i> in the waking state,
\n\t\tthere is no completeness in the realisation. The Gita distinctly speaks
\n\t\tof being samāhita<\/i> (which is equivalent to being in Samadhi) and
\n\t\tthe brāhmisthiti<\/i> as a waking state in which one lives and does
\n\t\tall actions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t9-6-1936<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\tQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> Such a
\n\t\tconcrete process of ascent and descent cannot escape notice if the other
\n\t\tYogis had it \u2014 they do mention a rising of kuṇḍalinī to brahmarandhra.
\n\t\tWhy do they not then mention a coming down of, say, a current of
\n\t\tbrahmānanda or of light from the brahmarandhra into kuṇḍalinī to
\n\t\tmulādhara ? Supposing they did not mention because it was a secret then
\n\t\thow could they mention that of kuṇḍalinī rising up ?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIf there is nothing new in this Yoga, they ought
\n\t\tto quote something which is similar to descent \u2014 either in Patanjali or
\n\t\tHathayoga Pradipika or in Panchadasi and<\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 113<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tother Vedantic books wherein experiences are
\n\t\tmentioned.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tA<\/b>: So I have always thought. I
\n\t\texplain this absence of the descent experiences myself by the old Yogas
\n\t\thaving been mainly confined to the psycho-spiritual-occult range of
\n\t\texperience \u2014 in which the higher experiences come into the still mind or
\n\t\tthe concentrated heart by a sort of filtration or reflection \u2014 the field
\n\t\tof this experience being from the brahmarandhra<\/i> downward. People
\n\t\twent above this only in Samadhi or in a condition of static mukti<\/i>
\n\t\twithout any dynamic descent. All that was dynamic took place in the
\n\t\tregion of the spiritualised mental and vital-physical consciousness. In
\n\t\tthis Yoga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by
\n\t\ta certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experience) is drawn upward
\n\t\tabove the brahmarandhra<\/i> to ranges above belonging to the
\n\t\tspiritual consciousness proper and instead of merely receiving from
\n\t\tthere has to live there and from there change the lower consciousness
\n\t\taltogether. For there is a dynamism proper to the spiritual
\n\t\tconsciousness whose nature is Light, Power, Ananda, Peace, Knowledge,
\n\t\tinfinite Wideness and that must be possessed and descend into the whole
\n\t\tbeing. Otherwise one can get mukti<\/i> but not perfection or
\n\t\ttransformation (except a relative psycho-spiritual change). But if I say
\n\t\tthat, there will be a general howl against the unpardonable presumption
\n\t\tof claiming to have a knowledge not possessed by the ancient saints and
\n\t\tsages and pretending to transcend them. In that connection I may say
\n\t\tthat in the Upanishads (notably the Taittiriya) there are some
\n\t\tindications of these higher planes and their nature and the possibility
\n\t\tof gathering up the whole consciousness and rising into them. But this
\n\t\twas forgotten afterwards and people spoke only of the Buddhi as the
\n\t\thighest thing with the Purusha or Self just above, but there was no
\n\t\tclear idea of these higher planes. Ergo, ascent possibly to unknown and
\n\t\tineffable heavenly regions in Samadhi, but no descent possible \u2014
\n\t\ttherefore no resource, no possibility of transformation here, only
\n\t\tescape from life and mukti<\/i> in Goloka, Brahmaloka, Shivaloka or
\n\t\tthe Absolute.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t11-6-1936<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 114<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tQ<\/b>: Was there not anything like descents of peace in
\n\t\tRamakrishna or Chaitanya? It seems as if they had intense realisations
\n\t\tand visions and depths of samādhi but we do not read of their having
\n\t\tdescents of peace. Perhaps the realisations etc. themselves brought with
\n\t\tthem the peace and Light during samādhi or intense emotional moments, so
\n\t\tthat it was not particularly noted \u2014 and for supporting and stabilising
\n\t\tall that, there must have been a basis of calm and peace.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tA<\/b>: It happens that people may get the descent without
\n\t\tnoticing that it is a descent because they feel the result only. The
\n\t\tordinary Yoga does not go beyond the spiritual mind \u2014 people feel at the
\n\t\ttop of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of
\n\t\ta consciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary Yoga one
\n\t\tfeels the ascent of the awakened lower consciousness (Kundalini) to the
\n\t\tbrahmarandhra<\/i> where the Prakriti joins the Brahman-consciousness,
\n\t\tbut they do not feel the descent. Some may have had these things, but I
\n\t\tdon’t know that they understood their nature, principle or place in a
\n\t\tcomplete Sadhana. At least I never heard of these things from others
\n\t\tbefore I found them out in my own experience. The reason is that the old
\n\t\tYogins when they went above the spiritual mind passed into Samadhi,.
\n\t\twhich means that they made no attempt to be conscious in these higher
\n\t\tplanes \u2014 their aim being to pass away into the Superconscient and not to
\n\t\tbring the Superconscient into the waking consciousness, which is that of
\n\t\tmy Yoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t26-7-1935<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tNECESSITY OF
\n\t\tOVERHEAD ASCENSION IN INTEGRAL YOGA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne may ask, first, why not then say that the
\n\t\tJivatman which can be realised in this way [without the overhead
\n\t\tascension] is the pure "I" of which the lower self has the experience
\n\t\tand through which it gets its salvation; and, secondly, what need is
\n\t\tthere of going into the overhead planes at all ? Well, in the first
\n\t\tplace, this pure "I" does not seem to be absolutely necessary as<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 115<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tan intermediary of the
\n\t\tliberation whether into the impersonal Self or Brahman or into whatever
\n\t\tis eternal. The Buddhists do not admit any soul or self or any
\n\t\texperience of the pure "I"; they proceed by dissolving the consciousness
\n\t\tinto a bundle of samskāras,<\/i> get rid of the samskāras<\/i> and
\n\t\tso are liberated into some Permanent which they refuse to describe, or
\n\t\tsome Shunya. So the experience of a pure "I" or Jivatman is not binding
\n\t\ton everyone who wants liberation into the Eternal but is content to get
\n\t\tit without rising beyond the spiritualised mind into a higher Light
\n\t\tabove. I myself had my experience of Nirvana and silence in the Brahman,
\n\t\tetc. long before there was any knowledge of the overhead spiritual
\n\t\tplanes; it came first simply by an absolute stillness and blotting out
\n\t\tas it were of all mental, emotional and other inner activities \u2014 the
\n\t\tbody continued indeed to see, walk, speak and do its other business, but
\n\t\tas an empty automatic machine and nothing more. I did not become aware
\n\t\tof any pure "I" nor even of any self, impersonal or other, \u2014 there was
\n\t\tonly an awareness of That as the sole Reality, all else being quite
\n\t\tunsubstantial, void, non-real. As to what realised that Reality, it was
\n\t\ta nameless consciousness which was not other than That;1<\/sup> one
\n\t\tcould perhaps say this, though hardly even so much as this, since there
\n\t\twas no mental concept of it, but not more. Neither was I aware of any
\n\t\tlower soul or outer self called by such and such a personal name that
\n\t\twas performing this feat of arriving at the consciousness of Nirvana.
\n\t\tWell, then what becomes of your pure "I" and lower "I" in all that?
\n\t\tConsciousness (not this or that part of consciousness or an "I" of any
\n\t\tkind) suddenly emptied itself of all inner contents and remained aware
\n\t\tonly of unreal surroundings and of Something real but ineffable. You may
\n\t\tsay that there must have been a consciousness aware of some perceiving
\n\t\texistence, if not of a pure <\/b>"I", but, if so, it was something for
\n\t\twhich these names seem inadequate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tI have said the overhead ascension is not
\n\t\tindispensable for the usual spiritual purposes, \u2014 but it is
\n\t\tindispensable for the purposes of this Yoga. For its aim is to become
\n\t\taware of and<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t1<\/span><\/sup>
\n\t\tMark that I did not think these things, there were no thoughts or
\n\t\tconcepts nor did they present themselves like that to any Me; it simply
\n\t\tjust was so or was self-apparently so.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 116<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tliberate and transform and unite
\n\t\tall the being in the light of a Truth-Consciousness which is above and
\n\t\tcannot be reached if there is no entirely inward-going and no
\n\t\ttranscending and upward-going movement. Hence all the complexity of my
\n\t\tpsy\u00adchological statements as a whole, not new in essence \u2014 for much of
\n\t\tit occurs in the Upanishads and elsewhere, but new in its fullness of
\n\t\tcollective statement and its developments directed towards an integral
\n\t\tYoga. It is not necessary for anyone to accept it unless he concurs in
\n\t\tthe aim; for other aims it is unnecessary and may very well be
\n\t\texcessive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t22-7-1937<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tTHE SUPRAMENTAL AND THE TRUTH<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe Truth manifesting on all the planes is one thing,
\n\t\tthe Supra-mental is another, although it is the source of all Truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\t\t29-8-1936<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tINTERPENETRATION OF THE PLANES<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe
\n\t\tinterpenetration of the planes is indeed for me a capital and
\n\t\tfundamental part of spiritual experience without which Yoga as I
\n\t\tpractise it and its aim could not exist. For that aim is to manifest,
\n\t\treach or embody a higher consciousness upon earth and not to get away
\n\t\tfrom earth into a higher world or some supreme Absolute. The old Yogas
\n\t\t(not quite all of them) tended the other way \u2014 but that was, I think,
\n\t\tbecause they found the earth as it is a rather impossible place for any
\n\t\tspiritual being and the resistance to change too obstinate to be borne;
\n\t\tearth-nature looked to them in Vivekananda’s simile like the dog’s tail
\n\t\twhich, every time you straighten it, goes back to its original curl. But
\n\t\tthe fundamental proposition in this matter was proclaimed very
\n\t\tdefinitely in the Upanishads which went so far as to say that Earth is
\n\t\tthe foundation and all the worlds are on the earth and to imagine a
\n\t\tclean-cut or irreconcilable difference between them is ignorance: here
\n\t\tand not elsewhere, not by going to some other <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 117<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tworld, the divine realisation
\n\t\tmust come. This statement was used to justify a purely individual
\n\t\trealisation, but it can equally be the basis of a wider endeavour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t14-1-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tDIFFERENT
\n\t\tSTATUSES OF TRANSFORMATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tThere are different statuses (avasthā)<\/i> of the
\n\t\tDivine Consciousness. There are also different statuses of
\n\t\ttransformation. First is the psychic transformation, in which all is in
\n\t\tcontact with the Divine through the individual psychic consciousness.
\n\t\tNext is the spiritual transformation in which all is merged in the
\n\t\tDivine in the cosmic consciousness. Third is the supramental
\n\t\ttransfor\u00admation in which all becomes supramentalised in the divine
\n\t\tgnostic consciousness. It is only with the latter that there can begin
\n\t\tthe complete<\/i> transformation of mind, life and body \u2014 in my sense
\n\t\tof completeness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYou are mistaken in two respects. First, the
\n\t\tendeavour towards this achievement is not new and some Yogis have
\n\t\tachieved it, I believe \u2014 but not in the way I want it. They achieved it
\n\t\tas a personal Siddhi maintained by Yoga-Siddhi \u2014 not a Dharma of the
\n\t\tnature (physical transformation). Secondly, the supramental
\n\t\ttransformation is not the same as the spiritual-mental. It is a change
\n\t\tof mind, life and body which the mental or overmental-spiritual cannot
\n\t\tachieve. All whom you mention were spirituals, but in different ways.
\n\t\t<\/span>Krishna<\/span>‘s
\n\t\tmind, for instance, was overmentalised, Ramakrishna’s intuitive,
\n\t\tChaitanya’s spiritual-psychic, Buddha’s illumined higher mental. I don’t
\n\t\tknow about Bejoy Goswami \u2014 he seems to have been brilliant but rather
\n\t\tchaotic. All that is different from the supramental. Then about the
\n\t\tvital of the Paramhansas. It is said that their vital behaves either
\n\t\tlike a child (Ramakrishna) or like a madman or like a demon or like
\n\t\tsomething inert (cf. Jadabharata). Well, there is nothing supramental in
\n\t\tall that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tOne can be an instrument of the Divine in any of the
\n\t\ttransformations. The question is, an instrument for what?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tApril, 1935<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\tPage – 118<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tThe Paramhansa is a particular
\n\t\tgrade of realisation, there are others supposed to be lower or higher. I
\n\t\thave no objection to them in their own place. But I must remind you that
\n\t\tin my Yoga all vital movements must come under the influence of the
\n\t\tpsychic and of the spiritual calm, knowledge, peace. If they conflict
\n\t\twith the psychic or spiritual control, they upset the balance and
\n\t\tprevent the forming of the base of transformation. If unbalance is good
\n\t\tfor other paths, that is the business of those who follow them. It does
\n\t\tnot suit mine.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tMay, 1935<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\tTRADITIONAL PATHS AND SUPRAMENTAL <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n\t\tTRANSFORMATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tYou appeal
\n\t\tto the Vaishnava-Tantric traditions; to Chaitanya, Ramprasad,
\n\t\tRamakrishna. I know something about them and, if I did not try to repeat
\n\t\tthem, it is because I do not find in them the solution, the
\n\t\treconciliation I am seeking. Your quotation from Ramprasad does not
\n\t\tassist me in the least \u2014 and it does not support your thesis either.
\n\t\tRamprasad is not speaking of an embodied, but of a bodiless and
\n\t\tinvisible Divine \u2014 or visible only in a subtle form to the inner
\n\t\texperience. When he speaks of maintaining his claim or case against the
\n\t\tMother until she lifts him into her lap, he is not speaking of any outer
\n\t\tvital or physical contact, but of an inner psychic experience;
\n\t\tprecisely, he is protesting against her keeping him in the external
\n\t\tvital and physical nature and insists on her taking him on the
\n\t\tpsycho-spiritual plane into spiritual union with her.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t        All that is very good and very beautiful, but it is not enough:
\n\t\tthe union has indeed to be realised in the inner psycho-spiritual
\n\t\texperience first, because without that nothing sound or lasting can be
\n\t\tdone; but also there must be a realisation of the Divine in the outer
\n\t\tconsciousness and life, in the vital and physical planes on their own
\n\t\tessential lines. It is that which, without your mind understanding it or
\n\t\thow it is to be done, you are asking for, and I too; only I see the
\n\t\tnecessity of a vital transformation, while you seem to think and to
\n\t\tdemand that it should be done without<\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 119<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tany radical transformation,
\n\t\tleaving the vital as it is. In the beginning, before I discovered the
\n\t\tsecret of the Supermind, I myself tried to seek the reconciliation
\n\t\tthrough an association of the spiritual consciousness with the vital,
\n\t\tbut my experience and all experience show that this leads to nothing
\n\t\tdefinite and final, \u2014 it ends where it began, midway between the two
\n\t\tpoles of human nature. An association is not enough, a transformation is
\n\t\tindispensable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe tradition of later Vaishnava Bhakti is an attempt
\n\t\tto sublimate the vital impulses through love by turning human love
\n\t\ttowards the Divine. It made a strong and intense effort and had many
\n\t\trich and beautiful experiences; but its weakness was just there, that it
\n\t\tremained valid only as an inner experience turned towards the inner
\n\t\tDivine, but it stopped at that point. Chaitanya’s prema<\/i> was
\n\t\tnothing but a psychic divine love with a strong sublimated vital
\n\t\tmanifestation. But the moment Vaishnavism before or after him made an
\n\t\tattempt at greater externalisation, we know what happened \u2014 a vitalistic
\n\t\tdeterioration, much corruption and decline. You cannot appeal to Chaitanya’s example as against psychic or divine love; his was not
\n\t\tsomething merely vital-human; in its essence, though not in its form, it
\n\t\twas very much the first step in the transformation, which we ask of the
\n\t\tSadhaks, to make their love psychic and use the vital not for its own
\n\t\tsake, but as an expression of the soul’s realisation. It is the first
\n\t\tstep and perhaps for some it may be sufficient, for we are not asking
\n\t\teverybody to become supramental; but for any full manifestation on the
\n\t\tphysical plane the supramental is indispensable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tIn the later Vaishnava tradition the Sadhana takes
\n\t\tthe form of an application of human vital love in all its principal
\n\t\tturns to the Divine; viraha, abhimāna,<\/i> even complete separation
\n\t\t(like the departure of Krishna to Mathura) are made prominent elements
\n\t\tof this Yoga. But all that was only meant \u2014 in the Sadhana itself, not
\n\t\tin the Vaishnava poems \u2014 as a passage of which the end is milana<\/i>
\n\t\tor complete union; but the stress laid on the untoward elements by some
\n\t\twould almost seem to make strife, separation, abhimāna,<\/i> the whole
\n\t\tmeans, if not the very object of this kind of prema-yoga.<\/i> Again,
\n\t\tthis method was only <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 120<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tapplied to
\n\t\tthe inner, not to a physically embodied Divine and had a reference to
\n\t\tcertain states and reactions of the inner con\u00adsciousness in its seeking
\n\t\tafter the Divine. In the relations with the embodied Divine
\n\t\tManifestation, or, I may add, of the disciple with the Guru, such things
\n\t\tmight rise as a result of human imperfection, but they were not made
\n\t\tpart of the theory of the relations. I do not think they formed a
\n\t\tregular and authorised part of the relations of the Bhaktas to the Guru.
\n\t\tOn the contrary, the relation of the disciple to the Guru in the
\n\t\tGuruvada is supposed always to be that of worship, respect, a complete
\n\t\thappy confidence, an unquestioning acceptance of the guidance. The
\n\t\tapplication of the unchanged vital relations to the embodied Divine may
\n\t\tlead and has led to movements which are ‘not conducive to the progress
\n\t\tof the Yoga.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tRamakrishna’s Yoga was also turned only to an inner realisation of the
\n\t\tinner Divine, \u2014 nothing less, but also nothing more. I believe
\n\t\tRamakrishna’s sentence about the claim of the Sadhak on the Divine for
\n\t\twhom he has sacrificed everything was the assertion of an inner and not
\n\t\tan outer claim, on the inner rather than on any physically embodied
\n\t\tDivine: it was a claim for the full spiritual union, the God-lover
\n\t\tseeking the Divine, but the Divine also giving himself and meeting the
\n\t\tGod-lover. There can be no objection to that; such a claim all seekers
\n\t\tof the Divine have; but as to the modalities of this divine meeting, it
\n\t\tdoes not carry us much farther. In any case, my object is a realisation
\n\t\ton the physical plane and I cannot consent merely to repeat Ramakrishna.
\n\t\tI seem to remember too that for a long time he was withdrawn into
\n\t\thimself, all his life was not spent with his disciples. He got his Siddhi first in retirement and when he came out and received everyone,
\n\t\twell, a few years of it wore out his body. To that, I suppose, he had no
\n\t\tobjection; for he even pronounced a theory, when Keshav Chandra was
\n\t\tdying, that spiritual experience ought to wear out the body. But at the
\n\t\tsame time, when asked why he got illness in the throat, he answered
\n\t\tthat it was the sins of his disciples which they threw upon him and he
\n\t\thad to swallow. Not being satisfied, as he was, with an inner liberation
\n\t\talone, I cannot accept these ideas or these results, for that does not
\n\t\tsound to me like a successful<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 121<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tmeeting of the Divine and the
\n\t\tSadhak on the physical plane, however successful it might have been for
\n\t\tthe inner life. <\/span>Krishna<\/span>
\n\t\tdid great things and was very clearly a manifestation of the Divine. But
\n\t\tI remember a passage of the Mahabharata in which he complains of the
\n\t\tunquiet life his followers and adorers gave him, their constant demands,
\n\t\treproaches, their throwing of their unregenerate vital nature upon him.
\n\t\tAnd in the Gita he speaks of this human world as a transient and
\n\t\tsorrowful affair and, in spite of his gospel of divine action, seems
\n\t\talmost to admit that to leave it is after all the best solution. The
\n\t\ttraditions of the past are very great in their own place, in the past,
\n\t\tbut I do not see why we should merely repeat them and not go farther. In
\n\t\tthe spiritual development of the consciousness upon earth the great past
\n\t\tought to be followed by a greater future.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThere is the rule that you seem all to ignore
\n\t\tentirely \u2014 the difficulties of the physical embodiment and the divine
\n\t\trealisa\u00adtion on the physical plane. For most it seems to be a simple
\n\t\talternative, either the Divine comes down in full power and the thing
\n\t\tis done, no difficulty, no necessary
\n\t\tconditions, no law or process, only miracle and magic, or else, well,
\n\t\tthis cannot be the Divine. Again you all (or almost all) insist on the
\n\t\tDivine becoming human, remaining in the human consciousness and you
\n\t\tprotest against any attempt to make the human Divine. On the other hand,
\n\t\tthere is an outcry of disappointment, bewilderment, distrust, perhaps
\n\t\tindignation if there are human difficulties, if there is strain in the
\n\t\tbody, a swaying struggle with adverse forces, obstacles, checks, illness
\n\t\tand some begin to say, "Oh, there is nothing Divine here!" \u2014 as if one
\n\t\tcould remain vitally and physically in the untransformed individual
\n\t\thuman consciousness, in unchanged contact with it, satisfy its demands,
\n\t\tand yet be immune under all circumstances and in all conditions against
\n\t\tstrain and struggle and illness. If I want to divinise the human
\n\t\tconsciousness, to bring down the Supramental, the Truth-Consciousness,
\n\t\tthe Light, the Force into the physical to transform it, to create there
\n\t\ta great fullness of Truth and Light and Power and Bliss and Love, the
\n\t\tresponse is repulsion or fear or unwillingness \u2014 or a doubt whether it
\n\t\tis possible. On one side there is the claim that illness and the rest
\n\t\tshould be impossible, on the <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 122<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tother a violent rejection of the
\n\t\tonly condition under which these things can become impossible. I know
\n\t\tthat this is the natural inconsistency of the human vital mind wanting
\n\t\ttwo inconsistent and incompatible things together; but that is one
\n\t\treason why it is necessary to transform the human and put something a
\n\t\tlittle more luminous in its place.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut is the Divine then something so terrible,
\n\t\thorrible or repellent that the idea of its entry into the physical, its
\n\t\tdivinising of the human should create this shrinking, refusal, revolt or
\n\t\tfear? I can understand that the unregenerate vital attached to its own
\n\t\tpetty sufferings and pleasures, to the brief ignorant drama of life,
\n\t\tshould shrink from what will change it. But why should a God-lover, a
\n\t\tGod-seeker, a Sadhak fear the divinisation of the consciousness? Why
\n\t\tshould he object to become one in nature with what he seeks, why should
\n\t\the recoil from sādr<\/i><\/span>̣<\/span><\/i>śya-mukti? <\/i>Behind this fear there are usually
\n\t\ttwo causes: first, there is the feeling of the vital that it will have
\n\t\tto cease to be obscure, crude, muddy, egoistic, unrefined (spiritually),
\n\t\tfull of stimulating desires and small pleasures and interesting
\n\t\tsufferings (for it shrinks even from the Ananda which will replace
\n\t\tthis); next there is some vague ignorant idea of the mind, due, I
\n\t\tsuppose, to the ascetic tradition, that the divine nature is something
\n\t\tcold, bare, empty, austere, aloof, without the glorious riches of the
\n\t\tegoistic human vital life. As if there were not a divine vital and as if
\n\t\tthat divine vital is not itself and, when it gets the means to manifest,
\n\t\twill not make the life on earth also infinitely more full of beauty,
\n\t\tlove, radiance, warmth, fire, intensity, and divine passion and capacity
\n\t\tfor bliss than the present impotent, suffering, pettily and transiently
\n\t\texcited and soon tired vitality of the still so imperfect human
\n\t\tcreation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut you will say that it is not the Divine from which
\n\t\tyou recoil, rather you accept and ask for it (provided that it is not
\n\t\ttoo divine), but what you object to is the Supramental \u2014 grand, aloof,
\n\t\tincomprehensible, unapproachable, a sort of austere Nirakar Brahman. The
\n\t\tSupramental so described is a bogey created by this part of your vital
\n\t\tmind in order to frighten itself and justify its attitude. Behind this
\n\t\tstrange description there seems to be an idea that the Supramental is a
\n\t\tnew version of the <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 123<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tVedantic featureless and
\n\t\tincommunicable Parabrahman, vast, grand, cold, empty, remote,
\n\t\tdevastating, overwhelming; it is not quite that, of course, since it can
\n\t\tcome down, but for all practical purposes it is just as bad! It is
\n\t\tcurious that you admit your ignorance of what the Supramental can be,
\n\t\tand yet you in these moods not only pronounce categorically what it is
\n\t\tlike, but reject emphatically my experience about it as of no practical
\n\t\tvalidity or not valid for anybody but myself! I have not insisted, I
\n\t\thave answered only casually because I am not asking you now to be
\n\t\tnon-human and divine, much less to be supramental; but as you are always
\n\t\treturning to this point when you have these attacks and making it the
\n\t\tpivot \u2014 or at least a main support \u2014 of your depression, I am obliged to
\n\t\tanswer. The Supramental is not<\/i> grand, aloof, cold and austere; it
\n\t\tis not something opposed to or inconsistent with a full vital and
\n\t\tphysical manifestation; on the contrary, it carries in it the only
\n\t\tpossibility of the full fullness of the vital force and the physical
\n\t\tlife on earth. It is because it is so, because it was so revealed to me
\n\t\tand for no other reason that I have followed after it and persevered
\n\t\ttill I came into contact with it and was able to draw down some power of
\n\t\tit and its influence. I am concerned with the earth, not with worlds
\n\t\tbeyond for their own sake; it is a terrestrial realisation that I seek
\n\t\tand not a flight to distant summits. All other Yogas regard this life as
\n\t\tan illusion or a passing phase; the supramental Yoga alone regards it as
\n\t\ta thing created by the Divine for a progressive manifestation and takes
\n\t\tthe fulfilment of the life and the body for its object. The Supramental
\n\t\tis simply the Truth-Consciousness and what it brings in its descent is
\n\t\tthe full truth of life, the full truth of consciousness in Matter. One
\n\t\thas indeed to rise to high summits to reach it, but the more one rises,
\n\t\tthe more one can bring down below. No doubt, life and body have not to
\n\t\tremain the ignorant, imperfect, impotent things they are now; but why
\n\t\tshould a change to fuller life-power, fuller body-power be considered
\n\t\tsomething aloof, cold and undesirable? The utmost Ananda the body and
\n\t\tlife are now capable of is a brief excitement of the vital mind or the
\n\t\tnerves or the cells which is limited, imperfect and soon passes: with
\n\t\tthe supramental change all the cells, nerves, vital forces, embodied
\n\t\tmental forces can become <\/span> \n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\tPage – 124<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

\n\t\tfilled with a thousandfold
\n\t\tAnanda, capable of an intensity of bliss which passes description and
\n\t\twhich need not fade away. How aloof, repellent and undesirable! The
\n\t\tsupramental love means an intense unity of soul with soul, mind with
\n\t\tmind, life with life, and an entire flooding of the body consciousness
\n\t\twith the physical experience of oneness, the presence of the Beloved in
\n\t\tevery part, in every cell of the body. Is that too something aloof and
\n\t\tgrand but undesirable ? With the supramental change, the very thing on
\n\t\twhich you insist, the possibility of the free physical meeting of the
\n\t\tembodied Divine with the Sadhak without conflict of forces and without
\n\t\tundesirable reactions becomes possible, assured and free. That too is, I
\n\t\tsuppose, something aloof and undesirable ? I could go on \u2014 for pages,
\n\t\tbut this is enough for the moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\t\t14-1-1932<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\tTHE PAST AND THE FUTURE SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n\t\t <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tI have no
\n\t\ttime to read books usually. I seldom had and none at all now. I have had
\n\t\tno inspirations from the Sadhana of Bejoy Goswami, though a good deal at
\n\t\tone time from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. My remarks simply meant that
\n\t\tI regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of <\/span>
\n\t\tIndia<\/span>
\n\t\tas a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is
\n\t\tclosed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated. Even the
\n\t\tUpanishads and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in
\n\t\tseed. In this development the recent spiritual history of <\/span>
\n\t\tIndia<\/span>
\n\t\tis a very important stage and the names I mentioned had a special
\n\t\tprominence in my thought at the time \u2014 they seemed to me to indicate the
\n\t\tlines from which the future spiritual development had most directly to
\n\t\tproceed, not staying but passing on. I do not know that I would put my
\n\t\tmeaning exactly in the language you suggest. I may say that it is far
\n\t\tfrom my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old, for humanity in
\n\t\tthe future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to
\n\t\tbe founded, is my conception of the matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t18-8-1935<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\tPage – 125<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n


\n\t THE GITA AND SRI
\n\tAUROBINDO’S MESSAGE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 \n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI<\/b>t is not a
\n\tfact that the Gita gives the whole base of Sri Aurobindo’s message; for the
\n\tGita seems to admit the cessation of birth in the world as the ultimate aim
\n\tor at least the ultimate culmination of Yoga; it does not bring forward the
\n\tidea of spiritual evolution or the idea of the higher planes and the
\n\tsupramental Truth-Consciousness and the bringing down of that consciousness
\n\tas the means of the complete transformation of earthly life.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea of the
\n\tSupermind, the Truth-Consciousness is there in the Rig Veda according to Sri
\n\tAurobindo’s interpretation and in one or two passages of the Upanishads,
\n\tbut in the Upanishads it is there only in seed in the conception of the
\n\tbeing of knowledge, <\/font> vij\u00f1ānamaya purus<\/font><\/i><\/span>̣<\/span><\/font>a,<\/font><\/span><\/i> exceeding the mental, vital
\n\tand physical being; in the Rig Veda the idea is there but in principle only,
\n\tit is not developed and even the principle of it has disappeared from the
\n\tHindu tradition.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tIt is these
\n\tthings among others that constitute the novelty of Sri Aurobindo’s message
\n\tas compared with the Hindu tradition \u2014 the idea that the world is not
\n\teither a creation of Maya or only a play, lilā,<\/i> of the Divine, or a
\n\tcycle of births in the ignorance from which we have to escape, but a field
\n\tof manifestation in which there is a progressive evolution of the soul and
\n\tthe nature in Matter and from Matter through Life and Mind to what is beyond
\n\tMind till it reaches the complete revelation of Sacchidananda in life. It is
\n\tthis that is the basis of the Yoga and gives a new sense to life.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\tOur Yoga is not
\n\tidentical with the Yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is
\n\tessential in the Gita’s Yoga. In our Yoga we begin with the idea, the will,
\n\tthe aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to
\n\treject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self
\n\tinvolved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher
\n\tnature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tPage – 126<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n

\n\tmaking a tamasic and therefore
\n\tunreal surrender, making no effort, no Tapas and therefore no progress; or
\n\telse we may make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made
\n\tfalse idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something
\n\tstill worse.            <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tThe language of the Gita in many
\n\tmatters seems sometimes contradictory because it admits two apparently
\n\topposite truths and tries to reconcile them. It admits the ideal of
\n\tdeparture from samsāra<\/i> into the Brahman as one possibility; also it
\n\taffirms the possibility of living free in the Divine (in Me, it says) and
\n\tacting in the world as the Jivanmukta. It is this latter kind of solution on
\n\twhich it lays the greatest emphasis. So Ramakrishna put the "divine souls"
\n\t(Ishwarakoti) who can descend the ladder as well as ascend it higher than
\n\tthe Jivas (Jivakoti) who, once having ascended, have not the strength to
\n\tdescend again for divine work. The full truth is in the supramental
\n\tconsciousness and the power to work from there on life and Matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\tKARMA AND INTEGRAL YOGA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tI have
\n\tnever disputed the truth of the old Yogas \u2014 I have myself had the experience
\n\tof Vaishnava Bhakti and of Nirvana in the Brahman; I recognise their truth
\n\tin their own field and for their own purpose \u2014 the truth of their experience
\n\tso far as it goes \u2014 though I am in no way bound to accept the truth of the
\n\tmental philosophies founded on the experience. I similarly find that my Yoga
\n\tis true in its own field \u2014 a larger field, as I think \u2014 and for its own
\n\tpurpose. The purpose of the old is to get away from life to the Divine \u2014 so,
\n\tobviously, let us drop Karma. The purpose of the new is to reach the Divine
\n\tand bring the fullness of what is gained into life \u2014 for that. Yoga by
\n\tworks is indispensable. It seems to me that there is no mystery about that
\n\tor anything to perplex anybody\u2014it is rational and inevitable. Only you say
\n\tthat the thing is impossible; but that is what is <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 127<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n\tsaid about everything before it is done.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tI may point out that Karmayoga is not a new but a very
\n\told Yoga; the Gita was not written yesterday and Karmayoga existed before
\n\tthe Gita. Your idea that the only justification in the Gita for works is
\n\tthat it is an unavoidable nuisance, so better make the best use of it, is
\n\trather summary and crude. If that were all, the Gita would be the production
\n\tof an imbecile and I would hardly have been justified in writing two volumes
\n\ton it or the world in admiring it as one of the greatest scriptures,
\n\tespecially for its treatment of the problem of the place of works in
\n\tspiritual endeavour. There is surely more in it than that. Anyhow, your
\n\tdoubt whether works can lead to realisation or rather your flat and sweeping
\n\tdenial of the possibility contradicts the experience of those who have
\n\tachieved this supposed impossibility. You say that work lowers the
\n\tconsciousness, brings you out of the inner into the outer \u2014 yes, if you
\n\tconsent to externalise yourself in it instead of doing works from within;
\n\tbut that is what one has to learn not to do. Thought and feeling can also
\n\texternalise one in-the same way; but it is a question of linking thought,
\n\tfeeling and act firmly to the inner consciousness by living there and making
\n\tthe rest an instrument. Difficult? Even Bhakti is not easy and Nirvana for
\n\tmost men more difficult than all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tI do not know why you drag in humanitarianism, activism,
\n\tphilanthropical sevā,<\/i> etc. None of these are part of my Yoga or in
\n\tharmony with my definition of works, so they don’t touch me. I never thought
\n\tthat politics or feeding the poor or writing beautiful poems would lead
\n\tstraight to Vaikuntha or the Absolute. If it were so, Romesh Dutt on one
\n\tside and Baudelaire on the other would be the first to attain the Highest
\n\tand welcome us there. It is not the form of the work itself or mere activity
\n\tbut the consciousness and Godward will behind it that are the essence of
\n\tKarmayoga; the work is only the necessary instrumentation for the union
\n\twith the Master of works, the transit to the pure Will and power of Light
\n\tfrom the will and power of the Ignorance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tFinally, why suppose that I am against meditation or
\n\tBhakti ? I have not the slightest objection to your taking either <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tPage – 128<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n\tor both as the means of approach to
\n\tthe Divine. Only I saw no reason why anyone should fall foul of works and
\n\tdeny the truth of those who have reached, as the Gita says, through works
\n\tperfect realisation and oneness of nature with the Divine, samsiddhim
\n\tsādharmyam<\/i> (as did Janaka and others)\u2014simply because he himself cannot
\n\tfind or has not yet found their deeper secret \u2014 hence my defence of works.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t23-12-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n

I may say, however, that I do not regard
\n\tbusiness as something evil or tainted, any more than it is so regarded in
\n\tancient spiritual India. If I did, I would not be able to receive money from
\n\tX or from those of our disciples who in Bombay trade with East Africa; nor
\n\tcould we then encourage them to go on with their work but would have to tell
\n\tthem to throw it up and attend to their spiritual progress alone. How are we
\n\tto reconcile X’s seeking after spiritual light and his mill? Ought I not to
\n\ttell him to leave his mill to itself and to the devil and go into some
\n\tAshram to meditate? Even if I myself had had the command to do business as
\n\tI had the command to do politics I would have done it without the least
\n\tspiritual or moral compunction. All depends on the spirit in which a thing
\n\tis done, the principles on which it is built and the use to which it is
\n\tturned. I have done politics and the most violent kind of revolutionary
\n\tpolitics, ghoram karma<\/i>, and I have supported war and sent men to it, even
\n\tthough politics is not always or often a very clean occupation nor can war
\n\tbe called a spiritual line of action. But Krishna calls upon Arjuna to carry
\n\ton war of the most terrible kind and by his example encourage men to do
\n\tevery kind of human work, sarvakarmān<\/i>̣<\/i><\/span>i<\/i>. Do you contend that Krishna was an
\n\tunspiritual man and that his advice to Arjuna was mistaken or wrong in
\n\tprinciple ? Krishna goes further and declares that a man by doing in the
\n\tright way and in the right spirit the work dictated to him by his
\n\tfundamental nature, temperament and capacity and according to his and its
\n\tDharma can move towards the Divine. He validates the function and Dharma of
\n\tthe Vaishya as well as of<\/p>\n


\n\tPage – 129<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n\tthe Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in
\n\this view quite possible for a man to do business and make money and earn
\n\tprofits and yet be a spiritual man, practise Yoga, have an inner life. The
\n\tGita is constantly justifying works as a means of spiritual salvation and
\n\tenjoining a Yoga of Works as well as of Bhakti and Knowledge. Krishna,
\n\thowever, superimposes a higher law also that work must be done without
\n\tdesire, without attachment to any fruit or reward, without any egoistic
\n\tattitude or motive, as an offering or sacrifice to the Divine. This is the
\n\ttraditional Indian attitude towards these things, that all work can be done
\n\tif it is done according to the Dharma and, if it is rightly done, it does
\n\tnot prevent the approach to the Divine or the access to spiritual knowledge
\n\tand the spiritual life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThere is, of course, also the ascetic idea which is
\n\tnecessary for many and has its place in the spiritual order. I would myself
\n\tsay that no man can be spiritually complete if he cannot live ascetically or
\n\tfollow a life as bare as the barest anchorite’s. Obviously, greed for
\n\twealth and money-making has to be absent from his nature as much as greed
\n\tfor food or any other greed and all attachment to these things must be
\n\trenounced from his consciousness. But I do not regard the ascetic way of
\n\tliving as indispensable to spiritual perfection or as identical with it.
\n\tThere is the way of spiritual self-mastery and the way of spiritual
\n\tself-giving and surrender to the Divine, abandoning ego and desire even in
\n\tthe midst of action or of any kind of work or all kinds of work demanded
\n\tfrom us by the Divine. If it were not so, there would not have been great
\n\tspiritual men like Janaka or Vidura in <\/span>
\n\tIndia<\/span>
\n\tand even there would have been no <\/span>
\n\tKrishna<\/span> or else <\/span>
\n\tKrishna<\/span> would have
\n\tbeen not the Lord of Brindavan and <\/span>
\n\tMathura<\/span>
\n\tand Dwarka or a prince and warrior or the charioteer of Kurukshetra, but
\n\tonly one more great anchorite. The Indian scriptures and Indian tradition,
\n\tin. the Mahabharata and elsewhere, make room both for the spirituality of
\n\tthe renunciation of life and for the spiritual life of action. One cannot
\n\tsay that one only is the Indian tradition and that the acceptance of life
\n\tand works of all kinds, sarvakarmān<\/i><\/span>̣<\/font><\/i><\/span>i,<\/i> is un-Indian, European or
\n\twestern and unspiritual. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tPage – 130<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n


\nKARMA AND MEDITATION<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nConcentration and
\nmeditation are not the same thing. One can be concentrated in work or Bhakti as
\nwell as in meditation…. If I devoted 9\/10 of my time to concentration and
\nnone to work, the result would be equally unsatisfactory. My concentra\u00adtion is
\nfor a particular work \u2014 it is not for meditation divorced from life. When I
\nconcentrate, I work upon others, upon the world, upon the play of forces. What
\nI say is that to spend all the time reading and writing letters is not
\nsufficient for the purpose. I am not asking to become a meditative Sannyasi.<\/span><\/p>\n

….It
\ndoes not mean that I lose the higher consciousness while doing the work of
\ncorrespondence. If I did that, I would not only not be supramental, but would
\nbe very far even from the full Yogic consciousness….<\/span><\/p>\n

If
\nI have to help somebody to repel an attack, I can’t do it by only writing a
\nnote. I have to send him some Force or else concentrate and do the work for
\nhim. Also I can’t bring down the Supramental by merely writing neatly to people
\nabout it. I am not asking for leisure to meditate at ease in a blissful
\nindolence. I said distinctly I wanted it for concentration in other more
\nimportant work than correspondence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nignorance underlying this attitude is in the assumption that one must
\nnecessarily do only work or only meditation. Either work is the means or
\nmeditation is the means, but both cannot be! I have never said, so far as I
\nknow, that meditation should not be done. To set up an open competition or a
\nclosed one between work and meditation is a trick of the dividing mind and
\nbelongs to the old Yoga. Please remember that I have all along been declaring
\nan integral Yoga in which Knowledge, Bhakti, Works \u2014 light of consciousness,
\nAnanda and love, will and power in works \u2014 meditation, adoration, service of
\nthe Divine have all their place. Have I written seven volumes of the Arya<\/i>
\nall in vain ? Meditation is not greater than Yoga of works nor works greater
\nthan Yoga by knowledge \u2014 both are equal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another
\nthing \u2014 it is a mistake to argue from one’s own very limited experience,
\nignoring that of others and build on it <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 131<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\nlarge generalisations about Yoga. This is
\nwhat many do, but the method has obvious demerits. You have no experience of
\nmajor realisations through works, and you conclude that such realisations are
\nimpossible. But what of the many who have had them \u2014 elsewhere and here too in
\nthe Ashram? That has no value? You hint to
\nme that I have failed to get anything by works? How do you know? I have not
\nwritten the history of my Sadhana \u2014 if I had, you would have seen that if I had
\nnot made action and work one of my chief means of realisation \u2014 well, there
\nwould have been no Sadhana and no realisation except that, perhaps, of
\nNirvana.<\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nshall perhaps add something hereafter as to what works can do, but no time
\nto-night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don’t
\nconclude, however, that I am exalting works as the sole means of realisation. I
\nam only giving it its due place.<\/span><\/p>\n

You
\nwill excuse the vein of irony or satire in all this \u2014 but really when I am told
\nthat my own case disproves my own spiritual philosophy and accumulated
\nknowledge and experience, a little liveliness in answer is permissible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

19-12-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

INSUFFICIENCY
\nOF VEDANTIC PANTHEISTIC EXPERIENCE<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

I have not read
\nRamdas’s writings nor am I at all acquainted with his personality or what may
\nbe the level of his experience. The words you quote from him could be
\nexpressions either of a simple faith or of a pantheistic experience; evidently,
\nif they are used or intended to establish the thesis that the Divine is everywhere
\nand is all and therefore all is good, being Divine, they are very insufficient
\nfor that purpose. But as an experience, it is a very common thing to have this
\nfeeling or realisation in the Vedantic Sadhana \u2014 in fact, without it there
\nwould be no Vedantic Sadhana. I have had it myself on various levels of consciousness
\nand in numerous forms and I have met scores of people who had had it very
\ngenuinely \u2014 not as an intellectual theory or perception, but as a spiritual
\nreality which was too concrete for them to deny whatever paradoxes it may
\nentail for the ordinary intelligence. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 132<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\nOf course it
\ndoes not mean that all here is good or that in the estimation of values a brothel
\nis as good as an Ashram, but it does mean that all are part of one
\nmanifestation and that in the inner heart of the harlot as in the inner heart
\nof the sage or saint there is the Divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n15-4-1934<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nABSURDITY OF DEPRECIATING OLD
\nYOGAS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAs for the depreciation
\nof the old Yogas as something quite easy, unimportant and worthless and the
\ndepreciation of Buddha, Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the
\npast, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it ?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

14.4-1936 <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nWonderful! The
\nrealisation of the Self which includes the libe\u00adration from ego, the
\nconsciousness of the One in all, the estab\u00adlished and consummate4 transcendence
\nout of the universal Ignorance, the fixity of the consciousness in the union
\nwith the Highest, the Infinite and Eternal is not anything worth doing or
\nrecommending to anybody\u2014is "not a very difficult stage"!<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing
\nnew! Why should there be anything new? The object of spiritual seeking is to
\nfind out what is eternally true, not what is new in Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

From
\nwhere did you get this singular attitude towards the old Yogas and Yogis ? Is
\nthe wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing? Have then the
\nSadhaks of the Ashram attained to self-realisation and are they liberated
\nJivanmuktas, free from ego and ignorance ? If not, why then do you say,
\n"it is not a very difficult stage", "their goal is not
\nhigh", "is it such a long process?"<\/span><\/p>\n

I
\nhave said that this Yoga is "new" because it aims at the integrality
\nof the Divine in this world and not only beyond it and at a supramental
\nrealisation. But how does that justify a superior contempt for the spiritual
\nrealisation which is as much the aim of this Yoga as of any other ?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n3-4-1936<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage – 133<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n


\nESTIMATE OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI would have been
\nsurprised to hear that I regard (in agreement with an "advanced"
\nSadhak) Ramakrishna as a spiritual pigmy if I had not become past astonishment
\nin these matters. I have said, it seems, so many things that were never in my
\nmind and done too not a few that I have never dreamed of doing! I shall not be
\nsurprised or perturbed if one day I am reported to have declared, on the
\nauthority of "advanced" or even unadvanced Sadhaks, that Buddha was a
\nposeur<\/i> or that Shakespeare an over\u00adrated poetaster or Newton a
\nthird-rate college Don without any genius. In this world all is possible. Is it
\nnecessary for me to say that I have never thought and cannot have said anything
\nof the kind, since I have at least some faint sense of spiritual values? The
\npassage you have quoted1<\/sup> is my considered estimate of Sri
\nRamakrishna.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n3-2-1932<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nSRI AUROBINDO AND THE VEDIC
\nRISHIS<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> In an article written by a Swami on your book "The Riddle of
\nthis World", he has remarked that you have the boldness to say that you
\nhave done what the Vedic Rishis could not do. What is the truth in this
\ncriticism?<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A<\/b>: It is not I
\nonly who have done what the Vedic Rishis did not do. Chaitanya and others
\ndeveloped an intensity of Bhakti which is absent in the Veda and many other
\ninstances can be given. Why should the past be the limit of spiritual
\nexperience ?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n19-12-1934<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9"And in a recent unique example, in the life of
\nRamakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity, first driving
\nstraight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven
\nby violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and
\nextracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to
\nreturn to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God
\nby the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various
\nexperience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge." The
\nSynthesis of Yoga<\/i> (Centenary Edition, 1972), p. 36.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage
\n– 134<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE
\nPAST SEERS<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWell, I don’t
\nsuppose the new race can be created by or according to logic or that any race
\nhas been. But why should the idea of the creation of a new race be
\nillogical?… As for the past seers, they don’t trouble me. If going beyond the
\nexperiences of past seers and sages is so shocking, each new seer or sage in
\nturn has done that shocking thing \u2014 Buddha, Shankara, Chaitanya, etc. all did
\nthat wicked act. If not, what was the necessity of their starting new
\nphilosophies, religions, schools of Yoga? If they were merely verifying and
\nmeekly repeating the lives and experiences of past seers and sages without
\nbringing the world some new things, why all that stir and pother ? Of course,
\nyou may say, they were simply explaining the old truth but in the right way \u2014
\nbut this would mean that nobody had explained or understood it rightly before \u2014
\nwhich is again "giving the lie etc." Or you may say that all the new
\nsages (they were not among X’s cherished past ones in their day), e.g.
\nShankara, Ramanuja, Madhva were each merely repeating the same blessed thing as
\nall the past seers and sages had repeated with an unwearied monotony before
\nthem. Well, well, but why repeat it in such a way that each "gives the
\nlie" to the others? Truly, this shocked reverence for the past is a
\nwonderful and fearful thing! After all, the Divine is infinite and the unrolling
\nof the Truth may be an infinite process or at least, if not quite so much, yet
\nwith some room for new discovery and new statement, even perhaps new
\nachievement, not a thing in a nutshell cracked and its contents exhausted once
\nfor all by the first seer or sage, while the others must religiously crack the
\nsame nutshell all over again, each tremblingly fearful not to give the lie to
\nthe "past" seers and sages.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

8-10-1935<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nKRISHNA<\/span><\/b> AND PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nSri Krishna never set out to arrive at any physical transformation,
\nso anything of the kind could not be expected in his case.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 135<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\nNeither Buddha
\nnor Shankara nor Ramakrishna had any idea of transforming the body. Their aim
\nwas spiritual mukti<\/i> and nothing else. Krishna taught Arjuna to be
\nliberated in works, but he never spoke of any physical transformation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I
\ndo not know that we can take this [Yudhisthira entering the heavenly kingdom in
\nthe Himalayas with his mortal body] as a historical fact. Svarga<\/i> is not
\nsomewhere in the Himalayas, it is another world in another plane of
\nconsciousness and substance. Whatever the story may mean, therefore, it has
\nnothing to do with the question of physical transformation on earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

1-6-1937<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nKRISHNA<\/span><\/b> AND THE SUPERMIND<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n24th
\n[November 1926] was the descent of <\/span>Krishna<\/span> into the physical.<\/span><\/p>\n

Krishna
\nis not the supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of
\nthe Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of
\nSupermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution
\nthrough the Overmind leading it towards the Ananda.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n29-10-1935<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nSRI AUROBINDO AND <\/span><\/b>
\nKRISHNA<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nYou can’t expect me to argue about my
\nown spiritual greatness in comparison with <\/font> <\/span>
\nKrishna<\/font><\/span>‘s. The question itself
\nwould be rele\u00advant only if there were two sectarian religions in opposition,
\nAurobindoism and Vaishnavism, each insisting on its own God’s greatness. That
\nis not the case. And then what Krishna must I challenge, \u2014 the Krishna of the
\nGita who is the transcendent Godhead, Paramatma, Parabrahma, Purushottama, the
\ncosmic Deity, Master of the universe, Vasudeva who is all, the Immanent in the
\nheart of all creatures, or the Godhead who was incarnate at Brindavan and
\nDwarka and Kurukshetra and who was the<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 136<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

\nguide of my Yoga and with whom I realised
\nidentity ? All that is not to me something philosophical or mental but a matter
\nof daily and hourly realisation and intimate to the stuff of my consciousness.
\nThen from what position can I adjudicate this dispute? X thinks I am superior
\nin greatness, you think there can be nothing greater than <\/span>Krishna<\/span>: each is entitled to
\nhave his own view or feeling, whether it is itself right or not. It can be left
\nthere; it can be no reason for your leaving the Ashram.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n25-2-1945<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I thought I had
\nalready told you that your turn towards Krishna was not an obstacle. In any case,
\nI affirm that positively in answer to your question. If we consider the large
\nand indeed predominant part he played in my own Sadhana, it would be\u00a0 <\/span>strange if the part he has in your
\nSadhana could be considered objectionable. Sectarianism is a matter of dogma,
\nritual, etc., not of spiritual experience; the concentration on <\/span>Krishna<\/span> is a self-offering to the iṣṭa-deva.<\/i>
\nIf you reach <\/span>Krishna<\/span> you reach <\/span>the Divine; if you
\ncan give yourself to him, you give yourself to me. Your inability to identify may be
\nbecause you are laying too
\nmuch stress on the physical aspects, consciously or unconsciously.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n18-6-1943<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nKRISHNA<\/font><\/span><\/b> AND CHRIST<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI feel it
\ndifficult to say anything about X’s Christ and <\/span>Krishna<\/span>. The attraction which
\nshe says people feel for Christ has never touched me, partly because I got
\ndisgusted with the dryness and deadness of Christianity in England and partly
\nbecause the Christ of the gospels (apart from a few pregnant episodes) is
\nluminous no doubt, but somewhat shadowy and imperfectly constructed in his
\nluminosity: there is more of the ethical put forward than of the spiritual or
\ndivine man. The Christ that has strongly lived in the Western saints and
\nmystics is the Christ of St. Francis of <\/span>Assisi<\/span>, St. Teresa
\nand others.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage – 137<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\nBut apart from that, is it a fact that
\nChrist has been strongly and vividly loved by Christians ? Only by a very few,
\nit seems to me. As for <\/span>Krishna<\/span>, to judge him and his revealing tradition by the Christ figure and
\nChrist tradition is not possible. The two stand in two different worlds. There
\nis nothing in Christ of the great and boundless and sovereign spiritual
\nknowledge and power of realisation we find in the Gita, nothing of the
\nemotional force, passion, beauty of the Gopi-symbol and all that lies behind
\nit, nothing of the many-sided manifestation of the <\/span>Krishna<\/span> figure. Christ has
\nother qualities: there is no gain in putting them side by side and trying to
\nweigh them against each other. That is the besetting sin of the Christian mind,
\neven in those who are most liberal like Dr. Stanley Jones: they cannot get
\naltogether free from the sectarian narrowness and leave each manifestation to
\nits own inner world for those to follow who have an inner drawing to the one
\nor the other. I have always refrained from these comparisons in my published
\nwritings in order to avoid this error. What I feel personally is for myself \u2014 I
\ncannot ask others to conform to my measure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n4-1-1936<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nINTEGRAL
\nYOGA AND ITS ACCEPTANCE BY HUMANITY<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nQ:<\/span><\/i><\/b> It seems to me that the number of people in the world accepting our
\nYoga of Transformation would not be as large as those who accepted Buddhism,
\nVedanta or Christianity.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA<\/b>: Nothing
\ndepends on the numbers. The numbers of Buddhism or Christianity were so great
\nbecause the majority professed it as a creed without its making the least
\ndifference to their external life. If the new consciousness were satisfied with
\nthat, it could also and much more easily command homage and acceptance by the
\nwhole earth. It is because it is a greater consciousness, the
\nTruth-Consciousness, that it will insist on a real change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n29-4-1934<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\tPage – 138<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\nQ<\/b>: The
\nordinary people would see some more immediate result in the traditional systems
\nthan in our Yoga, as many must have found some benefit by ”miracles’ or
\notherwise in these systems. In our Yoga they would find the way closed for
\nthat. Naturally they would shrink from it.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA<\/b>: It would on the contrary be impossible for them not to feel that
\na greater Light and Power had come on the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n29-4-1934<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nQ<\/b>: On the
\nwhole there is very little scope for very few people in our Yoga, and the world
\nwould hardly interest itself in it.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA<\/b>: How do you
\nknow that it will have no effect on the ordinary people? It will inevitably
\nincrease their possibilities and even though all cannot rise to, the highest,
\nthat will mean a great change for the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n29-4-1934<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nQ:<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/b> There appears to be so
\nmuch self-concentration in the people of the world that hardly a few would
\nthink of doing this Yoga. Perhaps a larger number would go (and are going) for
\nthe old Hathayoga and Rajayoga which may bring some small immediately satisfying
\nresult. Even from those who are sincere truth-seekers, many would not be able
\nto see the truth of our Yoga of Transformation. And the ordinary people, the
\nscientists, the politicians and leading intellectuals \u2014 one cannot see the
\npossibility of their ever accepting the spiritual life.<\/font><\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA<\/b>: <\/span>
\nI suppose they are not intended to take it up \u2014 only an
\nopening can be given for those who want to rise into a somewhat higher
\nconsciousness than they have now.<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nPage – 139<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Q:<\/span><\/i><\/b> You have said that the aim of our Yoga is to rise beyond Nirvana,
\nbut even in the Ashram there are extremely few who have reached or have tried
\nto reach even up to the Nirvana level. Even to reach Nirvana one has to give up
\ndesire, duality and ego and establish a certain amount of equanimity and peace.
\nCould it be said that a sufficient number of Sadhaks in the Ashram have
\nsucceeded in doing so? At least everybody must be making some effort to do
\nthis. Why then are they not successful? Is it that after some time they forget
\nthe aim and live here as in ordinary life ?<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA<\/b>: I suppose if
\nthe Nirvana aim had been put before them, more would have been fit for it, for
\nthe Nirvana aim is easier than the one we have put before us \u2014 and they would
\nnot have found it so difficult to reach the standard. The Sadhaks here are of
\nall kinds and in all stages. But the real difficulty even for those who have
\nprogressed is with the external man. Even among those who follow the old ideal,
\nthe external man of the Sadhak remains almost the same even after they have
\nattained to something. The inner being gets free, the outer follows still its
\nfixed nature. Our Yoga can succeed only if the external man too changes, but
\nthat is the most difficult of all things. It is only by a change of the physical
\nnature that it can be done, by a descent of the highest light into this lowest
\npart of Nature. It is here that the struggle is going on. The internal being of
\nmost of the Sadhaks here, however imperfect still, is still different from that
\nof the ordinary man, but the external still clings to its old ways, manners,
\nhabits. Many do not seem even to have awakened to the necessity of a change.
\nIt is when this is realised and done, that the Yoga will produce its full
\nresults in the Ashram itself, and not before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

30-4-1934<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 140<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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