Sri Aurobindo: In fact, I do not quite know why these communications should be called “messages”; for they are answers to questions or to letters, and only so much is circulated as is considered apposite or of general interest or use from the point of view of sadhana.  Obviously, curiosity and gossip and wrong imaginations cannot be “helpful to sadhana”. The messages are not meant as food for gossip, but to give the sadhaks indications that can be of use to them in their sadhana. If they misuse them in this way, it is their own loss.


Sri Aurobindo: As for the typed copy, I must defer sanction till I have gone through a copy of the same which is with me. I may say at once, however, that such copies ought ﬁrst to be veriﬁed by comparison with the original in Nolini’s possession, for I ﬁnd that the one with me is full of gross errors.     You are not asked to take any letters written to you.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the collections that were asked for of messages etc. — as it is found that things unauthorised, inaccurate, not mine are often included and afterwards they get copied and end by being circulated even outside the Asram. Also things that are quite private or are not intended to circulate leak out in this way, since some people are unscrupulous in copying (like who took things he was asked not to take). A control and sifting is necessary therefore, so that we may know what there is in these collections.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary to withdraw anything. But those who want to keep these things must keep for themselves and not lend to visitors or newcomers — except by special permission for the messages not exportable. There will be three categories: (1) Letters prior to 1927 and personal letters (not circulated as messages) of any date.  (2) Messages authorised for circulation here or outside.  (These can be freely shown to all newcomers or visitors with a proviso that permission must be given for copying or possession of copies to outsiders interested in this Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: Copies cannot be given to outsiders not interested in this Yoga.)  (3) Messages not authorised for circulation outside. (These can be shown or lent to all resident sadhaks but to visitors only with permission. Copies cannot be issued to outsiders.)  Therefore all who want to have permission to lend their copies must keep separate ﬁles for these categories.


Sri Aurobindo:   Only disciples — those practising Yoga.    I do not quite understand — we do not supply copies of messages. If people want to take copies of the messages that are allowed to be sent outside, they ask for permission.


Sri Aurobindo: Is it that has to take the copy for which we gave permission? If so, you might speak to him about it.  The invisible Force producing tangible results both inward and outward is the whole meaning of the Yogic consciousness. Your question about Yoga bringing merely a feeling of Power without any result was really very strange. Who would be satisﬁed with such a meaningless hallucination and call it Power?


Sri Aurobindo: If we had not had thousands of experiences showing that the Power within could alter the mind, develop its powers, add new ones, bring in new ranges of knowledge, master the vital movements, change the character, inﬂuence men and things, control the conditions and functionings of the body, work as a concrete dynamic Force on other forces, modify events etc. etc., we would not speak of it as we do. Moreover, it is not only in its results but in its movements that the Force is tangible and concrete. When I speak of feeling Force or Power, I do not mean simply having a vague sense of it, but feeling it concretely and consequently being able to direct it, manipulate it, watch its movement, be conscious of its mass and intensity and in the same way of that of other perhaps opposing forces; all these things are possible and usual by the development of Yoga.  It is not, unless it is supramental Force, a Power that acts without conditions and limits. The conditions and limits under which Yoga or sadhana has to be worked out are not arbitrary or capricious; they arise from the nature of things.


Sri Aurobindo: These including the will, receptivity, assent, self-opening and surrender of the sadhak have to be respected by the Yoga-force — unless it receives a sanction from the Supreme to override everything and get something done — but that sanction is sparingly given.  It is only if the supramental Power came fully down, not merely sent its inﬂuences through the Overmind, that things could be very radically altered in this respect — and that is why my main effort is directed towards that object — for then the sanction would not be rare! For the Law of the Truth would be at work not constantly balanced by the law of the Ignorance.  Still the Yoga-force is always tangible and concrete in the way I have described and has tangible results. But it is invisible — not like a blow given or the rush of a motor car knocking somebody down which the physical senses can at once perceive.


Sri Aurobindo: How is the mere physical mind to know that it is there and working? By its results? but how can it know that the results were that of the Yoga-force and not of something else? One of two things it must do. Either it must allow the consciousness to go inside, to become aware of inner things, to believe in and experience the invisible and the supraphysical, and then by experience, by the opening of new capacities it becomes conscious of these forces and can see, follow and use their workings just as the scientist uses the unseen forces of Nature.


Sri Aurobindo: Or one must have faith and watch and open oneself and then it will begin to see how things happen; it will notice that when the Force was called in, there began after a time to be a result, — then repetitions, more repetitions, more clear and tangible results, increasing frequency, increasing consistency of results, a feeling and awareness of the Force at work — until the experience becomes daily, regular, normal, complete. These are the two main methods, one internal, working from in outward, the other external, working from outside and calling the inner Force out till it penetrates and is sensible in the exterior consciousness.  But neither can be done if one insists always on the extrovert attitude, the external concrete only and refuses to join to it the internal concrete — or if the physical Mind at every step raises a dance of doubts which refuses to allow the nascent experience to develop. Even the scientist carrying out a new experiment would never succeed if he allowed his mind to behave in that way.  When the Mother said it was just a trick of reversing the consciousness, she meant that — that instead of allowing always the external mind to interfere and assert its own ordinary customary point of view, it should turn itself round, admit that things may work from in outwards, and keep itself sufﬁciently quiet to see that developing and being done.


Sri Aurobindo: For then an inner mind shows itself which is capable of following and being the instrument of the invisible Forces.  It is not that you are incapable of it, for it was several times on the point of being done. But your external mind has interfered always, questioning, doubting, asking for something more external, not waiting for the movement to continue, for the inward to externalise itself and make itself concrete. That is why I object to this worship of Doubt. It is not that I used not to have doubts myself more formidable than any you have ever thought of — but I did not allow them to interfere with the development of my experience.


Sri Aurobindo: I let it continue until it had sufﬁcient body for me to know what it was and what it could bring me.     Well, I made the mistake of “thinking aloud with my pen” when I wrote that unfortunate sentence about the force I had put for the success of the gramophone records. As my whole action consists of the use of force or forces — except of course my writing answers to correspondence which is concrete; but even that I am made to do by and with a force, otherwise I can


Sri Aurobindo: assure you I would not and could not do it — I sometimes am imprudent enough to make this mistake. It is foolish to do so because a spiritual force or any other is obviously something invisible and its action is invisible, so how can anyone believe in it? Only the results are seen and how is one to know that the results are the result of the Force? It is not concrete.  But I am myself rather puzzled by your instances of the concrete.


Sri Aurobindo: How are the schemes of a schemer concrete? Something happens and you tell me it was the result of a schemer’s scheme. But the schemer’s scheme was a product of his consciousness and not at all concrete; it was in his mind and another fellow’s mind is not concrete to me unless I am a Yogi or a thought-reader. I can only infer from some things he said or did that he had a scheme, things which I have not myself seen or heard and which are therefore not to me concrete. So how can I accept or believe in the scheme of the schemer?


Sri Aurobindo: And even if I saw or heard, I am not bound to believe that it was a scheme or that which happened was the result of a scheme. He may have acted on a chain of impulses and what happened may have been the result of something quite different or itself purely accidental.  Again how do you control the music choir? By words and signs etc., which are of course concrete? But what made you use those words and signs and why did they produce a control?


Sri Aurobindo: and why did the other fellows do what you told them? what made them do that? It was something in your and their consciousness, I suppose; but that is not concrete. Again, scientists talk about electricity which is, it seems, an energy, a force in action and it seems that everything has been done by this energy, my own physical being is constituted by it and it is at the base of all my mental and life energies. But that is not concrete to me.


Sri Aurobindo: I never felt my being constituted by electricity, I cannot feel it working out my thoughts and life-processes — so how can I believe in it or accept it? The force I use is not a sweet blessing — a blessing (silent) certainly is not concrete, like a stone or a kick or other things seizable by the senses; it is not even a mere will saying within me “let it be so” — that also is not concrete.  It is a force of consciousness directed towards or on persons and things and happenings — but obviously a force of consciousness is not seizable by the physical senses, so not concrete. I may feel it and the person acted on may feel it or may not feel it, but as the feeling is internal and not external and perceivable by others, it cannot be called concrete and nobody is bound to accept or believe in it. For instance, if I cure someone (without medicines) of a fever and send him fresh and full of strength to his work, all in the course of a single night, still why should any third person believe or accept that it was my force that did it?


Sri Aurobindo: It may have been Nature or his imagination that made him cure (three cheers for those concrete things, imagination and Nature!) — or the whole thing happened of itself. So, you see the case is hopeless, it can’t be proved at all — at all.    Concrete? what do you mean by “concrete”?


Sri Aurobindo: It has its own concreteness; it can take a form (like a stream for instance) of which one is aware and can send it quite concretely in whatever “direction” or on whatever object one chooses.  That is a general statement about the inherent power of spirituality. What I was speaking of was a willed use of subtle force (it may be spiritual or mental or vital) to secure a particular result at some point in the world. Just as there are waves of unseen physical forces (cosmic waves etc.) or currents of electricity, so there are mind waves, thought currents, waves of emotion, e.g. anger, sorrow etc. which go out and affect others without their knowing whence they come or that they come at all — they only feel the result. One who has the occult or inner senses awake can feel them coming and invading him; inﬂuences good or bad can propagate themselves in that way; that can happen without intention, automatically, but also a deliberate use can be made of them.


Sri Aurobindo: There can also be a purposeful generation of force, spiritual or other. There can be too the use of the effective will or idea, which is not concrete in that sense, but is all the same effective.  The mistake is to think that it must be either a miraculous force or else none. There is no miraculous force and I do not deal in miracles. The word Divine here is out of place, if it is taken as an always omnipotently acting Power.


Sri Aurobindo: Yogic Force is then better; it simply means a higher Consciousness using its power, a spiritual and supraphysical force acting on the physical world directly. One has to train the instrument to be a channel of this force; it works also according to a certain law and under certain conditions. The Divine does not work arbitrarily or as a thaumaturge; He acts upon the world along the lines that have been ﬁxed by the nature and purpose of the world we live in — by an increasing action of the thing that has to manifest, not by a sudden change or disregard of all the conditions of the work to be done. If it were not so, there would be no need of Yoga or time or human action or instruments or of a Master and disciples or of a Descent or anything else. It could simply be a matter for the  [] and nothing more.


Sri Aurobindo: But that would be irrational if you like and worse than irrational, — childish. This does not mean that interventions, things apparently miraculous, do not happen — they do. But all cannot be like that.  What is Sri Aurobindo’s force? It is not a personal property of this body or mind.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a higher Force used by me or acting through me.  Of course it is a Divine Force, for there is only one force acting in the world, but it acts according to the nature of the instrument.  Yogic Force is different from others because it is a special power of the spiritual consciousness.  There was an obvious intervention in the case he speaks of — but the agent or process could only be determined if one knew all the circumstances. Such interventions are frequent; e.g. my uncle’s daughter was at her last gasp, the doctors had gone away telling him there was no more to be done.


Sri Aurobindo: He simply sat down to pray — as soon as he had ﬁnished, the death symptoms were suspended, the girl recovered without farther treatment (it was a case of typhoid fever). Several cases of that kind have come within my personal observation.  I am not very particular about that. It is a personal question and depends on’s feeling. I certainly put force on him for the development and success of his poetry — about the rest I don’t want to say anything.


Sri Aurobindo: I have marginalised on the Force — to write more completely would need more time than I have tonight. Of course, if it depended on a few cases of illness, it would be a thing of no certitude or importance. If the “Force” were a mere freak or miracle, it would be equally trivial and unimportant, even if wellattested. It is only of importance if it is part of the consciousness and the life used at all times, not only for illness but for whatever one has to do. It manifests in various ways — as a strength of the consciousness evenly supporting the life and action, as a power put forth for this or that object of the outward life, as a special Force from above drawn down to raise and increase the scope of the Consciousness and its height and transform it not by a miraculous, but by a serious, steady, organised action following certain deﬁnite lines.


Sri Aurobindo: Its effectiveness as well as its action is determined ﬁrst by its own height and intensity or that of the plane from which it comes (it may be from any plane ranging from the Higher Mind upward to the Overmind), partly by the condition of the objects or the ﬁeld in which it acts, partly by the movement which it has to effect, general or particular. It is neither a magician’s wand nor a child’s bauble, but something one has to observe, understand, develop, master before one can use it aright or else — for few can use it except in a limited manner — be its instrument. This is only a preface.


Sri Aurobindo: What is ? It is out of the silence that all things originated.  All is contained in what you call Shunyam.  Certainly, supramental Force was not the force used in that case, it was mental-spiritual. In such cases the object of the Force has always the right to say No.


Sri Aurobindo: I put the force on him because he said he wanted to change, but his vital refused — as it had the right to do. If nothing in him had asked for the change, I would not have tried it, but simply put another force on him for another purpose.  Of course, but all force is the Divine Force. It is only the egoism of the individual which takes it as his own. He uses it, but it is not his.


Sri Aurobindo: Of course not — all the activities cannot be that. It is only in the Yoga realisation that one feels all one’s activities to be from the one source — something from above or the Yogashakti or the Guru Shakti or the Cosmic Force or whatever it may be (all names for the same thing in different formations) driving the whole consciousness and being.  What is one’s own energy after all? You mean Nature’s energy in you? It may, in new conditions, remain extant in some things, develop in others, fail or change in others.


Sri Aurobindo: One can’t make a rule.  That kind of change happens.  Of course he can.  No, but there are many sides or aspects to a question.  Perhaps in some weeks or some months or some centuries the chapter may follow!


Sri Aurobindo: But I used the word preface to characterise the nature of what I had written, not in a prophetic sense.  There are two things — Yoga-Force in its original totality which is that of the Divine spiritual force, always potentially allpowerful, and Yoga-Force doing its work under the conditions of the evolutionary world here.  It is not a question of “can” or “cannot” at all. All is possible, but all is not licit — except by a recognisable process;  the Divine Power itself imposes on its action limits, processes, obstacles, vicissitudes.


Sri Aurobindo: It is possible that an ass may be changed into an elephant, but it is not done, at least physically, because of the lack of a process. Psychologically such changes do take place. I have myself in my time changed cowards into heroes and that can be done even without Yogashakti, merely by an inner force. How can you say what is latent in man or what is incurably absent? I have developed many things by Yoga, often even without any will or effort to do so, which were not in my original nature, I may even say that I have transformed my whole nature and it is in many respects the opposite of what I began with.


Sri Aurobindo: There can be no question about the power to change, to develop, to awaken faculties that were not there before; this power exists already, but it can be raised to an acme by being lifted to the spiritual plane.  The force put on the gentleman you speak of at least made it necessary for him to change if he remained here. He had no will in the vital to change and so did not remain here but went to his fate.  The rest is for the indeﬁnable future. One day I shall certainly try to explain methodically and by examples what the spiritual force is; how it has worked on the earth-plane, how it acts and under what conditions — conditions not rigidly ﬁxed, but plastic and mutable.


Sri Aurobindo: I mean simply a certain receptivity in the consciousness — mind, vital, physical, whichever is needed. The Mother or myself send a force. If there is no openness, the force may be thrown back or return (unless we put a great force which it is not always advisable to do) as from an obstruction or resistance: if there is some openness, the result may be partial or slow; if there is the full openness or receptivity, then the result may be immediate.  Of course there are things that cannot be removed all at once, being an old part of the nature, but with receptivity these also can be more effectively and rapidly dealt with. Some people are so open that even by writing they get free before the book or letter reaches us.


Sri Aurobindo:  It does not follow. Another man may have the knowledge but receive nothing. If he receives, his knowledge and capacity help the Force to work out the details.   Not in this life.


Sri Aurobindo: May I ask why? Your idea is that either I must inspire him speciﬁcally in every detail, making a mere automaton of him, or, if I don’t do that, I can do nothing with him? What is this stupid mechanical notion of things?  Because you have the damnably false idea that nothing can be done in the world except by mental means — that Force must necessarily be a mental Force and can’t be anything else.  Why the devil should He will like that in all cases? . . .


Sri Aurobindo: As to Force let me point out a few elementary notions which you ignore.  (1) The Force is a divine Force, so obviously it can apply itself in any direction; it can inspire the poet, set in motion the soldier, doctor, scientist, everybody.  (2) The Force is not a mental Force — it is not bound to go out from the Communicator with every detail mentally arranged, precise in its place, and communicate it mentally to the Recipient. It can go out as a global Force containing in itself the thing to be done, but working out the details in the Recipient and the action as the action progresses. It is not necessary for the Communicant to accompany mentally the Force, plant himself mentally in the mind of the Recipient and work out mentally there the details.


Sri Aurobindo: He can send the Force or put on the Force, leave it to do its work and attend himself to other matters. In the world most things are worked out by such a global Force containing the results in itself, but involved, concealed and working them out in a subsequent operation. The seed contains the whole potentiality of the tree, the gene contains the potentiality of the living form that it initiates, etc. etc., but if you examine the seed and gene ad inﬁnitum, still you will not ﬁnd there either the tree or the living being. All the same the Force has put all these potentialities there in a certain evolution which works itself out automatically.  (3) In the case of a man acting as an instrument of the Force the action is more complicated, because consciously or unconsciously the man must receive, also he must be able to work out what the Force puts through him.


Sri Aurobindo: He is a living complex instrument, not a simple machine. So if he has responsiveness, capacity, etc. he can work out the Force perfectly, if not he does it imperfectly or frustrates it. That is why we speak of and insist on the perfectioning of the instrument. Otherwise there would be no need of sadhana or anything else — any fellow would do for any blessed work and one would simply have to ram things into him and see them coming out in action.  (4) The Communicant need not be an all-round many-sided Encyclopaedia in order to communicate the Force for various purposes.


Sri Aurobindo: If we want to help a lawyer to succeed in a case, we need not be perfect lawyers ourselves knowing all law, Roman, English or Indian and supply him all his arguments, questions, etc., doing consciously and mentally through him his whole examinations, cross-examinations and pleading. Such a process would be absurdly cumbrous, incompetent and wasteful. The prearrangement of the eventual result and the capacity for making him work his instruments in the right way and for arranging events also so as to aid towards the result are put into the Force when it goes to him, they are therefore inherent in its action and the rest is a question of his own receptivity, experience etc. Naturally the best instrument even is imperfect (unless he is a perfected Adhar) and mistakes may be committed, other suggestions accepted etc. etc., but if the instrument is sufﬁciently open, the Force can set the thing to rights and the result still comes. In some or many cases the Force has to be renewed from time to time or supported by fresh Force.


Sri Aurobindo: In some directions particular details have to be consciously attended to by the Communicant. All that depends on circumstances too multitudinous and variable to be reduced to rule. There are general lines, in these matters, but no rules, the working of a non-mental Force has necessarily to be plastic, not rigid and tied to formulas. If you want to reduce things to patterns and formulas, you will necessarily fail to understand the workings of a spiritual (non-mental) Force.  (5) All that I say here refers to spiritual Force.


Sri Aurobindo: I am not speaking of the Supramental.  (6) Also please note that this is all about the working of Force on or through people: it has nothing to do with intuition which is quite another matter. Also it does not preclude always and altogether a plenary and detailed inspiration from a Communicant to a recipient — such things happen, but it is not necessary to proceed in that way, nor below the Supermind or supramentalised Overmind can it be the ordinary process.


Sri Aurobindo: Don’t remember what exactly I wrote — so can’t say very well.  But of course there can be a wrong Force. There are Asuric Forces, rajasic Forces, all sorts of Forces. Apart from that one can use a mental or vital Force which may not be the right thing.  Or one may use the Force in such a way that it does not succeed or does not hit the General on the head or is not commensurate with the opposing Forces — (opposing Forces need not be Asuric, they may be quite gentlemanly Forces thinking they are in the right.


Sri Aurobindo: Or two Divine Forces might knock at each other for the fun of the thing. Inﬁnite possibilities, sir, in the play of the Forces.)  What is a mistake? Eventually the Force used is always the Force that was destined to be used. If it succeeds, it does its work in the whole and if it fails, it has also done its work in the whole.


Sri Aurobindo: In what way? A Force may be applied without any intuition  — an intuition can come without any close connection with a Force, except the force of intuition itself which is another matter.


Sri Aurobindo: Moreover a Force may be applied from a higher plane than that of any Intuition.  Again who is Shiva? and who is Krishna? and what is an Ishta Devata? There is only one Divine, not a thousand Divines.


Sri Aurobindo: Why my ears? Ears are not necessary for the purpose. You might just as well say, reaches me by the post.  That has nothing to do with it. Besides it is not the Divine Rule on earth that I am after, but the supramental rule.


Sri Aurobindo: This however has nothing to do with any supramental or Divine Rule on earth.  It is only a general question of the response of the Divine and to the Divine.  I do not ask you to believe that the Divine Grace comes to all or that all can succeed in the sadhana or that I personally have succeeded or will succeed in the case of all who come to me. I have asked you if you cannot develop the faith that the Divine is — you seemed often to doubt it, — that the Divine Grace is and has manifested both elsewhere and here, that the sadhana by which so many proﬁt is not a falsehood or a chimaera and that I have helped many and am not utterly powerless — otherwise how could so many progress under our inﬂuence? If this is ﬁrst established, then the doubt and denial, the refusal of faith boils itself down to a refusal of faith in your own spiritual destiny and that of and some others — does it not?


Sri Aurobindo: I have never told you that the power that works here is absolute at present; I have on the contrary told you that I am trying to make it absolute and it is for that that I want the Supermind to intervene. But to say that because it is not absolute therefore it does not exist, seems to me a logical inconsequence.  There remains your personal case and you may very well tell me “What does it matter to me if these things are true when they are not true to me, true in my own experience?” But it does make a difference that they are true in themselves. For if your personal want of experience is held as proving that it is all moonshine, then all is ﬁnished — there is no hope for you or me or anybody.


Sri Aurobindo: If on the other hand these things are true but not yet realised by you, then there is hope, a possibility at least. From the point of view of reason you may be right in thinking that because you have not realised yet, you can never realise — though it does not seem to me an inevitable conclusion. From the same point of view I also may be right in concluding from my experience and that of other Yogis that there is no such inevitability and that with the persistent aspiration in you and the vairagya we have the conditions for a realisation that must come — sooner, for there are sudden liberations, or later.  One can’t make a rule like that. There is nothing more variable than the way the Force acts.


Sri Aurobindo: The Force must come down, though probably it will do so by stages. The will has to invite it if not draw it. Also the Force has to be used, that is, something of it directed by the will against the obstacles. This training of the will to act in the Yogic way is very important as a stage in the sadhana.  The statement made to was not quite correct; it is putting things in too physical a form.


Sri Aurobindo: A spiritual and occult working supplies forces and can watch over the members of the execution of a world event; but to put it like that makes the actual workers too much of automata which they are not.     Certainly, my force is not limited to the Asram and its conditions. As you know it is being largely used for helping the right development of the war and of change in the human world.


Sri Aurobindo: It is also used for individual purposes outside the scope of the Asram and the practice of Yoga; but that, of course, is silently done and mainly by a spiritual action. The Asram however remains at the centre of the work and without the practice of Yoga the work would not exist and could not have any meaning or fruition.  But in the Yoga itself there are different ways of proceeding for different natures, even though the general path is the same, surrender to the Divine and change of nature. But surrender to the Divine in the completest sense cannot be achieved in a short time, nor can the change of the nature. On the whole, one has to go as quickly as one can and as slowly as is necessary — which seems contradictory but is not.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a pity that could not write all this time. Formerly when she wrote often she used to get better after writing. It is also a pity that she has been told by the doctors that she is not going to live; even if it is true, such a thing should not be told unless in case of necessity (which does not exist in her case), for it takes away much of the power of resistance and diminishes what chances of cure and survival there were. ’s physical destiny has always been against her but this is a thing that be cancelled if one can have sufﬁcient faith and inner strength and openness and receive the spiritual force.


Sri Aurobindo: Perhaps I might say a word about Ramakrishna’s attitude with regard to the body. He seems always to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise it for preserving the body or curing its ailments or taking care for it. Other Yogis — I do not speak of those who think it justiﬁable to develop Yogic siddhis, but of those who think that that should be avoided — have not had this complete disregard of the body: they have taken care to maintain it in good health and condition as an instrument or a physical basis for their development in Yoga. I have always been in agreement with this view: moreover, I have never had any hesitation in the use of a spiritual force for all legitimate purposes including the maintenance of health and physical life in myself and in others — that is indeed why the Mother has given ﬂowers, not only as a blessing but as a help in illness. I put a value on the body ﬁrst as an instrument,, or, more fully, as a centre of manifested personality in action, a basis of spiritual life and activity as of all life and activity upon the earth, but also because for me the body as well as the mind and life is a part of the divine whole, a form of the Spirit and therefore not to be disregarded or despised as something incurably gross and incapable of spiritual realisation or of spiritual use.


Sri Aurobindo: Matter itself is secretly a form of the Spirit and has to reveal itself as that, can be made to wake to consciousness and evolve and realise the Spirit, the Divine within it. In my view the body as well as the mind and life has to be spiritualised or, one may say, divinised so as to be a ﬁt instrument and receptacle for the realisation and manifestation of the Divine. It has its part in the divine Lila, even, according to the Vaishnava sadhana, in the joy and beauty of Divine Love. That does not mean that the body has to be valued for its own separate sake or that the creation of a divine body in a future evolution of the whole being has to be contemplated as an end and not a means — that would be a serious error which would not be admissible. In any case, my speculations about an extreme form of divinisation are something in a far distance and are no part of the preoccupations of the spiritual life in the near future.


Sri Aurobindo: It was not the Divine Grace but the Divine Force. If it had been the Grace, it would simply have said  [] and the thing would be done. As it is, last night I had to work a damned lot for this result — I only hope it will last and complete itself.    I did not expect you to take my  with such grim seriousness.


Sri Aurobindo: Speaking semi-seriously, I am not here to do miracles to order, but to try to get in a new consciousness somewhere in the world — which is itself however to attempt a miracle. If physical miracles happen to tumble in in the process, well and good, but you can’t present your medical pistol in my face and call on me to stand and deliver. As for the Force, application of my force, short of the supramental, means always a struggle of forces and the success depends on (1) the strength and persistency of the force put out, (2) the receptivity of the subject, (3) the sanction of the Unmentionable — I beg your pardon, I meant the Unnameable, Ineffable, Unknowable. ’s physical consciousness is rather obstinate, as you have noticed, and therefore not too receptive. It may feel the Mother inside it, but to obey her will or force is less habitual for it.


Sri Aurobindo:   If things were like that, why the deuce should we have Doctors or a dispensary at all? And what would have been the use of your 20,000? We don’t propose to do the whole business of the inside and outside off our own bat.


Sri Aurobindo: You are as necessary for this as for the building or others for their work.  Who told you we are acting from supramental consciousness?  We are not and cannot until the confounded quarrel with Matter is settled.    I am not speaking of the sadhaks, but the resistance of the Earth nature itself in its material parts.


Sri Aurobindo: But these are things you people cannot understand unless you have less childlike notions about things.   Rubbish! This is a world of the play of forces, sir, and the Doctor is a force. So why should not the Divine use him?


Sri Aurobindo: Have you realised that if the Divine did everything, there would be no world, only a show of marionettes?  As for the Force, I shall write some other time. I have told you that it is not always efﬁcacious, but works under conditions like all forces; it is only the supramental Force that works absolutely, because it creates its own conditions. But the Force I am using is a Force that has to work under the present world conditions. It is not the less a Force for that.


Sri Aurobindo: I have cured myself of all illnesses except three by it and those too when they come I have kept in check; the fact that I have not succeeded yet in eliminating the fact or probability of those three does not cancel the fact of my success with the others. As for the Mother, she used formerly to cure everything at once by the same Power — now she has no time to think about her body or to concentrate on it. Even so when she makes a certain inner concentration she can see, read etc. perfectly well without glasses, but she has no time to work out the possibility which that shows. The prevalence of illness just now is a fact; it is part of the struggle that is going on in the domain of Matter. But even so there are plenty of people in the Asram who get rid of their ills by reliance on the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: If all cannot do it, what does that prove or disprove? It only proves that the Power does not work absolutely, miraculously, impossibly, but it works by certain given means and under conditions.  I have always said that, so what is there in that that is new or that annihilates the truth of the Yoga?    I shall see also whether I can explain what I mean by Force (the one which I refer to being neither supramental nor omnipotent nor guaranteed to work like Beecham’s pills in every case) and how it acts and in what conditions.


Sri Aurobindo: I have tried it in hundreds of cases besides’s (on my own body ﬁrst and always) and I have no doubt of its reality or efﬁcacy under these conditions.  However, of that on some later date.    A successful cure of’s mother would be certainly a considerable achievement, and though difﬁcult owing to the tenacity and malignance and extreme intractability of the disease, it is not impossible. What you say is true, the Force was acting before, but it acted with immediate rapidity and completeness only with those who had sufﬁcient faith and receptivity (mainly sadhaks) or in other good conditions.


Sri Aurobindo: These cases seem to indicate a new power of the Force and a new technique. Your idea that it may spread and happen elsewhere is not without foundation; for, when once something is there in the earth-atmosphere that was not there before, it begins to work on many sides in an unforeseen way. Thus since the Yoga has been in action, its particular opening movements have come to a number of people who were at a distance and not connected with us and who understood nothing of what was happening to them. These things are to be expected for Nature is still in evolution and new Lights and Powers have to be brought down in her and made part of the conscious earth-existence.


Sri Aurobindo: There has been no negligence on our part in putting the force for’s change — the Mother has been doing that daily; nor is the trouble she has contracted one for which we are in any way responsible — it is not imposed as an ordeal or anything else. If there is so obstinate a persistence of her attachment and the demands it makes, it is because there is in her own vital a resistance to the Force that would remove it. If there were the complete consent in the being for giving it up (not only mental wish or prayer, however strong), it could not possibly last — at any rate in this form, — only at most for a time in fragments of the old habit. There is in her vital a certain violence of temperament — I do not mean merely a tendency to violence of speech or act, but an exaggerated intensity in the feelings and vital reactions, and this is the source of the trouble. For it is this that when asked to give up the claim and attachment, has reacted vehemently calling in an outside Force to support its resistance.


Sri Aurobindo: When this rises, her mind also begins to justify the claim and demand, her vital feels very hurt and angry with the Mother because she does not support it. All that is proof of a very familiar kind of resistance which refuses to yield to the mind’s will or the soul’s aspiration. It is like that in; it is so in many others here.  The Divine Force does not act now in an omnipotent ease regardless of conditions — it might do that if it were the pure supramental Force in its native action; but that is not yet. Here conditions have been created and it acts under those conditions.


Sri Aurobindo: You speak of the Force acting in the case of the illnesses you have treated. No doubt, but here too it is under conditions — only, favourable conditions. For you believe and are conscious of the Force, your whole will is to cure, the patient’s will is to get well — the more he assents to the treatment, the more quickly the Force acts — the one obstacle is the force of the illness itself and the patient’s habitual subjection to it. But with everything else against it, that does not succeed in remaining. It is quite otherwise in these things where the consent of the being is far from being complete, where the mind often consents to and justiﬁes the illness when it comes, even takes strongly sides with it, where the vital is there with its revolt and clamour and tempest.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only if the sadhak’s resolution is ﬁrm and oneminded, not to assent to the attack when it comes, to refuse all mental justiﬁcation of it, to detach himself from the vital movement in the very time of its action that the liberation can be done with the clarity and ease which you desire.  Otherwise, the only thing to be done is to keep up the pressure of the force quiet and strong and persistent until it gets into the vital itself and makes it reject its own movement. For that you must help by getting rid of the violence and impatience in your own nature and being yourself patient, ﬁrm and persistent.  You are here to change your nature and the difﬁculty is no reason for throwing up the spiritual endeavour. All this talk of going away cannot help — it would be of no advantage to yourself or to in any way — any more than her talk of going has any sense or is in any way reasonable.


Sri Aurobindo: Keep ﬁrmly to your object, develop that calm and force in the vital as well as the mind which are the basis of the spiritual life. That will help more in getting’s morbid rushes of excitement to subside and the control to come in her also.     No need to give up your faith, for it is faith that gets things done and even makes the impossible possible.


Sri Aurobindo: But it has to be kept when even there is no immediate result. In the physical care of a patient also there are adverse periods when the resistance is great and obstinate and there seems to be more swinging back than going forwards or a persistent recurrence of the trouble.  Faith persisting and the call bring down after a time sufﬁcient Force to overcome the obstacle.  I have not yet written about the Force because it is too complex to be adequately stated in a short space and I had no time these days for anything long. Anyhow, the clue is that the Force does not act in a void and in an absolute way, like a writing on a blank paper or in the air, the “Let there be light and there was light” formula.


Sri Aurobindo: It comes as a Force intervening and acting on a very complex nexus of forces that were in action and displacing their disposition and interrelated movement and natural result by a new disposition, movement and result. It meets in so doing a certain opposition, very often a strong opposition from many of the forces already in possession and operation. To overcome it three factors are needed, the power of the Force itself, i.e. its own sheer pressure and direct action on the ﬁeld of action (here the man, his condition, his body), the instrument (yourself) and the instrumentation (treatment, medicine). I have often used the Force alone without any human instrument or outer means, but here all depends on the recipient and his receptivity — unless as in the case of many healers there are unseen beings or powers that assist. If there is an instrument in direct touch with the patient, whether the doctor or one who can canalise the force, then the action is immensely assisted, — how much depends on the instrument, his faith, his energy, his conveying power.


Sri Aurobindo: Where there is a violent opposition, this is frequently not enough or at least not enough for a rapid or total effect, the instrumentation (treatment or medicine) is needed. It is especially where the resistance of the body or the forces acting on the body-consciousness is strong that the medicine comes in as an aid. But if the doctor is non-psychic or the medicine the wrong one or the treatment unplastic, then they become an added resistance which the Force has to overcome. This is a very summary and inadequate statement, but it gives the main points, I believe.


Sri Aurobindo: P.S. I forgot to say that the surroundings, especially the people around the patient, the atmosphere, the suggestions it carries or they give to him, are often of a considerable importance.  It can if you can train it to act in that ﬁeld and if you can make it the real Intuition which sees the things without ranging among potentialities.  As for me, I have no medico in me, not even a latent medico. If I had, I would not need an external one but diagnose, prescribe and cure all by my solitary self.


Sri Aurobindo: My role in a medical case is to use the force either with or without medicines. There are three ways of doing that — one by putting the Force without knowing or caring what the illness is or following the symptoms — that however needs either the mental collaboration or quiescence of the victim. The second is symptomatic, to follow the symptoms and act on them even if one is not sure of the disease. There an accurate report is very useful. The third needs a diagnosis — that is usually where the anti-forces are very strong and conscious or where the patient himself answers strongly to the suggestions of the illness and unwittingly resists the action of the Force.


Sri Aurobindo: This last is usually indicated by the fact that the thing gets cured and comes back again or improves and swings back again to worse. It is especially the great difﬁculty in cases of insanity and the like. Also in things where the nerves have a say — but in ordinary illnesses too.    Yes, certainly — just as you go by the symptoms of a case as seen by you and as related by the patient.


Sri Aurobindo: Previously? My God, we would have to spend all our time prevising the sadhaks’ experiences. Do you think Mother has nothing else to do? As for myself, I never previse anything, I only vise and revise. All that Mother prevised was that there was something not right in, some part of him at odds with his aspiration.


Sri Aurobindo: That might lead to trouble. That is why, , I want him to ﬁnd out what part of him didn’t want the descent.  We do not believe in taking too many medicines. One or two effective ones and the Force are better than disturbing the system by 101.


Sri Aurobindo: The use of medicines is permissible, if it is necessitated by an insufﬁcient responsiveness in the body or if the faith itself is of a mixed and insufﬁcient character — i.e. if the mind or vital as well as the body feel uneasy in the presence of illness. It is consistent with faith when it is used only as a physical support to the action of the Force, not as a substitute.  To dose oneself with many medicines or to use strong medicines in ordinary cases or to use them when an opening to the Force or an exercise of the inner Will is sufﬁcient, is excessive. For a system not accustomed to curing itself the use of mild medicines in just sufﬁcient quantity can be quite effective and that is all that is needed.


Sri Aurobindo:   It so happens very often, but there is still an element of uncertainty in the relation of the amount of force put out and the reaction of the patient that allows a considerable in the results as the French puts it.     Not necessarily, but if there is a strong force of resistance behind the illness or if there is something hiding there it may come out under the pressure.


Sri Aurobindo: This is not however the invariable rule. Often the result of the force is immediate and without reactions or there is an oscillation, but no aggravation or increase.     I have of course been forcing furiously for the last 3 days.


Sri Aurobindo: But is it not the medicine that deserves the credit?    I see. The previous unreceptivity had led me to think that it was the medicine which made the difference. I will go on with the pressure of the Force.


Sri Aurobindo: But it needs an unwavering, strong pressure to produce appreciable results in this respect and it is not easy to keep it up. If I had nothing else to do, it would be easy, but my day is full with all kinds of things. However I will try to keep up the continuity — don’t want this fellow to peter out on our hands.    Mm!


Sri Aurobindo: Cromwell said “Trust in God and keep your powder dry!”   a remarkable medium, but he is more successful with people outside than with the sadhaks — (not that he has not succeeded with many of them also). For this there are two reasons. People outside are impressed by his apparently miraculous cure and believe implicitly and follow his treatment — the sadhaks question and dispute it; this mental opposition has a reaction upon the result of the treatment (e.g. told me there had been a great improvement in’s illness, denied that there had been any visible or undoubted improvement, yet today Dr. told the Mother that he was amazed by the improvement, he had not thought such a thing possible, but now he knew because he had seen it.) The other reason is that sadhaks ought not to need an intermediary between themselves and the Mother — their bodies as well as their minds ought by this time to have become sufﬁciently receptive for that — outside people do need a medium, for they cannot be expected to have the same receptivity.


Sri Aurobindo:  Because you are tied in your own system and do not understand that Nature is not so rigid as your mental ideas.   Is it not the very principle of homeopathy that it cures the disease by curing the symptoms? I have always heard so. Do you deny that homeopaths acting on their own system, not on yours, have cured illnesses?


Sri Aurobindo: If they have, is it not more logical to suppose that there is something in their system than to proclaim the sacrosanct infallibility of the sole allopathic system and its principle? For that matter I myself cure more often by attacking the symptoms than by any other way, because medical diagnosis is uncertain and fallible while the symptoms are there for everybody to see. Of course if a correct indisputable diagnosis is there, so much the better — the view can be more complete, the action easier, the result more sure. But even without infallible diagnosis one can act and get a cure.


Sri Aurobindo:   Exact? How can one measure exactly where vital and mental and spiritual factors come in? In dealing with a star and atom you may (though it appears you can’t with an electron), but not with a man and his living mind, soul and body.


Sri Aurobindo: Why can’t it? There is a possibility that you can strike at the cause, whatever it be, through the symptoms and you can kill the root through the stalk and leaves and not start by searching for the roots and digging them out. That at any rate is what I do.


Sri Aurobindo: Certainly there are — the universe is not shut up in the four walls of allopathic medicine. There are plenty of cases of illnesses being cured by other systems (not homeopathy alone) when they had deﬁed the allopaths. My experience is not wide but I have come across a good number of such cases.


Sri Aurobindo: Well, I have followed that system with myself and others and gone on the basis that Nature is very largely what you make of her — or can make of her.     The Force needs an instrument and an instrumentation also sometimes. The instrument was, the instrumentation partly at least his drugs.


Sri Aurobindo: I don’t believe in the story of the inefﬁciency of homeopathic drugs only because they are homeopathic. Also, I don’t believe that knows nothing about them and can’t properly apply them. I have noted almost constantly that they have a surprising effect, sometimes instantaneous, sometimes rapid, and this not on’s evidence alone, but in the statement of his patients and the visible results. Not being an allopathic doctor, I can’t ignore a fact like that.  Tumour, syphilis etc. are specialities, but what I have found in my psycho-physical experience is that most disorders of the body are connected, though they go by families, — but there is also connection between the families.


Sri Aurobindo: If one can strike at their psycho-physical root, one can cure even without knowing the pathological whole of the matter and working through the symptoms as a possibility. Some medicines invented by demimystics have the power. What I am now considering is whether homeopathy has any psycho-physical basis. Was the founder a demi-mystic? I don’t understand otherwise certain peculiarities of the way’s medicines act.


Sri Aurobindo: Good heavens! It happened in scores and scores of cases when there was the appendicitis mania among doctors in France — and they have other manias also.  Sporadic cases! I have heard of any number of them, they are as plentiful as blackberries in Europe. And as for difference of diagnosis it is almost the rule except when doctors consult together and give concessions to each other.


Sri Aurobindo: Don’t try to throw allopathic dust in my eyes, sir! I have lived a fairly long time and seen something of the world before my retirement and much more after it.     I suppose it is as much the man and the force working through him as the medicine that makes the difference.


Sri Aurobindo: I doubt if the medicine by itself could do so much.    The Mother and I have no preference for allopathy; the Mother thinks doctors very usually make things worse instead of better, spoiling Nature’s resistance to illness by excessive and illdirected use of their medicines. We have been able to work through’s homeopathy far better than through anything else — though it is likely that the Force working through homeopaths who were not conscious instruments might not have succeeded better than with the allopaths.


Sri Aurobindo: How then was left for days under the impression that there was nothing the matter in this respect? If you want his treatment to succeed you must inform him from day to day accurately, without suppression or exaggeration of all the symptoms happening. This treatment is a system which deals with the symptoms as they come from day to day and shapes itself accordingly.   In every case in which succeeded “markedly” daily reports of the utmost fullness were given.


Sri Aurobindo: Apart from that, in a case like yours of long duration immediate miraculous results cannot be expected. I told you that you must stick patiently to the treatment for a long time, if you wanted a radical cure.    You may say what you like about the homeopathic theories, but I have seen work them out detail by detail in cases where he had free and unhampered action and the conﬁdence of the patients and their strict obedience and have seen the results correspond to his statements and his predictions based on them fulﬁlled not only to the very letter but according to the exact times ﬁxed, not according to’s reports but according to the daily long detailed and precise reports of the allopathic doctor in attendance. After that I refuse to believe, even if all the allopaths in the world shout it in unison, that homeopathic theory or’s interpretation and application of it are mere rubbish and nonsense.


Sri Aurobindo: As to mistakes all doctors make mistakes and very bad ones and kill as well as cure — my grandfather and one of my cousins were patently killed by one of the biggest doctors in Bengal. One theory is as good as another and as bad according to the application made of it in any particular case. But it is something else behind that decides the issue.  To bring out the latent illness and counteract it is a recognised principle in homeopathy and is a principle in Nature itself. He misapplied it here because he was in ignorance of the full facts about the menstrual trouble.


Sri Aurobindo:   What has the Supermind to do here? Who told you that I was using the supramental Force? I have said all along that it was not the supramental Force that was acting. If you want the supramental Force, you had better go to Jogesh Mama of Chittagong.


Sri Aurobindo: I hear from Chittagong that the supramental Force is descending in him.  I have put down a few comments to throw cold water on all this blazing hot allopathism. But all these furious disputes seem to me now of little use. I have seen the working of both systems and of others and I cannot believe in the sole truth of any.  The ones damnable in the orthodox view, entirely contradicting it, have their own truth and succeed — also both the orthodox and heterodox fail.


Sri Aurobindo: A theory is only a constructed idea-script which represents an imperfect human observation of a line of processes that Nature follows or can follow; another theory is a different idea-script of other processes that also she follows or can follow. Allopathy, homeopathy, naturopathy, osteopathy, Kaviraji, hakimi have all caught hold of Nature and subjected her to certain processes; each has its successes and failures. Let each do its own work in its own way. I do not see any need for ﬁghts and recriminations. For me all are only outward means and what really works are unseen forces behind; as they act, the outer means succeed or fail — if one can make the process a right channel for the right force, then the process gets its full utility — that is all.


Sri Aurobindo: If it is pale blue, it may be my colour. Pale lavender blue, pale blue but very brilliant in its own shade.


Sri Aurobindo: It varies according to the circumstances. Why should it be always the same?    It is the basic light Sri Aurobindo manifests.


Sri Aurobindo:   Sri Aurobindo’s light is not a light of the illumined mind — it is the divine Illumination which may act on any plane.     The different blues mean different forces (the real blue has nothing to do with poison).


Sri Aurobindo: The whitish blue is specially called my light — but it does not mean that that alone can come from me.     There are many blues and it is difﬁcult to say which these are.  Usually deeper blue is higher Mind, a paler blue Illumined Mind — whitish blue Sri Krishna’s light (also called Sri Aurobindo’s light).


Sri Aurobindo:   It depends on the shade of the blue. Ordinary pale blue is usually the light of the illumined Mind or something of the Intuition.  Whitish blue is Sri Aurobindo’s light or Krishna’s light.


Sri Aurobindo: It can always come if you aspire patiently. But the basic condition, if you want that Light, is to get rid of all other mental inﬂuences.    It is not a question of reading books or learning facts. When a woman loves or admires, her mind is instinctively moulded by the one she loves or admires, and this inﬂuence can last after the feeling itself has gone or appears to be gone.


Sri Aurobindo: This does not refer to’s inﬂuence merely. It is a general rule given to keep yourself from any other admiration or inﬂuence.  The Sadhaks may themselves bring this light by approaching me through the photo.  When the meditation is done with the photo, it is better done with open eyes.  There was a movement in the vital plane and you opened to an inner vision of it.


Sri Aurobindo:  It indicates perhaps the bringing of the Divine Consciousness down from level to level till it is now nearer the material.    It is the sign of the manifestation.  Yes.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes.    The green light is that of a dynamic vital energy (of work). As I was writing — at work — it is natural that that light should be behind my head.


Sri Aurobindo:   That was very good!  It looks like it. At any rate there is evidently an opening in the heart-centre or you would not have had the change or the vision with the stilling of the physical consciousness in the body.


Sri Aurobindo: No. It is not likely. It is probably some subtle physical form — the one corresponding to the Shiva element in me. I have seen myself like that sometimes and it was always the Shiva formation.  I suppose, the present Sri Aurobindo having left all engineering work to the Mother, the previous Sri Aurobindo had to come to do it in this case.


Sri Aurobindo: Anyhow what has it to do with coming out?  Any number of people meet me in dreams and get instructions or intimations about this or that. It is an activity of the vital plane where I am not in strict retirement — it has nothing to do with any future physical happening.    Yes, if the record is correct.


Sri Aurobindo: Write that usually Sri Aurobindo sees on these days only his disciples, whether those residing in the Asram or those who come to him from outside, and a few others who are either connected in some way with the Asram, its work or its members or else are given permission for special reasons. Permission is not given to all who would like to come, as that would mean an impossible number and it would besides entirely break the principle of Sri Aurobindo’s retirement.    You can write to him that he can have permission for himself and his wife — but for the children it depends on their age, whether they are young children under ten or not — young children are not allowed for darshan.


Sri Aurobindo:   Nobody should ever be to come for Darshan or Pranam or meditation. If somebody spontaneously asks, it is another matter. Here too as a rule, there should be no eagerness that they should come. Encouragement should be given only in those cases where there is a good or special reason for it.


Sri Aurobindo: The number of people coming especially in the August darshan, when the Pondicherry people also come, is already very large and we are kept for 7 or 8 hours at a stretch receiving them, so it is not advisable to go on increasing the numbers under the present circumstances. If a man is especially deserving or likely to be a helper or sympathiser of the Asram or there is any other reason for encouraging him, then of course this general rule does not apply.    Tell him it is not necessary. Transformation comes only by inner sadhana and development.


Sri Aurobindo: A darshan can at best only give some strong experience.  But he has the root experience already in the descent of the Light in the state of blankness. The Light is the Divine Light from the plane of spiritual consciousness above. The supramental comes only at the end of a long sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   But who is he? New persons are, as far as possible, refused for November — unknown persons not recommended by someone known are usually not permitted at all.   The most we can concede is that she may be brought for Darshan in the way proposed, but she must simply take the blessing and pass, there must be no lingering. It is a mistake to bring sick people or the insane to the Darshan for cure — the Darshan is not meant for that.


Sri Aurobindo: If anything is to be done or can be done for them, it can be done at a distance. The Force that acts at the time of Darshan is of another kind and one deranged or feeble in mind cannot receive or cannot assimilate it — it may produce a contrary effect owing to this incapacity if received at all. If the force is withheld, the Darshan is useless, if received by such people it is unsafe. It is similar reasons which dictate the rule forbidding children of tender years to be brought to the Darshan.  There is no obligation on European visitors to make the pranam [] — very few have done so, none perhaps.


Sri Aurobindo: Even from those who have stayed here, it was not asked — they were left free to abstain unless they asked for it — e.g.,, and.   must not get the impression that we exact it from anybody.  I do not know whether a mere “look” at us will help him — it is only in some cases that that happens, and these usually when there was a previous disposition or habit of response to supraphysical Light or Power as in the case of. These days have been arranged with a view ﬁrst to their main object, viz. for myself to give the darshan and blessing to the disciples, and the form of it is designed for that — visitors ﬁrst came in as a superﬂuity, though now except in November they are more than half the crowd. But as they are mostly Indians accustomed to this form of the spiritual contact and aware of its meaning, it does not usually matter.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only when a European comes that this difﬁculty arises — but it need not be any as he is not asked to make the pranam.  As for the rest, there is nothing much to say. The distance between the man and the Power manifesting through him is not an idea that can trouble the eastern mind, to which the gulf does not exist, but it is natural to the modern intelligence.   It is not possible to make separate pranams. There are nearly 700 people this time, and if all is not rapidly done we shall have to be there till the afternoon 2.30 or 3.


Sri Aurobindo: Even one minute for each means 6 hours for the ﬁrst 350.  That is the right attitude. Every day should be regarded as a day when a descent may take place or a contact established with the higher consciousness. Then the 15th itself would be more successful.


Sri Aurobindo: As to the 15th August, well, don’t lay too much stress on it which is after all more a general than a personal occasion — for the individual any day in the year may be the 15th — that is, birthday or a birthday of something in the inner being. It is with that feeling that one should do the sadhana.  If I went out once a month, the effect of my going out would be diminished by one third.    There is no reason to be discouraged by what you call the evaporation of the consciousness that you got on the darshan day.


Sri Aurobindo: It has not evaporated but drawn back from the surface. That usually happens, when there is not the higher consciousness or some experience. What you have to learn is not to allow depression, but remain quiet allowing time for the assimilation and ready for fresh experience or growth it comes.   It was certainly the best Darshan of all yet passed today, though those to come will surely exceed it. I was struck by the rapidity with which your consciousness has grown since last time, much more solid and insistent and with a power to overcome all mixture.


Sri Aurobindo: One can surely now have the conﬁdence, not prophetic merely or founded only on the spiritual necessity in you but also on what has been accomplished, that what is not of a piece with this growing consciousness will change or disappear! ’s feeling about the darshan was quite true.  There is no such inevitable rule. It is true that attacks are frequent at that time, but one need not admit them.


Sri Aurobindo:   It depends upon your condition whether the Ananda or Force or Light descends or whether the resistance rises. It is the resistance of the ordinary physical consciousness ignorant and obscure that seems to have risen in you. The period of the 15th is a period of great descents but also of great resistances. This 15th was not an exception.


Sri Aurobindo:   I do not think that the difﬁculty you are feeling has anything to do with your receiving what your husband sends you. It very often happens that when the Darshan day is approaching the adverse Forces gather themselves for an attack individually or generally in order to prevent what has to be individually received from being received and what has to be generally brought down from being brought down. Also very often there is a strong attack after the darshan day because they want to undo what has been done or else to stop it from going farther. But as far as the individual is concerned, there is no need of undergoing this attack; if one is conscious of its nature, one can react and throw it away.


Sri Aurobindo: Or if it still presses one can keep one’s will and faith ﬁrm and come out of the temporary obstacle with a greater opening and a new progress. The Mother’s force and mine will be with you always.  You can tell him about the arrangements for correspondence.  We do not write ourselves. He can always write to the Mother or to myself (we have received his letters); but answers, if any, are given on our instructions to Nolini who has the general charge of the correspondence or in certain cases by someone else specially deputed for the purpose.


Sri Aurobindo: Since he has sent a stamped envelope, you can write to him (in Bengali) that it is no use putting these matters before Sri Aurobindo, as he makes it a rule not to advise people in their mundane affairs and conﬁnes himself only to what is proper to the spiritual life and for the rest to his own path of Yoga.   Write to him that these are not questions that ought to be put to me. It is to another class of persons that he should go for the answer.


Sri Aurobindo: Reply to him (at’s address) that we cannot tell him what job he should do — it depends on his opportunities, tastes and capacities. All that we can tell him about is his sadhana. If he progresses in his sadhana, opens his consciousness, can feel a higher and wider consciousness and the Divine Presence or Power at work, he will then be able to get our inner guidance for his life.   Nolini, you can answer him as he has sent a stamp.  Sri Aurobindo does not usually extend any personal help or direction to any but accepted disciples who are practising a serious Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: Worldly life is a ﬁeld of Karma (a ﬁeld of growth) in which the soul progresses through the play of energies inner and outer, personal and universal producing a complexity of results until it is ready for the spiritual change. Once one practises this Yoga, the life becomes a part of the sadhana. Even so Sri Aurobindo seldom gives directions or advice in speciﬁc matters; only the Mother’s Force is there to help and if the sadhak is open and sincere, he can receive and become aware of help and guidance. For discipleship a certain readiness is necessary. To be able to bear adverse fortune with a calm equanimity and inner strength (not a tamasic inert acceptance) would be a very strong qualiﬁcation for it.


Sri Aurobindo:   Sri Aurobindo has asked me to reply on his behalf to your letter.  I informed him at the time of all that your wife told me of your difﬁculties.  Sri Aurobindo does not as a rule give any advice in secular affairs, but only spiritual advice and spiritual support and blessings. In this matter the trouble seems to be the result of an education or inﬂuences, common enough at the present time, which turn the mind away from all living faith in the old beliefs and standards of life and from any openness to the Truth that was embodied in them.


Sri Aurobindo: It does not seem likely that a return to them can be brought about easily now. If the mind affected could come to receive that Truth in a new light, that might be the remedy.   For you and your work Sri Aurobindo sends his blessings.  Where there is sincerity of heart and selﬂessness in purpose and an openness to the help from above, difﬁculties however great can be overcome or turned in course of time.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not usually give like that. I believe he complains of an inability to concentrate his mind or feel bhakti, but that is not due to past karma and cannot be got rid of by any — it is the inherent disability of the human mind that goes outward and not inward.    Sri Aurobindo does not usually give instructions of this kind. It is only those who have been accepted into his own path of Yoga to whom he gives spiritual guidance.


Sri Aurobindo: Suggest to him that as he is a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna, he would ﬁnd his natural guides in the Ramakrishna Mission.    You can write to him that Sri Aurobindo does not intervene by giving instructions in the Yoga of anybody except his own disciples. His own way of Yoga being of a separate kind and not meant for all to follow.


Sri Aurobindo: I am instructed by Sri Aurobindo to reply that he does not give advice or instructions to anybody except his own disciples (already accepted by him), those whom he ﬁnds ﬁtted and ready to prepare themselves for his path. This path has neither the same aim nor the same method as the ordinary Yoga, it aims at a realisation of which their results are only component parts; it may be said to begin its capital experiences where these end and its object is one that they would consider impossible. Much of it is virgin ground in which the paths have yet to be cut and built. The obstacles and difﬁculties in the way of success are formidable and demand either a strength and patience or a faith and unquestioning reliance on the Guru who is the pathﬁnder and leader. Or otherwise they have to have so strong and clear a call that no difﬁculties matter, or else to be in some way predestined to follow this path and no other, to cleave to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as Guru and to no other.


Sri Aurobindo: Your preparation seems to be mainly intellectual and for this Yoga the intellect is not sufﬁcient; relied upon as the chief guide it may become instead a barrier. This Yoga depends upon a supra-intellectual knowledge which can come only from the soul or psychic being within and the secret spirit above. Moreover attachment to ideas, people, things are hampering obstacles in this Yoga. You could perhaps understand for yourself that there may be many obstacles in the way of your accepting this Yoga. All the same, if you still wish and are able to come for Darshan next August, you may do so.


Sri Aurobindo: But for the moment for the reasons pointed out Sri Aurobindo is not able at present to give you any instruction or suggest a discipline.    It is not a question of defects and weaknesses. You have to grow spiritually from within till it is certain that your call is to this Path. Till then it is not possible for me to give you any deﬁnite verbal guidance.


Sri Aurobindo: What comes to you must come from within yourself at present.    You had better write to her saying that Sri Aurobindo does not usually give instructions to anyone but those who follow his path of Yoga which is a difﬁcult path and not possible for everybody.  Nor is it by oral instructions that he helps his disciples as he speaks with none nowadays and lives entirely retired. There would therefore be no utility in coming here.


Sri Aurobindo: It would be difﬁcult for anyone suffering from nervous debility to follow Yogic processes; the recovery of health would be a necessary preliminary. It would be especially dangerous in Sri Aurobindo’s path of Yoga.    Just as I see no one, so I answer usually no letters except those of the disciples and many of these even are not answered by myself personally if they are outside the Asram.  My spiritual work is limited to a very small ﬁeld and a particular purpose.


Sri Aurobindo: Outside that ﬁeld I never intervene whether for spiritual instructions or worldly matters. This limitation is absolutely necessary otherwise I could not do the work I have to do. All depends on whether the man who comes to me is meant for the spiritual path and its work — if not, then all I can do is to give him the which one can always give. The rest depends upon himself or his karma. I shall ask Nolini for’s letters and see.


Sri Aurobindo: But at present I can say nothing.  You had better write to him that an interview is impossible, that I see and speak with none, not even my disciples, — except on three days of the year when they and a few others specially permitted come and make pranam and receive a silent blessing, for even then I do not speak.     Write that the paragraph in the is a sheer invention.


Sri Aurobindo: I have said nothing about the present movement to either disciple or visitor. I could not have done so, because since it began, I have seen and spoken to no one. My rule of giving no interview to anyone, of speaking with none, even on the three days when I come out, remains unchanged.


Sri Aurobindo: In such cases you should not write anything without consulting me. What he wants is evidently to talk with me and that is impossible. You will have to write to him now regretting that it is not at all likely that I shall come out of my retirement just now.


Sri Aurobindo: If the Baba Maharaj asks for an answer, you will tell him that it is impossible for me to satisfy his requests. I am in entire retirement, seeing no one, not even my disciples, so I cannot see him. As for the Asram, it is a strict rule that none but disciples can reside in it; the whole life of the Asram is besides governed by a system elaborated in all details and it is only the disciples trained to this life who can conform to it.    I am afraid I don’t see how I can see William Arthur Moore — how can I extend to him so extraordinary a privilege (since I see nobody) which I would not have conceded to Sarat Chatterji?


Sri Aurobindo: You say Barin certiﬁes him as a bhakta — but Barin’s language is apt to be vivid and exaggerated; he probably means only an admirer. I think he must be answered that certainly he would have been allowed a meeting with me if I had been coming out but the entire seclusion has been taken as a rule for Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana and it may not be subjected to exception so long as the rule is in force. If he is really a bhakta, that will give him a ray of distant hope and if he isn’t, the impression made does not very much matter. Barin surely exaggerates the power of the publicist — after all he is only the editor of the — but even otherwise that is not the main consideration. By the way why have you transmogriﬁed Moore into Jones?


Sri Aurobindo: — there was a Jones there but he has departed and yielded the place to Moore.    I am afraid it is impossible. No separate personal Darshan can be given at this stage — it is not a rule, it is a necessity for the work that Sri Aurobindo is doing.


Sri Aurobindo: The Maharani’s request was placed by the Mother before Sri Aurobindo. But it has been his strict rule for many years past to see no one except on the three darshan days in the year and no exception has been made up till now. If an exception were made now, it would be difﬁcult for him to maintain the rule in future. There is no possibility of keeping the matter secret and publicity would be undesirable for the Maharani and also Sri Aurobindo, as it would give rise to many requests for a special darshan or interview from others. It is therefore better that the Maharani should not maintain her request.


Sri Aurobindo: But if on her way back she wishes to visit the Mother, the Mother will be glad to see her.    There seems to be some misunderstanding about Mr. C. R. Reddy’s visit to the Ashram. He was sent to Pondicherry by the Chancellor of the Andhra University to present the medal of the humanities prize given by the University and accepted by Sri Aurobindo. The Chancellor was to have come himself, but as it turned out that he was unable to do so the ViceChancellor came as his representative.


Sri Aurobindo: Sri Aurobindo when he accepted had expressed his inability to leave Pondicherry in order to receive the medal but had consented to this ofﬁcial visit for the purpose. There was therefore no question of Mr. Reddy coming for a personal visit. The last visit of that kind Sri Aurobindo received was from Tagore very long ago. The only exception made to his rule of seclusion has been for the giving of instructions and receiving the report of a disciple entrusted with some work or some mission. It is difﬁcult or even impossible for Sri Aurobindo to relax his rule any farther, still less to make any departure that would have the result of opening the doors widely or altogether.


Sri Aurobindo: He might make some relaxation if a compelling occasion arose or if he felt it necessary because of some public emergency or some need of his work or the necessity of an exceptional case. But at the moment he still feels it essential to maintain his rule for some time at least and not less strictly than before.  His aspiration may be satisﬁed if he makes himself ﬁt. Let him continue to read the and practise daily meditation. In the meditation he should concentrate ﬁrst in an aspiration that the central truths of which he reads should be made real to him in conscious experience and his mind opened to the calm, wideness, strength, peace, light and Ananda of the spiritual consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: Let him write to you from time to time what experiences he gets or what are the difﬁculties that rise and prevent the experience.     Sri Aurobindo is retired and sees no one.  If you have not had even a glimpse of the Truth from any spiritual man, the fault is likely to be yours.


Sri Aurobindo: Either you have not made it your chief concern to know and realise, putting all things else in the background or holding them to be of no account, or else you have been seeking with your mind, through the thought, and not with your inner being, your soul and spirit.  No suggestions of any practice can be given you unless you write more fully and state how you have tried hitherto, by what kind of practice etc.   All is possible if there is a true faith, a complete consecration, a sincere and pure aspiration and a persistent endeavour.  There is no one path for all. The nature of the aspiration expressed seems to indicate Bhakti as the proper path.


Sri Aurobindo: That also is the quickest way, though none is easy.  Sri A. cannot undertake to point the way to any except those who follow his own path and are capable of it. The right thing for a seeker is to ﬁnd the Guru destined for him. Usually one who has been in search for twelve years ﬁnds the way and the leader of the way long before the end of that period. Probably a more whole-hearted and concentrated seeking is needed.


Sri Aurobindo:  Answer that I am ready to help him in his aspiration. But ﬁrst he should give some fuller information about himself. He will also have to take some time to see whether he is really called to this way or to another. And before he is ﬁnally accepted, it will have to be tested whether he is really capable and ready to give himself entirely to this aspiration. This Yoga implies not only the realisation of God, but an entire consecration and change of the inner and outer life till it is ﬁt to manifest a divine consciousness and become part of a divine work.


Sri Aurobindo: This means an inner discipline far more exacting and difﬁcult than the ethical and physical austerities which are the rule at the Satyagraha Asrama. He must not therefore enter on this path, far vaster and more arduous than most ways of Yoga, unless he is sure of the psychic call and of his readiness to go through to the end.    I do not use powers of this kind or in this way. If he wants a Yoga of miraculous siddhis he must go elsewhere.


Sri Aurobindo: The object of Yoga is a change of consciousness, and opening into spiritual knowledge and experience and union with the Divine. If any powers come along with this change, they are not to be used in a trivial manner.   Write to your friend that we do not ask for any ﬁnancial help from your father and therefore you are not called upon to answer the questions in his letter. It is not everyone who has the  to help in the work of the Asrama. Those only can do so who have faith in it or sympathy or at least conﬁdence in Sri Aurobindo.


Sri Aurobindo: As for the house, it was simply said that your wife would be allowed to come, if she wished to enter this path or prepare herself for it; but only when a house could be bought which could be set apart for women disciples. Sri Aurobindo is not anxious to increase the number of his disciples and only those are accepted usually who have the call and capacity for Yoga and are ready to satisfy the conditions. The permission was given for your wife at your request as a special favour and stands only if she wants to come and is prepared to live here under the conditions of life in the Asrama.   Your letter this time is sufﬁciently explicit regarding your state of mind and your object in practising Yoga. You have apparently a call and may be ﬁt for Yoga; but there are different paths and each has a different aim and end before it.


Sri Aurobindo: It is common to all the paths to conquer the desires, to put aside the ordinary relations of life, and to try to pass from uncertainty to everlasting certitude. One may also try to conquer dream and sleep, thirst and hunger etc. But it is no part of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga to have nothing to do with the world or with life or to kill the senses or entirely inhibit their action. It is the object of his Yoga to transform life by bringing down into it the Light, Power and Bliss of the divine Truth and its dynamic certitudes. This Yoga is not a Yoga of world-shunning asceticism, but of divine Life.


Sri Aurobindo: Your object on the other hand can only be gained by entering into Samadhi and ceasing in it from all connection with worldexistence. You cannot get help in this path from Sri Aurobindo; you must go to someone else in order to ﬁnd a Guru.    He can have darshan (only) if he comes for one of the three days. His request for advice etc. is too vague.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not give advice or instructions in this general way. The whole question is whether he has the call or the capacity for the Yoga. That can only be seen when he comes here. He has to see ﬁrst if the wish to offer himself is real, deep and persistent, — if the message has captured his heart or only touched his mind. All else afterwards


Sri Aurobindo: .     No one is initiated in this Yoga in any formal way. Those are accepted by the Mother who are found to be called or chosen from within for this path or for Sri Aurobindo’s work.


Sri Aurobindo: That acceptance is sufﬁcient. Those are considered as called or chosen who can open and be receptive to the Power that goes from her here and can feel its working. If by doing what he is doing now, he can in time thus open and receive and feel the Power that will be a sign that he is meant for this way of Yoga. Nothing else is needed; prayer and aspiration are sufﬁcient, if there is sincerity and a true call within.


Sri Aurobindo: Answer to that at present his mind seems to be under too many conﬂicting inﬂuences for him to take up Yoga with a single mind, much more for him to give up everything and come here, even if he were accepted. If he came, he would be pulled backwards by these inﬂuences. A divided nature is the worst possible condition for this path. Moreover he has a wife and a very young child, and he would have to give them up and practically renounce all connection with family life. As for politics, if he still feels the political call, he certainly cannot come here.


Sri Aurobindo: It is better if he exhausts these desires of the ordinary nature, before he takes up the spiritual life. If at any time he feels them fallen away from him and only the spiritual attraction left, he can then take up the spiritual life, though it would still remain to be decided which path was the right one for him. Sri Aurobindo’s path of Yoga is a very difﬁcult one and there are others that are much easier to follow and might suit his nature better. But whichever path it is, Yoga asks for a one-centred endeavour, and until that can be given, a preparation like that which he is spontaneously undergoing is all that is possible.


Sri Aurobindo: You had better send a copy of this letter to and ask him to be careful in future with those whom he takes for the sadhana.  Everybody must be made to understand clearly that this is not a sadhana of emotional and egoistic, but of surrender.  One who makes demands and threatens to commit suicide if his demands are not complied with, is not meant for this Yoga.  Also they must understand that they must not consider that they have a right to be called here at their own demand either for darshan or for permanent residence. Farther, it is not the habit of Sri Aurobindo or the Mother to answer every letter written to them; they do not answer unless there is a special reason for reply.


Sri Aurobindo: Sadhaks who write about their sadhana will get the help they need if they take the right attitude and can receive it. But no written answer can be demanded for any letter.  You may write also to the boy himself to the following effect.  (1) If he cannot take the right attitude, he had better leave this Yoga and take to the ordinary life or follow some other path like Gandhi’s.  (2) and are no parts of this Yoga — they are parts of Gandhi’s teaching and practice, but anyone who tries to bring them in here will be considered unﬁt to be Sri Aurobindo’s disciple.


Sri Aurobindo: If he writes again in this strain, no farther notice will be taken of him and he will be left to his own ways.  (3) It is not the habit of the Mother to answer letters written to her; all letters are written by you under my instructions or at the Mother’s order. But no disciple has the right to demand an answer to his letter. If he writes about his sadhana, he will receive help, provided he has the capacity to receive it and the right attitude. In future he must expect no direct answer to his letters; if anything has to be said, you will write through.


Sri Aurobindo: (4) He must not expect to be called to Pondicherry. Only those are allowed who are ready for sadhana in the Asram or who are called for work for which they have a special capacity or training. For darshan, permission is given only when the Mother chooses; demands made in the spirit of his letter are always refused.  (5) This Yoga is not a Yoga of emotional egoistic vital bhakti full of demands and desires. There is no room in it for of any kind.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only for those who surrender to the Divine and obey implicitly the directions given to them by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.    You may get his photograph — it may help to see what kind of nature he has. But there is no need to go out of the way to  him; from his letter he does not seem altogether ready for the spiritual life. His idea of life seems to be rather moral and philanthropic than spiritual at present; and behind it is the attachment to the family life.


Sri Aurobindo: If the impulse to seek the Divine of which he speaks is more than a mental turn suggested by a vague emotion, if it has really anything psychic in it, it will come out at its own time; there is no need to stimulate, and a premature stimulation may push him towards something for which he is not yet ﬁt.     If by my Yoga you mean the integral Yoga leading towards the supramental realisation, you have not at present the capacity for it. All you can do at present is some preparation for it by Bhakti and self-dedication through Karma; if into this preparation you put a strong sincerity and a settled psychic aspiration, then one day you will be ready for more.


Sri Aurobindo:   The letter is an extremely intelligent one and shows considerable justness of mind and discriminating observation both as to the nature of the sadhana and its obstacles and the movements in him. You had better correspond with him and encourage him.


Sri Aurobindo: Tell him that his observations are all very correct and there is little to add to them. If he perseveres with sincerity and the same discriminating correctness of vision he is sure to progress.  The sadhana is a difﬁcult one and time should not be grudged; it is only in the last stages that a very great and constant rapidity of progress can be conﬁdently expected. As for Shakti, the descent of Shakti before the vital is pure and surrendered, has its dangers.  It is better for him to pray for puriﬁcation, knowledge, intensity of the heart’s aspiration and as much working of the Power as he can bear and assimilate.


Sri Aurobindo:   As to the girl,, it hardly seems possible to say anything deﬁnite from her experiences — they are in the vital plane; it is only if the experience is in the psychic that it has a decisive value as indicating the call to Yoga.  The vision of the boy purports to be a call from Srikrishna, but these vital visions are not always what they seem to be. The vision about Kali and the dark forces and the fainting indicates on the contrary very serious difﬁculties, danger from the Asuric forces and an insufﬁcient strength in the Adhar. On the other hand the vision of Kali with the dagger followed by that of the boy mean that the Divine Shakti will destroy the difﬁculties and make the way clear for the service of Krishna.


Sri Aurobindo: Nothing however can be deﬁnitely said from this kind of experience. If her call to Yoga is real, it will declare itself irresistibly hereafter; it will then be seen to what path she is called, for as yet there is no clear and indubitable indication of a call to  Yoga.   You ask about your friend,. It is very evident from his own letter that he is not ready for the spiritual life or ﬁt for Yoga.  If he were to attempt it in his present condition, he would only be wasting time and energy (which could be turned to other purposes) in a futile endeavour.


Sri Aurobindo: The spiritual life is only for those who have a single-minded or else a dominant turn towards it sufﬁcient to carry them through all its struggles and difﬁculties.  An awakening of the soul (not a turn of the mind only) is the one sure sign of a call to the Yoga.     You can reply to him that if he has fears of this kind, it would be better not to try the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a difﬁcult Yoga and faith, a steady and quiet will, courage and strength are necessary if one is to follow it.   Tell him he can meditate and put himself into spiritual relation with us and if anything opens in him he can write.    is certainly capable of doing Yoga, he has a good adhar, — but whether he will be able to do this Yoga, is not quite certain as it is a very difﬁcult path and would need more vital energy and single-minded concentration than he might be prepared at present to give for the purpose.


Sri Aurobindo: The experiences you have had are very clear evidence that you have the capacity for Yoga. The ﬁrst decisive experiences in this Yoga are a calm and peace that is felt, ﬁrst somewhere in the being and in the end in all the being, and the descent of Power and Force into the body which will take up the whole adhar and work in it to transform mind, life and body into the instrumentation of the Divine Consciousness. The two experiences of which you wrote in your letter are the beginning of this calm and the descent of this Force. Much has to be done before they can be established or persistently effective, but that they should come at this stage is a clear proof of capacity to receive. It must be remembered however that this Yoga is not easy and cannot be done without the rising of many obstacles and much lapse of time — so if you take it up it must be with a ﬁrm resolve to carry it through to the end with a whole-hearted sincerity, faith, patience and courage.


Sri Aurobindo: The vision of ﬂowers is a symbol usually of psychic qualities or movements whether in potentiality or promise or in actual state of development. The swaying is due probably to the body not being habituated to receive the Force — it should cease as soon as the body is accustomed.    You can give him some kind of answer — for his stamp. Spirituality is a vague term, — there are many ways of approaching the spiritual consciousness and the Guru’s choice of a disciple depends on whether his mind or his nature and inner capacity call him to the particular path or not etc.


Sri Aurobindo:  We have read your letter and the Mother is willing to accept as she has already accepted you. It is understood that he will do all he can to merit the acceptance.  You can tell him that reading and study, though they can be useful for preparing the mind, are not in themselves the best means of entering the Yoga. It is self-dedication from within oneself that is the means. Nor is it entrance into the atmosphere of the Asram that is needed, for there are many things in the atmosphere of the Asram, not all of them desirable.


Sri Aurobindo: It is with the consciousness of the Mother that he must unite and there too a sincere self-consecration in mind and heart and will is the means for it. The work given by the Mother is always meant as a ﬁeld for that self-consecration; it has to be done as an offering to her so that through the self-offering one may come to feel her Force acting and her presence.  P.S. The Mother will give the interview asked for, but it will not be possible immediately as just now her days are too crowded — you will have to wait some days for it.   What you say about those whom we receive — that if one part in them sincerely desires the Divine, we give them their chance — is quite true.


Sri Aurobindo: If we demanded more at the beginning, exceedingly few would be able even to commence their journey towards the Divine.   You can tell him that no one is accepted as a disciple unless the Mother has seen him and it appears that there is some possibility in him of an opening not merely for Yoga but for the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. At present however Sri Aurobindo does not wish to accept more disciples unless the circumstances are exceptional.  He can however, if he likes, come for darshan in August.  (I suppose he knows of my retirement and not speaking with people.)


Sri Aurobindo:   All Yoga is difﬁcult, because the aim in every Yoga is to reach the Divine, to turn entirely towards the Divine and that means to turn away from the ordinary movements of the nature to something beyond it. But when one aspires with sincerity the strength is given that ends by surmounting the difﬁculties and reaching the goal.  The Mother was speaking of sadhaks who had entered into the life and atmosphere of the Asram and felt the touch on the psychic of what is here.


Sri Aurobindo: It does not apply to those who have come here from the outside world but still belong to the outside.  All the ties of’s nature were still with the outside life; her vital was quite unadapted to the Asram life and recoiled from the idea of living it always. She gave her psychic no time to make that connection and absorb that inﬂuence which would have ﬁxed in it the feeling of this as its true home. People can come here like that and stay for a time and go without any difﬁculty as many have done. The feeling of difﬁculty or uneasiness in going is on the other hand a sign that the soul has taken root here and ﬁnds it painful to uproot itself.