Sri Aurobindo: It does sometimes, — in some minds often intuitions do come in, — but immediately the ordinary thoughts surround it and eat it up alive, and then with some fragment of the murdered intuition shining through their non-intuitive stomachs they look up smiling at you and say, “I am an intuition, sir.” But they are only intellect, intelligence or ordinary thought with part of a dismembered and therefore misleading intuition inside them.  Now in a vacant mind, vacant but not inert (that is important), intuitions have a chance of getting in alive and whole. But don’t run away with the idea that all that comes into an empty mind, even a clear or luminous empty mind, will be intuitive. Anything, any blessed kind of idea, can come in.


Sri Aurobindo: One has to be vigilant and examine the credentials of the visitor. In other words, the mental being must be there, silent but vigilant, impartial but discriminating. That is, however, when you are in search of truth. For poetry so much is not necessary. There it is only the poetic quality of the visitor that has to be scrutinised and that can be done after he has left his packet — by results.


Sri Aurobindo:  What you perceive as suggestions or voices, are accepted and felt by people to be thoughts of their own mind. When one practises Yoga and observes the thoughts, one sees that they come from outside, from universal Nature, from the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds etc. The proper thing is then to stand back from these thoughts, voices or suggestions, to reject them or else control them, to make the mind free and quiet and open only to the divine light, force, knowledge and the presence of the Divine. Your mistake has been to allow free play to these thoughts, voices and suggestions instead of rejecting, silencing and controlling them. It is what you must now do.


Sri Aurobindo: Aspire, get into contact with the Light and the true Force, reassert your will to reject these suggestions and voices. Do not take interest in these voices, keep the mind quiet.    All these thoughts and inﬂuences come really from outside, from universal Nature — they create formations in us or get habitual responses from the individual being. When they are rejected, they go back into the external universal Nature and if one becomes conscious, one can feel them coming from outside and trying to get a lodging inside again or reawaken the habitual response.


Sri Aurobindo: One has to reject them persistently till no possibility of response remains any longer. This is hastened much if a certain inner calm, purity and silence can be established from which these things fall away without being able to touch it.    What you say is true. The power to open is there in your mind and vital and psychic being, but this recurrence of the external thoughts and feelings is making a strong obstruction and a persistent rejection is needed in order to get rid of it.


Sri Aurobindo: There are some difﬁculties in the nature that fall away rapidly by the repeated touch of the inner Force, but those which are obstinately recurrent, especially in the physical ﬁeld, need an equal persistence in the rejection before they will consent to fall away from the nature.  To reject doubts means control of one’s thoughts — very certainly so. But the control of one’s thoughts is as necessary as the control of one’s vital desires and passions or the control of the movements of one’s body — for the Yoga, and not for the Yoga only. One cannot be a fully developed mental being even, if one has not a control of the thoughts, is not their observer, judge, master, — the mental Purusha,,, ,. It is no more proper for the mental being to be the tennis ball of unruly and uncontrollable thoughts than to be a rudderless ship in the storm of the desires and passions or a slave of either the inertia or the impulses of the body.


Sri Aurobindo: I know it is more difﬁcult because man being primarily a creature of mental Prakriti identiﬁes himself with the movements of his mind and cannot at once dissociate himself and stand free from the swirl and eddies of the mind whirlpool. It is comparatively easy for him to put a control on his body, at least a certain part of its movements: it is less easy but still very possible after a struggle to put a mental control on his vital impulsions and desires; but to sit, like the Tantrik Yogi on the river, above the whirlpool of his thoughts is less facile. Nevertheless it can be done; all developed mental men, those who get beyond the average, have in one way or other or at least at certain times and for certain purposes to separate the two parts of the mind, the active part which is a factory of thoughts and the quiet masterful part which is at once a Witness and a Will, observing them, judging, rejecting, eliminating, accepting, ordering corrections and changes, the Master in the House of Mind, capable of self-empire,.  The Yogi goes still farther; he is not only a master there, but even while in mind in a way, he gets out of it, as it were, and stands above or quite back from it and free. For him the image of the factory of thoughts is no longer quite valid; for he sees that thoughts come from outside, from the universal Mind or universal Nature, sometimes formed and distinct, sometimes unformed and then they are given shape somewhere in us.


Sri Aurobindo: The principal business of our mind is either a response of acceptance or refusal to these thought-waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing NatureForce. It was my great debt to Lele that he showed me this.   “Sit in meditation,” he said, “but do not think, look only at your mind; you will see thoughts; before they can enter throw them away from you till your mind is capable of entire silence.” I had never heard before of thoughts coming visibly into the mind from outside, but I did not think of either questioning the truth or the possibility, I simply sat down and did it.


Sri Aurobindo: In a moment my mind became silent as a windless air on a high mountain summit and then I saw a thought and then another thought coming in a concrete way from outside; I ﬂung them away before they could enter and take hold of the brain and in three days I was free. From that moment, in principle, the mental being in me became a free Intelligence, a universal Mind, not limited to the narrow circle of personal thought or a labourer in a thought-factory, but a receiver of knowledge from all the hundred realms of being and free too to choose what it willed in this vast sight-empire and thought-empire.  I mention this only to emphasise that the possibilities of the mental being are not limited and that it can be the free Witness and Master in its own house. It is not to say that everybody can do it in the way I did and with the same rapidity of the decisive movement (for of course the later fullest development of this new untrammelled mental Power took time, many years); but a progressive freedom and mastery over one’s mind is perfectly within the possibilities of anyone who has the faith and will to undertake it.


Sri Aurobindo: Assuredly, rejection means control of one’s thoughts, and why should not one be master of one’s own mind and thoughts and not only master of one’s vital passions and bodily movements? If it is the right thing to control the body and not allow it to make a stupid, wrong or injurious movement, if it is the right thing to reject from the vital an ignorant passion or low desire , it must be equally the right thing to reject from the mind a thought that ought not to be there or that for good reasons one does not want to be there. As for possibility, I suppose when a thought that is manifestly stupid or false presents itself to the mind one can and usually does reject and throw it out and bid it not recur again.


Sri Aurobindo: If one can do that with a given thought, it follows that one can do it with any thoughts that need for any reason to be excluded.  If a scientist goes into his laboratory to work out a problem, he shuts out from his mind for the time being all thoughts of his wife, his family or his ﬁnancial affairs, and if they come he repels them and says, “This is not your time.” If he has resolved to carry out a line of investigation to the end or a method of invention and, if doubts assail him, he will certainly throw them aside and say, “I mean to see this through to the end and till I have reached the end, I have no intention of listening to you.”  At every step a man of any mental calibre has to exercise some power over his mind, otherwise he would be as much in a state of restless mental confusion or of mechanical incoherence as one who had no control over his impulses and desires.


Sri Aurobindo:   To do anything by mental control is always difﬁcult, when what is attempted runs contrary to the trend of human nature or of the personal nature. A strong will patiently and perseveringly turned towards its object can effect a change, but usually it takes a long time and the success at the beginning may be only partial and chequered by many failures.  To turn all actions automatically into worship cannot be done by thought control only; there must be a strong aspiration in the heart which will bring about some realisation or feeling of the presence of the One to whom worship is offered. The bhakta does not rely on his own effort alone, but on the grace and power of the Divine whom he adores.


Sri Aurobindo:   What do you mean by control of the mind? Control of the thoughts or control of the passions and the sense impulses? The latter can be controlled by the mind (not abolished), if the will in the mind is strong enough. But this mental control is not Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: Yogic control can come in one of two ways or by their combination. (1) To separate the witness Soul in you from the movements of the mental, vital and physical Prakriti to which these things belong, learn to look upon them and in the end to feel them as not yourself, not a part of the inner or true being but occurring on the surface, and to experience the inner being as the Purusha eternally calm, silent and immovable. This separation once done, learn by to give the effective command of the Purusha to the movements of the Prakriti to cease — refusing the sanction to all that you wish to eliminate. The process is long and laborious and the ﬁnal perfection can only come by resolute and persevering practice. (2) To open yourself to the Divine Power and give up all into its hands, yourself only rejecting and refusing sanction to all that you feel to be false and contrary to truth and purity in you.


Sri Aurobindo: This is as an answer to your difﬁculty, but I cannot direct you or give you any Sadhana, which I give only to those who are called from within to my way of Yoga and not for any limited object like the one you have in view.    It is not so easy to do mental work and do sadhana at the same time, for it is with the mind that the sadhana is done. If one gets back from the mind as well as the body and lives in the inner Purusha consciousness, then it is possible.


Sri Aurobindo:   Detach yourself from it [ ]   — make your mind external to you, something that you can observe as you observe things occurring in the street.


Sri Aurobindo: So long as you do not do that, it is difﬁcult to be the mind’s master.     The control over the thoughts and the power of seeing the image of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the head are a very good beginning. The heat in the head is not fever, but the result of the action of the Force in the mental centres working to overcome the mental resistance which there always is in the human mind — heaviness sometimes comes as a result of the pressure of the Force — it passes away of itself usually when the mind receives freely the Force.


Sri Aurobindo: This is a wrong psychology. Thoughts is quite possible without words. Children have thoughts, animals too — thoughts can take another form than words. Thought perceptions come ﬁrst — language comes to express the perceptions and itself leads to fresh thoughts.   They [] take word form in the mind when they enter into it — unless they come from beings, not as mere idea-forces.


Sri Aurobindo: There is a power in the idea — a force of which the idea is a shape. Again, behind the idea and force and word there is what is called the spirit, — a consciousness which generates the force.


Sri Aurobindo: The idea is not enough. It gives only a half-light — you must get to all the Truth that lies behind the idea and the object together.  Being, consciousness, force, — that is the triple secret.  Thought is not the giver of Knowledge but the “mediator” between the Inconscient and the Superconscient. It compels the world born from the Inconscient to reach for a Knowledge other than the instinctive vital or merely empirical, for the Knowledge that itself exceeds thought; it calls for that superconscient Knowledge and prepares the consciousness here to receive it.


Sri Aurobindo: It rises itself into the higher realms and even in disappearing into the supramental and Ananda levels is transformed into something that will bring down their powers into the silent Self which its cessation leaves behind it.  Knowledge is always better than ignorance. It makes things possible hereafter if not at the moment, while ignorance actively obstructs and misleads.


Sri Aurobindo: Who comes into the path of Yoga with full knowledge or even any knowledge? All are ignorant, it is only by Yoga itself that they get the knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo: Neither knowledge nor anything else is constant at ﬁrst — and even when it is there one cannot expect it to be always active.  That comes afterwards.    What is to be left out [] is the ego.  Limitation of knowledge will necessarily be there so long as there is not the fullest wideness from above; that does not matter.


Sri Aurobindo:  Most people who have not knowledge are apt to be opinionated — they have their ideas and don’t want them to be changed or their ﬁxity disturbed.  Mental knowledge is of little use except sometimes as an introduction pointing towards the real knowledge which comes from a direct consciousness of things.   All consciousness comes from the one consciousness — knowledge is one aspect of the divine consciousness.   One must be conscious of all one’s states and movements and the causes and inﬂuences that bring them about and conscious too of the Divine — the nearness, presence, power, peace, light, knowledge, love, Ananda of the Divine.  The knowledge of the mind and vital plane is no knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo: Only from above can the true knowledge come.    No, these contacts with the violent vital forces do not bring knowledge — they rather stand in the way of true knowledge growing. The true knowledge comes from above, not from below. The knowledge from above is divine, the knowledge from below is not divine, it is a confusion full of darkness and disturbance.


Sri Aurobindo: When the knowledge from above comes, then there is light and you will then be able to see what is the true vital movement and the real harmony of the mind, vital and body.  Do not allow these stormy conditions to take hold of you.    Is getting knowledge from above and getting it by the mind in its own capacity the same thing? If the mind is capable, then there is no need of knowledge from above, it can do the getting of knowledge by its own greatness.


Sri Aurobindo:   The mind in its higher part is aware of being one with the Divine, in all ways, in all things — having that supreme knowledge, it is not disturbed by its own ignorance and impotence in its lower instrumental parts; it looks on all that with a smile and remains happy and luminous with the light of the supreme knowledge.  The consciousness of union with the Divine is for the spiritual seeker the supreme knowledge.  To answer your question [ ] I would have to speak in the terms of a consciousness to which the mind has no key and at the same time try to explain its relations to the lower consciousness in which things are now happening. What is the use of doing this?


Sri Aurobindo: The mind will either understand nothing or misunderstand or think it has understood when really it has understood nothing.  Or I would have to make up a mental answer to the question which would not be the real thing, but just something to keep the questioning mind quiet.  The true way to enter into these things is to still the mind and open to the consciousness from which things are done. Then you would ﬁrst have a direct experience of the way the divine consciousness acts on different planes and secondly a light of knowledge about the experience. This is the only true way — all the rest is only words and sterile mental logic.


Sri Aurobindo:   A thousand questions can be asked about anything whatsoever, but to answer would require a volume, and even then the mind would understand nothing. It is only by a growth in the consciousness itself that you can get some direct perception of these things. But for that the mind must be quiet and a direct feeling and intuition take its place.


Sri Aurobindo: So long as the outer mind is not quiet, it is impossible for intuition to develop. So if you want to go on asking intellectual questions about what is beyond the intellect until the intuition develops in spite of this activity, you will have to go on for ever.     When you get the true intuitive plane, there will be no need for instructions or questions as to how to do sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: The sadhana will do itself under the light of the intuition.     Your mind is too active. If it were more quiet and less questioning and argumentative and restlessly wanting to ﬁnd devices it seems to me that there would be more chance of knowledge coming down and of intuitive, non-intellectual consciousness developing within you.


Sri Aurobindo:   Out of one thousand mental questions and answers there are only one or two here and there that are really of any dynamic assistance — while a single inner response or a little growth of consciousness will do what those thousand questions and answers could not do. The Yoga does not proceed by but by inner inﬂuence. To state your condition, experiences etc. and open to the help is far more important than questionasking — especially the questions about why and how which your physical mind so persistently puts.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is the physical mind that raises all these questions and cannot understand or give the right answer. The real knowledge and understanding can only come if you stop questioning with the small physical mind and allow a deeper and wider consciousness which is there within you to come out and grow. You would then get automatically the true answer and the true guidance. Your mistake is to attach so much importance to the external mind and its ideas and perceptions instead of concentrating on the growth of the inner consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo:   Such [] questions should not be allowed to stop the ﬂow []. Afterwards one can consider them and get the answer. The knowledge that comes is not necessarily complete or perfect in expression; but it must be allowed to come freely and ampliﬁcations or corrections can be made afterwards.


Sri Aurobindo: Get back to the true of the Force and Peace — the understanding will grow with the growth of that feeling and experience. For with the Force and Peace comes always something of the Light and it is the Light illumining the mind that brings the understanding. So long as you try to understand with the unillumined mind, mistakes and non-understanding are inevitable.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, that is the point. The ordinary mind governed by the vital desires and its own mental formations cannot understand — it must fall quiet and allow the Peace and Force to work so as to bring another consciousness with the true Light in it. When that is done, these questionings and their reactions will have no place.    Yes, it is that [] that is the real necessity.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not possible for the mind to understand fully and rightly till it is ﬁlled with the higher Light; but it can feel and believe in the Divine and that the way of the Divine is sure, and this faith itself will bring the ﬁrst true understanding.      What you say is quite true.


Sri Aurobindo: No personal effort can get these things done; that is why we tell you always to keep yourself quiet and let the peace and the force work. As for understanding, it is your physical mind that wants to understand, but the physical mind is incapable of understanding these things by itself — for it has no knowledge of them and no means of knowledge. Its standards also are quite different from the standards of the true knowledge. All the physical mind can do is to be quiet and allow the light to come into it, accepting it, not interposing its own ideas — then it will progressively get the knowledge. It can’t get it in this way; it must surrender.


Sri Aurobindo:   If one has faith and openness, that is enough [ ]. Besides there are two kinds of understanding — understanding by the intellect and understanding in the consciousness. It is good to have the former if it is accurate, but it is not indispensable. Understanding by the consciousness comes if there is faith and openness, though it may come only gradually and through steps of experience.


Sri Aurobindo: But I have seen people without education or intellectuality understand in this way perfectly well the course of the Yoga in themselves, while intellectual men make big mistakes — e.g. take a neutral mental quietude for the spiritual peace and refuse to come out of it in order to go farther.  It is not a mental knowledge that is necessary, but a psychic perception or a direct perception in the consciousness. A mental knowledge can always be blinded by the tricks of the vital.    The one thing always is to let the Peace and Power work and not allow the mind to seek after things and get disturbed.


Sri Aurobindo: All the values of the mind are constructions of ignorance — it is only when your psychic being comes forward that you have the true knowledge — for your psychic being knows.  That [] is always the difﬁculty with the mind.  It must learn to be silent and let the knowledge come without trying to catch hold of it for its own play.    The turmoil of mental (intellectual) activity has also to be silenced like the vital activity of desire in order that the calm and peace may be complete.


Sri Aurobindo: Knowledge has to come but from above.  In this calm the ordinary mental activities like the ordinary vital activities become surface movements with which the silent inner self is not connected. It is the liberation necessary in order that the true knowledge and the true life activity may replace or transform the activities of the Ignorance.    The activity of mind is necessary so long as a higher activity cannot be reached; but if the spiritual consciousness becomes active with its direct power of perception, the mind must become more and more content and give place to spiritual perception, psychic intimations and discrimination, intuitions, a deeper knowledge from within, a higher knowledge from above.


Sri Aurobindo:    The thinking mind has to learn how to be entirely silent. It is only then that true knowledge can come.


Sri Aurobindo:   Of course []; the ordinary mind is never silent.


Sri Aurobindo: No, certainly not [ ]. It is the active mind they have; only, of course, they concentrate, so the common incoherent mentalising stops and the thoughts that rise or enter and shape themselves are coherently restricted to the subject or activity in hand. But that is quite a different matter from the whole mind falling silent.


Sri Aurobindo: Ordinary human minds, Europeans especially, are accustomed to regard thought as indispensable and as the highest thing — so they are alarmed at silence. when he was here asked for Yoga.  I told him how to make his mind silent and it became silent. He immediately got frightened and said, “I am becoming a fool, I can’t think”, — so I took what I had given away from him. That is how the average mind regards silence.


Sri Aurobindo:   Good; cessation of thought and other vibrations is the climax of the inner silence. When once one has got that, it is easier for the true knowledge to come from above in place of the mental thought.


Sri Aurobindo:   It [] comes through the mind, so the mind can always modify its expression unless it is entirely and absolutely still.    When the personal mind is still, whatever mental action is needed is taken up and done by the Force itself which does all the necessary thinking and progressively transforms it by bringing down into it a higher and higher plane of perception and knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is in the silence of the mind that the strongest and freest action can come, e.g. the writing of a book, poetry, inspired speech etc.  When the mind is active it interferes with the inspiration, puts in its own small ideas which get mixed up with the inspiration or starts something from a lower level or simply stops the inspiration altogether by bubbling up with all sorts of mere mental suggestions. So also intuitions or action etc. can come more easily when the ordinary inferior movement of the mind is not there. It is also in the silence of the mind that it is easiest for knowledge to come from within or above, from the psychic or from the higher consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: Knowledge by thinking process would not be spiritual knowledge. True knowledge comes by spiritual realisation and experience. There are such realisations and experiences.


Sri Aurobindo: I was speaking of your experiences of the higher consciousness, of your seeing the Mother in all things — these are what are called spiritual realisations, spiritual knowledge. Realisations are the essence of knowledge — thoughts about them, expression of them in words are a lesser knowledge and if the thoughts are merely mental without experience or realisation, they are not regarded as in the spiritual sense at all.     It [] is the conscious experience of the Truth, seen, felt, lived within and it is also a spiritual perception (more direct and concrete than the intellectual) of the true signiﬁcance of things which may express itself in thought and speech, but is independent of them in itself.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes, it happens like that. A touch of realisation is enough to set the higher mind knowledge or the illumined mind knowledge ﬂowing.  The development of the mind is a useful preliminary for the sadhak; it can also be pursued along with the sadhana on condition that it is not given too big a place and does not interfere with the one important thing, the sadhana itself.


Sri Aurobindo:  To have a developed intellect is always helpful if one can enlighten it from above and turn it to divine use.   A well-developed intellect is one which is plastic, wide, free from rigidity and stiffness, — that can be of use.     It [] may or may not [] — if it is too intellectually developed on certain rationalistic lines, it may hinder.


Sri Aurobindo:   The tendency to inquire and know is in itself good, but it must be kept under control. What is needed for progress in sadhana is gained best by increase of consciousness and experience and of intuitive knowledge.   To be interested in outward things is not wrong in itself — it depends on the way in which one is interested.


Sri Aurobindo: If it is done as part of the sadhana, looking on them from the true consciousness, then they become a means for the growth of the being. It is that that matters, to get the true consciousness — and it is this that comes in you when you have the sense of the Peace and the working of the Force in it. There is no real reason for discontent or dissatisfaction with yourself — since progress is being made in spite of the resistance of the lower forces. The pressure which is translated by the heaviness in the stomach has to be got rid of — it is there that there is the chief resistance still. Peace within and a cheerful conﬁdence and gladness without is what is wanted — then this kind of nervous pressure and disorder would cease.


Sri Aurobindo:  It does not help for spiritual knowledge to be ignorant of the things of this world.  For one who wants to practise sadhana, sadhana must come ﬁrst — reading and mental development can only be subordinate things.     I don’t know that it [] helps the sadhana and I don’t quite understand what is meant by the phrase.


Sri Aurobindo: What is a fact is that mental like physical work can be made a part of the sadhana, — not as a rival to the sadhana or as another activity with equal rights and less selﬁsh and egoistic than seeking the Divine.    I have no objection to mental development. It is the idea that doing sadhana earnestly is egoistic and selﬁsh, and reading is an unselﬁsh noble pursuit that is absurd.


Sri Aurobindo:   Reading can be only a momentary help to prepare the mind. But the real knowledge does not come by reading. Some preparation for the inner knowledge may be helpful — but the mind should not be too superﬁcially active or seek to know only for curiosity’s sake.


Sri Aurobindo:   It [] does not take one inwards in any real sense — it only takes one from the more physical to the more mental part of the external consciousness.     If the power to meditate long is there, a sadhak will naturally do it and care little for reading — unless he has reached the stage when everything is part of the Yogic consciousness because that is permanent.


Sri Aurobindo: Sadhana is the aim of a sadhak, not mental development. But if he has spare time, those who have the mental turn will naturally spend it in reading or study of some kind.    The attitude you describe is just what it should be — there is nothing wrong in it, — nor in your reading or letter-writing etc.  There can be no objection to these activities in themselves, for the Yoga; only they must be done with the right attitude and spirit and as part of the sadhana — because the whole life has to become a sadhana, until it is able to become, the whole life, an embodiment of the.


Sri Aurobindo:   If by passivity of the mind you mean laziness and inability to use it, then what Yoga makes that its basis? The mind has to be quieted and transformed, not made indolent and useless. Is there any old Yoga that makes it a rule not to allow those who practise it to study Sanskrit or philosophy? Did that prevent the Yogis from attaining mental quietude?


Sri Aurobindo: Do you think that the Mother and myself never read anything and have to sit all day inactive in order to make our minds quiet? Are you not aware that the principle of this Yoga is to arrive at an inner silence in which all activities can take place without disturbing the inner silence?   When the passion for reading or study seizes hold of the mind, it is like that; one wants to spend all the time doing it. It is a force that wants to satisfy itself — like other forces — and takes hold of the consciousness for its purpose. One has to utilise these forces without letting them take hold; for this there must be the central being always in control of the forces of Nature that come to it, deciding for itself the choice of what it shall accept, how use, how arrange their action.


Sri Aurobindo: Otherwise each Force catches hold of some part of the personality (the student, the social man, the erotic man, the ﬁghter) and uses and drives the being instead of being controlled and used by it.     I do not think you should stop reading so long as the reading itself does not, as a passion, fall away from the mind; that happens when a higher order of consciousness and experiences begin within the being. Nor is it good to force yourself too much to do only the one work of painting.


Sri Aurobindo: Such compulsion of the mind and vital tends usually either to be unsuccessful and make them more restless or else to create some kind of dullness and inertia.  For the work simply aspire for the Force to use you, put yourself inwardly in relation with the Mother when doing it and make it your aim to be the instrument for the expression of beauty without regard to personal fame or the praise and blame of others.    I don’t think it would be advisable not to read at all. It is a relaxation of the tension of sadhana which can be at the same time useful to the mind.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only when there is the spontaneous ﬂow of sadhana all day without strain that reading is no longer needed.  Dhyana and work are both helpful for this Yoga to those who can do both. Reading also can be made helpful.


Sri Aurobindo: Dedication to the Divine []. To read what will help the Yoga or what will be useful for the work or what will develop the capacities for the divine purpose. Not to read worthless stuff or for mere entertainment or for a dilettante intellectual curiosity which is of the nature of a mental dramdrinking. When one is established in the highest consciousness, one can read nothing or everything: it makes no difference — but that is still far off.   In the beginning of the sadhana you need nothing more than just what you say, “concentration with faith, devotion and sincerity” on a form of the Divine Being — you can add prayer or the name, if you like.


Sri Aurobindo: Reading good books can be of help in the early mental stage — they prepare the mind, put it in the right atmosphere — can even if one is very sensitive bring some glimpses of realisation on the mental plane. Afterwards the utility diminishes — you have to ﬁnd the right knowledge and experience in yourself.     This [ ] is quite a normal movement.


Sri Aurobindo: In reading these books you get into touch with the Force behind them and it is this that pushes you into meditation and a corresponding experience.     It depends upon the nature of the things read, whether they are helpful to the growth of the being or not. No general rule can be made.


Sri Aurobindo: It cannot be said that poetry or dramas ought or ought not to be read — it depends on the poem or the play — so with the rest.     It is quite permissible to do so [ ] and may relieve. The one thing necessary is that you should be able to keep the consciousness behind free, as in this case.


Sri Aurobindo:    What you can do is to read not for pastime but with the clear intention of furnishing your mind with knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes, reading can be done for the improvement of the mental instrument as part of the sadhana.  You can remember at the beginning and offer your reading to the Divine and at the end again. There is a state of consciousness in which only a part of it is reading or doing the work and behind there is the consciousness of the Divine always.


Sri Aurobindo:   A time must come when the reading as well as any other outward occupation does not interfere with the presence or activity of the higher consciousness.   The reading must learn to accommodate itself to the pressure [ ] — that is, be done by the outer mind while the inner being remains in concentration.


Sri Aurobindo: That is good. Reading ought not to absorb the consciousness — there ought to be the larger part behind detached and conscious in a larger way.


Sri Aurobindo: The only way [ ] is to separate the Prakriti and Purusha. When you feel something within watching all the mental activities but separate from them, just as you can watch things going on outside in the street, then that is the separation of Purusha from mental Prakriti.


Sri Aurobindo: That [] only means that you cannot separate yourself from your mental consciousness in its activity. Naturally, if you take your mental consciousness off the reading, you can’t understand what is being read, for it is with the mental consciousness that one understands. You have not to make the mental consciousness separate from the reading, but yourself separate from the mental consciousness. You have to be the Witness watching it reading or writing or talking, just as you watch the body acting or moving.   What happens in reading such books [] is that one comes into a very external consciousness which looks outward and not inward.


Sri Aurobindo: When the reading is over the mind runs for a time in this external groove and then one has to remain quiet and call back or get back into the inward state to which the higher thoughts naturally come. This may take a little time.   The only harm in reading these things [] is that the vital makes it an excuse for sexual excitement. Otherwise there is no harm in reading for knowledge — the facts of existence have to be known, and we should learn them with a free and dispassionate mind. But such reading has to be avoided, if there is any vital reaction.


Sri Aurobindo: Reading novels is always distracting if you are deep in sadhana.  It is better to avoid it now.     If novels touch the lower vital or raise it, they ought not to be read by the sadhak.


Sri Aurobindo: One can read them only if one can look at them from the literary point of view as a picture of human life and nature which one can observe, as the Yogi looks at life itself, without being involved in it or having any reaction.    I don’t quite know about the novel. People bring in the relations of man and woman because it has been the habit for centuries to make every novel turn around that — except in the few which deal with history or adventure or similar things. In a novel based on spiritual philosophy should not the man and woman idea go into the background or disappear, the spiritual love not having anything based at all on sex, but on the relation between soul and soul?


Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary to be in touch with the outside world in this way []; it may be useful under certain circumstances and for some purposes. It may act too as a hindrance. All depends upon the consciousness from which it is done.  The reading of books of a light character may act as a relaxation of the mental consciousness. In the early stages it is not always possible to keep the mind to an unbroken spiritual concentration and endeavour and it takes refuge in other occupations, feeling even instinctively drawn to those of a lighter character.


Sri Aurobindo:   Obviously there are many things that apply to all equally and cannot be avoided in that way [ ]. The dictum that each has his own way is not true; each has his own way of following the common way and the “own way” may often be very defective. Of course it is true that natures are different and the approach whether to the sadhana or to other things.


Sri Aurobindo: One can say generally that newspaper reading or novel reading is not helpful to the sadhana and is at best a concession to the vital which is not yet ready to be absorbed in the sadhana — unless and until one is able to read in the right way with a higher consciousness which is not only not “disturbed” by the reading or distracted by it from the concentrated Yoga-consciousness but is able to make the right use of what is read from the point of view of the inner consciousness and the inner life.     Merely following external rules cannot of course be sufﬁcient.  They are only an aid to the inner effort until the inner consciousness is thoroughly established.


Sri Aurobindo: Usually much reading of newspapers in the ordinary way keeps one attached to the ordinary view and vision of things and interested in that — when one has the inner consciousness one can see things happening in the world with another eye of knowledge and then reading can be of some use, though even then most of what is published is empty and futile. But the mere not-reading by itself is not effective.  Also if one has need of a distraction, reading newspapers serves the purpose.    Reasons given [] of course prove nothing — they may be only excuses put forward by the mind for doing what the vital wants.


Sri Aurobindo: The newspapers obviously carry with them a lowering atmosphere. It is a question of fact whether one can separate oneself sufﬁciently not to be pulled down by it.  At the time of reading there is certainly a lower pitch of the consciousness in the frontal or outward parts. Only, if one has a consciousness behind which is not affected, then one can revert immediately after reading to the normal higher level.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is not against the principle of Yogic life to know what is happening in the world — what is unyogic is to be attached to these things [] and not able to do without them or to think of them as a matter of main importance. The all-important thing must be the sadhana, the growth into a new consciousness and a new inner life. The rest must be done with detachment and without getting absorbed in them. The feeling must be such that if the Mother were to tell you never to see a newspaper at all, it would be no deprivation to you and you would not even feel the difference.


Sri Aurobindo:  The inability to read books or papers is often felt when the consciousness is getting the tendency to go inside.  Study cannot take the same or a greater importance than sadhana.   Study is of importance only if you study in the right way and with the turn for knowledge and mental discipline. What is the use of studying French if you go on always making the same mistakes and having the same inaccurate and slovenly hold of the language?


Sri Aurobindo:  I have already said that you can spend the time in study as the sadhana is not active. If the sadhana were active then study could be done in the spare time, i.e. in times not given to work or meditation.  A well-trained intellect and study are two different things — there are plenty of people who have read much but have not a well-trained intellect. Inertia can come to anybody, even to the most educated people.


Sri Aurobindo:  Reading, learning about things, acquiring complete and accurate information, training oneself in logical thinking, considering dispassionately all sides of a question, rejecting hasty or wrong inferences and conclusions, learning to look at all things clearly and as a whole [].    By training it to see, observe and understand in the right way []. Reading and study are only useful to acquire information and widen one’s ﬁeld of data.  But that comes to nothing if one does not know how to discern and discriminate, judge, see what is within and behind things.


Sri Aurobindo:   A man may have read much and yet be mentally undeveloped. It is by thinking, understanding, receiving mental inﬂuences from his intellectual superiors that a man’s mind develops.


Sri Aurobindo: There is no such rule. It is better if the mind is strong and developed, but scholarship does not necessarily create a strong and developed mind.     Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind.


Sri Aurobindo: Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know how to read and write well who are more intelligent than many highly educated people and understand life and things better. On the other hand a good intelligence can improve itself by reading because it gets more material to work on and grows by exercise and by having a wider range to move in. But book knowledge by itself is not the real thing; it has to be used as a help to the intelligence, but it is often used only as a help to a loquacious stupidity or ignorance — ignorance because knowledge of facts is a poor thing if one cannot see their true signiﬁcance.


Sri Aurobindo:   You have either to train the memory by practising to remember — or if you cannot do that, try only to understand, read much and let the memory remember what it can. There are people who have a bad memory but they succeed in their studies in spite of it.  I see no objection to his going on with his studies, — whether they will be of any use to him for a life of sadhana will depend on the spirit in which he does them. The really important thing is to develop a state of consciousness in which one can live in the Divine and act from it on the physical world.


Sri Aurobindo: A mental training and discipline, knowledge of men and things, culture, capacities of a useful kind are a preparation that the sadhak would be all the better for having, — even though they are not the one thing indispensable. Education in India gives very little of these things; but if one knows how to study without caring much for the form or for mere academic success, the life of the student can be used for the purpose.    At this age he is too young to give up study. It would be best for him to attend the school still; it will be worth while leaving it only if other and better arrangements could be made for his studies.


Sri Aurobindo: Development of the mind is not a useless thing for one who wishes to follow this sadhana and it can very well go along with the Yoga.   There is no reason why should not complete his studies or learn something which will make him useful in life. To be useless is not a qualiﬁcation for Yoga.  Knowing languages is part of the equipment of the mind.   There is no harm in learning [] — provided it is kept in its subordinate place and one is not too much lost in it.


Sri Aurobindo:   Your objection was to learning languages and especially French as inimical to peace and silence because it meant activity. The mind, when it is not in meditation or in complete silence, is always active with something or another — with its own ideas or desires or with other people or with things or with talking etc. None of these is any less an activity than learning languages.


Sri Aurobindo: Now you shift your ground and say it is because owing to their study they have no time for meditation that you object. That is absurd, for if people want to meditate, they will arrange their time of study for that; if they don’t want to meditate, the reason must be something else than study and if they do not study they will simply go on thinking about “small things”. Want of time is not the cause of their non-meditation and passion for study is not the cause.    One does not learn English or French as an aid to the sadhana; it is done for the development of the mind and as part of the activity given to the being.


Sri Aurobindo: For that purpose learning French is as good as learning English and, if it is properly done, better.  Nor is there any reason, if one has the capacity, to limit oneself to one language only.     It depends on what you want to do with the language.


Sri Aurobindo: If it is only to read the literature, then to learn to read, pronounce and understand accurately is sufﬁcient. If it is a complete mastery one wants, then conversation and writing have to be thoroughly learned in that language.     To read many books quickly gives freedom and ease and familiarity with the language.


Sri Aurobindo: The other method [ ] is necessary for thoroughness and accuracy in detail.  I don’t know that there is anything false in your philosophical reﬂections. Philosophy is of course a creation of the mind but its defect is not that it is false, but that a philosophical system is only a section of the Truth which the philosopher takes as a whole. If one does not shut oneself up like that but looks at all sides, there is no harm in philosophising.   It depends on the nature of the book [ ].


Sri Aurobindo: Philosophy makes the mind subtle in certain directions — or ought to do so. The only harm it can do is if the mind begins clinging to ideas instead of going forward to direct experience.     I do not know about this Commentary [ ], but most commentaries on the Upanishads are written out of the reasoning and speculating intellect.


Sri Aurobindo: They may be of use to people who are trying to ﬁnd out intellectually the meaning of the Upanishads — but they can be of no help to you as a sadhak who are seeking experience; it is likely rather to confuse the mind by taking it off the true basis and throwing it out from the road of experience and spiritual receptivity into the tangle of intellectual debate.    Yes, that [] is the right way to read these things.  These philosophies [] are mostly mental intuitions mixed with much guessing (speculation), but behind, if one knows, one can catch some Truth to which they correspond.


Sri Aurobindo:   Metaphysics deals with the ultimate cause of things and all that lies behind the world of phenomena. As regards mind and consciousness, it asks what they are, how they came into existence, what is their relation to Matter, Life etc. Psychology deals with mind and consciousness and tries to ﬁnd out not so much their ultimate nature and relations as their actual workings and the rule and law of these workings.  It [] is a theoretical training; you learn by it some rules of logical thinking.


Sri Aurobindo: But the application depends on your own intelligence. In any sphere of knowledge or action a man may be a good theorist but a poor executant. A very good military theorist and critic if put in command of an army might very well lose all his battles, not being able to suit the theories rightly to the occasion. So a theoretical logician may bungle the problems of thought by want of insight, of quickness of mind or of plasticity in the use of his capacities. Besides, logic is not the whole of thinking; observation, intuition, sympathy, many-sidedness are more important.


Sri Aurobindo:  I never heard that learning logic was necessary for good expression. So far as I know very few good writers ever bothered about learning that subject.    I am not aware that by learning logic one gets freed from physical things. A few intellectuals lead the mental life and are indifferent to physical needs to a great extent, but these are very few.


Sri Aurobindo:   Common sense by the way is not logic (which is the least common-sense-like thing in the world), it is simply looking at things as they are without inﬂation or deﬂation — not imagining wild imaginations — or for that matter despairing “I know not why” despairs.  I think some knowledge of science will be most useful to you — that ﬁeld is quite a blank for most people here, and yet the greater part of modern thought and knowledge is inﬂuenced by it.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, the scientiﬁc mind does not lead very far []; it only multiplies experiences but brings neither the realisation, nor the knowledge.  It is the thinking mind that works out ideas, the externalising mental or physical mind that gives them form in words. Probably you have not developed this part sufﬁciently — the gift of verbal expression is besides comparatively rare. Most people are either clumsy in expression or if they write abundantly, it is without proper arrangement and style. But this is of no essential importance in sadhana — all that is needed is to convey clearly the perceptions and experiences of their sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   The power of expression comes by getting into touch with the inner source from which these things come. A calm and silent mind is a great help for the free ﬂow of the power, but it is not indispensable, nor will it of itself bring it.


Sri Aurobindo: Thought and expression always give one side of things; the thing is to see the whole but one can express only a part unless one writes a long essay. Most thinkers do not even see the whole, only sides and parts — that is why there is always conﬂict between philosophies and religions.  The Knowledge from above or whatever comes down can express itself in any language.


Sri Aurobindo: When the knowledge comes strongly from above, it very often brings its own language and the defects of the instrument are overcome. There are people who knew very little but when the knowledge began to ﬂow they wrote wonderfully — when it was not ﬂowing, their language became incorrect and ordinary.     If you speak of the expression, the deeper things in these experiences cannot be expressed — except by a great spiritual poet and even then only imperfectly — they can only be realised and remembered.


Sri Aurobindo:   What is expressed is always only a part of what is behind — which remains unexpressed and in the language of the manifestation inexpressible.  The voice brings a vibration of force which it is more difﬁcult to put in writing which is a more mechanic vehicle — although the written word can have a special power of its own.  Writing by itself on ordinary subjects has the externalising tendency unless one has got accustomed to write (whatever be the subject) with the inner consciousness detached and free from what the outer is doing.


Sri Aurobindo:  Writing and reading absorb the mind and ﬁll it with images and inﬂuences; if the images and inﬂuences are not of the right kind, they naturally turn away from the true consciousness. It is only if one has the true consciousness well established already, that one can read or write anything whatever without losing it or without any other harm.   The use of your writing is to keep you in touch with the inner source of inspiration and intuition, so as to wear thin the crude external crust in the consciousness and encourage the growth of the inner being.  Of course when you are writing poems or composing you are in contact with your inner being, that is why you feel so different then.


Sri Aurobindo: The whole art of Yoga is to get that contact and get from it into the inner being itself, for so one can enter directly into and remain in all that is great and luminous and beautiful. Then one can try to establish them in this troublesome and defective outer shell of oneself and in the outer world also.   It is obvious that poetry cannot be a substitute for sadhana; it can be an accompaniment only. If there is a feeling (of devotion, surrender etc.), it can express and conﬁrm it; if there is an experience, it can express and strengthen the force of experience.  As reading of books like the Upanishads or Gita or singing of devotional songs can help, especially at one stage or another, so this can help also.


Sri Aurobindo: Also it opens a passage between the exterior consciousness and the inner mind or vital. But if one stops at that, then nothing much is gained. Sadhana must be the main thing and sadhana means the puriﬁcation of the nature, the consecration of the being, the opening of the psychic and the inner mind and vital, the contact and presence of the Divine, the realisation of the Divine in all things, surrender, devotion, the widening of the consciousness into the cosmic Consciousness, the Self one in all, the psychic and the spiritual transformation of the nature. If these things are neglected and only poetry and mental development and social contacts occupy all the time, then that is not sadhana. Also the poetry must be written in the true spirit, not for fame or self-satisfaction, but as a means of contact with the Divine through aspiration or of the expression of one’s own inner being, as it was written formerly by those who left behind them so much devotional and spiritual poetry in India; it does not help if it is written only in the spirit of the Western artist or.


Sri Aurobindo: Even works or meditation cannot succeed unless they are done in the right spirit of consecration and spiritual aspiration gathering up the whole being and dominating all else.  It is the lack of this gathering up of the whole life and nature and turning it towards the one aim, which is the defect in so many here, that lowers the atmosphere and stands in the way of what is being done by myself and the Mother.  Even those who have a strong inner life, take a long time before they can connect it with the outer speech and action. Outer speech belongs to the externalising mind — that is why it is so difﬁcult to connect it with the inner life.


Sri Aurobindo:   Talk is more external than writing, it depends more on the physical and its condition. Therefore in most cases it is more difﬁcult to get it out of the clutch of the external mind.   In talking one has the tendency to come down into a lower and more external consciousness because talking comes from the external mind. But it is impossible to avoid it altogether.


Sri Aurobindo: What you must do is to learn to get back at once to the inner consciousness — this so long as you are not able to speak always from the inner being or at least with the inner being supporting the action.   You have to learn not to allow the speaking to alter your condition or else to recover it as soon as the interruption is over.     In speaking there should be always a sort of instinctive defence — except with those who are free from the ordinary vital impulse.


Sri Aurobindo:   To remain aloof from the talk is what you should always do.  The detachment is the ﬁrst necessary condition for being free.  Talking cannot be always avoided.


Sri Aurobindo: I don’t think it matters much so long as there is not excessive dispersion of the consciousness.    There are some who have the ﬂow of speech by nature and those who are very vital cannot do without it. But the latter case (not being able to do without it) is obviously a disability from the spiritual point of view. There are also certain stages in the sadhana when one has to go inward and silence is at that time very necessary while unnecessary speech becomes a dispersion of the energies or externalises the consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: It is especially this chat for chat’s sake tendency that has to be overcome.     It is one thing to speak simply and easily with others, keeping the inner consciousness, and another to let oneself go in the vital stream of an externalised consciousness — it was that which I said I had told you not to do.   It [] is of course because the consciousness is thrown out in these things [] and one comes out of the inner poise and has difﬁculty in going back to it — especially as there is a sort of dispersion of the vital energy.


Sri Aurobindo: If one attains to a condition in which one can do these things only with the surface of the consciousness, keeping inside and observing what is done on the surface, but not forgetting oneself in it, then the poise is not lost. But it is a little difﬁcult to get at this duplication of oneself — one comes to it however in time especially if the inner peace and calm become very intense and durable.   ’s talk is certainly not very helpful to his sadhana and I think he knows it — but he has not made any real attempt to control his tongue as yet. Talk — of the usual kind — does very easily disperse or bring down the inner condition because it usually comes out of the lower vital and the physical mind only and expresses that part of the consciousness — it has a tendency to externalise the being. That is of course why so many Yogis take refuge in silence.


Sri Aurobindo: Everyone who lives much inside tends to feel too much talking a fatiguing thing and quite shallow and unnecessary unless it is talk that comes from within. Of course if you make a practice of talking much, that will bring you outside, externalise you and then you will no longer ﬁnd it fatiguing even if you talk for 18 hours out of the 24.


Sri Aurobindo: Talking has a very exhausting effect for the inner energies — unless the inner itself controls the talk.   That [] happens very usually. Talking of an unnecessary character tires the inner being because the talk comes from the outer nature while the inner has to supply the energy which it feels squandered away.


Sri Aurobindo:    Chat of that kind [] has indeed a very tiring effect when one is at all in the stream of true experience, because it dissipates the energy uselessly and makes the mind movement a thing of valueless shreds and patches instead of gathered and poised in itself so as to receive.


Sri Aurobindo: The headache and the fatigue is always a sign that the consciousness no longer wants this outward-going thought and speech and is even physically strained by it. But it is the subconscient habit that wants to continue. Mostly human speech and thought go on mechanically in certain grooves that always repeat themselves and it is not really the mind that controls or dictates them. That is why this habit can go on for some time even after the conscious mind has withdrawn its support and consent and resolved to do otherwise. But if one perseveres, this subconscious mechanical habit runs down like all machinery that is not kept wound up to go on again.


Sri Aurobindo: Then one can form the opposite habit in the subconscient of admitting only what the inner being consents to think or speak.    It is the nervous envelope that is weak — it is this that you saw.  The fact that you feel weak when talking with people shows that the origin of the whole trouble is a weakened nervous force. It is this that you have to get strong.


Sri Aurobindo: You should avoid much talking with others — you can also take rest when you feel the symptoms very strong. But faith, quietude and openness to the higher force are the fundamental cure.  There should be no useless talking or mere chat, still less anything untrue or prompted by egoism and desire. One can talk, but with silence within and quietude in the speech.


Sri Aurobindo:   On the whole you are right. Useless conversation which lowers the consciousness or brings back something of a past consciousness is better avoided. Talking about sadhana also comes under the category when it is merely mental discussion of a superﬁcial kind.


Sri Aurobindo: The depression came into you subconsciously because you had the discussion with. When you discuss like that with people, you put something in them, but something also comes from them to you. So, as was not in quite a good condition, though nothing like what he used to be in his depressions, you easily got a touch of it and as soon as the subconscious could ﬁnd a habitual excuse it sent it up to the mind. You should always be on your guard against these automatic interchanges. A little care is sufﬁcient — and no needless discussion.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is true that to indulge in useless or harmful conversations is not good, but on the other hand it is not good to be too much shut up in oneself. Some company and going out of oneself is also necessary.


Sri Aurobindo:  It is always helpful to limit a little unnecessary talking — it has always a tendency to bring the consciousness down and outwards.   You are right — to minimise speech is sure to be helpful both for right action and for inner sadhana.     It is something very external that takes pleasure in light talk, and it is only when the quietude and with it a certain spontaneous self-control is established in the lower vital nature that this tendency can be entirely conquered in those who have it — i.e. in most people.


Sri Aurobindo: All these things will be worked out in time. What is most important is to get down the quietude into all the being and with it the true force bringing the energy which you describe above.    There is always a chance of something light and unbalancing coming in when there is levity indulged in for its own sake.  The consciousness feels a little shaken in its seat, if not pulled out.


Sri Aurobindo: Once the consciousness is well set inside, then the outward movement gets determined from within and there is no such trouble.     Yes; excessive hilarity and unnecessary chat do most undoubtedly dissipate the force. A great moderation is necessary in these things.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it would be better to get full control of the speech — it is an important step towards going inward and developing a true inner and Yogic consciousness.    Yes. The speech must come from within and be controlled from within.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, control of the speech is very necessary for the physical change.      To control speech is to stand back from the speech impulse and observe it, not to say whatever the impulse makes you say but only to speak what one really needs to say or chooses to say, not to speak in haste or anger or impatience or lightly, not to talk at random or say what is harmful.


Sri Aurobindo: It does not necessarily mean to speak very little, though that is often helpful.      It


Sri Aurobindo: [ ] can only be controlled if you separate yourself from the part that is speaking and are able to observe it. It is the external mind that speaks — one has to watch it from the inner witnessing mind and put a control.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, of course, complete truth of speech is very important for the sadhak and a great help for bringing Truth into the consciousness. It is at the same time difﬁcult to bring the speech under control; for people are accustomed to speak what comes to them and not to supervise and control what they say. There is something mechanical about speech and to bring it to the level of the highest part of the consciousness is never easy. That is one reason why to be sparing in speech is helpful. It helps to a more deliberate control and prevents the tongue from running away with one and doing whatever it likes.


Sri Aurobindo: To stand back means to become a witness of one’s own mind and speech, to see them as something separate from oneself and not identify oneself with them. Watching them as a witness, separate from them, one gets to know what they are, how they act and then put a control over them, reject what one does not approve and think and speak only what one feels to be true. This cannot, of course, be done all at once. It takes time to establish this attitude of separateness, still more time to establish the control.


Sri Aurobindo: But it can be done by practice and persistence.   It is obvious that things which are a long habit cannot go at once. Especially the speech is a thing which in most people is largely automatic and not under their control. It is the vigilance that establishes the control, so one must be on guard against the danger of which you speak, the slacking of the vigilance.  Only the more it can be a quiet and unmixed, not an anxious vigilance, the better.


Sri Aurobindo:   The habits of the physical or the vital-physical nature are always the most difﬁcult to change, because their action is automatic and not governed by the mental will and it is therefore difﬁcult for the mental will to control or transform them. You have to persevere and form the habit of control. If you can succeed in controlling the speech often, — it needs a constant vigilance, — you will ﬁnally ﬁnd that the control extends itself and can in the long run always intervene.


Sri Aurobindo: This must be done so long as that movement is not fully opened to the Mother’s Light and Force, for if that happens the thing can be done more quickly and sometimes with a great rapidity. There is also the intervention of the psychic — if the psychic being is sufﬁciently awake and active to intervene each time you are going to speak at random and say “No”, then the change becomes more easy.    The psychic self-control that is desirable in these surroundings and in the midst of discussion would mean among other things: (1) Not to allow the impulse of speech to assert itself too much or say anything without reﬂection, but to speak always with a conscious control and only what is necessary and helpful.


Sri Aurobindo: (2) To avoid all debate, dispute or too animated discussion and simply say what has to be said and leave it there. There should also be no insistence that you are right and the others wrong, but what is said should only be thrown in as a contribution to the consideration of the truth of the matter. I notice that what you report as having said in this discussion had its truth and what you said was also true, so that really there should have been no dispute.  (3) To keep the tone of speech and the wording very quiet and calm and uninsistent.  (4) Not to mind at all if others are heated and dispute, but remain quiet and undisturbed and yourself speak only what can help things to be smooth again.


Sri Aurobindo: (5) If there is gossip about others and harsh criticism (especially about sadhaks), not to join — for these things are helpful in no way and only lower the consciousness from its higher level.  (6) To avoid all that would hurt or wound others.  The habit of criticism — mostly ignorant criticism of others — mixed with all sorts of imaginations, inferences, exaggerations, false interpretations, even gross inventions is one of the universal illnesses of the Asram. It is a disease of the vital aided by the physical mind which makes itself an instrument of the pleasure taken in this barren and harmful pursuit of the vital. Control of the speech, refusal of this disease and the itch of the vital is very necessary if inner experience has to have any true effect of transformation in the outer life.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is also better to be more strict about not talking of others and criticising them with the ordinary mind — not only in the case of or but all. It is necessary in order to develop a deeper consciousness and outlook on things that understands in silence the movements of Nature in oneself and others and is not moved or disturbed or superﬁcially interested and drawn into an external movement.   It


Sri Aurobindo: [ ] can be and very often is [].  A gossiping spirit is always an obstacle.


Sri Aurobindo:   The difﬁculty you experience exists because speech is a function which in the past has worked much more as an expression of the vital in man than of the mental will. Speech breaks out as the expression of the vital and its habits without caring to wait for the control of the mind; the tongue has been spoken of as the unruly member. In your case the difﬁculty has been increased by the habit of talk about others, — gossip, to which your vital was very partial, so much that it cannot even yet give up the pleasure in it. It is therefore this tendency that must cease in the vital itself.


Sri Aurobindo: Not to be under the control of the impulse to speech, to be able to do without it as a necessity and to speak only when one sees that it is right to do so and only what one sees to be right to say, is a very necessary part of Yogic self-control.   It is only by perseverance and vigilance and a strong resolution that this can be done, but if the resolution is there, it can be done in a short time by the aid of the Force behind.    Truth is far above this false gossip and scandal.


Sri Aurobindo: Care only for the Divine’s opinion and not for that of men.  It [] means ﬁrst truth-speaking, but beyond that to keep the speech in harmony with the deepest truth of which one is conscious.     It is very evident from this inward control which you feel enlightening and guiding you and the resolution of truth-speaking that it made you take, that your psychic being is awake within you.


Sri Aurobindo: The fault of character of which you speak is common and almost universal in human nature. The impulse to speak what is untrue or at least to exaggerate or understate or twist the truth so as to ﬂatter one’s own vanity, preferences, wishes or to get some advantage or secure something desired is very general. But one must learn to speak the truth alone if one is to succeed truly in changing the nature.  To become conscious of what is to be changed in the nature is the ﬁrst step towards changing it. But one must observe these things without being despondent or thinking “it is hopeless” or “I cannot change”.


Sri Aurobindo: You do right to be conﬁdent that the change will come. For nothing is impossible in the nature if the psychic being is awake and leading you with the Mother’s consciousness and force behind it and working in you. This is now happening.  Be sure that all will be done.


Sri Aurobindo:   Very obviously, you ought not to have said or written what was a lie, and you should avoid doing it in future.  The things that you imagined, would not have happened and therefore there was not even any use in this untruth — but useless or not, untruth should be avoided.


Sri Aurobindo: In the ﬁrst place, there is a great difference between uttering as truth what one believes or knows to be false and uttering as truth what one conscientiously believes to be true, but is not in fact true. The ﬁrst is obviously going against the spirit of truth, the second does homage to it. The ﬁrst is deliberate falsehood, the second is only error at worst or ignorance.  This is from the practical point of view of truth-speaking.  From the point of view of the higher Truth, it must not be forgotten that each plane of consciousness has its own standard — what is truth to the mind, may be only partial truth to a higher consciousness, but it is through the partial truth that the mind has to go in order to reach the wider more perfect truth beyond.


Sri Aurobindo: All that is necessary for it is to be open and plastic, to be ready to recognise the higher when it comes, not to cling to the lower because it is its own, not to allow the desires and passions of the vital to blind it to the Light or to twist and pervert things. When once the higher consciousness begins to act, the difﬁculty diminishes and there is a clear progress from truth to greater truth.   If you get the English original from, you will see that what is written is from the highest standpoint. If you want to be an instrument of the Truth, you must always speak the truth and not falsehood. But this does not mean that you must tell everything to everybody.


Sri Aurobindo: To conceal the truth by silence or refusal to speak is permissible, because the truth may be misunderstood or misused by those who are not prepared for it or who are opposed to it — it may even be made a starting point for distortion or sheer falsehood. But to speak falsehood is another matter. Even in jest it should be avoided, because it tends to lower the consciousness.  As for the last point, it is again from the highest standpoint — the truth as one knows it in the mind is not enough, for the mind’s idea may be erroneous or insufﬁcient — it is necessary to have the true knowledge in the true consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: Why should it be lying []? One is not bound to tell everything to everybody — it might often do more harm than good. One has only to say what is necessary. Of course what is said must be true and not false and there must never be any intention to deceive.


Sri Aurobindo: “As one likes” is never a formula that leads to truth; it implies enthroning the vital and its desire as the standard or following the mind’s preferences — which even in any mental discipline is regarded as contrary to the very principle of the search for Truth.    Because one is dealing with dishonest people, that does not justify one in going down to their own level.  If you think that the prices are too high, or, simply, if you want them to be lower, you can say so and ask for a reduction, but it is not right to support your demand by a false statement.  No one is bound to speak the truth when it would be harmful or to speak whatever is in one’s mind; it is always permissible to keep silence or evade a reply and not to say what one does not wish or think it right to tell.


Sri Aurobindo: But to tell a lie is superﬂuous and not justiﬁable.  It is usually out of weakness (mind and vital) that people lie; those who are strong in nature do not need to lie. A sadhak has to be strong and not weak — straightforward when necessary, silent when necessary, but not a liar. Straightforwardness does not mean of course that one has to babble out everything to everybody — to keep things to oneself, not to tell what should not be told is very necessary; but falsehood is not the right way to conceal things that have not to be told, the right way is silence.   If it [] is true, it should not be withdrawn [].


Sri Aurobindo: But the truth need be told only when it helps the person spoken to, otherwise silence is better.     It is not the fact that if a man is truthful (in the sense of not lying), all he says happens. For that he must know the Truth — be in touch with the truth of things, not merely speak the truth as his mind knows it.


Sri Aurobindo:   Things said of sadhana — or any kind of real truth — always give more meaning with the growth of consciousness and experience. That is why when one rises in the level of consciousness the truth seen before in the mind becomes a new and vastly deeper thing always.


Sri Aurobindo:   That [ ] is not hypocrisy but a conﬂict between two parts of the nature. Hypocrisy comes in only when one preaches a thing one does not believe or deliberately pretends to be or aim at what one is not and has no intention of trying to become.  That is not the way. Absolute silence and looseness of talk are two extremes; neither is good.


Sri Aurobindo: I have seen many people practising, but afterwards they are just as talkative as before. It is self-mastery you must get.      is seldom of much use.


Sri Aurobindo: After it is over, the speech starts again as on the old lines. It is in speech itself that the speech must change.    It is no use giving up talking altogether — the proper course is to speak usefully to people but not to talk for the sake of talking.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is not much utility in complete outer silence or absolute retirement. Unless one is very strong spiritually, these things often end by creating a moribund condition of the consciousness.   To remain in silence as much as possible is good for a time.  But entire retirement is seldom found to be helpful — the lower movements may remain quiescent owing to want of stimulus from outside, but do not disappear.


Sri Aurobindo: For that you must be able to get an inner quietude and a mastery over the outer movements which will resist any atmosphere.   The difﬁculty is that the things in the atmosphere come in even if one does not speak with people. There are always mind waves moving about. It is a mastery that has to be developed, beginning with a power of silence, exclusion, non-response.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is really an inner silence that is needed — a something silent within that looks at outer talk and action but feels it as something superﬁcial, not as itself and is quite indifferent and untouched by it. It can bring forces to support speech and action or it can stop them by withdrawal or it can let them go on and observe without being involved or moved.


Sri Aurobindo: If one keeps the inner silence even when among the friends, that is the real thing; the outer silence need only be relative until the time comes when speech itself is an expression out of the silence.    If the peace is very strong within, talking does not cloud it — because this peace is not mental or vital even when it pervades the mind and vital — or else it is a cloud that quickly passes without touching deeply. Usually however such talk [ ] disperses the consciousness and one can lose much. The only disadvantage of not talking is that it isolates too much, if it is absolute, but by not talking these things one loses nothing.


Sri Aurobindo: In all things there must be a control over thought and speech also. But while rajasic violence is excluded, a calmly forceful severity of thought and speech where severity is needed is sometimes indispensable.    Yes, obviously, the power to say “No” is indispensable in life and still more so in sadhana. It is the power of rejection put into speech.


Sri Aurobindo:   These [] discussions are perfectly useless, they only deﬂect the mind and open the gate to falsehood.


Sri Aurobindo: Harangues and exhortations touch only the surface of the mind.  If the mind is in agreement it is pleased and stimulated, but that is all. If it is not in agreement the mind criticises or becomes impatient and turns aside. If the harangue is very forcible it may touch the vital sometimes and produce a momentary effect.   It is no use being moved by the talk of others; one who follows the path, must be strong enough to go on upon it untouched by the opinion of the outside world.


Sri Aurobindo: And it is best not to speak of these things to the indifferent or the hostile.    Hastiness of speech and action — (in excess, because to a certain extent it exists in everybody) — is a matter of temperament. I do not suppose it is more in you than in many others here. Of course it has to be got rid of, but it is one of the lesser, not one of the major imperfections of nature with which the Yogic Force has to deal.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the externalising mind that has to be disciplined so that it may not leap too soon to conclusions or rush immediately from thought to speech and action.    That (thinking over what was talked) is a physical mind habit which should in course of time wear out. The mind should be free to shut off immediately as soon as the talk is done.  Man is a mental being and cannot come from the vital, although part of him may live on the vital plane or rather in connection with it.


Sri Aurobindo: Most men in fact live much in the vital and therefore when they practise sadhana it is ﬁrst on the vital plane that they ﬁnd themselves, in dreams, experiences etc. When the supramental opens then something will descend from the supramental in each as he becomes ready and forms a supramental Purusha in him. What he is now, cannot limit what he will become.    That [] is not living in the vital — these are physical and mental occupations merely.


Sri Aurobindo: Living in the vital is a psychological condition.  Most people live in their vital. That means that they live in their desires, sensations, emotional feelings, vital imaginations and see and experience and judge everything from that point of view. It is the vital that moves them, the mind being at its service, not its master. In Yoga also many people do sadhana from that plane and their experience is full of vital visions, formations, experiences of all kinds, but there is no mental clarity or order, neither do they rise above the mind.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only the minority of men who live in the mind or in the psychic or try to live on the spiritual plane.     Of course most men live in their physical mind and vital, except a few saints and a rather larger number of intellectuals. That is why, as it is now discovered, humanity has made little progress in the last three thousand years, except in information and material equipment.


Sri Aurobindo: A little less cruelty and brutality perhaps, more plasticity of the intellect in the elite, a quicker habit of change in forms, that is all.    A vital life, “a little higher than the animals” because of some play of mind, with death as its answer is all that human existence is as it is ordinarily envisaged. And yet there is an aspiration for something more; but the religions take hold of it and canalise it into something pointless for life and things remain as they are.  Only a few indeed get beyond this limit.


Sri Aurobindo: The “after all” is indeed only an excuse. Nobody can become more than human if he refuses to make a sacriﬁce of his ego — for “human” means a vital animal ego mentalised by a little outward thought and knowledge. So long as one is satisﬁed with remaining that, one will remain human “even here” or anywhere.


Sri Aurobindo: People are living now so much in the vital when they do not live in the intellect, and so unguardedly and without restraint, the old mental conventions and restraints being in a state of deliquescence, that catastrophes are likely to be common. The disappearance of conventions and the urge to a larger life are in themselves good things, but on condition that a greater control and a truer harmony are discovered. At present people are going about it in the wrong way — hence the perilous condition of Europe and of the world. Nor are these convulsed and insecure conditions a very favourable environment for the development of a spiritual life either. But it seems that it is in the midst of difﬁculties that it is destined to come.


Sri Aurobindo:   The times now are both worse and better than in Wordsworth’s — on one side there is a collapse into the worst parts of human nature and a riot of the vital forces, on the other there is in compensation a greater seeking for something beyond and a seeking with more light and knowledge in it.  The vital started in its evolution with obedience to impulse and not reason — as for strategy, the only strategy it understands is some tactics by which it can compass its desires. It does not like the voice of knowledge and wisdom — but curiously enough by the necessity which has grown up in man of justifying action by reason, the vital mind has developed a strategy of its own which is to get the reason to ﬁnd out reasons for justifying its own feelings and impulses. When the reason is too clear to lend itself to this game, the vital falls back on its native habit of shutting its ears and going on its course.


Sri Aurobindo: In these attacks, the plea of unﬁtness, “Since you are not pleased with my impulses and I can’t change them, that shows I am unﬁt, so I had better go”, is the counter-strategy it adopts. But even if one counters that, the impulse itself is sufﬁcient, coming strongly as it does from universal Nature, to restore to the vital for a short time its old blind irrational instinct to obey the push that has come.   The doubts of the sadhaks more often rise from the vital than from the true mental — when the vital goes wrong or is in trouble or depression, the doubts rise and repeat themselves in the same form and the same language, no matter how much the mind had been convinced by either patent proofs or intellectual answers.  I have noticed that always. The vital is irrational (even when it uses the reason to justify itself) and it believes or disbelieves according to its feeling, not according to reason.


Sri Aurobindo:  The opposition of the vital is never reasonable, even when it puts forward reasons. It acts from its nature and habit of desire, not from reason.  The vital always prefers to cover its movements from the Light.    The whole signiﬁcance of your sentences was that you had made all the necessary resolutions, but you could not carry them out because the Force refused to support you.


Sri Aurobindo: That is the usual trick of the vital mind when it wants to rid itself of the blame for difﬁculties or want of progress in the sadhana: “I am doing all I can, but the Force is not supporting me.” It is no use your quoting other sentences, because you write now one thing, now another, shifting your ground for the sake of your argument. If logic could help you to get rid of this trickery of the vital mind, it would be worth while learning Logic.


Sri Aurobindo: As to what you ask about anything else being behind than what your mind was conscious of in its surface intention, there is more often than not something behind when the vital meddles in the matter — and it is a part of self-knowledge not to be misled by the mind’s surface movements but to detect this something behind. For it is the habit of the vital to make a mask of the mind’s arrangements about feelings and actions in order to conceal even from the self-observation of the doer the secret underlying motive or forces behind the speech, act or feelings.   It is indeed amazing that you should have lost yourself to an extravagant deception such as has set on foot. It is simply the spirit of vital falsehood, dramatic and romantic, obscuring the reason and shutting out common sense and simple truth.  To clear the vital, you must get out of it all compromise with falsehood — no matter how specious the reason it advances — and get the habit of simple straightforward psychic truth engraved in it so that nothing may have a chance to enter.


Sri Aurobindo: If this lesson can be imprinted in that part of the vital which is capable of such compromises, some good will come out of this wrong movement. Put the Mother’s notice henceforth at the door of your vital being, “No falsehood hereafter shall ever enter here”, and station a sentry there to see that it is put into execution.     You have to develop discrimination so that it becomes impossible for the vital to deceive you.


Sri Aurobindo:   If there is this unconsciousness, you have to learn to be conscious in all your actions, so that the vital movements will no longer be able to deceive you or take any cover. You must make a point of being perfectly sincere in looking at these vital movements and seeing them as they are.  If once you can open in the psychic being and keep it open, then from within yourself will come constantly a perception that will show you at each step the actual truth and keep you on your guard against any kind of deception. If you aspire constantly and allow the peace to grow and the Force to work in you, this opening will come.


Sri Aurobindo: The human vital is almost always of that nature [ ], but that is no reason why one should accept it as an unchangeable fact and allow a restless vital to drive one as it likes. Even apart from Yoga, in ordinary life, only those are considered to have full manhood or are likely to succeed in their life, their ideals or their undertakings who take in hand this restless vital, concentrate and control it and subject it to discipline. It is by the use of the mental will that they discipline it, compelling it to do not what it wants but what the reason or the will sees to be right or desirable. In Yoga one uses the inner will and compels the vital to submit itself to tapasya so that it may become calm, strong, obedient — or else one calls down the calm from above obliging the vital to renounce desire and become quiet and receptive. The vital is a good instrument but a bad master.


Sri Aurobindo: If you allow it to follow its likes and dislikes, its fancies, its desires, its bad habits, it becomes your master and peace and happiness are no longer possible. It becomes not your instrument or the instrument of the Divine Shakti, but of any force of the Ignorance or even any hostile force that is able to seize and use it.    Yes, that is the nature of the vital. It can make the absolute and enthusiastic surrender as well as cause all the trouble possible.


Sri Aurobindo: Without the vital there is no life or force of action or manifestation; it is a necessary instrument of the spirit for life.   Vitality means life-force — wherever there is life, in plant or animal or man, there is life-force — without the vital there can be no life in matter and no living action. The vital is a necessary force and nothing can be done or created in the bodily existence, if the vital is not there as an instrument. Even sadhana needs that vital force.  But if the vital is unregenerate and enslaved to desire, passion and ego, then it is as harmful as it can otherwise be helpful.


Sri Aurobindo: Even in ordinary life the vital has to be controlled by the mind and mental will, otherwise it brings disorder or disaster. When people speak of a vital man, they mean one under the domination of vital force not controlled by the mind or the spirit. The vital can be a good instrument, but it is a bad master.  The vital has not to be killed or destroyed, but puriﬁed and transformed by the psychic and spiritual control.   What has been put into the vital receptacle by life can be got out by reversing it, turning it towards the Divine and not towards yourself.


Sri Aurobindo: You will then ﬁnd that the vital is as excellent an instrument as it is a bad master.     If your will is strong and stiff, always, the vital however obstinate is bound to yield in the end and become your instrument and not your master.  Puriﬁcation of the vital is usually considered to be a condition for successful sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: One may have some experiences without it, but at least a complete detachment from the vital movements is necessary for a sustained realisation.  It is true that for the external vital an outer discipline is necessary for the puriﬁcation, otherwise it remains restless and fanciful and at the mercy of its own impulses — so that no basis can be built there for a quiet and abiding higher consciousness to remain ﬁrmly. The attitude you have taken for the work is of course the best one and, applying it steadily, the progress you feel was bound to come and is sure to increase.   To live and act under control or according to a standard of what is right — not to allow the vital or the physical to do whatever they like and not to let the mind run about according to its fancy without truth or order []. Also to obey those who ought to be obeyed.


Sri Aurobindo:   An overmastering impulse is not necessarily an inspiration of true guidance; in following always such impulses one is more likely to become a creature of random caprices. Inexhaustible energy is an excellent thing, but not an energy without discipline.


Sri Aurobindo:   The will ought to have the same mastery over impulses as over the thoughts. Many people ﬁnd it easier to control an impulse than to prevent a thought.   The vital is good when it is properly used — it is a necessary instrument for action. But ordinarily it is in its lower action an instrument of ego and desire — that is why it has not to be indulged, but rather put under strong discipline.


Sri Aurobindo:  The vital has to be controlled and not allowed to do what it likes. It is not the vital that has to control you, it is you who have to control the vital.     Be careful about vital movements and formations — when you allow them, you are on a dangerous slope.


Sri Aurobindo:  If you want the Divine and the inner life, the old vital moorings must be cut.   It is certainly the abrupt and decisive breaking that is the easiest and best way for these things — vital habits.    People are here to change what is wrong in their nature so that they may do an effective sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   If you want to change, you must ﬁrst resolutely get rid of the defects of your vital being, persevering steadily, however difﬁcult it may be or however long it may take, calling in always the divine help and compelling yourself always to be entirely sincere.  As for ﬁtness and unﬁtness, nobody is entirely ﬁt for this Yoga; one has to become ﬁt by aspiration, by, by sincerity and surrender. If you have always desired the spiritual life, it is the psychic part of you that desired it, but your vital has always come in the way. Establish a sincere will in the vital; do not allow personal desires and demands and selﬁshness and falsehood to mix in your sadhana; then alone the vital in you will become ﬁt for the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: Lately you seem to have made a more sincere endeavour; if you want it to succeed, the endeavour must become always purer and more steady and persistent. If you practise sincerely, you will get the help needed by you.  If you take the right attitude in your work, that itself will bring the help. The right attitude is to work for the sake of the Divine, as an offering, without demand for any reward, without selﬁsh claims and desires, without self-assertion and arrogance, not quarrelling with your fellow workers, thinking it to be the Mother’s work and not your own, and trying to feel her power behind the work. If you can do that, your nature will progress and change.


Sri Aurobindo: I write this much in answer to your letter because I ﬁnd in it a beginning of vital sincerity which was not there before. The rest depends upon you. If you become vitally sincere, the help will be with you.  There is nothing deﬁnite that I can tell you. Mother ﬁnds no conscious opposition in your mind or will to surrender and transformation.


Sri Aurobindo: But probably the difﬁculty lies in the vital (not mind) of the artist (the poet, painter etc. in you), because the vital of the artist is always accustomed to its independence, to follow its own way, to make and live in its own world and pursue the impulses of its nature. If that element changes, then probably surrender and transformation could be more rapid, but it is not always easy for it to change at once, it usually goes by a gradual and almost unobserved change.    It is not at all a fact that your nature is incapable of love and bhakti; on the contrary that is the right way for you. Meditation is all right, but it will be most proﬁtable for you if it is directed towards the increase of love and devotion


Sri Aurobindo: ; the rest will come of itself afterwards.  Also, it is not true that your nature is incapable of surrender; you made a great progress in that direction. But the complete surrender of all parts, especially of the whole vital, is certainly difﬁcult. It can only come with the development of the consciousness. Meanwhile, that it has not fully come, is no reason for despair or giving up.


Sri Aurobindo: You are taking too bleak a view of things, the usual result of your giving way to depression. You used to have this before and you got over it by persistence. Now also by persistence it will go. To make radical decisions under the inﬂuence of depression is not good. To brace yourself up and, however persistent the difﬁculties are, to stick it out, is always the best.


Sri Aurobindo: Be faithful and persevering, then, however long the way, you cannot fail to reach the goal.  It is not easy to compel the vital, though it can be done. It is easier by the constant pressure of the mind to persuade and convert it; but it is true that in this mental way of doing it the vital does often attach itself to the spiritual ideal for some gain of its own.  The one effective way is to bring the light down always in the vital, exposing it to itself, so that it is obliged to see what is wrong with itself and in the end to wish sincerely for a change.  The light can be brought upon it either from within from the psychic or from above through the mind into the vital nature.


Sri Aurobindo: To call down this light and force from above the mind is one of the chief methods of the Yoga. But whatever way is used, it is always a work of persistent and patient spiritual labour. The vital be converted suddenly, but even after a sudden conversion the effects of it have to be worked out, applied to every part of the vital until the effect is complete and that takes often a long time.  As for the physical consciousness, that can only be converted by long spade work, as it were, — rapid changes in this or that point can be made; but the whole change means a long and persistent endeavour.  The liberation you are aspiring for is indeed extremely necessary for the sadhak, but it means the liberation of the whole vital part of the nature — not a thing that can be done easily or at once.


Sri Aurobindo: The is not in you or in anyone, it is in the universal vital Nature. The aspiration must be constant, patient and persistent, in the end it will prevail. To call the higher calm and peace down into the system from above is the main thing — if you feel that coming down, it will be the beginning of the liberation.    You were getting the true consciousness down into the vital, but as the old difﬁculty rose again in the physical, there is again the vital attack.