Sri Aurobindo: To dissolve it ought to be possible if one sees it for what it is and is resolved to get rid of it — never allowing any mental justiﬁcation of it, however logical, right and plausible the justiﬁcation may seem to be — always replying to all the mind’s arguments or the vital’s feelings in favour of it, like Cato to the debaters, “ ” — “Carthage must be destroyed”, Carthage in this case being the formation and its nefarious circle.  Anyway the closing idea in your letter is the right one. “The Divine is worth ferreting out even if oceans of gloom have to be crossed.” If you could confront the formation always with that ﬁrm resolution, it should bring victory. In the Mother’s vision Kali did express a wish to interfere and break the thing — I don’t know how she proposes to do it — by giving you the strength you pray for or by breaking the head of the unwelcome lodger or visitor.


Sri Aurobindo: I hope she will soon do it.     A possibility in the soul or in the inner being generally remains always a possibility — at the worst, its fulﬁlment can be postponed, but even that only if the possessor of the possibility gives up or breaks away from the true spiritual path without probability of early return — because he is in chase of the magniﬁed and distorted shadow of his own ego or for some other distortion of the nature produced by a wrong egoistic misuse of the Yoga.  A mere appearance of inability or obstruction of progress in the outer being, a covering of the inner by the outer, even if it lasts for years, has no probative value, because that happens to a great number, perhaps to the majority of aspirants to Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: The reason is that they take somehow the way of raising up all the difﬁculties in their nature almost at the beginning and tunnelling through the mass instead of the alternative way of going ahead, slowly or swiftly, and trusting to time, Yoga and the Force Divine to clear out of them in the proper season what has to be eliminated. It is not of their own deliberate choice that they do it, something in their nature drives them. There are many here who have had or still have that long covering of the inner by the outer or separation of the inner from the outer consciousness. You yourself took that way in spite of our expostulations to you advising you to take the sunlit road, and you have not yet got out of the habit.


Sri Aurobindo: But that does not mean that you won’t get out of the tunnel and when you do you will ﬁnd your inner being waiting for you on the other side — in the sun and not in the shadow. I don’t think I am more patient than a guru ought to be. Anyone who is a guru at all ought to be patient, ﬁrst because he knows the difﬁculty of human nature and, secondly, because he knows how the Yoga force works, in so many contrary ways, open or subterranean, slow or swift, volcanic or coralline, — passing even from one to the other — and he does not use the surface reason but the eye of inner knowledge and Yogic experience.    There is no contradiction between my former statements about the sunlit path and what I have said about the difﬁcult and unpleasant passages which the Yoga has to pass through in its normal development in the way of human nature.


Sri Aurobindo: The sunlit path can be followed by those who are able to practise surrender, ﬁrst a central surrender and afterwards a more complete self-giving in all the parts of the being. If they can achieve and preserve the attitude of the central surrender, if they can rely wholly on the Divine and accept cheerfully whatever comes to them from the Divine, then their path becomes sunlit and may even be straightforward and easy. They will not escape all difﬁculties, no seeker can, but they will be able to meet them without pain and despondency, — as indeed the Gita recommends that Yoga should be practised,, — trusting in the inner guidance and perceiving it more and more or else in the outer guidance of the Guru. It can also be followed even when one feels no light and no guidance if there is or if one can acquire a bright settled faith and happy bhakti or has the nature of the spiritual optimist and the ﬁrm belief or feeling that all that is done by the Divine is done for the best even when we cannot understand his action. But all have not this nature, most are very far from it, and the complete or even the central surrender is not easy to get and to keep it always is hard enough for our human nature.


Sri Aurobindo: When these things are not there, the liberty of the soul is not attained and we have instead to undergo the law or fulﬁl a hard and difﬁcult discipline.  That law is imposed on us by the Ignorance which is the nature of all our parts; our physical being is obviously a mass of ignorance, the vital is full of ignorant desires and passions, the mind is also an instrument of Ignorance struggling towards some kind of imperfect and mostly inferior and external knowledge.  The path of the seeker proceeds through this ignorance; for a long time he can ﬁnd no light of solid experience or realisation, only the hopes and ideas and beliefs of the mind which do not give the true spiritual seeing; or he gets glimpses of light or periods of light but the light often goes out and the luminous periods are followed by frequent or long periods of darkness. There are constant ﬂuctuations, persistent disappointments, innumerable falls and failures. No path of Yoga is really easy or free from these difﬁculties or ﬂuctuations; the way of bhakti is supposed to be the easiest, but still we ﬁnd constant complaints that one is always seeking but never ﬁnding and even at the best there is a constant ebb and tide, and, joy and weeping, ecstasy and despair.


Sri Aurobindo: If one has the faith or in the absence of faith the will to go through, one passes on and enters into the joy and light of the divine realisation. If one gets some habit of true surrender, then all this is not necessary; one can enter into the sunlit way. Or if one can get some touch of what is called pure bhakti,, then whatever happens that is enough; the way becomes easy, or if it does not, still this is a sufﬁcient start to support us to the end without the sufferings and falls that happen so often to the ignorant seeker.  In all Yoga there are three essential objects to be attained by the seeker: union or abiding contact with the Divine, liberation of the soul or the Self, the Spirit, and a certain change of the consciousness, the spiritual change. It is this change, which is necessary for reaching the other two objects, necessary at least to a certain degree, that is the cause of most of the struggles and difﬁculties; for it is not easy to accomplish it; a change of the mind, a change of the heart, a change of the habits of the will is called for and is obstinately resisted by our ignorant nature.


Sri Aurobindo: In this Yoga a complete transformation of the nature is aimed at because that is necessary for the complete union and the complete liberation not only of the soul and the spirit but of the nature itself. It is also a Yoga of works and of the integral divine life; for that the integral transformation of nature is evidently necessary; the union with the Divine has to carry with it a full entrance into the divine consciousness and the divine nature; there must be not only or but or, as it is called in the Gita,. The full Yoga, Purna Yoga, means a fourfold path, a Yoga of knowledge for the mind, a Yoga of bhakti for the heart, a Yoga of works for the will and a Yoga of perfection for the whole nature. But, ordinarily, if one can follow wholeheartedly any one of these lines, one arrives at the result of all the four. For instance, by bhakti one becomes close to the Divine, becomes intensely aware of Him and arrives at knowledge, for the Divine is the Truth and the Reality; by knowing Him, says the Upanishads, one comes to know all.


Sri Aurobindo: By bhakti also the will is led into the road of the works of love and the service of the Divine and the government of the nature and its acts by the Divine, and that is Karmayoga. By bhakti also comes spiritual change of the consciousness and the action of the nature which is the ﬁrst step towards its transformation. So it is with all the other lines of the fourfold path.  But it may be that there are many obstacles in the being to the domination of the mind and heart and will by bhakti and the consequent contact with the Divine. The too great activity of the intellectual mind and its attachment to its own pride of ideas, its prejudices, its ﬁxed notions and its ignorant reason may shut the doors to the inner light and prevent the full tide of bhakti from ﬂooding everything; it may also cling to a surface mental activity and refuse to go inside and allow the psychic vision and the feelings of the inner heart to become its guides, though it is by this vision and this feeling that bhakti grows and conquers.


Sri Aurobindo: So too the passions and desires of the vital being and its ego may block the way and prevent the self-giving of the mind and heart to the Divine. The inertia, ignorance and inconscience of one’s physical consciousness, its attachment to ﬁxed habits of thought and feeling and action, its persistence in the old grooves may come badly in the way of the needed change. In such circumstances the Divine may have to bide his time; but if there is real hunger in the heart, all that cannot prevent the ﬁnal realisation; still, it may have to wait till the obstructions are removed or at least so much cleared out as to admit an unimpeded working of the Divine Power on the surface nature. Till then, there may be periods of inner ease and some light in the mind, periods also of the feeling of bhakti or of peace, periods of the joy of self-consecration in works and service; for these will take long to stay permanently and there will be much struggle and unrest and suffering. In the end the Divine’s working will appear and one will be able to live in his presence.


Sri Aurobindo: I have described the difﬁculties of Yoga at their worst, as they may hamper and afﬂict even those predestined to the realisation but as often there is an alternation or a mixture of the light and the darkness, initial attainment perhaps and heavy subsequent difﬁculties, progress and attacks and retardations, strong movements forward and a ﬂoundering in the bogs of the Ignorance. Even great realisations may come and high splendours of light and spiritual experience and yet the goal is not attained; for in the phrase of the Rig Veda, “As one climbs from peak to peak there is made clear the much that is still to be done.”  But there is always something that either carries us on or forces us on. This may take the shape of something conscious in front, the shape of a mastering spiritual idea, indestructible aspiration or ﬁxed faith which may seem sometimes entirely veiled or even destroyed in periods of darkness or violent upheaval, but always they reappear when the storm has passed or the blackness of night has thinned, and reassert their inﬂuence. But also it may be something in the very essence of the being deeper than any idea or will in the mind, deeper and more permanent than the heart’s aspiration but hidden from one’s own observation.


Sri Aurobindo: One who is moved to Yoga by some curiosity of the mind or even by its desire for knowledge can turn aside from the path from disappointment or any other cause; still more can those who take it up from some inner ambition or vital desire turn away through revolt or frustration or the despondency of frequent check and failure. But if this deeper thing is there, then one cannot permanently leave the path of spiritual endeavour: one may decide to leave the path but is not allowed from within to do it or one may leave but is obliged to return to it by the secret spiritual need within him.  All these things are common to every path of Yoga; they are the normal difﬁculties, ﬂuctuations and struggles which come across the path of spiritual effort. But in this Yoga there is an order or succession of the workings of the secret Force which may vary greatly in its circumstances in each sadhak, but still maintains its general line. Our evolution has brought the being up out of inconscient Matter into the Ignorance of mind, life and body tempered by an imperfect knowledge and is trying to lead us into the light of the Spirit, to lift us into that light and to bring the light down into us, into body and life as well as mind and heart and to ﬁll with it all that we are.


Sri Aurobindo: This and its consequences, of which the greatest is the union with the Divine and life in the divine consciousness, is the meaning of the integral transformation. Mind is our present topmost faculty; it is through the thinking mind and the heart with the soul, the psychic being behind them that we have to grow into the Spirit, for what the Force ﬁrst tries to bring about is to ﬁx the mind in the right central idea, faith or mental attitude and the right aspiration and poise of the heart and to make these sufﬁciently strong and ﬁrm to last in spite of other things in the mind and heart which are other than or in conﬂict with them.  Along with this it brings whatever experiences, realisations or descent or growth of knowledge the mind of the individual is ready for at the time or as much of it, however small, as is necessary for its further progress: sometimes these realisations and experiences are very great and abundant, sometimes few and small or negligible; in some there seems to be in this ﬁrst stage nothing much of these things or nothing decisive — the Force seems to concentrate on a preparation of the mind only.  In many cases the sadhana seems to begin and proceed with experiences in the vital; but in reality this can hardly take place without some mental preparation, even if it is nothing more than a turning of the mind or some kind of opening which makes the vital experiences possible. In any case, to begin with the vital is a hazardous affair; the difﬁculties there are more numerous and more violent than on the mental plane and the pitfalls are innumerable.


Sri Aurobindo: The access to the soul, the psychic being, is less easy because it is covered up with a thick veil of ego, passion and desire. One is apt to be swallowed up in a maze of vital experiences, not always reliable, the temptation of small siddhis, the appeal of the powers of darkness to the ego. One has to struggle through these densities to the psychic being behind and bring it forward; then only can the sadhana on the vital plane be safe.  However that may be, the descent of the sadhana, of the action of the Force into the vital plane of our being becomes after some time necessary. The Force does not make a wholesale change of the mental being and nature, still less an integral transformation before it takes this step: if that could be done, the rest of the sadhana would be comparatively secure and easy.


Sri Aurobindo: But the vital is there and always pressing on the mind and heart, disturbing and endangering the sadhana and it cannot be left to itself for too long. The ego and desires of the vital, its disturbances and upheavals have to be dealt with and if not at once expelled, at least dominated and prepared for a gradual if not a rapid modiﬁcation, change, illumination. This can only be done on the vital plane itself by descending to that level.   The vital ego itself must become conscious of its own defects and willing to get rid of them; it must decide to throw away its vanities, ambitions, lusts and longings, its rancours and revolts and all the rest of the impure stuff and unclean movements within it.


Sri Aurobindo: This is the time of the greatest difﬁculties, revolts and dangers. The vital ego hates being opposed in its desires, resents disappointment, is furious against wounds to its pride and vanity; it does not like the process of puriﬁcation and it may very well declare Satyagraha against it, refuse to cooperate, justify its own demands and inclinations, offer passive resistance of many kinds, withdraw the vital support which is necessary both to the life and the sadhana and try to withdraw the being from the path of spiritual endeavour. All this has to be faced and overcome, for the temple of the being has to be swept clean if the Lord of our being is to take his place and receive our worship there.


Sri Aurobindo: I know that this is a time of trouble for you and everybody. It is so for the whole world; confusion, trouble, disorder and upset everywhere is the general state of things. The better things that are to come are preparing or growing under a veil and the worse are prominent everywhere. The one thing is to hold on and to hold out till the hour of light has come.


Sri Aurobindo:  I am afraid I can hold out but cold comfort for the present at least to those of your correspondents who are lamenting the present state of things. Things bad, are growing worse and may at any time grow worst or worse than worst if that is possible — and anything however paradoxical seems possible in the present perturbed world. The best thing for them is to realise that all this was necessary because certain possibilities had to emerge and be got rid of if a new and better world was at all to come into being; it would not have done to postpone them for a later time.  It is as in Yoga where things active or latent in the being have to be put into action in the light so that they may be grappled with and thrown out or to emerge from latency in the depths for the same puriﬁcatory purpose.


Sri Aurobindo: Also they can remember the adage that night is darkest before dawn and that the coming of dawn is inevitable. But they must remember too that the new world whose coming we envisage is not to be made of the same texture as the old and different only in pattern and that it must come by other means, from within and not from without — so the best way is not to be too much preoccupied with the lamentable things that are happening outside, but themselves to grow within so that they may be ready for the new world whatever form it may take.  You are quite right in taking an optimistic and not a pessimistic attitude in the sadhana — progressive sadhana is enormously helped by an assured faith and conﬁdence. Such a conﬁdence helps to realise, for it is dynamic and tends to fulﬁl itself.


Sri Aurobindo: As for the sceptics — well, optimism even unjustiﬁed is still justiﬁable because it gives a chance and a force for getting things done, while pessimism even with all the grounds that appearances can give to it, is simply a clog and a “No going” affair.  The right thing is to go ahead and get done all that can be, if possible all that ought to be, but at least do so much that all that ought will feel bound to come along on the heels of my doing.  That is the prophets and the gospel.  The attitude you have taken is the right one. It is this feeling and attitude which help you to overcome so rapidly the attacks that sometimes fall upon you and throw you out of the right consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: As you say, difﬁculties so taken become opportunities; the difﬁculty faced in the right spirit and conquered, one ﬁnds that an obstacle has disappeared, a fresh step forward has been taken. To question, to resist in some part of the being increases trouble and difﬁculties — that was why an unquestioning acceptance, an unfailing obedience to the directions of the Guru was laid down as indispensable in the old Indian Yogas — it was demanded not for the sake of the Guru, but for the sake of the disciple.    This kind of acute struggle comes very often to a sadhak when he wants to make a complete and decisive progress instead of the slow elimination which is the usual course of nature; the strong urge upward is resisted by a vehement pull-back from below.  But the advantage is that when one persists and conquers, much has been gained by the struggle and in that part of the being that resists a decisive advantage.


Sri Aurobindo: Persevere therefore and do not grieve for occasional waverings or stumbles which can easily happen in so arduous a combat. It should always be the rule for the sadhak not to linger over such things but to pick oneself up again and go resolutely forward. Our help, our force, our blessings will be with you always aiding each step till the ﬁnal victory.    Why get excited over these small things or let them disturb you?


Sri Aurobindo: If you remain quiet, things will go much better and, if there is any difﬁculty, you are more likely to ﬁnd out a way in a quiet mind open to the Peace and Power. That is the secret of going on, not to allow things and happenings, not even real mistakes, to upset you, but to remain very quiet, conﬁding in the Power to lead you and set things more and more right. If one does that, then things do get actually more and more right and even the difﬁculties and mistakes become means for learning and steps towards progress.


Sri Aurobindo: Do not allow yourself to be worried or upset by small things.  Look at things from an inner point of view and try to get the beneﬁt of all that happens. If you make a mistake, don’t get distressed because you made a mistake — rather proﬁt by it to see the reason so as to get the right movement in future. This you can do only if you look at it quietly from the inner being without sorrow or disturbance.


Sri Aurobindo:   Of course, one must not make a mistake for the purpose of bringing it out or accept the mistake once made, — but if it comes, one has to take advantage of it to change.     An occurrence like that should always be taken as an opportunity of self-conquest.


Sri Aurobindo: Put your pride and dignity in that — in not being mastered by the passions, but their master.     It is indeed true that when one conquers a difﬁculty or goes forward, it creates a right current in the atmosphere. Moreover each time one gets an opening, it becomes more possible to make it permanent.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is true that if one has the true basis, then after every attack one ﬁnds oneself farther advanced in progress.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, a great progress should only spur one on to a greater progress beside which the ﬁrst will appear as nothing.     Yes, that is so. Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to gain more victories.


Sri Aurobindo: You must make grow in you the peace that is born of the certitude of victory.     If these things [] had disappeared already, there would be the victory already. What I mean [ ] is the certitude of the eventual victory which is a matter of faith and an inner reliance upon the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: The peace born of this certitude carries one through all persistence or return of difﬁculties.      Whatever resistance there is in the outer being will go, only it takes time.


Sri Aurobindo: It is always best to take one’s foundation on that certitude and remain quiet and steadfast with it in mind even when one cannot react actively against the difﬁculty. For the quiet passive resistance will make it pass sooner, — even if one is disturbed and anxious.  Even when one cannot call in actively the Mother’s Force, one must keep the reliance that it will come.    Do not let the difﬁculties you feel or meet from outside overcome or depress you.


Sri Aurobindo: Keep this one thing in your mind that to come to the Divine is your spiritual destiny and since you have been here and been accepted by us that can be taken as the seal upon it. If it takes a little longer time than you could wish for it to materialise, this should not make you think of it otherwise — for these difﬁculties and external obstacles and incertitudes always come to the seeker. Neither the difﬁculties in yourself or the obstacles presented by life are as insurmountable as they seem to your physical mind when they are pressing upon it. Remember also that although here the conditions would be more favourable, yet even at a distance the grace and help can be there with you.  Only ﬁx yourself on the goal, make the inner choice once for all ﬁrmly and completely


Sri Aurobindo: ; it is there in your soul, ﬁx it in your mind also. Once there, ﬁxed and unalterable, it will prevail over the difﬁculties of your own vital nature and the physical world’s opposition, misunderstanding or reluctance.    The reaching is already assured, as it cannot but be when a sincere and abiding aspiration is supported by a sincere and abiding endeavour. With that and the Grace supporting, all difﬁculties can be and surely will be overcome.


Sri Aurobindo:   The victory is always sure — even when there is difﬁculty, never doubt that the victory will be there.  This sadhana is a Yoga of transformation of the human consciousness into the divine consciousness. The sadhaks who come here are human beings with all the human weaknesses, but with a possibility of the transformation and an aspiration for it. For getting rid of their human weaknesses — such as lust, greed, vanity, pride, falsehood — they must become conscious of them, must always reject them, must call in the Mother’s presence, the divine Consciousness, the divine Force to help them in rejecting their defects and to transform them.


Sri Aurobindo: If they do that, then all that is necessary for the change will be done.     When the old movements or suggestions or voices come, — (1) Reject them always — do not listen, take no interest.


Sri Aurobindo: (2) If they persist, do not believe what they say or allow them to inﬂuence you — know that they are voices or movements of a false, confused and inferior consciousness. You have seen what the real Truth is and how great it is.  (3) Concentrate on something else, as ﬁrmly as possible.  (4) Aspire steadily for contact with the Mother’s Light and Force.


Sri Aurobindo: This is the right attitude, to have faith and not mind the difﬁculties. Difﬁculties — and serious ones — there cannot fail to be in the path of Yoga, because it is not easy to change all at once the ignorant human consciousness and make it a spiritual consciousness open to the Divine. But with faith one need not mind the difﬁculties; the Divine Force is there and will overcome them.


Sri Aurobindo: Whatever is difﬁcult can indeed be made easy by truth in the heart and sincerity and faith in the endeavour, even what is impossible can become possible. It is often found too that after some amount of practice and faithful endeavour, there comes an intervention from within and what might have taken long is decisively and quickly done.   Your prayer will surely be answered, for it is to that you are moving.  You should not be so dependent on outward things; it is this attitude that makes you give so excessive an importance to circumstances.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not say that circumstances cannot help or hinder — but they are circumstances, not the fundamental thing which is in ourselves, and their help or their hindrance ought not to be of primary importance. In Yoga, as in every great or serious human effort, there is always bound to be an abundance of adverse interventions and unfavourable circumstances which have to be overcome. To give them too great an importance increases their importance and their power to multiply themselves, gives them, as it were, conﬁdence in themselves and the habit of coming. To face them with equanimity — if one cannot manage a cheerful persistence against them of conﬁdent and resolute will — diminishes on the contrary their importance and effect and in the end, though not at once, gets rid of their persistence and recurrence. It is therefore a principle in Yoga to recognise the determining power of what is within us — for that is the deeper truth — to set that right and establish the inward strength as against the power of outward circumstances.


Sri Aurobindo: The strength is there — even in the weakest; one has to ﬁnd it, to unveil it and to keep it in front throughout the journey and the battle.    It was inevitable that there should be difﬁculties once your husband has turned back from his favourable attitude. But as we told you the only way to face and overcome them is to remain ﬁrm with a conﬁdence in the Divine that beyond all difﬁculties lies the realisation and to proceed either boldly or silently on your way in spite of all that people may do or say and in spite of all troubles and trials that may come in the course of the life or in the course of the sadhana. If one keeps this position the difﬁculties will either diminish or disappear or if for any reason they become acute for a while, will collapse after a time.


Sri Aurobindo: You are not at any time out of our minds. We are there with you in your difﬁculties and troubles — remain calm and assured and you will feel the inner help. Do not yield to depression for depression only gives the opposition and difﬁculties a hold upon you; call quietly and persistently for strength and the strength will come.    That is the inconvenience of going away from a difﬁculty, — it runs after one, — or rather one carries it with oneself, for the difﬁculty is truly inside, not outside.


Sri Aurobindo: Outside circumstances only give it the occasion to manifest itself and so long as the inner difﬁculty is not conquered, the circumstances will always crop up one way or another.     As for his difﬁculties and troubles, there is little hope of his overcoming them if he does not realise that they come from within him and not from outside. It is the weakness of his vital nature, the inefﬁcient helplessness of his nervous being always weeping and complaining and lamenting instead of facing life and overcoming its difﬁculties, it is the sentimental lachrymose attitude it takes that keeps his troubles unsolved and alive.


Sri Aurobindo: This is a temperament which the gods will not help because they know that help is useless, for it will either not be received or will be spilled and wasted; and all that is rajasic and Asuric in the world despises and tramples upon this kind of nature. If he had learned a calm strength and quiet courage without weakness and without fuss and violence, founded on conﬁdence in the help he could always have received from here and on openness to the Mother’s force, things would have been favourably settled by this time. But he cannot take advantage of any help given him because his vital nature cherishes its weakness and is always indulging and rhetorically expressing it instead of throwing it away with contempt as a thing unworthy of manhood and unﬁt for a sadhaka. It is only if he so rejects it that he can receive strength from us and stand in life or progress in the sadhana.   It is also well that you have reconciled yourself with the place [] and have the feeling of strength to deal with the situation there.


Sri Aurobindo: A certain power of adaptation and harmonisation of the surroundings is necessary — you had it very strongly and were therefore successful wherever you went. The recoil from Sylhet made you nervous and depressed and spoiled for a time the action of this power in you. Now with your new attitude I hope it will return and bring the solution of all your difﬁculties.  We send you our blessings. Keep yourself always open to the Power from above and to our help from here and remain ﬁrm and strong against all difﬁculties that may yet remain either in the outer life or the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: On these conditions victory is always sure.     When the soul is meant to go forward and there is an external weakness like that, circumstances do come like that to help the external being against itself — which means that there must be a truly sincere aspiration behind; otherwise it does not happen.  To recognise, as you have done, a fault in the nature does not indeed remove it altogether at once, but it is a great step towards it.


Sri Aurobindo: It does not remove it at once because of the force of habit in the nature, but still to be conscious and have the will to remove it helps to weaken its force and assists the Mother’s working very greatly.   To recognise one’s weaknesses and false movements and draw back from them is the way towards liberation.  Not to judge anyone but oneself until one can see things from a calm mind and a calm vital is an excellent rule. Also, do not allow your mind to form hasty impressions on the strength of some outward appearance, nor your vital to act upon them.  There is a place in the inner being where one can always remain calm and from there look with poise and judgment on the perturbations of the surface consciousness and act upon it to change it.


Sri Aurobindo: If you can learn to live in that calm of the inner being, you will have found your stable basis.   If the imperfection is there, one has to see it. The thing to be done is to live in the true self and from there see the imperfection and change it.   You must remain always aware of the self and the obscure nature must not be felt as the self but as an instrument which has to be put into tune with the self.


Sri Aurobindo:  You have to be conscious of the wrong movements, but not preoccupied with them only.   The defects should be noticed and rejected, but the concentration should be positive — on what you are to be, i.e., on the development of the new consciousness rather than on this negative   side .


Sri Aurobindo:   It is necessary to observe and know the wrong movements in you; for they are the source of your trouble and have to be persistently rejected if you are to be free.  But do not be always thinking of your defects and wrong movements. Concentrate more upon what you are to be, on the ideal, with the faith that, since it is the goal before you, it must and will come.


Sri Aurobindo: To be always observing faults and wrong movements brings depression and discourages the faith. Turn your eyes more to the coming Light and less to any immediate darkness. Faith, cheerfulness, conﬁdence in the ultimate victory are the things that help, — they make the progress easier and swifter.  Make more of the good experiences that come to you; one experience of the kind is more important than the lapses and failures. When it ceases, do not repine or allow yourself to be discouraged, but be quiet within and aspire for its renewal in a stronger form leading to still deeper and fuller experience.


Sri Aurobindo: Aspire always, but with more quietude, opening yourself to the Divine simply and wholly.     While the recognition of the Divine Power and the attunement of one’s own nature to it cannot be done without the recognition of the imperfections in that nature, yet it is a wrong attitude to put too much stress either on them or on the difﬁculties they create, or to distrust the Divine working because of the difﬁculties one experiences, or to lay too continual an emphasis on the dark side of things.


Sri Aurobindo: To do this increases the force of the difﬁculties, gives a greater right of continuance to the imperfections. I do not insist on a Cou´eistic optimism — although excessive optimism is more helpful than excessive pessimism; that (Cou´eism) tends to cover up difﬁculties and there is besides always a measure to be observed in things. But there is no danger of your covering them up and deluding yourself with too bright an outlook, quite the contrary; you always lay stress too much on the shadows and by so doing thicken them and obstruct your outlets of escape into the Light. Faith, more faith! Faith in your possibilities, faith in the Power that is at work behind the veil, faith in the work that is to be done and the offered guidance.


Sri Aurobindo: There cannot be any high endeavour, least of all in the spiritual ﬁeld, which does not raise or encounter grave obstacles of a very persistent character. These are both internal and external, and, although in the large they are fundamentally the same for all, there may be a great difference in the distribution of their stress or the outward form they take. But the one real difﬁculty is the attunement of the nature with the working of the Divine Light and Power. Get that solved and the others will either disappear or take a subordinate place; and even with those difﬁculties that are of a more general character, more lasting because they are inherent in the work of transformation, they will not weigh so heavily because the sense of the supporting Force and a greater power to follow its movement will be there.


Sri Aurobindo:   Of course consciousness grows as the opening increases and one result of consciousness is to be able to see in oneself — but not to see the weaknesses only, to see the whole play of forces. Only in the right consciousness one does not regard the weaknesses even in a too personal way so as to get discouraged.  One has to see them as the play of nature, mental nature, vital nature, physical nature, common to all human beings — to see them so and remain calm and detached, calling in the Mother’s force and light for transformation of this defective play into the true nature — not getting impatient if it is not done at once, but going on steadily and giving time for the change. The full change indeed cannot come till all is ready for the descent of a greater, calmer, larger consciousness from above and that is only possible when the ordinary consciousness has been made thoroughly ready for it.


Sri Aurobindo: The intense love and bhakti does not come at once. It comes as the power of the psychic grows more and more in the being.  But to aspire for it is right and the sincere aspiration is sure to fulﬁl itself. Always seek to progress in quietude, happiness and conﬁdence, that is the most helpful attitude. Do not listen to contrary suggestions from outside.


Sri Aurobindo: There is no reason why you should stop writing letters — it is only one kind of letter that is in question and that is not a very good means of contact; you yourself felt the reaction was not favourable. I asked you to write because your need of unburdening the perilous matter in you was very great at the time and, although it did not relieve you at once, it kept me exactly informed of the turns of the ﬁght and helped me to put a certain pressure on the attacking forces at a critical moment.  But I do not believe any of these necessities now exists. It is rather a discouragement from within yourself of the source of these movements that is now the need; but putting them into words would tend, as I have said, to give them more body and substance.  It is an undoubted fact proved by hundreds of instances that for many the exact statement of their difﬁculties to us is the best and often, though not always, an immediate, even an instantaneous means of release.


Sri Aurobindo: This has often been seen by sadhaks not only here, but far away, and not only for inner difﬁculties, but for illness and outer pressure of unfavourable circumstances. But for that a certain attitude is necessary — either a strong faith in the mind and vital or a habit of reception and response in the inner being. Where this habit has been established, I have seen it to be almost unfailingly effective, even when the faith was uncertain or the outer expression in the mind vague, ignorant or in its form mistaken or inaccurate. Moreover, this method succeeds most when the writer can write as a witness of his own movements and state them with an exact and almost impartial precision as a phenomenon of his nature or the movement of a force affecting him from which he seeks release. On the other hand if in writing his vital gets seized by the thing he is writing of, and takes up the pen for him, — expressing and often supporting doubt, revolt, depression, despair, it becomes a very different matter.


Sri Aurobindo: Even here sometimes the expression acts as a purge; but also the statement of the condition may lend energy to the attack at least for the moment and may seem to enhance and prolong it, exhausting it by its own violence perhaps for the time and so bringing in the end a relief, but at a heavy cost of upheaval and turmoil — and at the risk of the recurring decimal movement, because the release has come by temporary exhaustion of the attacking force, not by rejection and puriﬁcation through the intervention of the Divine Force with the unquestioning assent and support of the sadhak. There has been a confused ﬁght, an intervention in a hurly-burly, not a clear alignment of forces — and the intervention of the helping force is not felt in the confusion and the whirl. This is what used to happen in your crises; the vital in you was deeply affected and began supporting and expressing the reasonings of the attacking force — in place of a clear observation and expression of the difﬁculty by the vigilant mind laying the state of things in the Light for the higher Light and Force to act upon it, there was a vehement statement of the case for the Opposition. Many sadhaks (even “advanced”) had made a habit of this kind of expression of their difﬁculties and some still do it; they cannot even yet understand that it is not the way. At one time it was a sort of gospel in the Asram that this was the thing to be done, — I don’t know on what ground, for it was never part of my teaching about the Yoga, — but experience has shown that it does not work; it lands one in the recurring decimal notation, an unending round of struggle.


Sri Aurobindo: It is quite different from the movement of self-opening that succeeds, (here too not necessarily in a moment, but still sensibly and progressively) and of which those are thinking who insist on everything being opened to the Guru so that the help may be more effectively there.  It is inevitable that doubts and difﬁculties should arise in so arduous an undertaking as the transformation of the normal nature of man into the spiritual nature, the replacement of his system of externalised values and surface experience into profounder inner values and experience. But the doubts and difﬁculties cannot be overcome by giving them their full force; it can be rather done by learning to stand back from them and to refuse to be carried away; then there is a chance of the still small voice from within getting itself heard and pushing out these louder clamorous voices and movements from outside.  It is the light from within that you have to make room for; the light of the outer mind is quite insufﬁcient for the discovery of the inner values or to judge the truth of spiritual experience.  Not to be touched or disturbed by the difﬁculties, to feel separate from them is the ﬁrst step towards freedom.


Sri Aurobindo:   If you cannot do anything else, you must at least remain detached — there is always a part of the being that can remain detached and go on persisting, calling down the Force from above.   When vital difﬁculties assail a sadhak, he has not to identify his consciousness with them, but to stand back and remaining quiet in the observing part of his being call down persistently the Divine Force. The help will then come through this steady and silent part of the being.


Sri Aurobindo:   Knowledge in the mind is not sufﬁcient by itself to prevent it [] so long as the whole consciousness is not liberated.  What can be done is for the inner being to be always detached and separate so that it does not feel obscured by the obscurity or attacked by the attack and is able to see and deal with it as something of the surface. Your difﬁculty is that you are constantly identifying yourself with the outer parts and feel yourself submerged by the attacks on them.


Sri Aurobindo:   Do not yield to the Tamas; the more you yield, the more it will stick.  For all these things, the way is detachment, to stand back; separate yourself from the desire, observe it, refuse sanction and put a quiet and persistent will for it to cease, calling on the Mother’s force at the same time to dissolve and eliminate the greed, desire, attachment, obscurity and inertia. If sincerely, persistently and rightly done, it will succeed in the end, even though it may take time.


Sri Aurobindo:  These things rise because either they are there in the conscious part of the being as habits of the nature or they are there lying concealed and able to rise at any moment or they are suggestions from the general or universal Nature outside to which the personal being makes a response. In any case they rise in order that they may be met and cast out and ﬁnally rejected so that they may trouble the nature no longer. The amount of trouble they give depends on the way they are met. The ﬁrst principle is to detach oneself from them, not to identify, not to admit them any longer as part of one’s real nature but to look on them as things imposed to which one says, “This is not I or mine — this is a thing I reject altogether.” One begins to feel a part of the being inside which is not identiﬁed, which remains ﬁrm and says, “This may give trouble on the surface, but it shall not touch me.”


Sri Aurobindo: If this separate being within can be felt, then half the trouble is over — provided there is a will there not only to separate but to get rid of the imperfection from the surface nature also.    The difﬁculties of the character persist so long as one yields to them in action when they rise. One has to make a strict rule not to act according to the impulses of anger, ego or whatever the weakness may be that one wants to get rid of, or if one does act in the heat of the moment, not to justify or persist in the action.  If one does that, after a time the difﬁculty abates or is conﬁned purely to a subjective movement which one can observe, detach oneself from and combat.


Sri Aurobindo:   Do not allow yourself to be shaken or troubled by these things []. The one thing to do always is to remain ﬁrm in your aspiration to the Divine and to face with equanimity and detachment all difﬁculties and all oppositions.  For those who wish to lead the spiritual life, the Divine must always come ﬁrst, everything else must be secondary.


Sri Aurobindo: Keep yourself detached and look at these things from the calm inner vision of one who is inwardly dedicated to the Divine.    Well, that is right. The difﬁculty of the difﬁculties is self-created, a knot of the Ignorance; when a certain inner perception loosens the knot, the worst of the difﬁculty is over.  It is simply a steady and quiet rejection [] that is needed and a quiet and steady calling down of the true Force.


Sri Aurobindo: All this emotional excitability must be quieted down; it is that that makes the vital open itself to these forces. If it were not so, all the defects of the nature could be quietly observed and quietly mended.     If one part of you keeps its quietude — the inner being — then the rest can be dealt with.


Sri Aurobindo: So not to allow the vital to be upset and the disturbance cover up the inner self, that is the most important thing. Keep up the rejection always.     It would be easier [] when you bring down a settled peace and equanimity into that part of the being.


Sri Aurobindo: There will then be more of an automatic rejection of such movements and less need of tapasya.     If you accept your weakness which means accepting the thing itself — some part of your nature accepts it and to that you yield — then what is the use of our telling you what to do? That part of your vital will always be able to say, “I was too weak to carry it out.”


Sri Aurobindo: The only way out of it is for you to cease to be weak, to dismiss this sentimental and sensuous part of you, to call down strength to replace its weakness and to do it with a settled and serious purpose. If we cannot get you who have had some foundation in the sadhana to overcome this element in you, how do you expect us to get to do it who says he has no ﬁrm foundation but is still ﬂoating?     It is always their [] endeavour to rise up and get the sanction of the mind and higher vital — or if they cannot do that, to cover them up so that the lower nature may act in its ordinary way without being pressed by the higher consciousness to change.


Sri Aurobindo: The ﬁrst thing necessary for the sadhak is not to give any consent of his mind or higher vital and to keep them from being covered. If that can be done, then it becomes possible to push the lower forces out of the lower vital and body and not allow them to return. It is the Mother’s Force which you feel — for all the higher forces are hers.  One is always open [] so long as there is not the ﬁnal change. If things do not come in it is because the consciousness is vigilant or the psychic in front; but the least want of vigilance or relaxation can allow something to enter.


Sri Aurobindo:  It [] is likely to be fundamental and deﬁnite. But in these matters, even after the liberation one has to remain vigilant — for often these things go out and remain at a far distance waiting to see if under any circumstances, in any condition they can make a rush and recover their kingdom.  If there has been an entire puriﬁcation down to the depths and nothing is there to open the gate, then they cannot do it. But it is only after one has been a long time free that one can say, “Now it is all right for ever.”


Sri Aurobindo: As for your inner attitude, it must remain the same. Not to be excited or drawn outwards by these “incidents” of the outward life or by the coming in of new elements is the rule; they must come in like waves into an untroubled sea and mix in it and become themselves untroubled and serene.  Your present attitude and condition is all that it should be, — only you must remain vigilant always. For when the condition is good, the lower movements have a habit of subsiding and become quiescent, hiding as it were, — or they go out of the nature and remain at a distance. But if they see that the sadhak is losing his vigilance, then they slowly begin to rise or draw near, most often unseen, and when he is quite off his guard, surge up suddenly or make a sudden irruption.


Sri Aurobindo: This continues until the whole nature, mental, vital, physical down to the very subconscient is enlightened, conscious, full of the Divine. Till that happens, one must always remain watchful in a sleepless vigilance.    It is perhaps that the attitude you took of going on with the calm within and slowly changing what had to be changed, postponing certain things for the future, — though not a wrong attitude in itself, — made you somewhat lax, allowing things to play on the surface (desires etc.), which should have been kept in check.  This relaxation may have opened the way for the old movements to rise through this part which was not yet ready to change at all and the hostile forces ﬁnding you off your guard took the opportunity to push the attack home.


Sri Aurobindo: They are always vigilant for an opportunity and there must be a sufﬁcient vigilance on the sadhak’s side to refuse it to them. It is also possible that as the Force descending in the general atmosphere has carried in it some pressure on the consciousness of the sadhaks to be more ready, more awake, less engrossed in the movements of the ordinary nature than they are now, it fell upon this part and the resistance in it, which was mostly passive for a long time, became suddenly active under the pressure.     There is no reason for despondency; when one has progressed as far as you did, that is, so far as to feel and maintain the calm and have so much of the psychic discrimination and the psychic feeling, one has no right to despair of one’s spiritual future.


Sri Aurobindo: You could not yet carry out the discrimination into an entire psychic change, because a large part of the outer physical consciousness still took some pleasure in old movements and therefore their roots remained alive in the subconscient. When you were off your guard the whole thing rose up and there was a temporary and violent lapse. But this does not mean that the nature is not changeable. Only the calm inner conscious poise, the psychic discrimination and above all a will to change, stronger and steadier than before, must be so established that no uprising or invasion will be able to cloud even partly the discrimination or suspend the will. You saw the truth but this part of the old nature which rose up did not want to acknowledge — it wanted its play and imposed that on you.


Sri Aurobindo: This time you must insist on a complete truthfulness in the whole being which will refuse to accept any denial of what the psychic discrimination sees or any afﬁrmation or consent anywhere to what it disapproves, spiritual humility and the removal of self-righteousness, selfjustiﬁcation and the wish to impose yourself, the tendency to judge others etc. All these defects you know are in you; to cast them out may take time, but if the will to be true to the inner self in all ways is strong and persistent and vigilant and always calls in the Mother’s force, it can be done sooner than now seems possible.     That is all right [ ] — provided there is detachment and refusal of consent.


Sri Aurobindo: One ought not to worry, but also one ought not to be negligent, i.e., one ought not to give the consent of the will or of the reason to these movements. For all consent prolongs their action or their recurrence. If they do not go when rejected by the mind and will, it is because of the habitual response in the less conscious parts of the nature. These have to become conscious by receiving the Light and Force until ﬁnally they refuse response to the calls of the lower nature.


Sri Aurobindo: This is quite right. If you keep this condition [ ], not allowing it to be entirely obscured or long clouded, you can move rapidly towards a new birth of your nature and the foundation of your life and all your thoughts and acts and movements in your true being, the psychic being. Never consent to the ideas, suggestions, feelings that bring back the cloud, the confusion and the revolt. It is the consent that makes them strong to recur. Refuse the consent and they will be obliged to retire either immediately or after a time.


Sri Aurobindo: Remain ﬁxed in the sunlight of the true consciousness — for only there is happiness and peace. They do not depend upon outside happenings, but on this alone.   There is no reason why you should abandon hope of success in the Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: The state of depression which you now feel is temporary and it comes even upon the strongest sadhaks at one time or another or even often recurs. The only thing needed is to hold ﬁrm with the awakened part of the being, to reject all contrary suggestions and wait, opening yourself as much as you can to the true Power, till the crisis or change of which this depression is a stage, is completed. The suggestions which come to your mind telling you that you are not ﬁt and that you must go back to the ordinary life, are false tamasic promptings from a hostile source. Ideas of this kind must always be rejected as inventions of the lower nature; even if they are founded on appearances which seem convincing to the ignorant mind, they are false, because they exaggerate a passing movement and represent it as the decisive and deﬁnite truth. There is only one truth in you on which you have to lay constant hold, the truth of your divine possibilities and the call of the higher Light to your nature.


Sri Aurobindo: If you hold to that always or, even if you are momentarily shaken from your hold, return constantly to it, it will justify itself in the end in spite of all difﬁculties and obstacles and stumblings. All in you that resists will disappear in time with the progressive unfolding of your spiritual nature.  The disabilities of your past character and mind and vital habits need not discourage you. Some of them are, no doubt, serious — especially the animal sexuality of the vital parts and the support which the mind has given to it; but others have had to face obstacles as serious in themselves and have surmounted them in the purifying and liberating process of the Yoga. It may not be easy to get rid of them altogether and it may take time; but if you persist and refuse all justiﬁcation and all possibility of return to these things, you are bound in the end to conquer.


Sri Aurobindo: When you came, the psychic call in you was true and sincere, but in your external nature the response was confused and mixed with foreign elements of a lower kind. What has sunk in you is not the pure psychic urge, even if that is temporarily veiled, but a vital ﬂame that was not entirely pure. It is because these foreign elements have been discouraged, that the vital nature in you feels despondent and refuses its support to the belief of the mind and to the psychic call. This often happens in the process of puriﬁcation; what is needed is the conversion and surrender of the vital part. It must learn to demand only the highest Truth and to forego all insistence on the satisfaction of its inferior impulses and desires.


Sri Aurobindo: It is this adhesion of the vital being that brings the full satisfaction and joy of the whole nature in the spiritual life. When that is there, it will be impossible even to think of returning to the ordinary existence. Meanwhile the mental will and the psychic aspiration must be your support; if you insist, the vital will ﬁnally yield and be converted and surrender.  Fix upon your mind and heart the resolution to live for the Divine Truth and for that alone; reject all that is contrary and incompatible with it and turn away from all lower desires; aspire to open yourself to the Divine Power and to no other. Do this in all sincerity and the present and living help you need will not fail you.


Sri Aurobindo:  The resolution, to be a real resolution, must be there always, ﬁxed. If it is dependent on an urge, not self-dependent, it can also be knocked down by inertia.  It is good. When the external consciousness covers the inner being, then it is by a calm and patient aspiration — without restlessness or disturbance — that the inner state must be called back until the external consciousness itself gets so habituated to the true condition that it is no longer willing to respond to anything else.


Sri Aurobindo:   I have told you that if you feel quietness somewhere in your consciousness, even if a part is not quiet, that is sufﬁcient to lean on and get the Force to act through it. The quietness is quite as much a fact as the outer confusion. You have to accept it, to stress it, to aspire to keep and increase it — to reject the confusion.


Sri Aurobindo: What “reason” do you need to aspire for peace, purity, freedom from the lower nature, light, strength, Ananda, divine love, divine service? These are things good in themselves and the highest possible aim of human endeavour.    If not a will, you have a wish in you or an aspiration; the word does not matter, the thing is there.


Sri Aurobindo: If it gets clouded over, it is not the less there. There are the two things — the inner being with its aspiration, the physical and material with its obscurity and depressions. If you lay stress on the former instead of constantly denying its presence, that would make the progress easy; by laying stress on the outer obscurity and afﬁrming that always and always thinking of it, you help it to last and delay the progress. Even so, if the inner aspiration is there, it must in the end conquer.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but it is an absence of the one-pointed aspiration more than of strength of will — they [] left because some desire or other got hold of them which was incompatible with the steadfast single-minded aspiration to the Divine Realisation.  If Buddha had the will only after tapasya, how was it that he left everything without hesitation in the search for Truth and never once looked back, regretted nor had any struggle? The only difﬁculty was how to ﬁnd the Truth, his single will to ﬁnd it never faltered; the intensity of his tapasya itself would have been impossible without that strength of will. People less strong than Buddha may have to develop it by endeavour. Those who cannot do that have to ﬁnd their strength in their reliance on the Divine Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: There must be a ﬁxed will for the spiritual life — that alone can overcome all obstacles.     To be conscious is the ﬁrst step towards overcoming [ ] — but for the overcoming strength is necessary and also detachment and the will to overcome.


Sri Aurobindo:   There must ﬁrst be the will to change ﬁrmly conceived and held — then to open the consciousness to the Force and let it work with the inner assent to its working. When there is the psychic opening, then even the things most obstinate in the nature can change.


Sri Aurobindo: Obviously what the Mother told you was the fact — but such missing of opportunities should not discourage, the recognition of it must be a spur to do better in future. Human nature is weak and is always missing the divine opportunities; but if the spirit is willing, the weakness of the nature is obliged eventually to yield to its will. Renew that will always, so that failure as well as success may become an opportunity and an incentive for farther progress.   Develop the will — the will grows by a steady use, like the muscles, and grows strong.   The only way to do it [] is (1) to become aware of a conscious Force behind that uses the mind etc. (2) to learn by practice to direct that Force towards its object.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not suppose you will ﬁnd it easy to do either of these things at once — one must ﬁrst learn to live more deeply in the inner consciousness than you have done hitherto.     I suppose it must be [] because you have not been in the habit of using the will to compel the other parts of the nature — so when you want it done, they refuse to obey a control to which they are not accustomed and it also has not any habitual hold upon them.  The will is a part of the consciousness and ought to be in human beings the chief agent in controlling the activities of the nature.


Sri Aurobindo:   If there is a constant use of the will the rest of the being learns however slowly to obey the will and then the actions become in conformity with the will and not with the vital impulses and desires. As for the rest (the feelings and desires etc. themselves) if they are not indulged in action or imagination and not supported by the will, if they are merely looked at and rejected when they come, then after some struggle they begin to lose their force and dwindle away.


Sri Aurobindo: There is no process []. The will acts of itself when the mind and vital agree as in the case of a desire. If the desire is not satisﬁed, it goes on hammering, trying to get it, insisting on it, repeating the demand, making use of this person or that person, this device or that device, getting the mind to support it with reasons, representing it as a need that must be satisﬁed etc. etc. till the desire is satisﬁed. All that is the evidence of a will in action. When you have to use the will for the sadhana, you have not the same persistence, the mind ﬁnds reasons for not going on with the effort, as soon as the difﬁculty becomes strong it is dropped, there is no continuity, no keeping of the will ﬁxed on its object.


Sri Aurobindo:   There can be no persistence or insistence without will.


Sri Aurobindo: By development it [] becomes ﬁt to merge into the Mother’s will. A will that is not strong is a great hindrance to sadhana.     It is of course a ﬂuctuation of the mental will that often prevents a knowledge gained from being put into steady practice.


Sri Aurobindo: If the will is not strong enough, then the greater Will behind which is the will of the Mother, her conscious Force in which knowledge and will are united, must be called in to strengthen and support it. Very often, however, even if the will as well as the knowledge are there, the habit of the vital nature brings in the old reactions. This can only be overcome by a steady undiscouraged aspiration which will bring out more and more of the psychic and its true movements to push out and displace the wrong ones. The gradual and steady replacement of the old ignorant consciousness and its movements by the true psychic and spiritual consciousness is the nature of the transformation that is to be accomplished in the Yoga. But that takes time, it cannot be done easily or at once.


Sri Aurobindo: Therefore one should not mind or be discouraged if meanwhile one ﬁnds the old movements recurring in spite of one’s knowledge. Only one should try to keep more and more separate from them, so that even if they recur the consent of the being to them shall no longer be there.     It depends — if the consciousness is developed only on the side of knowledge, it will warn only.


Sri Aurobindo: If on the side of will or power, it will help to effectuate.    The will can make itself work — it is in its own nature a force or energy.


Sri Aurobindo: The energy which dictates the action or prevents a wrong action is the Will.    Peace is not a necessary precondition for the action of the will.  When the being is troubled, it is often the business of the will to impose quiet on it.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is no such thing as an inert passive will. Will is dynamic in its nature. Even if it does not struggle or endeavour its very presence is dynamic and acts dynamically on the resistance.  What you are speaking of is a passive wish = I would like it to be like that, I want it to be like that.


Sri Aurobindo: That is not will.    It [] simply means that your will is weak and not a true will. Queer kind of will! Perhaps it is like a motor car that won’t go and you have to push from behind.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is not the right kind of will-power then [ ] — probably they use some ﬁghting or effortful will-power instead of the quiet but strong will that calls down the higher consciousness and force.


Sri Aurobindo: Will is will whether it is calm or restless, whether it acts in a Yogic or unyogic way, for a Yogic or an unyogic object. Do you think Napoleon and Caesar had no will or that they were Yogis?  You have strange ideas about things. You might just as well say that memory is memory only when it remembers the Divine and it is not memory when it remembers other things.  Why cannot you see that this condition is not a true consciousness, but only a clouding of the truth, a clouding which you can always get rid of if you ﬁrmly choose to do so?


Sri Aurobindo: What you express here is not a lack of understanding, but a lack of will — and this lack of will is not your own, but is forced upon you by a lower consciousness which overpowers you and forces you to reverse all the true values of feeling and knowledge. Your being does want to be free and at peace and happy in the light — it is this Falsehood seizing hold of your external mind that makes you want to be more dark and miserable and revolted and hate yourself and not to live. Such feelings, such a perverted will is entirely opposed to the normal feelings of the nature and cannot be “true” and right. There is nobody who asks you to pretend — what we ask you is to reject false perversions and wrong feelings and ignorance and not to go on supporting them as they want you to do. It is not courage and nobility to accept these things as the law of your nature, nor is it meanness and cowardice to aspire to a higher Truth and try to act according to it and make that the law of your nature.


Sri Aurobindo:  In the indolence of the will which does not want to make a sustained effort for a long period []. It is like a person who moves slightly half a leg for a second and then wonders why he is not already a hundred miles away at the goal after making such a gigantic effort.     That [] is the suggestion that has been enforced on you by the physical inertia.


Sri Aurobindo: It has covered up your will and persuaded you that there is no will left and no possibility of any will.     One can always use the will. The idea that you cannot is only a suggestion of the inertia.


Sri Aurobindo: There are always two elements in spiritual success — one’s own steady will and endeavour and the Power that in one way or another helps and gives the result of the endeavour.   The Force produces no deﬁnite and lasting fruit unless there is the will and the resolution to achieve in the sadhak.    The higher action does not preclude a use of the will — will is an element of the higher action.


Sri Aurobindo:   These things [] cannot be done in that way []. For transformation to be genuine, the difﬁculty has to be rejected by all the parts of the being. The Force can only help or enable them to do that, but it cannot replace this necessary action by a summary process.  Your mind and inner being must impart their will to the whole.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes. So long as there is not a constant action of the Force from above or else of a deeper Will from within, the mental will is necessary.


Sri Aurobindo: You had written, “I need not bother about it — if peace is needed it will bring itself.” Certainly the main stress should be on the Force, but the active assent of the sadhak is needed; in certain things his will also may be needed as an instrument of the Force.


Sri Aurobindo: It is true that the Force can work effectively without any effort on your part. It is not the effort, it is the assent of the being that it needs for its work.     The Power can do everything, change everything and will do that but it can do it perfectly and easily and permanently only when your own will mental, vital and physical has been put on the side of the Truth.


Sri Aurobindo: If you side with the vital ignorance and want to ﬁght against your own spiritual change, it means a painful and difﬁcult struggle before the work is done. That is why I insist on quietude at the very least and patient conﬁdence with it, as far as you can — so that there may be a quiet and steady progress, not a painful and tormented movement full of relapse and struggle.     Hardly anyone is strong enough to overcome by his own unaided aspiration and will the forces of the lower nature; even those who do it get only a certain kind of control, but not a complete mastery.


Sri Aurobindo: Will and aspiration are needed to bring down the aid of the Divine Force and to keep the being on its side in its dealings with the lower powers. The Divine Force fulﬁlling the spiritual will and the heart’s psychic aspiration can alone bring about the conquest.   There is only one way if you cannot exert your will — it is to call the Force; even to call only with the mind or the mental word is better than being entirely passive and submitted to the attack, — for although it may not succeed instantaneously, the mental call even ends by bringing the Force and opening up the consciousness again. For everything depends upon that. In the externalised consciousness obscurity and suffering can always be there; the more the internalised consciousness reigns, the more these things are pushed back and out and with the full internalised consciousness they cannot remain — if they come, it is as outside touches unable to lodge themselves in the being.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Force can bring forward and use the will.  If there is no personal effort, if the sadhak is too indolent and tamasic to try, why should the Grace act?


Sri Aurobindo:   All that [] is the physical mind refusing to take the trouble of the labour and struggle necessary for the spiritual achievement. It wants to get the highest, but desires a smooth course all the way. “Who the devil is going to face so much trouble for getting the Divine?” — that is the underlying feeling. The difﬁculty with the thoughts is a difﬁculty every Yogi has gone through — so is the phenomenon of a little result after some days of effort.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only when one has cleared the ﬁeld and ploughed and sown and watched over it that big harvests can be hoped for.     Of course — personal effort without the supporting Force can do only a little, slowly, with much labour.


Sri Aurobindo:  One can either use effort [], and then one must be patient and persevering, or one can rely on the Divine with a constant will and aspiration. But then the reliance has to be a true one, not insisting on immediate fruit.   The only truth in your other experience — which, you say, seems at the time so true to you, — is that it is hopeless for you or anyone to get out of the inferior consciousness by your or his unaided effort. That is why when you sink into this inferior consciousness, everything seems hopeless to you, because you lose hold for a time of the true consciousness. But the suggestion is untrue, because you have an opening to the Divine and are not bound to remain in the inferior consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: When you are in the true consciousness, then you see that everything can be done, even if at present only a slight beginning has been made; but a beginning is enough, once the Force, the Power is there. For the truth is that it can do everything and only time and the soul’s aspiration are needed for the entire change and the soul’s fulﬁlment.    It does not matter what defects you may have in your nature.  The one thing that matters is your keeping yourself open to the Force.


Sri Aurobindo: Nobody can transform himself by his own unaided efforts; it is only the Divine Force that can transform him. If you keep yourself open, all the rest will be done for you.     As I have told you it is no longer useful to think of right understanding and wrong movements and get upset when they are felt to be not there or imperfect.


Sri Aurobindo: Nobody can change himself — even the strongest sadhaks here recognise that. Their effort is to let the Peace, Force, Light, Ananda of the Mother come in, to let that grow — for that will change them, they know. So long as it is not there, has not yet touched, is not growing, they struggle with the mind and vital, because they cannot help doing so and it is necessary for preparing the consciousness a little to admit the Peace and Force. But once these have touched, the only thing to do is to lay all the stress on that, trust to it, surrender and give oneself to it — for the straight road is found and the true power and consciousness have been experienced.  The way in which the pains went shows you how to deal with the whole nature, — for it is the same with the mental and vital as with the physical causes of ill-ease and disturbance.


Sri Aurobindo: To remain quiet within, to hold on to the faith and experience that to be quiet and open and let the Force work is the one way. Naturally, to be wholly conscious is not possible yet, but to feel it, to open, to let it work, to observe its result, that is the ﬁrst thing.  It is the beginning of consciousness and the way to complete consciousness.  Help is given in whatever way is necessary or possible. It is not limited to Force, Light, Knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo:   Certainly, all the help possible will be given. As for the method, there are always the two ways possible — one to overcome the difﬁculty in its own ﬁeld, the other to develop the inner realisation until it grows so strong that the roots you speak of have no longer any soil to hold by and come out easily by a spontaneous psychic change.


Sri Aurobindo: Cling to the help always, — when you cannot feel, call for it and remain quiet till you feel it again. It is only the covering you spoke of that comes between you and the sense of its presence — for it is always there.


Sri Aurobindo: It [] diminishes as one gets higher and higher or rather fuller and fuller, being replaced more and more by the automatic action of the Force.  The grace and protection are always with you. When in


Sri Aurobindo: any inner or outer difﬁculty or trouble do not allow it to oppress you; take refuge with the Divine Force that protects.   If you do that always with faith and sincerity, you will ﬁnd something opening in you which will always remain calm and peaceful in spite of all superﬁcial disturbances.    Yes, the Divine’s Protection is surely with you, since it sustains you through all.


Sri Aurobindo: The untoward physical happenings are transient and will certainly pass away leaving full room for a greater state.     One should not expect too much from the Divine Protection for, constituted as we are and the world is, the Divine Protection has to act within limits. Of course miracles happen, but we have no claim to it.


Sri Aurobindo: The change of the nature cannot take place in a few days. It is a constant progressive movement.     The change of the lower consciousness (vital and physical) is a big work and takes a long time and much action of the higher forces to accomplish.


Sri Aurobindo: Nobody has ever done it in a short time.     That is nonsense — no one can get free from the lower nature in such a short time []. It takes years for even the greatest Yogis — it is the work of a life-time.


Sri Aurobindo:   As I have constantly told you, you cannot expect all to be enlightened at once. Even the greatest Yogis can only proceed by stages and it is only at the end that the whole nature shares the true consciousness which they ﬁrst establish in the heart or behind it or in the head or above it. It descends or expands slowly conquering each layer of the being one after the other, but each step takes time.


Sri Aurobindo:   All comes in its time. One has to go on quietly and steadily increasing the higher consciousness till it takes possession of the vital and physical parts.   I want you to be open and in contact with the Peace and Presence and Force.


Sri Aurobindo: All else will come if that is there and then one need not be troubled by the time it takes in the of the sadhana.     It is no doubt the pressure of the psychic in you which you express in the letter. That is how the psychic being wants it to be.


Sri Aurobindo: But it is a mistake to accept any suggestion of self-distrust or incapacity on the ground that it is not like that yet or is not always like that. These things always take time; even after they have begun, they always take time. It is impossible to expect from the mixed and confused nature of the human being that it should be constantly in a state of ardent aspiration, perfect faith and love or full and constant openness to the Divine Force. There is the mental with its limited knowledge and its hesitations, there is the vital with its desires, unwillingnesses and its struggles; there is the physical with its obscurity, slowness and inertia.  Even to clear the ﬁeld sufﬁciently for a beginning of experience is usually a very long labour.


Sri Aurobindo: But afterwards if the peace begins or any other right condition, it comes and stays for a time — then what is left of the lower nature surges up on some excuse or with no excuse and veils the condition. Peace and opening may come so strongly that it seems all difﬁculties are gone and can never return — but that is only an indication, a promise. It shows that it will be so when the peace and opening are irrevocably settled in all the nature. For that what is needed is perseverance — to go on without discouragement, recognising that the process of the nature and the action of the Mother’s force is working through the difﬁculty even and will do all that is needed. Our incapacity does not matter — there is no human being who is not in his parts of nature incapable — but the Divine Force also is there.


Sri Aurobindo: If one puts one’s trust in that, incapacity will be changed into capacity. Difﬁculty and struggle themselves then become a means towards the achievement.    I repeat what I wrote in the morning that the one thing to be seen is whether there is the true yearning for the Divine or, to put it more strongly, whether that is the one thing that really matters to the being. If there is that, then all other considerations become minor or irrelevant: what is happening in the world or how others react to the search for the Divine or how long the search takes.


Sri Aurobindo: One must be prepared to give one’s whole lifetime and one’s whole self to that and count all well spent for the one only and supreme object. When the Divine is a necessity of the being, what is the use of mental questionings as to whether He exists or what He is like, kind or cruel, slow or swift in response, easy to reach or hard to discover? He appears all or any of these things to different seekers, but to all He is the one necessity of their existence. If one ﬁnds Him quickly, so much the better; if it takes long, still one has to go on seeking till one ﬁnds. One may have hard moments of anguish or despair because the human vital is weak, but still one goes on because the soul insists.


Sri Aurobindo: But there is no logic in the position that because my need of the Divine is entire and even in six years I have not got Him, therefore the proper thing to do is to despair and give up. The logical position is, my need for the Divine is entire, so I must go on till I ﬁnd Him, however long it may take, whether one year or six or twelve; for if my need is entire and persists always, I cannot fail to arrive.  That is the position that is taken by the spiritual seeker and it is the true and natural one. It is no use saying that you are unﬁt and cannot take it; you have to come to it, if your need is true and entire.  The misery of the world or the activity of the Asuras is also irrelevant.


Sri Aurobindo: Nobody has ever contended that this is a happy and perfect world, nobody in India at least, or the best possible world or put that forth as a proof of the Divine Existence. It is known that it is a world of death, ignorance, suffering and that its pleasures are not enduring. The spiritual seeker takes that not as a disproof of the Divine Existence, but as a greater spur for seeking and ﬁnding it out. He may seek it as a means of escape from life and entry into Nirvana or moksha or Goloka, Brahmaloka or Vaikuntha; he may seek the divine Self and its peace or Ananda behind existence and if he attains to that and is satisﬁed with it he can move through the world untouched by its vicissitudes and troubles; or he may seek it, as I have done, for the base of a greater and happier life to be brought now or hereafter into the world-existence. But whatever be the aim, the actual state of the world is no argument at all against the seeking for the Divine or the truth of Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: Also the accidents of the search, that A is dead and will attain only in another body or B is ill or C misbehaves are side matters altogether. It makes no difference to one’s own entire need of the Divine and the necessity of persevering in one’s seeking till one ﬁnds and reaches.  My words about the great secret of sadhana simply pointed out that that was the most effective way if one could get the things done by the Power behind, did not rule out mental effort so long as one could not do that. Ramakrishna’s way of putting it was the image of the baby monkey and baby cat; I have only said the same thing in other words; both are permissible methods, only one is more easily effective. Any method sincerely and persistently followed can end by bringing the opening.


Sri Aurobindo: You yourself chose the method of prayer and japa because you believed in that, and I acquiesced because it does prepare something in the consciousness and, if done with persistent faith and bhakti, it can open all the doors. Another method is concentration and aspiration in the heart which opens the inner emotional being. Another is the concentration in the head of which I spoke which opens the inner mind or opens the passage through the Brahmarandhra to the higher consciousness. These things are no fantastic invention of mine which one can dismiss as a new-fangled and untested absurdity; they are recognised methods which have succeeded in thousands of cases and here also there are plenty who have found their effect. But whatever method is used will not bring its effect at once; it must be done persistently, simply, directly till it succeeds.


Sri Aurobindo: If it is done with a mind of doubt or watching it as an experiment to see if it succeeds or if it is continually crossed by a spirit of hasty despondency saying constantly, “You see it is all useless,” then it ought to be obvious that the opening will be very difﬁcult, because there is that clogging it every time there is a pressure or a push to open. That is why I wanted you to get rid of these two things and have harped on that so much, because I know by my own experience and that of others how strongly they can stand in the way of what you seek. For you are not the only one who have been troubled by these two obstacles; most have had to struggle against them. If one can get rid of them in their central action, the survival of their activity in the circumference does not so much matter; for then the opening becomes possible, both to make and to keep and the rest can follow.  The six years of which you speak have been spent by you mainly in struggling with sex and doubt and vital difﬁculties — many take more than that time about it.


Sri Aurobindo: What I have been wanting you to do now is to get the right positive attitude within at the centre free from these things. Its basis must be what I have said, “I want the Divine and the Divine only; since I want and need, I shall surely arrive, however long it takes, and till I do, I shall persist and endure with patience and courage.” I do not mean by that that you should have no activity but prayer and concentration; few can do that; but whatever is done should be  done in that spirit.  Do not let the things of the past trouble you.


Sri Aurobindo: Leave them behind and prepare yourself for a new being.   To be no longer bound by the past or by surface formations is always a great step in advance.   There is no need to give up entirely what you had in the past.  Spiritual truths are not warring enemies — they are parts of a single truth and complete each other. It is only the mind that turns them into disputants and wants one to bar out another.


Sri Aurobindo: That is the weakness of making something in the past the standard by which you judge the present — the mind takes advantage of its own limitations to declare that the two are incompatible. But it is not so in reality — between two truths of the Divine there is always a reconciliation when to the limiting mind they seem opposites; as one is realised after the other, their unity appears, it is not necessary to deny the past experience in order to go forward to the new realisation.  This will before long become apparent to you if you do not allow the mind to stand in the way of the heart’s permanent opening. Let the doors of the heart swing open freely — allow yourself to enter into the stream without making any mental conditions before you plunge in; the stream itself will carry you to your goal.   So long as you have not learned the lesson the past had to teach you, it comes back on you.


Sri Aurobindo: Notice carefully what kind of remembrances come, you will see that they are connected with some psychological movements in you that have to be got rid of. But you must be prepared to recognise all that was not right in you and is still not corrected, not allow any vanity or self-righteousness to cloud your vision.   The past actions do count so long as the man does not change.    It is not a question of pardon or punishment.


Sri Aurobindo: The past can be effaced, but only if it is sincerely rejected from within and repaired and atoned for by a change which gets rid of the movements that caused it. A merely external submission, punishment or pardon are of no use. Otherwise the past prolongs itself into the present and the future. To get rid of the self-justifying mind and the mixture of motives in the vital is what would prevent that and give the psychic being a chance.   The past can be abolished — on condition that nothing of it is allowed to continue in the present.


Sri Aurobindo:  You ask how you can repair the wrong you seem to have done.  Admitting that it is as you say, it seems to me that the reparation lies precisely in this, in making yourself a vessel for the Divine Truth and the Divine Love. And the ﬁrst steps towards that are a complete self-consecration and self-puriﬁcation, a complete opening of oneself to the Divine, rejecting all in oneself that can stand in the way of the fulﬁlment. In the spiritual life there is no other reparation for any mistake, none that is wholly effective.  At the beginning one should not ask for any other fruit or results than this internal growth and change — for otherwise one lays oneself open to severe disappointments.


Sri Aurobindo: Only when one is free, can one free others and in Yoga it is out of the inner victory that there comes the outer conquest.  One cannot go back to the past, one has always to go in the future.   The past has not to be kept, — one has to go into the future realisation. All that is necessary in the past for the future will be taken up and given a new form.   It is always preferable to have one’s face turned towards the future than towards the past.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes — one should always have one’s look turned forwards to the future — retrospection is seldom healthy as it turns one towards a past consciousness.   Take with you the peace and quietude and joy and keep it by remembering always the Divine.  If the thoughts about the past and the future come merely as memories and imaginations, they are of no use and you should quietly turn away your mind from them back to the Divine and to the Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: If they are anything to the purpose, then refer them to the Divine, put them in the light of the Truth, so that you may have the truth about them or the right decision or formation for the future, if any decision is needed.  There is no harm in the tears of which you speak, — they come from the soul, the psychic being, and are a help and not a hindrance.  Mistakes are always possible, so long as any part of the mental (even the subconscient part of it) is not thoroughly transformed.  There is no need to be disturbed by that.


Sri Aurobindo:    Whatever you see, don’t get disturbed or depressed. If one sees a defect, one must look at it with the utmost quietude and call down more force and light to get rid of it.   When some weakness comes up you should take it as an opportunity to know what is still to be done and call down the strength into that part.


Sri Aurobindo: Despondency is not the right way to meet it.   Let the peace and self-giving increase till it takes hold also of the parts in which there are imperfections and gets rid of them. As for the imperfections, it is right not to be troubled by them — only one has to be conscious of them and have the steady and quiet will that they should go.   There was no true cause for the trouble. You have allowed it to come into you from outside.


Sri Aurobindo: There are always forces moving about in the atmosphere trying to disturb the sadhana and the progress. You must be careful not to allow them to invade you with their suggestions whether of depression, despondency, discontent or of anger or desire or of any ego-movement, for it is these things that they try to raise. When they come, instead of remaining in this way and trying to ﬁnd an external cause for them, recognise them and reject at once.   When a habit of these moods (depression or revolt) has been formed, they cannot be got rid of at once. There are three ways of doing it — (1) to strengthen your own will, so that nothing can come or stay as likes but only as like; (2) to think of something else, plunge the mind in some healthy activity; (3) to turn to the Mother and call in her force.


Sri Aurobindo: One can do any of these or all, but even in doing them, it will take a little time to get rid of the habit.    There are two golden rules. (1) Never be depressed or upset by difﬁculties or stumbles. (2) Press always quietly forward, then however long it seems to take, always progress will be made and one day you will be surprised to ﬁnd yourself near the goal.


Sri Aurobindo: It is like the curves followed by the train in the ascent of the mountain — they circle round but always nearer and nearer to the goal.   The experience is correct. Everything is prepared above, then worked out through the inner being till the results are accomplished and perfected in the outer personality. Therefore the sadhak ought not to allow himself to be alarmed, upset or grieved or made despondent by any apparent difﬁculties of the moment. He must know that all has been prepared above and calmly and conﬁdently watch and assist its working out here.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is no need for sadness. Everyone has his difﬁculties and it is a mistake to desire the state of another. One must follow the movement of one’s own heart and self and psychic without looking elsewhere.


Sri Aurobindo:   The egoism, desires, faults of the nature are in everybody very much the same. But once one begins to be conscious of them and has the will to be free, then one has only to keep that will and there will be no real danger. For when one begins to be conscious in the way you have begun and something from within raises up all that was hidden, it means that the Mother’s grace is on your nature and her force is working and your inner being is aiding the Mother’s force to get rid of all these things. So you must not be sorrowful or discouraged or fear anything, but look steadily at all that comes out and have the will that it should go completely and for ever.


Sri Aurobindo: With the Mother’s force working and the psychic being supporting the force, all can be done and all will surely be done. This puriﬁcation is made just in order that no trouble may occur in the future such as happened to some because they were not puriﬁed — in order that the higher consciousness may come into a puriﬁed nature and the inner transformation securely take place. Go on therefore with faith and courage putting your reliance on the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: These questionings and depressions are very foolish movements of the mind. If you were not open to the Grace, you would not have had these descents or experiences and there would have been no such progress as you have made. You have not to put such questions but to take it as a settled fact, and with full faith in the Mother and her working in you go on with your sadhana.  Whatever difﬁculties there may be, will be solved in time by the natural progress of the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: What you write is no doubt true and it is necessary to see it so as to be able to comprehend and grasp the true attitude necessary for the sadhana. But, as I have said, one must not be distressed or depressed by perceiving the weaknesses inherent in human nature and the difﬁculty of getting them out. The difﬁculty is natural, for they have been there for thousands of lives and are the very nature of man’s vital and mental ignorance. It is not surprising that they should have a power to stick and take time to disappear. But there is a true being and a true consciousness that is there in us hidden by these surface formations of nature and which can shake them off once it emerges.


Sri Aurobindo: By taking the right attitude of selﬂess devotion within and persisting in it in spite of the surface nature’s troublesome self-repetitions one enables this inner being and consciousness to emerge and with the Mother’s Force working in it deliver the being from all return of the movements of the old nature.     Why do you indulge in these exaggerated feelings of remorse and despair when these things come up from the subconscient?  They do not help and make it more, not less difﬁcult to eliminate what comes.


Sri Aurobindo: Such returns of an old nature that is long expelled from the conscious parts of the being always happen in sadhana.  It does not at all mean that the nature is unchangeable. Try to recover the inner quietude, draw back from these movements and look at them calmly, reducing them to their true proportions.  Your true nature is that in which you have peace and ananda and the love of the Divine. This other is only a fringe of the outer personality which in spite of these returns is destined to drop away as the true being extends and increases.


Sri Aurobindo:  To be miserable may remind you of the defects of your external nature, but I do not see how it is going to cure them. I am not asking you to be frivolously happy, but to be quiet and quietly conﬁdent, rejecting these old movements, but for the rest trusting not in a restless self-torturing personal effort but to the Divine Force to change the external nature.   As to your going away for a time in order to get rid of your difﬁculty with, a difﬁculty can never be overcome by your running away from it. And if you cannot overcome it with the direct and immediate help we can give you and have always been giving you and the support of our presence, I do not see how you are going to do it at a distance and without our immediate help and presence.  It seems to me that all this comes from your having taken a wrong way with yourself in meeting the consequences of your stumble.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not by tormenting yourself with remorse and harassing thoughts and sleepless nights that you can overcome. It is by looking straight at yourself, very quietly, with a quiet and ﬁrm resolution and then going on cheerfully and bravely in full conﬁdence and reliance, trusting in the grace, serenely and vigilantly, anchoring yourself on your psychic being, calling down more and more of the love and Ananda, turning more and more exclusively to the Mother. That is the true way — and there is no other.    There is no reason to be so much cut down or despair of your progress.


Sri Aurobindo: Evidently you have had a surging up of the old movements, but that can always happen so long as there is not an entire change of the old nature both in the conscious and subconscient parts. Something came up that made you get out of poise and stray into a past round of feelings. The one thing to do is to quiet yourself and get back into the true consciousness and poise. Always keep within and do things without involving yourself in them, then nothing adverse will happen or, if it does, no serious reaction will come.  The idea of leaving for any reason is of course absurd and out of the question.


Sri Aurobindo: Eight years is a very short time for transformation. Most people spend as much as that or more to get conscious of their defects and acquire the serious will to change — and after that it takes a long time to get the will turned into full and ﬁnal accomplishment. Each time one stumbles, one has to get back onto the right footing and go on with fresh resolution; by doing that the full change comes.  Of course it is necessary to see one’s own weaknesses, but it is not good to dwell too much upon them, — it only brings sadness and restlessness and despondency. Fix your mind rather on what you want to be, for that concentration brings the power to become it — it is the best way also to get rid of the defects and weaknesses; for it is when something strong and positive ﬁlls the nature that it changes and its defects begin to disappear.