Sri Aurobindo: The Upanishad makes the same distinction of the two Souls and Prakriti.  Nature is Prakriti — Purusha cannot be Prakriti. Neither can Purusha be, the ﬁeld, because Purusha by its very deﬁnition is that which is behind Prakriti and its ﬁeld and observes it — it is the Being not the nature.  I will write later about the University idea. But it is not possible, I think, to give as a whole.


Sri Aurobindo: If it is to be published, it should be in England and the time is not ready for that.    There is a review of the  in the. It might be noted as worth getting when you have the money — unless you have already something of the kind. Have you Donne and Blake in the Library?


Sri Aurobindo: — not that I want them just now, but I shall some day when I revise .   Yes. I think it will give the reader the impression that is a philosophical or practical exposition of Yoga — while its atmosphere is really not that at all.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, if you ﬁnd that it helps you.   Yes. It does not matter whether it is mental, if it helps you. These things often help the mind to get into the psychic attitude.


Sri Aurobindo: Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that ﬂows from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, — truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half truth, half error. It is this that some of the ancient thinkers like Shankara, not perceiving the greater Truth-Force behind, stigmatised as Maya and thought to be the highest creative power of the Divine. All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo: Therefore it is called the Ignorance.  Falsehood, on the other hand, is not this Avidya, but an extreme result of it. It is created by an Asuric power which intervenes in this creation and is not only separated from the Truth and therefore limited in knowledge and open to error, but in revolt against the Truth or in the habit of seizing the Truth only to pervert it. This Power, the dark Asuric Shakti or Rakshasic Maya, puts forward its own perverted consciousness as true knowledge and its wilful distortions or reversals of the Truth as the verity of things. It is the powers and personalities of this perverted and perverting consciousness that we call hostile beings, hostile forces.


Sri Aurobindo: Whenever these perversions created by them out of the stuff of the Ignorance are put forward as the truth of things, that is the Falsehood, in the Yogic sense,, .  These are the forces and beings that are interested in maintaining the falsehoods they have created in the world of the Ignorance and in putting them forward as the Truth which men must follow. In India they are termed Asuras, Rakshasas, Pisachas (beings respectively of the mentalised vital, middle vital and lower vital planes) who are in opposition to the Gods, the Powers of Light. These too are Powers, for they too have their cosmic ﬁeld in which they exercise their function and authority and some of them were once divine Powers (the former gods, , as they are called somewhere in the Mahabharata) who have fallen towards the Darkness by revolt against the divine Will behind the cosmos. The word “Appearances” refers to the forms they take in order to rule the world, forms often false and always incarnating falsehood, sometimes pseudo-divine.


Sri Aurobindo: The use of the word Power has already been explained — it can be applied to whatever or whoever exercises a conscious power in the cosmic ﬁeld and has authority over the world movement or some part of it or some movement in it. But the Four of whom you speak are also Shaktis, manifestations of different powers of the supreme Consciousness and Force, the Divine Mother, by which she rules or acts in the universe. And they are at the same time divine Personalities; for each is a being who manifests different qualities and personal consciousness-forms of her Godhead. All the greater Gods are in this way personalities of the Divine — one Consciousness playing in many personalities, . Even in the human being there are many personalities and not only one, as used formerly to be imagined; for all consciousness can be at once one and multiple.


Sri Aurobindo: “Powers and Personalities” simply describe different aspects of the same being; a Power is not necessarily impersonal and certainly it is not, as you suggest, — on the contrary it is a manifestation acting in the worlds of the divine manifestation.  Emanations correspond to your description of the Matrikas of whom you speak in your letter. An emanation of the Mother is something of her consciousness and power put forth from her, which so long as it is in play is held in close connection with her and, when its play is no longer required, is withdrawn back into its source, but can always be put out and brought into play once more. But also the detaining thread of connection can be severed or loosened and that which came forth as an emanation can proceed on its way as an independent divine being with its own play in the world. All the Gods can put forth such emanations from their being, identical with them in essence of consciousness and power though not commensurate.


Sri Aurobindo: In a certain sense the universe itself can be said to be an emanation from the Supreme. In the consciousness of the sadhaka an emanation of the Mother will ordinarily wear the appearance, form and characteristics with which he is familiar.  In a sense the four Powers of the Mother may be called, because of their origin, her Emanations, just as the Gods may be called Emanations of the Divine, but they have a more permanent and ﬁxed character ; they are at once independent beings allowed their play by the Ady¯a Shakti and yet portions of the Mother, the Mahashakti, and she can always either manifest through them as separate beings or draw them together as her own various Personalities and hold them in herself, sometimes drawn back, sometimes at play, according to her will. In the supramental plane they are always in her and do not act independently but as intimate portions of the original Mahashakti and in close union and harmony with each other.


Sri Aurobindo: These four Powers are the Mother’s cosmic godheads, permanent in the world-play; they stand among the greater cosmic Godheads to whom allusion is made when it is said the Mother as the Mahashakti of this triple world “stands there (in the Overmind plane) above the Gods”. The Gods, as has been already said, are in origin and essence permanent Emanations of the Divine put forth from the Supreme by the Transcendent Mother, the Ady¯a Shakti; in their cosmic action they are Powers and Personalities of the Divine each with his independent cosmic standing, function and work in the universe. They are not impersonal entities but cosmic Personalities, although they can and do ordinarily veil themselves behind the movement of impersonal forces. But while in the Overmind and the triple world they appear as independent beings, they return in the Supermind into the One and stand there united in a single harmonious action as multiple personalities of the one Person, the divine Purushottama.  It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one’s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any farther qualiﬁcation or description.


Sri Aurobindo: Thus of the “ineffable Presence” it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these ﬂow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental signiﬁcance, — the essential perception of the essential presence supporting everything else.  This is what is termed the Ady¯a Shakti; she is the supreme Consciousness and Power above the universe and it is by her that all the Gods are manifested, and even the supramental Ishwara comes into manifestation through her — the supramental Purushottama of whom the Gods are Powers and Personalities.  This is an error. There is no such variation in the beginning of the and in subsequent years.


Sri Aurobindo: What is all this about operations and fasting? Certainly, I cannot have written anything of the kind.  If he gives full charge truly and really, with an absolute sincerity of total surrender and does not come in the way of the divine Grace. How many can do that? It cannot be done by a word or by taking up a mental posture.


Sri Aurobindo: Calling on God to do everything and save one all the trouble and struggle is a self-deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection.    Yes. It means to ﬁnd your true self, the Divine, and become in the Nature a conscious and illumined part of the Divine in manifestation.


Sri Aurobindo: “Opening from below” means this — that the supramental force descending awakes a response from below in the earth consciousness so that it is possible for a supramental activity to be formed in the material itself. All is involved as potentiality in the earth consciousness — life, mind, supermind — but it is only when Life Force descended from the life plane into the material that active and conscious organised life was possible — so it was only when mind descended that the latent mind in Matter awoke and could be organised. The supramental descent must create the same kind of opening from below so that a supramental consciousness can be organised in the material.    The physical Nature does not mean the body alone but the phrase includes the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature — not by imposing siddhis on them, but by creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution.


Sri Aurobindo: I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult power can only bring siddhis of the higher plane into the individual life — like the Sannyasi who could take any poison without harm, but he died of a poison after all when he forgot to observe the conditions of the siddhi. The working of the supramental power envisaged is not an inﬂuence on the physical giving it abnormal faculties, but an entrance and permeation changing it wholly into a supramentalised physical. I did not learn the idea from Veda or Upanishad, and I do not know if there is anything of the kind there. What I received about the Supermind was a direct, not a derived knowledge given to me; it was only afterwards that I found certain conﬁrmatory revelations in the Upanishad and Veda.


Sri Aurobindo:   It means “in the right way”.  Yes, practically it means that. I put it in that way so as to avoid suggesting that the devotion is altogether insincere and meant  as a cover.


Sri Aurobindo:   It has been clearly stated in that personal effort is necessary so long as the transference to the Divine Power cannot be complete []. It is the fact that all power is the Divine’s and therefore self-effort is also a use of the Divine Power conceded by the Divine, but there is a great practical difference between the delegated use and the direct Divine Action.


Sri Aurobindo: This has to be done in life itself — whether the life is in an Asram or outside, the rule and method is the same. It is an internal change for which one must become conscious of the lower nature as well as of the psychic and spiritual workings.  Meditation is usually necessary for that but so also is life, for it is only life that tests the genuineness of the change.


Sri Aurobindo: No. Universal Nature is a mass of forces, mental, vital and physical. The Divine is above with its supreme Shakti — and within behind Nature.


Sri Aurobindo: There is nothing laughable in aspiring for the supramental Truth so long as one understands that it is not possible to have it at once and one must go through a long preparation and development. What is laughable is to think you have it when you are ﬂoundering about it in mental and vital half-truths or delusions — that is what some have done and it is probably these bad examples that have created the impression of which you speak.    The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Divine — or, it may be said, she is the Divine in its consciousness-force. The Ishwara as Lord of the Cosmos does come out of the Mother who takes her place beside him as the cosmic Shakti — the cosmic Ishwara is one aspect of the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: The experience therefore is correct so far as it goes.   It is the Divine Shakti — who acts on all the planes and has all the aspects.     I don’t quite understand the question.


Sri Aurobindo: I have explained it in  [] that there are three aspects, transcendent, universal and individual of the Mother.    Yes; that is all right. One speaks often however of all above the lower hemisphere as part of the transcendence. This is because the Supermind and Ananda are not manifested in universe at present, but are planes above it.


Sri Aurobindo: For us the higher hemisphere is  [], the Supreme Transcendence is  [].  The Sanskrit terms are here clearer than the English.    They are incidents in the cosmic plan and so arranged by the cosmic Mahashakti and worked out by men under the impulse of the forces of Nature.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother’s Vibhutis would normally be feminine personalities most of whom would be dominated by one of the four personalities of the Mother. The others you mention would be personalities and powers of the Ishwara, but in them also, as in all, the Mother’s force would act. I do not quite catch the question about the transformation of the Vibhutis. All creation and transformation is the work of the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: If you mean the divine personalities of the Mother — the answer is yes. It may even be said that each Vibhuti draws his energies from the Four, from one of them predominantly in most cases, as Napoleon from Mahakali, Rama from Mahalakshmi, Augustus Caesar from Mahasaraswati.   Of the Mother in her universal workings.   I am afraid it [] is still wrong.  Let me try to explain otherwise.


Sri Aurobindo: It means “they bring the powers into the world (in their ordinary and in man their human degree), manifest them (in a half-divine degree but) in a human disguise in their Vibhutis and shall (hereafter), in those who can open to the direct inﬂuence of the Mother, raise them (the powers) to their highest divine degree and establish them in that degree.”  Please don’t translate my explanation, for that will make it very awkward; I only want the true sense of the sentence expressed in the translation as brieﬂy and elegantly as possible. You might send me up what you propose to put for approval and only after approval put in the proof so that there may not be too many erasures.


Sri Aurobindo: It is very much as we speak of high ideas, high feelings, high aspirations. In that sense Mahakali’s movement is a high, swift action, very effective at the point touched, but not wide, patient, comprehensive like Maheshwari’s.    I was speaking of your case only — it was not my intention to say that the Mother never uses pressure. But pressure also can be of various kinds.


Sri Aurobindo: There is the pressure of the Force when it is entering the mind or vital or body — a pressure to go faster, a pressure to build or form, a pressure to break and many more.  In your case if there is any pressure it is that of help or support or removal of an attack, but it does not seem to me that that can properly be called pressure.  It expresses her general action in the world. She strikes at the Asuras, she strikes also at everything that has to be got rid of or destroyed, at the obstacles to the sadhana etc. I may say that the Mother never uses the Mahakali power in your case nor the Mahakali pressure.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is felt as if something swift, sudden, decisive and imperative.  When it intervenes, it has a kind of divine or supramental sanction behind it and is like a ﬁat against which there is no appeal.  What is done cannot be reversed or undone. The adverse forces may try, may even touch or invade, but they retire bafﬂed and it is seen as soon as they withdraw that the past ground has remained intact — it is felt even in the attack.


Sri Aurobindo: Also the difﬁculties that were strong before touched by this ﬁat lose their power, their verisimilitude destroyed or are weak shadows that come only to ﬂicker and fade away. I say “allowed”, because this supreme action of Mahakali is comparatively rare, the action of the other Powers or a partial action of Mahakali is more common.    Well, yes — it means misapplication of any kind and ﬁtting things in where they do not really ﬁt — whether with regard to ideas, activities, or anything else.  At any rate a sufﬁcient of the harmony in a sufﬁciently transformed Nature for still greater things to come in without perturbation of the Nature.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes — but the images of the Radha-Krishna are taken from the vital world and therefore it is only a minor manifestation of the Radha Shakti that is there depicted. That is why she is called Mahaprana Shakti and Hladini Shakti. What is referred to is not this minor form, but the full Power of Love and Ananda above.  In reference to what Prof. Sorley has written on , the book of course was not meant as a full or direct statement of my thought and, as it was written to sadhaks mostly, many things were taken for granted there.


Sri Aurobindo: Most of the major ideas — e.g. Overmind — were left without elucidation.  To make the ideas implied clear to the intellect, they must be put with precision in an intellectual form — so far as that is possible with supra-intellectual things. What is written in the book can be clear to those who have gone far enough in experience, but for most it can only be suggestive.


Sri Aurobindo: Your answer is not only ﬁne poetry but it is a true explanation of the descent of the soul into the Ignorance. It is the adventure into the Night (the introduction of the Light, Joy, Immortality) to see whether they cannot be established there — so that there may be a new experience of the Divine and joy of the Divine through separation and union (or reunion) on a new basis. It is what I have hinted at in.  Not necessarily.  It differs with different people, but the upward conversions cannot go very far or cannot be secure


Sri Aurobindo: if the lower nature is not psychicised — for there is then always the possibility of a big or even a decisive fall if there is something seriously unpsychic in the lower nature.    The intermediate zone means simply a confused condition or passage in which one is getting out of the personal consciousness and opening into the cosmic (cosmic Mind, cosmic vital, cosmic physical, something perhaps of the cosmic higher Mind) without having yet transcended the human mind levels. One is not in possession of or direct contact with the divine Truth , but one can receive something from them, even from the Overmind, indirectly. Only, as one is still immersed in the cosmic Ignorance, all that comes from above can be mixed, perverted, taken hold of for their purposes by lower, even by hostile Powers.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not necessary for everyone to struggle through the intermediate zone. If one has puriﬁed oneself, if there is no abnormal vanity, egoism, ambition or other strong misleading element, or if one is vigilant and on one’s guard, or if the psychic is in front, one can either pass rapidly and directly or with a minimum of trouble into the higher zones of consciousness where one is in direct contact with the Divine Truth.  On the other hand the passage through the higher zones — higher Mind, illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind, is obligatory — they are the true Intermediaries between the present consciousness and the Supermind.    Yes — because it is there that one opens to the cosmic Truth (as opposed to the cosmic Ignorance) — the cosmic Divine etc.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not the full power of the Truth — that one reaches only in the Supermind where one is in direct communion with the Transcendent Reality; but it is still manifested Truth and not manifested Ignorance. This, of course, is when one can rise to those levels and stay there for a time at least or when the mind etc. are already so much changed that they can receive without perverting or distorting or misusing and diminishing too much.  It is not so difﬁcult once that is done to receive the Truth in consciousness — what is more difﬁcult is to make it dynamic in its purity for life.    It means simply larger than the limited personal mind.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a play of some combination of cosmic Mind-Forces but not the full cosmic Consciousness, not even the Cosmic Mind. It belongs usually to the Ignorance.     About polytheism, I certainly accept the truth of the many forms and personalities of the One which since the Vedic times has been the spiritual essence of Indian polytheism — a secondary aspect in the seeking for the one and only Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: But the passage referred to by Professor Sorley (page 56 []) is concerned with something else — the little godlings and Titans spoken of there are supraphysical beings of other planes. It is not meant to be suggested that they are real Godheads and entitled to worship — on the contrary it is indicated that to accept their inﬂuence is to move towards error and confusion or a deviation from the true spiritual way. No doubt they have some power to create, they are makers of forms in their own way and in their limited domain, but so are men too creators of outward and inward things in their own domain and limits — and even man’s creative powers can have a repercussion on the supraphysical levels.   The soul goes out in a subtle body.  Only for a time, not till rebirth — otherwise the stamp could be so strong that remembrance of past births even after taking a new body would be the rule rather than the exception.


Sri Aurobindo: This is possible, but not a law — as a rule the same relationship would not be constantly repeated — the same people often meet again and again on earth in different lives, but the relations are different. The purpose of rebirth would not be served if the same personality with the same relations and experiences were incessantly repeated.  That is not the case.  This is said not of the ego, but of the psychic being after it has shed its vital and other sheaths and is resting in the psychic world. Before that it passes through vital and other worlds on its way to the psychic plane.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, so long as they are near enough to the earth (it is usually supposed by those who have occult experience that it is for three years only) or if they are earth-bound or if they are of those who do not proceed to the psychic plane but linger near the earth and are soon reborn.  Universal statements cannot be easily made about these things — there is a general line, but individual cases vary to an almost indeﬁnite extent.  [] You will tell him that I do not carry on correspondence usually with people outside, but as his questions were from the book, I have asked you to give him my answers to his questions.


Sri Aurobindo: That is when you look at what the world ought to be and lay stress on what it should be. The idealist’s question is why should there be pain at all, even if it is outweighed by the fundamental pleasure of existence. The real crux is why should inadequacy, limit and suffering come across this natural pleasure of life. It does not mean that life is essentially miserable in its very nature.   The European type of monism is usually pantheistic and weaves the universe and the Divine so intimately together that they can hardly be separated.


Sri Aurobindo: But what explanation of the evil and misery can there be there? The Indian view is that the Divine is the inmost substance of the Universe, but he is also outside it, transcendent; good and evil, happiness and misery are only phenomena of cosmic experience due to a division and diminution of consciousness in the manifestation, but are not part of the essence or of the undivided whole-consciousness either of the Divine or of our own spiritual being.  It is simply an indication to those who wish to enter on to this Path that they must have a call (not take it up as they would take any way for spiritual experience) and must be prepared for great difﬁculties to surmount.  The readiness to go through to the end is a thing dependent on the will of the sadhak. That will may be there in the beginning and ﬂag afterwards.


Sri Aurobindo: All who are here did not come as permanent members and some were never told that they were made permanent but they have stuck on and Mother has not sent them away.  Until the siddhi — but it means essentially here to go through in spite of the difﬁculties.    I do not understand. The Personal Divine does not mean the Avatar.


Sri Aurobindo: What I said was that the scission between the two aspects of the Divine is a creation of the Overmind which takes various aspects of the Divine and separates them into separate entities.  Thus it divides Sat, Chit and Ananda, so that they become three separate aspects different from each other. In fact in the Reality there is no separateness, the three aspects are so fused into each other, so inseparably one that they are a single undivided reality. It is the same with the Personal and Impersonal, the Saguna and Nirguna, the Silent and the Active Brahman. In the Reality they are not contrasted and incompatible aspects; what we call Personality and what we call Impersonality are inseparably fused together in a single Truth.


Sri Aurobindo: In fact “fused together” even is a wrong phrase, because there they were never separated so that they have to be fused. All the quarrels about either the Impersonal being the only true truth or the Personal being the only highest truth are mind-created quarrels derivative from this dividing aspect of the Overmind. The Overmind does not deny any of the aspects as the Mind does, it admits them all as aspects of the One Truth, but by separating them it originates the quarrel in the more ignorant and more limited and divided Mind, because the Mind cannot see how two opposite things can exist together in one Truth, how the Divine can be  ; — having no experience of what is behind the two words it takes each in an absolute sense. The Impersonal is Existence, Consciousness, Bliss, not a Person, but a state.


Sri Aurobindo: The Person is the Existent, the Conscious, the Blissful; consciousness, existence, bliss taken as separate things are only states of his being. But in fact the two (personal being and eternal state) are inseparable and are one reality.    The statement is a general one and like all general statements subject to qualiﬁcation according to circumstances. What I meant was to discourage what some do which is to be always dwelling on their difﬁculties and shortcomings only, for that makes them turn for ever like squirrels in a cage always in the same circle of difﬁculties without the least breaking of light through the clouds.


Sri Aurobindo: The sentence would be more accurate or generally applicable if it were written “dwell too much” or “dwell solely”. Naturally, without rejection nothing can be done. And in hard periods or moments concentration on the difﬁculties is inevitable. Also in the early stages one has often to do a great amount of clearance work so that the road can be followed at all.


Sri Aurobindo:   That might be true if the whole world were to be supramentalised and that supramentalisation meant inability to change or put off a form, but it is not so.    The clear memory of words, images and thoughts is an action of the conscious mind, not the unconscious. Of course the memory goes behind, so to speak, in the back part of the mind, but it can be brought out.


Sri Aurobindo: Also the memory can be lost or defaced, so that one remembers wrongly or forgets altogether, but that is still an imperfect action of the conscious mind, not an action of the subconscious. What the subconscious keeps is a mass of impressions, not of clear or exact images and these can come up as in dreams in an incoherent jumble distorted altogether or else in the waking state as a mechanical recurrence or repetition of the same suggestions, impulses (subconscient vital) or sensations. There is a recognisable difference between the two functionings.   The true being mental, vital or subtle physical has always the greater qualities of its plane — it is the Purusha and like the psychic, though in another way, the projection of the Divine, therefore in connection with the Higher Consciousness and reﬂects something of it, though it is not altogether that — it is also in tune with the cosmic Truth.  The true vital is in the inner consciousness, the external is that which is instrumental for the present play of Prakriti in the surface personality.


Sri Aurobindo: When the change comes, the true vital rejects what is out of tune with its own truth from the external and makes it a true instrument for its expression, a means of expression of its inner will, not a thing of responses to the suggestions of the lower Nature. The strong distinction between the two practically disappears.   It is capable of receiving the movements of the higher consciousness, and afterwards it can be capable of receiving the still greater supramental power and Ananda. If it is not, then the descent of the higher consciousness would be impossible and supramentalisation would be impossible. It is not meant that it possesses these things itself in its own right and that as soon as one is aware of the true vital, one gets all these things as inherent in the true vital.


Sri Aurobindo:   “Forms” is not used in a physical sense here. The central being is the being in its original self, the psychic being is the same in the becoming.  The evolution or becoming continues, so the psychic also continues, just as the rest of the nature continues, only spiritualised and felt as one being in all planes.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not a question of formed or formless. As I have said “forms” is not used here in its outward but its inward or metaphysical sense.   One can get the knowledge or perception in the higher mind “I am That” while the vital is still untransformed, — then the vital ego can take it up and give it a wrong application.   Yes.


Sri Aurobindo: It is when one feels that one is the Divine, but not in the impersonal way to which all is the one Brahman, the One Self, but in the personal way “I am God, the Parameshwara”. It is as in the Puranic story in which the knowledge was given both to Indra and Virochana and the God understood but the Asura concluded that he the ego was the Divine and therefore went about trying to impose his ego on the universe.     It is only meant that the separative ego is not a creation of birth in the physical body; the mental and the vital have it also.


Sri Aurobindo: So long as the mental and vital are subject to ignorance, the ego will last also. When the psychic being goes into rest it naturally takes it with the essence of its past experience and in coming back it takes up a mental, vital and physical existence which has the mark of the ego and the ignorance.    The Brahman is not a mathematical One with the Many as an illusion — he is an inﬁnite One with an inﬁnite multiplicity implied in the Oneness. This is not Dwaitavada — for in Dwaitavada the many are quite different from the One.


Sri Aurobindo: In the Sankhya Prakriti is one but the Purushas are many, so it is not Sankhya, nor I suppose Jainism, unless Jainism is quite different from what it is usually represented to be.  The material creation or the creation of the universe generally.  It is on the contrary a complete Adwaitavada, more complete than Shankara’s who splits Brahman into two incompatible principles — the Brahman and a universe of Maya which is not Brahman and yet somehow exists. In this view which is that of the Gita and some other Vedantic schools the Para Shakti and the Many are also Brahman. Unity and Multiplicity are aspects of the Brahman, just as are Personality and Impersonality, Nirguna and Saguna.


Sri Aurobindo:   If one has had a strong spiritual development, that makes it easier to retain the developed mental or vital after death. But it is not absolutely necessary that the person should have been a Bhakta or a Jnani. One like Shelley or like Plato for instance could be said to have a developed mental being centred round the psychic — of the vital the same can hardly be said. Napoleon had a strong vital but not one organised round the psychic being.


Sri Aurobindo:   I only said what was originally by the ceremonies — the rites. I was not referring to the feeding of the caste or the Brahmins which is not a rite or ceremony. Whether the Shraddha as performed is actually effective is another matter — for those who perform it have not either the knowledge or the occult power.  Conditions for success?


Sri Aurobindo: But these are not conditions for doing the sadhana, but the basic conditions for the integral siddhi — they are, as it might be said, basic siddhis, realised foundations on which the total and permanent siddhi can be created — or one may say they are the constituents of the Yogic as opposed to the ordinary consciousness. When one has arrived fully at this Yogic consciousness, one can be called a Yogi, till then one is a sadhak. So much as all that is not demanded immediately from a sadhak. From the sadhak all that is asked is “a sincerity in the aspiration and a patient will to arrive . . . in spite of all obstacles, then the opening in one form or another is sure to come.”


Sri Aurobindo: “All sincere aspiration has its effect; if you are sincere you will grow into the divine life” []. Again “One cannot become altogether this at once, but if one aspires at all times and calls in the aid of the Divine Shakti with a true heart and a straightforward will, one grows more and more into the true consciousness” []. It is of course said that the success will come sooner or later, — it is for that reason that patience is indispensable. But these are not Himalayan conditions — it is not putting an impossible price on what is asked for. As for the difﬁculty, as it has also been said in the book, when one once enters into the true (Yogic) 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 are there” [].


Sri Aurobindo: It is not really on the capacity of the outer nature that success depends, (for the outer nature all self-exceeding seems impossibly difﬁcult), but on the inner being and to the inner being all is possible. One has only to get into contact with the inner being and change the outer view and consciousness from the inner — that is the work of the sadhana and it is sure to come with sincerity, aspiration, and patience. All that is not excessively stern or exacting.  As a description of the constituents of the Yogic consciousness, the bases of realisation, I don’t think the book can be called staggering or its suggestions Himalayan — for in fact they have already been stated by the Gita and other books on Yoga and, after all, thousands of people have realised them in part at least or in the inner being — though not so well in the outer. But to realise the inner being is quite enough for a foundation — for many it is quite enough even as a last state, for those who do not seek the transformation of the outer nature.


Sri Aurobindo: Here too, even if one puts the whole ideal, it is not alleged that it must be all done at once or as a ﬁrst condition for the greater endeavour.   You feel depressed on reading the, because your mind becomes active at the wrong end; from the point of view of your obsession about inability, hopelessness, past failure enforcing future failure. The right way to read these things is not to be mentally active, but receive with a quiet mind leaving the knowledge given to go in and bear its fruit hereafter at the proper time, not ask how one can practise it now or try to apply it to immediate circumstances in which it may not ﬁt. I have told you already that these things are the basic siddhis which constitute the Yogic consciousness — they are things towards which one has to move but cannot be established now and offhand. What has to be done now is for each the thing necessary for him at present.


Sri Aurobindo: I have indicated what is necessary at present for you, the growth of the psychic being which had begun and the power of contact and communication which it will bring with the inner consciousness and through it with the Divine Power or Presence.  But for that to grow the mind must keep more quiet, not insisting, not desponding at every moment, but steadily aspiring and letting the things of which these were indications grow from within.  I do not remember the context of the sentence quoted, without which it is not possible to say what was meant by its not being the ﬁrst aim of the Yoga. That may mean it is not the one to be pursued at the beginning, for ﬁrst there should be the union in the heart of the personal being with the Divine. Or it may mean that it does not take priority or importance over all others.


Sri Aurobindo: For both personality and impersonality have their claims and join together in the ﬁnal realisation of what transcends and unites them both in one.  What has to disappear is the personal separative ego — the dualities of course also. The quickest though not the ﬁnal way to extinguish ego is to make it disappear in impersonality. When all is one, universal or inﬁnite then there is no place for the sense of ego — the dualities also begin to disappear. But the difﬁculty is that usually this realisation is conﬁned to the mind or the above-mind while in the vital the stamp of ego remains and is felt in the life and its actions and reactions.


Sri Aurobindo: Even if full impersonality comes in the vital and physical also, there remains the impossibility, all being impersonal, of having any relation with the Divine. What has therefore to be done is to lose the small personality in impersonality, but also by that loss to discover the true personality which is a portion of the Divine. This person is not separative and limited but is a universal individual, has the sense of uniting with all, but also the power of love and worship for the Divine. That is why I say that to merge the personal consciousness is not the ﬁrst (or the whole) aim of the Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo:   One hears the voice or the thought speaking inwardly and one answers inwardly. Only it is not always safe for the sadhak if there is any insincerity of ego, desire, vanity, ambition in him — for then he may construct a voice or thought in his mind and ascribe it to the Mother and it will say to him pleasing and ﬂattering things which mislead him. Or he may mistake some other Voice for the Mother’s.


Sri Aurobindo:   There can be a vital without desire. When desire disappears from the being, the vital does not disappear with it.  By Prakriti is meant universal Prakriti. Universal Prakriti entering into the vital being creates desires which appear by its habitual response as an individual nature; but if the habitual desires she throws in are rejected and exiled, the being remains but the old individual prakriti of vital desire is no longer there — a new nature is formed responding to the Truth above and not to the lower Nature.


Sri Aurobindo: Universal Prakriti determined it and the soul or Purusha accepted it. In the acceptance lies the responsibility. The Purusha is that which sanctions or refuses. The vital being responds to the ordinary life waves in the animal; man responds to them but has the power of mental control. He has also, as the mental Purusha is awake in him, the power to choose whether he shall have desire or train his being to surmount it.


Sri Aurobindo: Finally, there is the possibility of bringing down a higher nature which will not be subject to desire but act on another vital principle.    It is the very principle of this Yoga that only by the supramentalisation of the consciousness which means rising above mind to supermind and the descent of the supermind into the nature can the ﬁnal transformation be made. So if nobody can rise above mind to supermind or obtain the descent of the supermind, then logically this Yoga becomes impossible. Every being is in essence one with the Divine and in his individual being a portion of the Divine, so there is no insuperable bar to his becoming supramental.


Sri Aurobindo: It is no doubt impossible for the human nature being mental in its basis to overcome the Ignorance and rise to or obtain the descent of the Supermind by its own unaided effort, but by surrender to the Divine it can be done. One brings it down into the earth Nature through his own consciousness and so opens the way for the others, but the change has to be repeated in each consciousness to become individually effective.   I suppose I must have been referring to the interchanges which are the result of vital relations. The involuntary vital or other involuntary interchange which takes place by the mere fact of meeting, talking or being together are those which are practically unavoidable. That is to say, they are avoidable only when one has become entirely conscious and is able to put a wall of Force around oneself which nothing can penetrate except the things which one wills to accept.


Sri Aurobindo: But the reference in the passage cannot be to these, but to the interchange due to vital attachments, passions, vital love or hate etc.  Friendships can be vital relations if there is strong attachment or desire but the friendship which is the nature of comradeship or mental afﬁnity or of a psychic character need not be a vital relation.    That is not what is said in that passage. What is spoken of is the taking of sex indulgence as a part of the aim and method of the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: It is said that if that were done, the sadhana would bring down vital Forces of a type adverse to the supramental change which would serve to block (stand in the way of) the supramental descent.     There are some who are never touched by the hostile forces.  The normal resistance of the lower Nature in human beings and the action of the Hostiles are two quite different things.


Sri Aurobindo: The former is natural and occurs in everybody; the latter is an intervention from the non-human world. But this intervention can come in two forms. (1) They use and press on the lower Nature forces making them resist where they would otherwise be quiescent, making the resistance strong or violent where it would be otherwise slight or moderate, exaggerating its violence when it is violent. There is besides a malignant cleverness, a conscious plan and combination when the Hostiles act on these forces which is not evident in the normal resistance of the forces.  (2) They sometimes invade with their own forces.


Sri Aurobindo: When this happens there is often a temporary possession or at least an irresistible inﬂuence which makes the thoughts, feelings, actions of the person abnormal — a black clouding of the brain, a whirl in the vital, all acts as if the person could not help himself and were driven by an overmastering force. On the other hand instead of a possession there may be only a strong Inﬂuence; there the symptoms are less marked, but it is easy for anyone acquainted with the ways of these forces to see what has happened. Finally it may be only an attack, not possession or inﬂuence; the person then is separate, is not overcome, resists.  Before coming to the main point I may as well clear out one matter not unconnected with it, my articles or messages, as they have been called, in the; for their appearance there and their contents seem to have caused some trouble, perplexity or misunderstanding in your mind and especially my speculations about the divine body. I wrote the ﬁrst of these articles to explain about how or why sport came to be included in the programme of the Ashram activities and I think I made it clear, as I went on, that sport was not sadhana, that it belonged to what I called the lower end of things, but that it might be used not merely for amusement or recreation or the maintenance of health, but for a greater efﬁciency of the body and for the development of certain qualities and capacities, not of the body only but of morale and discipline and the stimulation of mental energies: but I pointed out also that these could be and were developed by other means and that there were limitations to this utility.


Sri Aurobindo: In fact, it is only by sadhana that one could go beyond the limits natural to the lower-end means. I think there was little room for misunderstanding here but the Mother had asked me to write on other subjects not connected in any way with sport and had suggested some subjects such as the possibilities of the evolution of a divine body; so I wrote on that subject and went on to speak of the Supermind and Truth-Consciousness which had obviously not even the remotest connection with sport. The object was to bring in something higher and more interesting than a mere record of gymnasium events but which might appeal to some of the readers or even to wider circles. In speaking of the divine body I entered into some far-off speculations about what might become possible in the future evolution of it by means of a spiritual force, but obviously the possibilities could not be anything near or immediate and I said clearly enough that we shall have to begin at the beginning and not attempt anything out of the way. Perhaps I should have insisted more on present limitations but that I should now make clear.


Sri Aurobindo: For the immediate object of my endeavours is to establish spiritual life on earth and for that the ﬁrst necessity must always be to realise the Divine; only then can life be spiritualised or what I have called the Life Divine be made possible. The creation of something that could be called a divine body could be only an ulterior aim undertaken as part of this transformation; as obviously the development of such a divine body as was envisioned in these speculations could only come into view as the result of a distant evolution and need not alarm or distract anyone. It might even be regarded as a phantasy of some remotely possible future which might one day happen to come true.  There can be no objection to the immediate or early publication [] of (1) (2) the  (3) (Yoga of Works) (4) (and other essays) (5) (with essay on Kalidasa). As regards the numerous corrections have to be made in and the essay on classical metres, but as these are mainly misprints there is no objection to their being made on the proofs when these are sent to us.


Sri Aurobindo: As to and  they have to be altered by the introduction of new chapters and rewriting of passages and in the changes have to be made all through the book in order to bring it up to date, so it is quite impossible to make these alterations on the proofs. I propose however to revise these two books as soon as possible; they will receive my ﬁrst attention.   is an unﬁnished book and also I had intended to alter much of it and to omit all but brief references to William Archer’s criticisms. That was why its publication has been so long delayed. Even if it is reprinted as it is, considerable alterations will have to be made and there must be some completion and an end to the book which does not at present exist.


Sri Aurobindo: also cannot be published as it is, for there must be a considerable rearrangement of its matter since publication from month to month left its plan straggling and illarranged and also one or two chapters will have to be omitted or replaced by other new ones. I do not wish it to be published in its present imperfect form.  The publication of as it is does not enter into my intention. It was published in a great hurry and at a time when I had not studied the Rig Veda as a whole as well as I have since done. Whole chapters will have to be rewritten or written otherwise and a considerable labour gone through; moreover, it was never ﬁnished and considerable additions in order to make it complete are indispensable.


Sri Aurobindo: If spiritual and supramental were the same thing, then all the sages and devotees and Yogis and sadhaks throughout the ages would have been supramental beings and all I have written about the supermind would be so much superﬂuous rubbish. Anybody who had spiritual experiences would then be a supramental being; the Asram would be chock-full of supramental beings and every other Asram in India also. As for writing about these things, I do not see the utility. I have already two philosophical essays to write and I do not ﬁnd them writing themselves. If I start explaining the supramental, it would mean a book of 200 pages at least and even then you would be no wiser than before — as everything I wrote would probably be misinterpreted in the terms of mental cognition.


Sri Aurobindo: The supramental has to be realised, not explained; I therefore prefer to leave it to explain or not explain itself when it is there and not waste my time in explaining mentally the supramental. As to technical terms, I have explained many times over in a way sufﬁcient for those who practise this Yoga. If I have to explain philosophically to others, I must write a few more volumes of the. I have no time just now.  I may say that spiritual experiences can ﬁx themselves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like,


Sri Aurobindo: one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self, the universal Shakti doing all things, one can feel merged in the Cosmic Self or full of ecstatic bhakti or Ananda, but that need not transform the instrumental being. One can go on thinking with the intellect, willing with the mental will, feeling joy and sorrow on the vital surface, undergoing physical afﬂictions etc. just as before. The change only will be that the inner self will watch all that without getting disturbed or bewildered, taking it as a part of nature.  That is not the transformation I envisage.


Sri Aurobindo: The words supermind and supramental were ﬁrst used by me, but since then people have taken up and are using the word supramental for anything above mind. Psychic is ordinarily used in the sense of anything relating to the inner movements of the consciousness or anything phenomenal in the psychology; in this case I have made a special use of it, relating it to the Greek word psyche meaning soul; but ordinarily people make no distinction between the soul and the mental-vital consciousness; for them it is all the same. The ascent of the Kundalini — not its descent, so far as I know — is a recognised phenomenon, there is one that corresponds in our Yoga, the feeling of the consciousness ascending from the vital or physical to meet the higher consciousness.  This is not necessarily through the chakras but is often felt in the whole body. Similarly the descent of the higher consciousness is not felt necessarily or usually through the chakras but as occupying the whole head, neck, chest, abdomen, body.


Sri Aurobindo: Others besides have assumed that they had the Supermind because something opened in them which was “super” to the ordinary human mind. It is a common mistake. Even the word supermind (which I invented) has been taken up by several people (writers in the and elsewhere) and applied generally to the spiritual consciousness. I see no reason to doubt that saw things in vision (hundreds of people do) or had experiences.  No — I can’t say that.


Sri Aurobindo: The Overmind has its certitudes also, though of a less absolute kind than the supramental.     That would need some chapters to explain. It is not important to know it before you have got some experience of the planes above mind.


Sri Aurobindo:    What you call supramental overmind is still overmind — not a part of the true Supermind. One cannot get into the true Supermind (except in some kind of trance or Samadhi) unless one has ﬁrst objectivised the overmind Truth in life, speech, action, external knowledge and not only experienced it in meditation and inner experience.


Sri Aurobindo:   There are some errors about the Supermind and Overmind, — the two getting rather mixed up as they always do (I had much difﬁculty in separating them myself); I have tried to clear that up but it is difﬁcult to put in language that the mind can grasp.  I hope you will manage to unravel the writing which has become microscopically illegible owing to lack of space for the corrections.  Supermind by the way is synthetic only in the lowest spaces of itself where it has to prepare the principles of Overmind — synthesis is necessary only where analysis has taken place; one has dissected everything, put in pieces (analysis) so one has to piece together.


Sri Aurobindo: But Supermind is unitarian, has never divided up, so it does not need to add and piece together the parts and fragments. It has always held the conscious Many together as the conscious One.  At the time when these chapters were written, the name “overmind” had not been found, so there is no mention of it. What is described in these chapters is the action of the supermind when it descends into the overmind plane and takes up the overmind workings and transforms them. It was intended in later chapters to show how difﬁcult even this was and how many levels there were between human mind and supermind and how even supermind, descending, could get mixed with the lower action and turned into something that was less than the true Truth.


Sri Aurobindo: But these later chapters were not written.   Not exactly that. They result from the overmind pressure on the intervening mental and lower planes, trying to pour into them the overmind movements. The process is very intricate, has many stages, is not of a simple, single, deﬁnite character.


Sri Aurobindo:   No, — although there is a supramentalised overmind which is not very different from it, but overmind has always something relative in its knowledge.     The distinction has not been made in the because at that time what I now call the Overmind was supposed to be an inferior plane of the Supermind.


Sri Aurobindo: But that was because I was seeing them from the Mind. The true defect of Overmind, the limitation in it which gave rise to a world of Ignorance is seen fully only when one looks at it from the physical consciousness, from the result (Ignorance in Matter) to the cause (Overmind division of the Truth). In its own plane Overmind seems to be only a divided, many-sided play of the Truth, so can easily be taken by the Mind as a supramental province. Mind also when ﬂooded by the Overmind lights feels itself living in a surprising revelation of divine Truth. The difﬁculty comes when we deal with the vital and still more with the physical.


Sri Aurobindo: Then it becomes imperative to face the difﬁculty and to make a sharp distinction between Overmind and Supermind — for it then becomes evident that the Overmind Power (in spite of its lights and splendours) is not sufﬁcient to overcome the Ignorance because it is itself under the law of Division out of which came the Ignorance. One has to pass beyond and supramentalise Overmind so that mind and all the rest may undergo the ﬁnal change.    That is evidently what they meant. But they had no clear perception of these things because they lived at the highest in the spiritualised higher mind, and for the rest could only receive things from even the Overmind — they could not enter it except by deep samadhi ( ).


Sri Aurobindo: Prajna and Ishwara were for them Lord of the.    The  may be simply a form answering to the higher consciousness (overmental, intuitive etc.) and I suppose a being could be there working in that consciousness and body. It is not likely to be the supramental being and supramental body — for in that case the whole consciousness, thought, action subjective and objective would begin to be faultlessly true and irresistibly effective. Nobody has reached that stage yet, even the overmind is, for all but the Mother and myself, either unrealised or only an inﬂuence mostly subjective.


Sri Aurobindo:   Hiranyagarbha is not the Overmind, but the subtle subjective Consciousness which includes much more than the Overmind.   certainly won’t do — belongs to the Mind; you are probably thinking of the  (), but that is a different thing from . Perhaps Overmind can be described as  (as opposed to the rest of the  from the intuitive mind to the bottom), but that is a very long phrase. It is really, however, a different classiﬁcation and other words ought to be found for it.


Sri Aurobindo: , , , any of these might do, if no single word can be found or invented.  The Cosmic Spirit uses all powers, but Overmind power is the highest it normally uses in the present scheme of things here. In that sense as intuition is normally the highest power used by the individual being in the body, what you say may be considered as correct.  “Intuition” is the word for the general power proper to that plane, but it works through a fourfold process expressed in the four words connected together here. If you like you can substitute “intuitive intimations” for the third.


Sri Aurobindo:   Good heavens! after a life of sadhana you expect me still to “think” and what is worse think what is right or wrong. I don’t think, even; I see or I don’t see. The difference between intuition and thought is very much like that between seeing a thing and badgering one’s brains to ﬁnd out what the thing can possibly be like.


Sri Aurobindo: Intuition is truth-sight. The thing seen may not be the truth?  Well, in that case it will at least be one of its hundred tails or at least a hair from one of the tails. The very ﬁrst step in the supramental change is to transform all operations of consciousness from the ordinary mental to the intuitive, only then is there any hope of proceeding farther, — not to, but towards the supramental. I must surely have done this long ago, otherwise how could I be catching the tail of the supramental whale?


Sri Aurobindo: The Jivatman, spark-soul and psychic being are three different forms of the same reality and they must not be mixed up together as that confuses the clearness of the inner experience.  The Jivatman or spirit, as it is usually called in English, is self-existent above the manifested or instrumental being — it is superior to birth and death, always the same, the individual Self or. It is the eternal true being of the individual.  The soul is a spark of the Divine which is not seated above the manifested being, but comes down into the manifestation to support its evolution in the material world. It is at ﬁrst an undifferentiated power of the divine consciousness, containing all possibilities, but at ﬁrst unevolved possibilities, which have not yet taken form, but to which it is the function of evolution to give form.


Sri Aurobindo: This spark is there in all living beings, from the lowest to the highest.  The psychic being is formed by the soul in its evolution.  It supports the mind, vital, body, grows by their experiences, carries the nature from life to life. It is the psychic or . At ﬁrst it is veiled by mind, vital and body, but, as it grows, it becomes capable of coming forward and dominating the mind, life and body; in the ordinary man it depends on them for expression and is not able to take them up and freely use them.


Sri Aurobindo: The life of the being is animal or human and not divine.   When the psychic being can by sadhana become dominant and freely use its instruments, then the impulse towards the Divine becomes complete and the transformation of mind, vital and body, not merely their liberation becomes possible.   The Self or Atman being free and superior to birth and death, the experience of the Jivatman and its unity with the supreme or universal Self brings the sense of liberation; but for the transformation of the life and nature the awakening of the psychic being is indispensable.


Sri Aurobindo: The psychic being realises its oneness with the true being, the Jivatman, but it does not change into it.  The seen [] above may be a symbolic way of seeing the Jivatman, the portion of the Divine; the aspiration there would naturally be for the opening of the higher consciousness so that the being may dwell there and not in the ignorance. The Jivatman is already one with the Divine in reality, but it may want the rest of the consciousness to realise it.  The aspiration of the psychic being is for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher consciousness into this instrumental being and nature.  Both aspirations are necessary for the fullness of this Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: When the psychic imposes its aspiration on the mind, vital and body, then they too aspire and this is what was felt as the aspiration from the level of the lower being. The aspiration felt above is that of the Jivatman for the higher consciousness with its realisation of the One to manifest. Therefore both aspirations help each other. The seeking of the lower being is necessarily at ﬁrst intermittent and oppressed by the ordinary consciousness. It has by sadhana to become clear, constant, strong and enduring.


Sri Aurobindo: The sense of peace, purity and calm is brought about by the union of the lower with the higher consciousness. It cannot be permanent at ﬁrst, but it can become so by increased frequency and endurance of the calm and peace and ﬁnally by the full descent of the eternal peace and calm and silence of the higher consciousness into the lower nature.    It is one, yet different. The Gita puts it that the Jiva is an  [] of the One.


Sri Aurobindo: It can also be spoken of as one among many centres of the Universal Being and Consciousness.  Essentially one Jiva has the same nature as all — but in manifestation each puts forth its own line of Swabhava.   No. Kutastha is the  [] — it is not the Jivatman.


Sri Aurobindo: It is on the spiritual plane always that is above the mind, but there it is not ﬁxed to any level.   No. Afﬁnity, harmony, sympathy, but not union. Union is with the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: Ordinarily, all the more inward and all the abnormal psychological experiences are called psychic. I use the word psychic for the soul as distinguished from the mind and vital. All movements and experiences of the soul would in that sense be called psychic, those which rise from or directly touch the psychic being; where mind and vital predominate, the experience would be called psychological (surface or occult). “Spiritual” has nothing to do with the Absolute, except that the experience of the Absolute is spiritual. All contacts with self, the higher consciousness, the Divine above are spiritual.


Sri Aurobindo: There are others that could not be so sharply classiﬁed and set off against each other.  The spiritual realisation is of primary importance and indispensable. I would consider it best to have the spiritual and psychic development ﬁrst and have it with the same fullness before entering the occult regions. Those who enter the latter ﬁrst may ﬁnd their spiritual realisation much delayed — others fall into the mazy traps of the occult and do not come out in this life. Some no doubt can carry on both together, the occult and the spiritual, and make them help each other; but the process I suggest is the safer.


Sri Aurobindo: The governing factors for us must be the spirit and the psychic being united with the Divine — the occult laws and phenomena have to be known but only as an instrumentation, not as the governing principles. The occult is a vast ﬁeld and complicated and not without its dangers. It need not be abandoned but it should not be given the ﬁrst place.  How can = psychic being? Ask for the proper word — if there is any.


Sri Aurobindo:   is the inner being — it is a larger term than the psychic being. or would do.


Sri Aurobindo: [ ] means rather the  [] in the  [], the fundamental (inner) consciousness.   [] is the fundamental, or as we call it, the central being. But the fundamental being is not of the mental, vital, psychic etc., these are only expressions of the Jivatman; the Jivatman itself is self-existent in the Divine; in its being, it cannot be regarded as a combination of things.


Sri Aurobindo: You might just as well ask me why in my prewritings I laid stress on other things than the centre above the head or in the poston the distinction between overmind and supermind.  The stress on the psychic increased because it was found that without it no true transformation is possible.  Under your pressure (not supramental) I have splashed about a little on the surface of the subject — the result is imperfect and illegible. (I am sending it down to Nolini to wrestle with it.)  Your fault!


Sri Aurobindo: How on earth do you expect me to go deep on the point or do anything else but scribble when I have no time at all, at all, at all.  I am not sure what you mean by the Vaishnava transformation or Ramakrishna’s, so I can’t say anything about that.  I can only say that by transformation I do not mean some change of the nature — I do not mean for instance sainthood or ethical perfection or Yogic siddhis (like the Tantrik’s). I use transformation in a special sense, a change of consciousness radical and complete and of a certain speciﬁc kind which is so conceived as to bring about a strong and assured step forward in the spiritual evolution of the consciousness such as and greater than what took place when a mentalised being ﬁrst appeared in a vital and material animal world. If anything short of that takes place or at least if a real beginning is not made on that basis, a fundamental progress towards it, then my object is not accomplished.


Sri Aurobindo: A partial realisation does not meet the demand I make on life and Yoga.  Light of realisation is not the same thing as Descent. I do not think realisation by itself, necessarily transforms anything; it may bring only an opening or heightening or widening of the consciousness so as to realise something in the Purusha part without any radical change in the parts of Prakriti. One may have some light of realisation at the spiritual summit of the consciousness but the parts below remain what they were. I have seen any number of instances of that.


Sri Aurobindo: There must be a descent of the light not merely into the mind or part of it but into all the being down to the physical and below before a real transformation can take place. A light in the mind may spiritualise or otherwise change the mind or part of it in one way or another, but it need not change the vital nature, a light in the vital may purify and enlarge the vital movements or else silence and immobilise the vital being, but leave the body and the physical consciousness as it was, or even leave it inert or shake its balance. And the descent of Light is not enough, it must be the descent of the whole higher consciousness, its Peace, Power, Knowledge, Love, Ananda.  Moreover, the descent may be enough to liberate, but not to perfect, or enough to make a great change in the inner being, while the outer remains an imperfect instrument, clumsy, sick or unexpressive. Finally, the transformation effected by the sadhana cannot be complete unless it is a supramentalisation of the being.


Sri Aurobindo: Psychicisation is not enough, it is only a beginning; spiritualisation and the descent of the higher consciousness is not enough, it is only a middle term; the ultimate achievement needs the action of the supramental consciousness and Force. Something less than that may very well be considered enough by the individual, but it is not enough for the earth consciousness to take the deﬁnitive stride forward it must take at one time or another.  I have never said that my Yoga was something brand new in all its elements. I have called it the integral Yoga and that means that it takes up the essence and many procedures of the old Yogas — its newness is in its aim, standpoint and the totality of its method. In the earlier stages which is all I deal with in books like the or the or in the new book to be published [] there is nothing in it that distinguishes it from the old Yogas except the aim underlying its comprehensiveness, the spirit in its movements and the ultimate signiﬁcance it keeps before it — also the scheme of its psychology and its working: but as that was not and could not be developed systematically or schematically in these letters, it has not been grasped by those who are not already acquainted with it by mental familiarity or some amount of practice.


Sri Aurobindo: The later stages of the Yoga which go into little known untrodden regions, I have not made public and I do not at present intend to do so.  I know very well also that there have been seemingly allied ideals and anticipations — the perfectibility of the race, certain Tantric sadhanas, the effort after a complete physical Siddhi by certain schools of Yoga, etc. etc. I have alluded to these things myself and have put forth the view that the spiritual past of the race has been a preparation of Nature not merely for attaining to the Divine beyond the world, but also for the very step forward which the evolution of the earth-consciousness has now to make.  I do not therefore care in the least, — even though these things were far from identical with mine, — whether this Yoga and its aim and method are accepted as new or not, that is in itself a triﬂing matter. That it should be recognised as true in itself and make itself true by achievement is the one thing important; it does not matter if it is called new or a repetition or revival of the old which was forgotten.


Sri Aurobindo: I laid emphasis on it as new in a letter to certain sadhaks so as to explain to them that a repetition of the old Yogas was not enough in my eyes, that I was putting forward a thing to be achieved that has not yet been achieved, not yet clearly visualised, even though it is the natural but still secret destined outcome of all the past spiritual endeavour.  It is new as compared with the old Yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into a Heaven or a Nirvana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object. If there is a descent in other Yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the ﬁrst step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the fulﬁlment of life.  (2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth consciousness here, a cosmic not a supra-cosmic achievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing in of a Power of consciousness (the supramental) not yet active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.  (3) Because a method has been preconised for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive. I have not found this method as a whole or anything like it proposed or realised in the old Yogas.


Sri Aurobindo: If I had I should not have wasted my time in hewing out paths and in thirty years of search and inner creation when I could have hastened home safely to my goal in an easy canter over paths already blazed out, laid down, perfectly mapped, macadamised, made secure and public.  In English, Brahma = the Creator, one of the Trinity.  Brahman is the Eternal and Inﬁnite. In English very often the stem is taken as the form of the name in transliterating and not the nominative form e.g. Pururavas, not Pururav¯a. So Vivekananda writes “Sannyasin bold” instead of Sannyasi.


Sri Aurobindo:   I spoke of Brahma the Creator in order to explain why the was necessary in transliterating  the Eternal.  As for the other word the correct English is Brahmin, but it is often transliterated Brahmana or Brahman in order to be nearer the Sanskrit. Usually, I write Brahmin but in the Press it gets altered into Brahman.  Dynamis is a Greek word, not current, so far as I know, in English; but the verb, I can, am able, from which it derives, has given a number of words to the English language including dynamise, dynamics, dynamic, dynamical, dyne (a unit of force), so that the word can be at once understood by all English readers.


Sri Aurobindo: It means power, especially energetic power for energetic action. It is equivalent to the Sanskrit word, Shakti.  Philosophically it can stand as the opposite word to status, Divine Status, Divine Dynamis.  Ineffugible is the correct formation, but it has not force or power of suggestive sound in it. The in ineffugable has been brought in by illegitimate analogy from words like “fugacious”, Latin , because it sounds better and is forcible.


Sri Aurobindo: “Sublate” means originally to remove: it implies denial and removal (throwing off) of something posited. What appeared to be true, can be sublated by a greater truth contradicting it. The experience of the world can be sublated by the experience of Self, it is denied and removed; so the experience of the Self can be sublated by the experience of Sunya; it is denied and removed.  Hegel could not have used the word “sublate” as he wrote in German. I do not know what word he used which is here translated by sublate, but certainly it does not mean both destroy and preserve, nor in fact does it mean either.


Sri Aurobindo: Being passes over into Non-being, so it sublates itself, changes and eliminates itself as it were from the view, becomes Non-being instead of being; but so also does Non-being, what was Non-being passes over into being; where there was nothing, there is being; nothing has eliminated itself from the view. This, says Hegel, is not a mutual destruction by two contraries each of which was outside the other. Being inside itself becomes nothing or Non-Being; NonBeing or Nothing equally inside itself passes into being. They do not really sublate or drive out each other, but each sublates itself into the other. In other words it is the same Reality that presents itself now as one and now as the other.


Sri Aurobindo: “To contact” is a phrase that has established itself and it is futile to try to keep America at arm’s length any longer; “global” also has established itself and it is too useful and indeed indispensable to reject; there is no other word that can express exactly the same shade of meaning. I heard it ﬁrst from Arjava who described the language of as expressing a global thinking and I at once caught it up as the right and only word for certain things, for instance, the thinking in masses which is a frequent characteristic of the Overmind.  I would have been surprised to hear that I regard (in agreement with an advanced sadhak) Ramakrishna as a spiritual pigmy, if I had not become past astonishment in these matters. I have said, it seems, so many things that were never in my mind and done too not a few that I have never dreamed of doing! I shall not be surprised or perturbed if one day I am reported to have declared, on the authority of advanced or even unadvanced sadhaks, that Buddha was a or Shakespeare an overrated poetaster or Newton a third-rate college Don without any genius.


Sri Aurobindo: In this world all is possible. Is it necessary for me to say that I have never thought and cannot have said anything of the kind, since I have at least some faint sense of spiritual values? The passage you have quoted is my considered estimate of Ramakrishna.    An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge?


Sri Aurobindo: What then about Ramakrishna? Do you mean to say that the majority of the sadhaks here who have not learned logic and are ignorant of philosophy will never get Knowledge?    Expression is another matter, but Ramakrishana was an uneducated, nonintellectual man, yet his expression of knowledge was so perfect that the biggest intellects bowed down before it.


Sri Aurobindo: His expressions are unsurpassable in their quality. Don’t talk nonsense. Moreover I never developed my intellect and I made zero marks in Logic.  And who taught Vivekananda the Truth? Not a logician or highly developed intellect certainly?


Sri Aurobindo:   He never wrote an autobiography. What he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly quite as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya.


Sri Aurobindo: Ramakrishna himself never thought of transformation or tried for it. All he wanted was bhakti for the Mother and along with that he received whatever knowledge she gave him and did whatever she made him do. He was intuitive and psychic from the beginning and only became more and more so as he went on.  There was no need in him for the transformation which we seek; for although he spoke of the divine man (Ishwarakoti) coming down the stairs as well as ascending, he had not the idea of a new consciousness and a new race and the divine manifestation in the earth-nature.  I do not remember what I said about Vivekananda.


Sri Aurobindo: If I said he was a great Vedantist, it is quite true. It does not follow that all he said or did must be accepted as the highest truth or the best.  His ideal of was a need of his nature and must have helped him — it does not follow that it must be accepted as a universal spiritual necessity or ideal. Whether in declaring it he was the mouthpiece of Ramakrishna or not, I cannot pronounce. It seems certain that Ramakrishna expected him to be a great power for changing the world-mind in a spiritual direction and it may be assumed that the mission came to the disciple from the Master.


Sri Aurobindo: The details of his action are another matter. As for proceeding like a blind man, that is a feeling that easily comes when a Power greater than one’s own mind is pushing one to a large action; for the mind does not realise intellectually all that it is being pushed to do and may have its moments of doubt or wonderment about it and yet it is obliged to go on. Vedantic (Adwaita) realisation is the realisation of the silent static or absolute Brahman — one may have that and yet not have the same indubitable clearness as to the signiﬁcance of one’s action — for over action for the Adwaitin lies the shadow of Maya.    I cannot say that it is all truth — he had his own opinions about certain things (like everybody else) which can be questioned.


Sri Aurobindo: But most of what he said was of great value.  I am not sure what books would interest you and I am myself so far away from books that it is difﬁcult to remember names. If you have not read V’s things you can read them or any books that would give you an idea of Vedanta schools and Sankhya. There is Mahendra Sircar’s. It is Indian philosophy you want, I suppose?


Sri Aurobindo:   Where on earth is this extraordinary ﬁle? How could Vivekananda know anything about me? Trikaldrishti?


Sri Aurobindo: What I want to know is when did Vivekananda write that or what led him to take notice of me. I no longer remember when he left his body, but my impression is that it was when I was a blissfully obscure Professor of Baroda College and neither in politics nor Yoga had put on the tedious burden of fame. Why then should Vivekananda say anything about me at all, much less a thing like that — unless it was as the trikaldarshi Yogi that he spoke?  That can be judged from the personal experience only — not from the books which are too highly mentalised to give any indication of the full achievement in the lower part of the nature.


Sri Aurobindo:  .  I think Ramatirtha’s realisations were more mental than anything else. He had opening of the higher mind and a realisation there of the cosmic Self, but I ﬁnd no evidence of a transformed mind and vital; that transformation is not a result of or object of the Yoga of Knowledge. The realisation of the Yoga of Knowledge is when one feels that one lives in the wideness of something silent, featureless and universal (called the Self) and all else is seen as only forms and names; the Self is real, nothing else. The realisation of “ self in other forms” is a part of this or a step towards it, but in the full realisation the “my” should drop so that there is only one Self or rather only the Brahman.


Sri Aurobindo: For the Self is merely a subjective aspect of the Brahman, just as the Ishwara is its objective aspect. That is the Vedantic “Knowledge”.  Its result is peace, silence, liberation. As for the active Prakriti, (mind, vital, body), the Yoga of Knowledge does not make it its aim to transform them — that would be no use as the idea is that if the liberation has come, it will all drop off at death. The only change wanted is to get rid of the idea of ego and realise as true only the supreme Self, the Brahman.


Sri Aurobindo: I did not ask to prevent you from going to Ramana Maharshi and I never had the least thought or intention of requesting him to intervene at all. He tells me that it is true he told you Sri Aurobindo had approved of his speaking to you about the right attitude etc. and he had inferred that from a phrase in my answer to a letter of his. But that inference was a mistake — the phrase did not carry that meaning, nor was there in the context any reference to Ramana Maharshi. He adds, “But I did say I was authorised by Sri Aurobindo to try to detain him here.”  There was absolutely no reason why I should want to prevent you from going to the Maharshi.


Sri Aurobindo: I have always encouraged people to go even in long past years when the Maharshi was unknown except to a few and I even sent several there who wanted to come here. Even if anyone wished to leave me and go to him, I would be the last person to interfere. Everyone has the right to choose his own Guru or, if he is dissatisﬁed or has lost his faith, to go elsewhere.  The Mother in her letter to you made it very clear that she approved of your visit and she even said it was the ﬁrst thing to do. There can be no doubt therefore of her approval.


Sri Aurobindo: Mine is contained in hers.    According to Brunton’s description of the sadhana he (Brunton) practised under the Maharshi’s instructions, it is the Overself one has to seek within, but he describes the Overself in a way that is at once the Psychic Being, the Atman and the Ishwara. So it is a little difﬁcult to know what is the exact reading.


Sri Aurobindo: All? It is far too sweeping a generalisation. If he had said that is one very strong strain in human nature it could be accepted. But mark that it is in human physical consciousness only. The human vital tends rather to reject a happiness untainted by sorrow and to ﬁnd it a monotonous, boring condition.


Sri Aurobindo: Even if it accepts it, after a time it kicks over the traces and goes to some new painful or risky adventure.   The true Self is quite a different proposition. But what it has is not happiness but something more.  Who is this “they”?


Sri Aurobindo: I fear it is a very summary and misleading criminal psychology. To say that a Paris crook or apache steals, swindles, murders for the happiness of stealing, swindling, murdering is a little startling. He does it for quite other reasons.  He does it as his m´etier just as you do your doctor’s work. Do you really do your doctor’s work because of the happiness you ﬁnd in it?


Sri Aurobindo: It is also with many because they prefer the joy mixed with sorrow, , and consider your everlasting happiness an everlasting bore.  Why not? If your generalisation is good for all, it must be good for them also.  A very important qualiﬁcation.


Sri Aurobindo: If the meditation brings poise, peace, a concentrated condition or even a pressure or inﬂuence, that go on in the work, provided one does not throw it away by a relaxed or dispersed state of consciousness. That was why the Mother wanted people not only to be concentrated at pranam or meditation but to remain silent and absorb or assimilate afterwards and also to avoid things that relax or disperse or dissipate too much — precisely for this reason that so the effects of what she put on them might continue and the change of attitude the Maharshi speaks of will take place. But I am afraid most of the sadhaks have never understood or practised anything of the kind — they could not appreciate or understand her directions.  It does bring the effects of meditation into work if one gives it a chance.  You forget that with numbers of people they are successful.


Sri Aurobindo: It doesn’t, if one does not take care that it should do so — if one takes care, it can.  It is not exactly automatic. It can be easily spoilt or left to sink into the subconscient or otherwise wasted. But with simple and steady practice and persistence it has the effect the Maharshi speaks of — he assumes, I suppose, such a practice. I am afraid your meditation is hardly simple or steady — too much and ﬁghting with yourself.


Sri Aurobindo: He is more of a Yogi than a Rishi, it seems to me. The happiness theory does not impress me, — it is as old as the mountains but not so solid. But he knows a lot about Yoga.   He has experienced certain eternal truths by process of Yoga — I don’t think it is by Rishilike intuition or illumination, nor has he the mantra.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is quite usual at a certain stage of the sadhana for people who have the faculty to see or hear the Devata of their worship and to receive constant directions from him or her with regard either to action or to sadhana. Defects and difﬁculties may remain, but that does not prevent the direct guidance from being a fact. The necessity of a Guru in such cases is to see that it is the right experience, the right voice or vision — for it is possible for a false guidance to come as it did with and.  Maharshi is very much of a Vedantist.


Sri Aurobindo: He does not believe in what we believe or in the descent etc. At the same time he himself has had experiences in which the Mother interfered in a visible, even material form and prevented him from doing what he intended to do.    Because he is a great man does it follow that everything he thinks or says is right? or because he lives in the light, does it follow that his light is absolute and complete?


Sri Aurobindo: The “TruthConsciousness” is a phrase I use for the supermind. Maharshi is not in the supermind. He may be and is in a true Consciousness, but that is a different matter.  He discouraged his disciples because his aim was the realisation of the inner Self and intuition — in other words the fullness of the spiritual Mind — visions and voices belong to the inner occult sense, therefore he did not want them to lay stress on it. I also discourage some from having any dealing with visions and voices because I see that they are being misled or in danger of being misled by false visions and false voices.


Sri Aurobindo: That does not mean that visions and voices have no value.    The Upanishads do not say that about the Atman — what they say about the Atman is that it is in all and all is in it, it is everywhere and all this universe is the Atman. What they speak of as situated in the deeper inner heart is the Purusha in the heart or Antaratman. This is in fact what we call the psychic being, .


Sri Aurobindo: The heart spoken of by the Upanishads corresponds with the physical cardiac centre; it is the of the Tantriks.  As a subtle centre,, it is supposed to have its apex on the spine and to broaden out in front. Exactly where in this area one or another feels it does not matter much; to feel it there and be guided by it is the main thing. I cannot say what the Maharshi has realised — but what Brunton describes in his book as the Self is certainly this Purusha Antaratma but concerned more with  and a liberated action than with transformation of the nature. What the psychic realisation does bring is a psychic change of the nature purifying it and turning it altogether towards the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: After that or along with it comes the realisation of the cosmic Self. It is these two things that the old Yogas encompassed and through them they passed to Moksha, Nirvana or the departure into some kind of celestial transcendence. The Yoga practised here includes both liberation and transcendence, but it takes liberation or even a certain Nirvana, if that comes, as a ﬁrst step and not as the last step of its siddhi. Whatever exit to or towards the Transcendent it achieves is an ascent accompanied by a descent of the power, light, consciousness that has been achieved and it is by such descents that is to be achieved the spiritual and supramental transformation here. This possibility does not seem to be admitted in the Maharshi’s thought, — he considers the Descent as superﬂuous and logically impossible.


Sri Aurobindo: “The Divine is here, from where will He descend?” is his argument. But the Divine is everywhere, he is above as well as within, he has many habitats, many strings to his bow of Power, there are many levels of his dynamic Consciousness and each has its own light and force. He is not conﬁned to his position in the heart or to the single cord of the psycho-spiritual realisation. He has also his supramental station above the heart-centre and mind-centres and can descend from there if He wants to do so.


Sri Aurobindo:    [   ]


Sri Aurobindo: I had started answering your questions but it took on too long a development and I could not ﬁnish it — I don’t suppose I shall ﬁnd time.  In the ﬁrst place I do not want to go farther into the question of the Maharshi’s realisation which does not really concern us.  As I have said comparisons are of no use; each path has its own aim and direction and method and the truth of one does not invalidate the truth of the other. The Divine (or if you like, the Self) has many aspects and can be realised in many ways — to dwell upon those differences is irrelevant and without use.  Transformation is a word that I have brought in myself (like supermind) to express certain spiritual concepts and spiritual facts of the integral Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: People are now taking them up and using them in senses which have nothing to do with the signiﬁcance which I put into them. Puriﬁcation of the nature by the “inﬂuence” of the Spirit is not what I mean by transformation; puriﬁcation is only part of a psychic change or a psycho-spiritual change — the word besides has many senses and is very often given a moral or ethical meaning which is foreign to my purpose. What I mean by the spiritual transformation is something dynamic (not merely liberation of the self, or realisation of the One which can very well be attained without any descent). It is a putting on of the spiritual consciousness dynamic as well as static in every part of the being down to the subconscient. That cannot be done by the inﬂuence of the Self leaving the consciousness fundamentally as it is with only puriﬁcation, enlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the vital.


Sri Aurobindo: It means a bringing down of a Divine Consciousness static and dynamic into all these parts and the entire replacement of the present consciousness by that. This we ﬁnd unveiled and unmixed above mind, life and body and not in mind, life and body. It is a matter of the undeniable experience of many that this can descend and it is my experience that nothing short of its descent can thoroughly remove the veil and mixture and effect the full spiritual transformation. No metaphysical or logical reasoning in the void as to what the Atman “must” do or can do or needs or needs not to do is relevant here or of any value. I may add that transformation is not the central object of other paths as it is of this Yoga — only so much puriﬁcation and change is demanded by them as will lead to liberation and the beyond-life.


Sri Aurobindo: The inﬂuence of the Atman can no doubt do that — a full descent of a new Consciousness into the whole nature from top to bottom to transform life here is not needed at all for the spiritual escape from life.     Sundays are no better than other days. A number of people always choose it for long letters demanding replies.


Sri Aurobindo: But apart from that to write what you demand of me would mean a volume, not a letter — especially as these are matters of which people know a great deal less than nothing and would either understand nothing or misunderstand everything. Some day I suppose I shall write something, but the supramental won’t bear talking of now.  Something about the spiritual transformation might be possible and I may ﬁnish the letter on that point — if I ﬁnd leisure, but that is doubtful.    The methods described in the account are the well-established methods of Jnanayoga — (1) one-pointed concentration followed by thought-suspension, (2) the method of distinguishing or ﬁnding out the true self by separating it from mind, life, body (this I have seen described by him more at length in another book) and coming to the pure I behind


Sri Aurobindo: ; this also can disappear into the Impersonal Self. The usual result is a merging in the Atman or Brahman — which is what one would suppose is meant by the Overself, for it is that which is the real Overself. This Brahman or Atman is everywhere, all is in it, it is in all, but it is in all not as an individual being in each but is the same in all — as the Ether is in all. When the merging into the Overself is complete, there is no ego, or distinguishable I, or any formed separative person or personality. All is — an indivisible and indistinguishable Oneness either free from all formation or carrying all formations in it without being affected — for one can realise it in either way.


Sri Aurobindo: There is a realisation in which all beings are moving in the one Self and this Self is there stable in all beings; there is another more complete and thoroughgoing in which not only is it so but all are vividly realised as the Self, the Brahman, the Divine. In the former, it is possible to dismiss all beings as creations of Maya, leaving the one Self alone as true — in the other it is easier to regard them as real manifestations of the Self, not as illusions. But one can also regard all beings as souls, independent realities in an eternal Nature dependent upon the One Divine. These are the characteristic realisations of the Overself familiar to the Vedanta. But on the other hand you say that this Overself is realised by the Maharshi as lodged in the heart-centre, and it is described by Brunton as something concealed which when it manifests appears as the real Thinker, source of all action, but now guiding thought and action in the Truth.


Sri Aurobindo: Now the ﬁrst description applies to the Purusha in the heart, described by the Gita as the Ishwara situated in the heart and by the Upanishads as the Purusha Antaratma; the second could apply also to the mental Purusha,  of the Upanishads, the mental Being or Purusha who leads the life and the body. So your question is one which on the data I cannot easily answer. His Overself may be a combination of all these experiences, without any clear distinction being made or thought necessary between the various aspects. There are a thousand ways of approaching and realising the Divine and each way has its own experiences which have their own truth and stand really on a basis, one in essence but complex in aspects, common to all, but not expressed in the same way by all. There is not much use in discussing these variations; the important thing is to follow one’s own way well and thoroughly.


Sri Aurobindo: In this Yoga, one can realise the Psychic Being as a portion of the Divine seated in the heart with the Divine supporting it there — this psychic being takes charge of the sadhana and turns the whole being to the Truth and the Divine, with results in the mind, the vital, the physical consciousness which I need not go into here, — that is a ﬁrst transformation. We realise it next as the one Self, Brahman, Divine, ﬁrst the body, life, mind and not only within the heart supporting them — above and free and unattached as the static Self but also extended in wideness through the world as the silent Self in all and dynamic too as the active cosmic Divine Being and Power, Ishwara-Shakti, containing the world and pervading it as well as transcending it, manifesting all cosmic aspects. But, what is most important for us, is that it manifests as a transcending Light, Knowledge, Power, Purity, Peace, Ananda of which we become aware above and which descends into the being and progressively replaces the ordinary consciousness by its own movements — that is the second transformation. We realise also the consciousness itself as moving upward, ascending through many planes physical, vital, mental, overmental to the supramental and Ananda planes. This is nothing new; it is stated in the Taittiriya Upanishad that there are ﬁve Purushas, the physical, the vital, the mental, the Truth Purusha (supramental) and the Bliss Purusha; it says that one has to draw the physical self up into the vital, the vital into the mental, the mental into the Truth Self, the Truth Self into the Bliss Self and so attain perfection.