Sri Aurobindo: He must attain to a quiet mind and in the silence of the mind receive only the Divine thought-forces or other divine Forces and be their ﬁeld and instrument.  To silence the mind it is not enough to throw back each thought as it comes, that can only be a subordinate movement.  One must get back from all thought and be separate from it, a silent consciousness observing the thoughts if they come, but not oneself thinking or identiﬁed with the thoughts. Thoughts must be felt as outside things altogether. It is then easier to reject thoughts or let them pass without their disturbing the quietude of the mind.


Sri Aurobindo: Not to be disturbed by either joy or grief, pleasure or displeasure by what people say or do or by any outward things is called in Yoga a state of, equality to all things. It is of immense importance in sadhana to be able to reach this state.  It helps the mental quietude and silence as well as the vital to come . It means indeed that the vital itself and the vital mind are already falling silent and becoming quiet.


Sri Aurobindo: The thinking mind is sure to follow.  When people mix together there is generally some interchange of vital forces which is quite involuntary. himself suffers from physical weakness and he complains of his vital forces being drawn out of him without knowing why it happens. Vampirising is a special phenomenon — a person who lives upon the vital of others and ﬂourishes vitally at their expense.


Sri Aurobindo: The tired feeling which the people felt after seeing this is a sign of vampirism, but very often there is no such feeling but there is an after-effect on the whole. The nerves get gradually wrong — what is called the nervous envelope becomes weak or in one way or another the vitality becomes weak or gets into an abnormal condition — excitable and unstable. There are many such ways in which the effect shows itself. Sex-vampirism is a different matter — in sex interchange the normal thing is to give and take, but the sex-vampire eats up the other’s vital and gives nothing or very little.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is always a drawing of vital forces from one to another in all human social mixture; it takes place automatically. Lovemaking is one of the most powerful ways of each drawing up the other’s vital force, — or of one drawing the other’s, which also often happens in a one-sided way to the great detriment of the “other”. In the passage come many things good and bad, elation, feelings of strength, fullness, support or weakness and depletion, inﬁltration of good and bad qualities, interchange of psychological moods, states and movements, ideas helpful and harmful, depression, exhaustion — the whole gamut. In the ordinary consciousness one is not aware of these things; the effects come into the surface being, but the cause and process remain unknown and unnoticed because the interchange is subtle and covert, it takes place through what is called the subconscient, but is rather a behind-consciousness covered by the surface waking mind.


Sri Aurobindo: When one gets into a certain Yogic consciousness, one becomes very much aware of this covert movement, very sensitive to all this interchange and action and reaction; but one has this advantage that one can consciously build a wall against them, reject, refuse, accept what helps, throw out or throw back what injures or hinders. Illnesses can also pass in this way from one to another, even those which are not medically regarded as contagious or infectious; one can even by will draw another’s illness into oneself as did Antigonus of Macedon accepting death in this way in order to save his son Demetrius. This fact of vital interchange, which seems strange and unfamiliar to you, becomes quite intelligible if one realises that ideas, feelings etc. are not abstract things but in their way quite concrete, not conﬁning their movements to the individual’s mind or body but moving out very much like the “waves” of science and communicating themselves to anyone who can serve as a receiver. Just as people are not conscious of the material waves, so it is and still more with these mental or vital waves; but if the subtle mind and senses become active on the surface — and that is what takes place in Yoga — then the consciousness becomes aware in its reception of them and records accurately and automatically their vibrations.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is quite possible that pulls [] unconsciously, as he is vitally weak and people who are vitally weak do unconsciously and automatically pull on others.  It is certainly a great help to be able to limit one’s contacts provided it is not carried too far. I must note however that even with limited contacts undesirable waves can get in — it is a measure of precaution but does not make you absolutely safe. On the other hand complete withdrawal carries one to another extreme and has its own dangers.


Sri Aurobindo: The complete safety from “stuff” distracting, disturbing, externalising etc., can only come from a growth of the consciousness within. In the interim absorption and limitation of contacts like that can be a helpful measure if used in a judicious way.     One has to go inside into the inner being and one can minimise contacts,, not as an absolute rule — provided there is a real living in the inner being and sufﬁcient contact with outside things not to lose one’s hold of practical realities.


Sri Aurobindo: But if there is an isolation which brings depression, inertia, unhappiness, gloom or else morbidity of any kind, then it is evident that the retirement is not wholesome.   The avoiding of contacts does not by itself bring the fundamental immunity, it is only a change of that part of the consciousness that can do it. But it may be advisable to minimise the contacts that strongly bring the trouble so long as the change is not there.  It is not certain that a long retirement brings about the change of the subconscient, — the long retirement of the Sannyasin is part preparation of a retirement from life altogether — it is different in our Yoga which wants to change, but not reject life.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is true that one has to try to keep the inner condition under all circumstances, even the most adverse; but that does not mean that one has to accept, unnecessarily, unfavourable conditions when there is no good reason for their being allowed to go on. Especially, the nervous system and the physical cannot bear an excessive strain as well as the mind and higher vital; your fatigue came from the strain of living in one consciousness and at the same time exposing yourself too much to prolonged contacts from the ordinary consciousness. A certain amount of self-defence is necessary — so that the consciousness may not be pulled down or out constantly into the ordinary atmosphere or the physical strained by being forced into activities that have become foreign to you. Those who practise Yoga often seek refuge in solitude from these difﬁculties; that is unnecessary here, but all the same you need not submit to being put under this kind of useless strain always.


Sri Aurobindo: Inner withdrawal is always much better than physical withdrawal.    I say that all that [] is magniﬁcent, if you can do it. But can’t you see that it is the inward change that is wanted — the inward plunge? These dramatic outward breaks lead only to new joinings.


Sri Aurobindo: Neither you nor she can keep it up. If there comes a strong ingoing movement, then it is another matter. That of itself would make it possible to readjust the relations or to withdraw if necessary. But splashings about on the surface — will it lead to anything? It does not look like it.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is not a physical retirement that is needed, but an inner detachment from the mental formations and vital desires. To ﬁnd the real self above and within and live in that, not in the mind’s conceptions or the vital’s reactions. These must be observed and looked at not as one’s own but as movements of a surface ignorant nature.  You can see whether such a retirement suits you or not.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not the same for all. Most cannot stand retirement.  There is no harm in that kind of seclusion [ ] and it can help provided you maintain the inner peace and a simple quietude turned towards the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: We have no objection to your doing this [ ] for a week, as you propose; I understand that it is not a retirement, but a cessation of social visits. My objection to retirement is that so many have “gone morbid” by it or gone astray into zones of false vital experiences; secondly, that absolute retirement is not necessary for the spiritual life. It is different however for people like who are to the manner born or at least perfectly trained. A “restriction of publicity” is quite another matter. Also to be capable of solitude and to have the Ananda of solitude can always be helpful to sadhana, and a power of inner solitude is natural to the Yogi.


Sri Aurobindo: We will give our help and hope you will succeed — at least, you will have established a precedent for withdrawing whenever you want in the future.   Retirement is not necessary for passing from one plane to another. It is needed only in rare cases and with certain temperaments for a time.   The impulse to retire comes from some push to concentrate within — but the cause of the push varies in different cases.  There are certain cases in which there was a desire to isolate oneself from the Mother’s inﬂuence (Pranam, meditation etc.) and follow one’s own fancies, e.g.,, also perhaps with a sense of superiority = “no need of these things for so great a Yogi as I”.


Sri Aurobindo: In other cases there was a marked desire for isolation, but that was where the brain was already upset () or a wrong inﬂuence at work (). But others have simply desired concentration or wished not to spend themselves in externalisation (, in their periods of retirement). So all cannot come under one sentence.    How are you going to ﬁnd the right external relations by withdrawing altogether from external relations?


Sri Aurobindo: And how do you propose to be transformed and uniﬁed by living only in the internal life, without any test of the transformation and unity by external contact and the ordeals of the external work and life? Thoroughness includes external work and relations and not a retired inner life only.  It is only by the vital ego giving up its demands and claims and the reactions these produce when not satisﬁed, that the transformation and uniﬁcation can come, and there is no other way.


Sri Aurobindo: You must make up your mind what you want. There is no harm in drawing back from all vital and physical relations and wanting only the true relation — that is in fact what happens to everybody who wants the true relation — the only thing kept is the universal goodwill (not vital affection) to all. But if you swing about from one mood to another — then of course they will not understand and have some ground to say that they are perplexed by your variations. This matter of touching and caressing is one on which you ought to take a ﬁrm and unvarying stand. If you don’t want it, you should repel it always with the utmost ﬁrmness, otherwise there will necessarily be clash and disturbance.


Sri Aurobindo: All depends upon your inner will and establishing a unity of will in yourself turned exclusively towards the Divine.  I think I have told you that an physical retirement is seldom healthy, although a comparative retirement is often helpful. But the main thing is the detachment and complete turning to the Divine.  To live in the self is of course the proper object of withdrawal and to live in the self brings the higher experiences which must obviously be helpful and not harmful. What I wrote was only to explain what I meant by the danger of too complete retirement and why it turned out to be harmful to, and others.


Sri Aurobindo: There are some like who derived unmixed proﬁt from it. It altogether depends on one’s temperament and on one’s attitude and aim and inner poise during the silence.   Retirement in the sense of all meditation without work is not suitable to this sadhana — it is one-sided and those who resort to it, unless they are very strong, often lose their balance.


Sri Aurobindo: To have no contact with people and shut oneself entirely is not healthy. But one can for a time diminish outward contacts so as to concentrate.    I doubt whether an entire retirement is very healthy except for certain people who have a contemplative nature coupled with a very sound and solid nervous system and ﬁrm balance of the mind — but a restriction of intercourse so as to go more in oneself and limit or select the contacts often has a good effect.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes, it is better [] if you want to do sadhana seriously — but if your vital cannot do without these things, it is no use forcing it. Entire retirement is not good — it makes people morbid and they plunge into a world of imaginations without any check from life and actuality. But to avoid useless talk and unhelpful social interchange is good, if the vital can be made to acquiesce in an applied and serious sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: Not speaking or contacting when one is in the intensity of the peace is one thing — that can be done. Remaining isolated at other times as a rule of life does not seem to me necessary — it is safe only for those who can live entirely within without losing their hold on outer reality. If one has always a solid poise of peace one can do that or a clear mind balanced and discriminating along with constant experiences which it is able to put in the right place. But some get absorbed in inner experiences which they get lost in and get passionately attached to and this inner life becomes for them the sole reality without the outer to poise it and keep it under check and test — there lies a danger. Again if one remains isolated without the support of a settled inner poise and constant experience over which one has a discriminating control, then in periods of emptiness the vital can arise bringing struggles, difﬁculties, unrest, suggestions of all kinds, a troubled and turbid state — rather than spend the time in that, as some do, it is better to mix with others or do some work or otherwise externalise oneself in a healthy way.


Sri Aurobindo:   People will certainly regard it [] as unnatural and there will be a lot of hubbub for a time. As to the dangers, the one real danger in these retirements (apart from the pride) is the becoming a prey of subjective inﬂuences and imaginations and losing the hold of reality which work and contact with others help to keep up. Of course one can lose that even while keeping contact as happened to and others. But I suppose you have a sufﬁciently cool and critical head to avoid that danger.


Sri Aurobindo:   And if some ﬁnd that retirement is the best way of giving oneself to the Higher, to the Divine by avoiding as much as possible occasions for the bubbling up of the lower, why not? The aim they have come for is that and why blame or look with distrust and suspicion on the means they ﬁnd best or daub it with disparaging adjectives to discredit it — grim, inhuman and the rest? It is your vital that shrinks from it and your vital mind that supplies these epithets which express only your shrinking and not what the retirement really is. For it is the vital or the social part of it that shrinks from solitude; the thinking mind does not but rather courts it.


Sri Aurobindo: The poet seeks solitude with himself or with Nature to listen to his inspiration; the thinker plunges into solitude to meditate on things and commune with a deeper knowledge; the scientist shuts himself up in his laboratory to pore by experiment into the secrets of Nature; these retirements are not grim and inhuman. Neither is the retirement of the sadhak into the exclusive concentration of which he feels the need; it is a means to an end, to the end on which his whole heart is set. As for the Yogin or bhakta who has already begun to have the fundamental experience, he is not in a grim and inhuman solitude. The Divine and all the world are there in the being of the one, the supreme Beloved or his Ananda is there in the heart of the other.  I say this as against your depreciation of retirement founded on ignorance of what it really is; but I do not, as I have often said, recommend a total seclusion, for I hold that to be a dangerous expedient which may lead to morbidity and much error.


Sri Aurobindo: Nor do I impose retirement on anyone as a method or approve of it unless the person himself seeks it, feels its necessity, has the joy of it and the personal proof that it helps to the spiritual experience. It is not to be imposed on anyone as a principle, for that is the mental way of doing things, the way of the ordinary mind — it is as a need that it has to be accepted, when it is felt as a need, not as a general law or rule.  The best way to prepare oneself for the spiritual life when one has to live in the ordinary occupations and surroundings is to cultivate an entire equality and detachment and the of the Gita with the faith that the Divine is there and the Divine Will at work in all things even though at present under the conditions of a world of Ignorance. Beyond this are the Light and Ananda towards which life is working, but the best way for their advent and foundation in the individual being and nature is to grow in this spiritual equality. That would also solve your difﬁculty about things unpleasant and disagreeable.


Sri Aurobindo: All unpleasantness should be faced with this spirit of.    When one is living in the world, one cannot do as in an Asram — one has to mix with others and keep up outwardly at least ordinary relations with others. The important thing is to keep the inner consciousness open to the Divine and grow in it. As one does that, more or less rapidly according to the inner intensity of the sadhana, the attitude towards others will change.


Sri Aurobindo: All will be seen more and more in the Divine and the feeling, action, etc. will more and more be determined, not by the old external reactions, but by the growing consciousness within you.    The difﬁculty which you experience from relatives and others is always one that intervenes as an obstacle when one has to practise the sadhana in ordinary or unfavourable surroundings. The only way to escape from it is to be able to live in oneself in one’s inner being — which becomes possible when the responsiveness and luminosity of which you speak in your letter increase and become normal, for then you are constantly aware of your inner being and even live in it — the outer becomes an instrument, a means of communication and action in the outer world. It is then possible to make the relations with people outside free from tie or necessary reaction — one can determine from within one’s own reaction or absence of reaction; there is a fundamental liberation from the external nexuses, — of course, if one wills it to be so.


Sri Aurobindo:  The life of is in its nature a ﬁeld of unrest — to go through it in the right way one has to offer one’s life and actions to the Divine and pray for the peace of the Divine within.  When the mind becomes quiet, one can feel the Divine Mother supporting the life and put everything into her hands.     In her condition the one thing by which she can enter into the sadhana is to remember the Divine always, taking her difﬁculties as ordeals to be passed through, to pray constantly and seek the Divine help and protection and ask for the opening of her heart and consciousness to the supporting Divine Presence.


Sri Aurobindo: That is quite right. Only those who sympathise can help — surely also one should be able to see the faults of others without hatred. Hatred injures both parties, it helps none.   It is this feeling of dislike that must have been the ground for the attack to come in. All feelings of dislike for other sadhaks should be absolutely rejected.


Sri Aurobindo: Each has his own nature, his own difﬁculties and has to struggle out of them with the Divine Help.  Defects and limitations in them should not be made a ground for dislike.     These things [] are not sufﬁcient to justify dislike.


Sri Aurobindo: These dislikes come from some vital feeling and these reasons put forward by the mind are excuses, not the real cause. This collaboration between the mind and the vital, the vital throwing up the wrong movement, the mind justifying it, is one of the chief difﬁculties in the way of getting rid of the vital deviations.     All antagonism to other sadhaks or dislike of them should go.


Sri Aurobindo: There should be a calm goodwill and charity to all, but no inner mixing or interchange. Liking and disliking always means interchange of inﬂuences.     You can disapprove [], but there should be no feeling of dislike or disgust for the people.


Sri Aurobindo:   The disgust should be for what is said, but not against those who say it.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes. One should not do to others what one cannot bear from others.     The position you took ﬁnally about what happened today is the right one — to make the effort for one’s own perfection and not to be disturbed by any mistake in others but reply by a silent will for their perfection also is always the right attitude.


Sri Aurobindo: Quarrels and clashes are a proof of absence of the Yogic poise and those who seriously want to do Yoga must learn to grow out of these things. It is easy enough not to clash when there is no cause for strife or dispute or quarrel; it is when there is cause and the other side is impossible and unreasonable that one gets the opportunity of rising above one’s vital nature.    Well, I have said already that quarrels, cuttings are not a part of sadhana; the clashes and friction that you speak of are, just as in the outside world, rubbings of the vital ego. Antagonisms, antipathies, dislikes, quarrellings can no more be proclaimed as part of sadhana than sex impulses or acts can be part of sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: Harmony, goodwill, forbearance, equanimity are necessary ideals in the relation of sadhak with sadhak. One is not bound to mix, but if one keeps to oneself, it should be for reasons of sadhana, not out of other motives, — moreover it should be without any sense of superiority or contempt for others. The cases of friction you speak of seem to me to arise from ordinary motives of discord and they are certainly not the results of any spiritual Force working to heal the dangers of social or vital attraction by the blessings (!) of personal discord. If somebody ﬁnds that association with another for any reason raises undesirable vital feelings in him or her, he or she can certainly withdraw from that association as a matter of prudence until he or she gets over the weakness. But ostentation of avoidance, public cuttings etc. are not included in the necessity and betray feelings that equally ought to be overcome.


Sri Aurobindo: There is a great confusion of thought about these things — for the vital gets in the way and disturbs the right view of things. It is only what is done sincerely with a sound spiritual motive that is proper to Yoga. The rest cannot be claimed as the working of a spiritual force mysteriously advancing its ends by ways contrary to its own nature.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes — self-justiﬁcation [] keeps the thing going because it gives a mental support. Self-justiﬁcation is always a sign of ego and ignorance. When one has a wider consciousness, one knows that each one has his own way of looking at things and ﬁnds in that way his own justiﬁcation, so that both parties in a quarrel believe themselves to be in the right. It is only when one looks from above in a consciousness clear of ego that one sees all sides of a thing and also their real truth.


Sri Aurobindo:   These results [] are not a punishment, they are a natural result of yielding to egoism. All quarrels proceed from egoism which pushes its own opinion and afﬁrms its own importance, considering that it is right and everybody else wrong and thus creates anger and sense of injury etc. These things must not be indulged, but rejected at once.


Sri Aurobindo: You must remember that anger creates an atmosphere which spreads and gets hold of those around. If you give free vent to your anger, that spirit catches hold of others who are open to it like and makes them also angry and violent. ’s conduct has been serious, but the best way is to show your superiority to him by mastering your own anger. Going outside won’t cure this weakness of yours. You must conquer it here in yourself — otherwise it will go wherever you go and create trouble for you.


Sri Aurobindo:   As to and, I entirely disapprove of’s action. Violence and blows are out of place in the Yoga. It is not by these means or by any physical or external impulsion or pressure that sadhana can be enforced but only by a psychic or other inner inﬂuence.


Sri Aurobindo: On the other hand ought to be less undisciplined and to put a curb on his temper which seems to be much too ﬁery; but he must do it himself by his own will, recognising that self-control and self-mastery are necessary even in the ordinary life and still more necessary — quite indispensable — in Yoga.     ’s vision of and the spirit among you which it expresses belong to the old quarrelling egoistic movement that spoilt your sadhana. It does not matter whether the vision has some foundation or none.


Sri Aurobindo: Neither he nor anyone else need trouble about  and his defects which are not your concern. If you start this kind of thing again, you are likely to fall back into the same blunders and lose your sadhana.  Obviously, if indulges the passions of which you speak, it is not surprising that his illnesses continue; they must be the physical expression of his vital disturbances. But on the other hand, too must understand that he is not to indulge his former obscure arrogance which made him pose as a spiritual head leading people to me. He should understand that there is only one Power at work and neither nor nor anybody else matters.


Sri Aurobindo: Let each one open himself to the working of that Power in him and let there be no attempt at forming a body of sadhakas with somebody leading or intervening between the one Power and the sadhakas. In that way there will be no room for rivalry or collision between opposing vital egoisms.    I am afraid that when vital passion disturbs the atmosphere, people very easily lose right perception and the sense of the thing that ought to be done, even those who are only or should be only onlookers.


Sri Aurobindo: In this case everybody seems to have done and said or thought what ought not to have been thought and said and done. For you, however, looking at it from your standpoint only, the best thing is not to brood on these things, but to turn away from the memory of them altogether; for brooding on them only prolongs the inner consequences of a mistaken, disturbing and painful movement. There is no need that you should apologise for anything; what we should advise is to bury the past episode and its mistakes and return to normal undisturbing relations.  Fix yourself more in an inner life and its opening to your soul’s future.


Sri Aurobindo: It is better not to involve oneself in the dispute and to leave the combatants to throw their brahmastras at each other, oneself safe in a calm and judicious indifference. It is also the attitude most helpful to the sadhana. Of opinions and discussions there is no end and it is much better to remain inside and advance towards another light than the mind’s — though there is more ﬁre of a smoky kind than light in these discussions.    It is not always possible in life and work to avoid friction and collision; but it can be minimised or deprived of its worst developments if one has a large understanding of the men around one with whom one has to deal and acts in that spirit.


Sri Aurobindo: If on the other hand one sticks to one’s own position, done without regard for the standpoint of others, that creates resistance and friction.  There is no harm in seeing and observing [ ] if it is done with sympathy and impartiality — it is the tendency unnecessarily to criticise, ﬁnd fault, condemn others (often quite wrongly) which creates a bad atmosphere both for oneself and others. And why this harshness and cocksure condemnation? Has not each man his own faults — why should he be so eager to ﬁnd fault with others and condemn them?  Sometimes one has to judge but it should not be done hastily or in a censorious spirit.


Sri Aurobindo:  Men are always more able to criticise sharply the work of others and tell them how to do things or what not to do than skilful to avoid the same mistakes themselves. Often indeed one sees easily in others faults which are there in oneself but which one fails to see. These and other defects such as the last you mention are common to human nature and few escape them. The human mind is not really conscious of itself — that is why in Yoga one has always to look and see what is in oneself and become more and more conscious.   In ordinary life people always judge wrongly because they judge by mental standards and generally by conventional standards.


Sri Aurobindo: The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error.      Do not dwell much on the defects of others.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not helpful.  Keep always quiet and peace in the attitude.     It is the petty ego in each that likes to discover and talk about the (real or unreal) defects of others — and it does not matter whether they are real or unreal.


Sri Aurobindo: The ego has no right to judge them, because it has not the right view or the right spirit. It is only the calm, disinterested, dispassionate, all-compassionate and all-loving Spirit that can judge and see rightly the strength and the weakness in each being.     Yes, all that is true.


Sri Aurobindo: The lower vital takes a mean and petty pleasure in picking out the faults of others and thereby one hampers both one’s own progress and that of the subject of the criticism.     If you ﬁnd fault with anybody, that fault is likely to increase in that person and to come also into you.


Sri Aurobindo: It is true that the habit of gossip and fault-ﬁnding with others does interfere because it brings down the consciousness from a higher to a lower level. But I do not think a retirement such as you propose is the way to cure it. It would only be suspended and the tendency come up again when you resumed free intercourse with others. It is on its ﬁeld itself that it has to be ﬁrst observed, then cured by detachment from it and rejection of it when it comes. A partial retirement may sometimes be helpful for concentration, — but not for these things; there the only cure is what I suggest or else the descent of a higher consciousness to replace the present imperfect nature.


Sri Aurobindo: Even sometimes a malignant (not fair or well-intentioned) criticism can be helpful by some aspect of it, if one can look at it without being affected by the unfairness.    Naturally, praise and blame may have that effect (the human nature is more sensitive to these than to almost anything else, more even than to real beneﬁt or injury), unless either equanimity has been established or else there is so entire a conﬁdence and happy dependence upon someone that both praise and blame are helpful to the nature. There are some men who even without Yoga have so balanced a mind that they take and adjudge praise and blame calmly for what they are worth, but that is extremely rare.  The law of the physical is inertia, dullness, obstruction to whatever is new or not yet established.


Sri Aurobindo:   Apart from the individual difﬁculty there is a general difﬁculty in the physical earth-nature. Physical nature is slow and inert and unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time for a little progress. It is very difﬁcult for even the strongest mental or vital or even psychic will to overcome this inertia. It is only by bringing down constantly the consciousness and force and light from above that it can be done.


Sri Aurobindo: Therefore there must be a constant will and aspiration for that and for the change and it must be a steady and patient will not tired out even by the utmost resistance of the physical nature.     It is because your consciousness in the course of the sadhana has come into contact with the lower physical nature and sees it as it is in itself when it is not kept down or controlled either by the mind, the psychic or the spiritual force. This nature is in itself full of low and obscure desires, it is the most animal part of the human being.


Sri Aurobindo: One has to come into contact with it so as to know what is there and transform it. Most sadhaks of the old type are satisﬁed with rising into the spiritual or psychic realms and leave this part to itself — but by that it remains unchanged, even if mostly quiescent, and no complete transformation is possible. You have only to remain quiet and undisturbed and let the higher Force work to change this obscure physical nature.


Sri Aurobindo: There is nothing to be discouraged about. The fact is that after being so long in the mental and vital plane you have become aware of the physical consciousness, and the physical consciousness in everybody is like that. It is inert, conservative, does not want to move, to change — it clings to its habits (what people call their character) or its habits (habitual movements) cling to it and repeat themselves like clockwork in a persistent mechanical way. When you have cleared your vital somewhat, things go down and stick there. You see, if you have become selfconscious, you put pressure, perhaps, but the physical responds very slowly, hardly at ﬁrst seems to move at all.


Sri Aurobindo: The remedy?  Aspiration steady and unchanging, patient work, wakening the psychic in the physical, calling down the light and force into these obscure parts. The light brings the consciousness of what is there; the force has to follow and work on them till they change or disappear.


Sri Aurobindo: What you have been doing is to penetrate more into the physical consciousness where the peace and light of the higher consciousness have to be brought down. This often brings at ﬁrst some relaxation of the intensity of experience, dispersion or recurrence of old movements which had been pushed out from the other levels, but one must not be discouraged by that. The remedy is to be more insistent on bringing down the higher forces (peace etc.) into this ﬁeld.    This negation [] is the very nature of the physical resistance and the physical resistance is the whole base of the denial of the Divine in the world.


Sri Aurobindo: All in the physical is persistent, obstinate, with a massive force of negation and inertia — if it were not so, sadhana would be extremely cursory. You have to face this character of the physical resistance and conquer it however often it may rise. It is the price of the transformation of the earth-consciousness.    It is the nature of the physical mind to be obstinate.


Sri Aurobindo: Physical nature exists by constant repetition of the same thing — only a constant presentation of different forms of itself. This obstinate recurrence is therefore part of its nature when it is in activity; otherwise it remains in a dull inertia. When therefore we want to get rid of the old movements of physical nature, they resist by this kind of obstinate recurrence. One has to be very persistent in rejection to get rid of it.  There are two aspects of physical Nature as of all Nature — the individual and the universal.


Sri Aurobindo: All things come into one from the universal Nature — but the individual physical keeps some of them and rejects others, and to those it keeps it gives a personal form. So these things can be said to be both inside it and coming outside from within or created by it because it gives a special form and also outside and coming in from outside. But when one wants to get rid of them, one ﬁrst throws out all that is within into the surrounding Nature — from there the universal Nature tries to bring them back or bring in new and similar things of its own to replace them. One has then constantly to reject this invasion. By constant rejection, the force of recurrence ﬁnally dwindles and the individual becomes free and able to bring the higher consciousness and its movements into the physical being.


Sri Aurobindo:   The difference [ ] lies in the fact that those who are doing sadhana live on the physical plane in order to transform it — under the pressure of a Force created by the sadhana which urges towards that and must continue till it is achieved. Those who do not do sadhana live on the physical plane not to transform it but to continue it as it is — there is no such Force or pressure or necessity or urge. Those who are not sadhaks but have their minds turned to the higher consciousness are preparing for sadhana and will one day do it — whatever that sadhana may be.  The prevalence of the physical difﬁculties when one comes down into the physical is the same phenomenon as the prevalence of the vital difﬁculties when one is on the vital plane.


Sri Aurobindo: Transformation implies facing the difﬁculties and changing or overcoming what arises in each part of the being so that that part may respond to what is higher, but the full change of the whole can only come by the ascent to the Above and the descent from Above. The ﬁrst step of that (usually though not always) is the realisation of the Self above and the full descent of the higher peace into all the being down to the most physical.    For your sadhana it is necessary ﬁrst to establish the entire openness of the physical being and stabilise in it the descent of calm, strength, purity and joy with the feeling of the presence and working of the Mother’s Force in you. It is only on that assured basis that one can become an entirely effective instrument for the work.


Sri Aurobindo: Once that is done, there is still the dynamic transformation of the instrumental being to achieve and that depends on a descent of a higher and higher power of consciousness into the mind, vital and body — by “higher” being meant nearer and nearer to the supramental Light and Force.  But that can only be done on the basis of which I have spoken and with the psychic being constantly in front and acting as an intermediary between the instrumental mind, vital and body and these higher planes of Being. So this basic stabilisation must ﬁrst be completed.    It [] is rather a necessity of the work itself for the supramental descent.


Sri Aurobindo: The effect in a particular person will still depend on the person himself though there will be much greater and quicker possibilities than now.     It is not possible to bring down the whole power or experience of a higher plane into the physical consciousness; it is only an inﬂuence that comes down to help in the transformation. When the transformation has taken place, the physical will be more capable.


Sri Aurobindo: I have said that it [] has come down into direct contact with the external physical nature which is always full of the lower movements and when that happens you see them as they are when they are not under the control of the mind and psychic. Everybody has to come into this direct contact — otherwise there can be no transformation of this part of the being.   It is always the effect of the physical consciousness being uppermost (so long as it is not entirely changed) that one feels like this — like an ordinary man or worse, altogether in the outer consciousness, the inner consciousness veiled, the action of Yoga power apparently suspended. This happens in the earlier stages also, but it is not quite complete usually then because something of the mind and vital is active in the physical still or, even if the interruption of sadhana is complete, it does not last long and so one does not so much notice it. But when from the mental and vital stage of the Yoga one comes down into the physical, this condition which is native to the physical consciousness fully manifests and is persistent for long periods.


Sri Aurobindo: It happens because one has to come down and deal with this part directly by entering into it, — for if that is not done, there can be no complete change of the nature. What has to be done is to understand that it is a stage and to persist in the faith that it will be overcome. If this is done, then it will be easier for the Force, working behind the veil at ﬁrst, then in front to bring out the Yoga consciousness into this outer physical shell and make it luminous and responsive.  If one keeps steadily the faith and quietude, then this can be more quickly done — if the faith gets eclipsed or the quietude disturbed by the long difﬁculty, then it takes longer but even then it will be done; for, though not felt, the Force is there at work. It can only be prevented if one breaks away or throws up the sadhana, because one becomes too impatient of the difﬁculty to go through with it.


Sri Aurobindo: That is the one thing that should never be done.   After receiving your account of your present condition which I understand perfectly well, my advice to you remains the same, to stick on and still stick on persistently until the dawn comes, which it surely will if you resist the temptation to run away into some outer darkness which it would have much more difﬁculty in reaching. The details you give do not at all convince me that  was right in thinking that your sadhana was not at all in the line of my Yoga or that you are right in concluding that you are not meant for this line. On the contrary, these are things which come almost inevitably in one degree or another at a certain critical stage through which almost everyone has to pass and which usually lasts for an uncomfortably long time but which need not be at all conclusive or deﬁnitive. Usually, if one persists, it is the period of darkest night before the dawn which comes to every or almost every spiritual aspirant.


Sri Aurobindo: It is due to a plunge one has to take into the sheer physical consciousness unsupported by any true mental light or by any vital joy in life, for these usually withdraw behind the veil, though they are not, as they seem to be, permanently lost. It is a period when doubt, denial, dryness, greyness and all kindred things come up with a great force and often reign completely for a time. It is after this stage has been successfully crossed that the true light begins to come, the light which is not of the mind but of the spirit. The spiritual light no doubt comes to some to a certain extent, and to a few to a considerable extent, in the earlier stages, though that is not the case with all — for some have to wait till they can clear out the obstructing stuff in the mind, vital and physical consciousness, and until then they get only a touch now and then. But even at the best this earlier spiritual light is never complete until the darkness of the physical consciousness has been faced and overcome.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not by one’s own fault that one falls into this state, it can come when one is trying one’s best to advance. It does not really indicate any radical disability in the nature but certainly it is a hard ordeal and one has to stick very ﬁrmly to pass through it. It is difﬁcult to explain these things because the psychological necessity is difﬁcult for the ordinary human reason to understand or to accept. I will try to have a shot at it, but it may take some days. Meanwhile, as you have asked what is my advice I send you this brief answer.


Sri Aurobindo:   The greater difﬁculty [] is because the sadhana is now taking place directly on the physical plane, where the force of a habit or habitual movement once formed is very great. When the sadhana is taking place on the mental or vital plane, it is more easy to control or change, because the mind and vital are more plastic than the physical.  But on the other hand if something is deﬁnitely gained on the physical plane, there is a more lasting and complete fulﬁlment than when it is on the mental or vital alone.


Sri Aurobindo:   The resistance is becoming more of a physical character. That is to be expected, for it is the ordinary course that it is pushed down from the vital into the physical — moreover in the general sadhana now it is in the material and subconscient that the struggle is mainly going on. The part above the neck, like the neck itself, belongs to the externalising mind or physical mental.  Your difﬁculties are likely to cease only when you bring down the peace and wideness into the whole body or at any rate feel its effects there.


Sri Aurobindo: If the whole mind admits the higher consciousness, that will be a deﬁnite step towards this.     In dealing with the physical and subconscient the working is always slower than when it acts on the mind and vital because the resistance of physical stuff is always heavier and less intelligent and adaptable; but as a compensation the work done in the being by this slower movement is in the end more complete, solid and durable.


Sri Aurobindo:   You feel as you do only because you are largely identiﬁed with the part that has to undergo change and so you feel the difﬁculty, even the impossibility of changing. But although the difﬁculty is there, the impossibility does not exist. Even this identiﬁcation may be helpful, for so the change can be radical by a direct action in the part itself, instead of an indirect inﬂuence upon it through the mind or higher vital. Rest and restore your physical forces, open so that the Mother’s Force may fully work on you, the trouble pass away and a new and stronger movement commence.


Sri Aurobindo: Yes, certainly, that is what I am insisting on — the bringing of realisation into this inert physical part which has made itself prominent. When any part of the being becomes prominent like this showing all its defects and limitations — here inertia or incapacity (), obscurity or forgetfulness (), it is in order to get set right, — it has come up for a ﬁrst or preliminary transformation. Peace and light in the mind, love and sympathy in the heart, calm and power in the vital, a settled receptivity and response (,) in the physical are the necessary change.    When I explained [] about the physical inertia, I meant that it was this which had been preventing the elimination of the old movements all along and enabled them to return when they had been pushed out — for it is in the material half-conscious or subconscient that there is the bedrock of the resistance.


Sri Aurobindo: When this comes up and shows itself in its separate existence, not sustained by the mind and vital, acting by the power of its own inertia and not covered by the sanction of the mind or the vital, only repeating the old movements by force of old habit — it is then possible to meet the resistance at its root instead of cutting off the ﬂowers and fruits and branches when they appear.  It is precisely this lothness to do anything that must be got rid of — for it is simply an acquiescence in the force of the inertia. If you can do nothing else, the old methods of violence to yourself etc. will obviously be unfruitful — you should call on the Divine Peace and Force to descend and deal with it and open yourself to the action. If this obstructing physical is made to admit and respond to that, then the key of the solution will be there.   The realisation in the mind of the One brings or ought to bring a certain freedom in the mind, but it is possible for the vital and the body under its impulse to go on having the ordinary movements — for they depend only partially on the mind for their action.


Sri Aurobindo: They can even carry it away,, or they can act in spite of the mind’s reasoning and disapprobation. “I see the better and approve it, I follow the worse” as the Roman poet puts it — in the language of the Gita, . It is necessary therefore that the realisation with its peace and force of purity should come down concretely into the vital and physical itself so that when the vital movements try to rise they are met by it and unable to remain because of its automatic pressure.  The physical sadhana is to bring down the higher light and power and peace and Ananda into the body consciousness, to get rid of the inertia of the physical, the doubts, limitations, external tendency of the physical mind, the defective energies of the vital physical (nerves) and bring in instead the true consciousness there so that the physical may be a perfect instrument for the Divine Will. The food and care for the body is only to get it into good condition, afterwards it would not be necessary to attend to such things.


Sri Aurobindo:  I understand that you have arrived at a prolonged lull or period of emptiness in your sadhana. This often happens especially when one is thrown out into the physical and external consciousness. The nervous and physical parts then become prominent and seem to become the standard of the being with that disappearance of the Yoga consciousness and the sensitiveness to small and outward things which you describe. A stage like this however may very well be an interval before a fresh progress.  What you have to do is to insist on making time for meditation — at any time of the day when you are least likely to be disturbed — and through the meditation getting back the touch.


Sri Aurobindo: There may be some difﬁculty because the physical consciousness is uppermost, but a persistent aspiration will bring it back. When once you again feel the connection reestablished between the inner being and the outer, call down the peace and light and power into the latter so as to build up a basis for a constant consciousness in the most external mind and being which will accompany you in work and action as much as in meditation and solitude.     Don’t get disturbed.


Sri Aurobindo: Remain quiet and let the Force work.  It is the most physical consciousness of which you have become aware; it is like that in almost everyone: when one gets fully or exclusively into it, one feels it to be like that of an animal, either obscure and restless or inert and stupid and in either condition not open to the Divine. It is only by bringing the Force and higher consciousness into it that it can fundamentally alter. When these things show themselves, do not be upset by their emergence, but understand that they are there to be changed.  Here as elsewhere, quiet is the ﬁrst thing needed, to keep the consciousness quiet, not allow it to get agitated and in turmoil.


Sri Aurobindo: Then in the quiet to call for the Force to clear up all this obscurity and change it.     It is of course the physical consciousness that always came in with this ignorance, and the physical consciousness stupid and obscure — even in men whose thinking minds are wise or at least intelligent. It is only by the Light from above that it can be illumined.


Sri Aurobindo: It is always in the Peace and Power, which bring more and more that light, that you must take refuge.   “At the mercy of the external sounds and external bodily sensations”, “no control to drop the ordinary consciousness at will”, “the whole tendency of the being away from Yoga” — all that is unmistakably applicable to the physical mind and the physical consciousness when they isolate themselves, as it were, and take up the whole front, pushing the rest into the background.  When a part of the being is brought forward to be worked upon for change, this kind of all-occupying emergence, the dominant activity of that part as if it alone existed, very usually happens — and unfortunately it is always what has to be changed, the undesirable conditions, the difﬁculties of that part which rise ﬁrst and obstinately hold the ﬁeld and recur. In the physical it is inertia, obscurity, inability that come up and the obstinacy of these things.


Sri Aurobindo: The only thing to do in this unpleasant phase is to be more obstinate than the physical inertia and to persist in a ﬁxed endeavour — steady persistency without any restless struggle — to get a wide and permanent opening made even in this solid rock of obstruction.     It is just in the physical consciousness that it is difﬁcult to keep the ﬁre burning — the physical can easily follow a constant routine, but not easily maintain a constant living endeavour.  Nevertheless it can after a time be made ready to do so.


Sri Aurobindo: All help will be given you.     You have entirely put yourself out in the external physical consciousness which is refusing to open itself on the plea of inability and by saying that all spiritual and inner things are unreal, only what is outward is real. That is what it always does, if you listen to it.


Sri Aurobindo: But the plea of inability is untrue — and the other is also untrue. The inner, the spiritual, is perfectly true and real to you when you open yourself to it — as real as the physical or outward.     When you get the touch, concentrate on opening to it; do not accept the opposite suggestions of the physical consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: The whole difﬁculty comes from your identifying yourself with your external, physical consciousness which is only a small outward part of your self. You have to learn to live in the rest of your being, more real, more inward which is open to the Truth; you will then feel your physical consciousness as something external which can be worked upon through the true consciousness and changed by the Force.    It is very good that all should have gone like that and the true consciousness afﬁrmed its control in the physical. These things are indeed attacks intended to prevent the control being established in the physical being as it was in the inner parts.


Sri Aurobindo: Wherever the physical consciousness opens, the Force can sweep out all that could trouble. Sometimes it takes a little time to overcome the resistance, but ﬁnally all disappears before it.     Persevere quietly and let nothing discourage you.


Sri Aurobindo: If the quietness and cheerfulness are not constant yet, that is to be expected; it is always like that at ﬁrst when there is the working in the physical consciousness and its obstructions. If you persevere, they will become more and more frequent and last for a longer time, until you have a basis of peace and happiness and whatever disturbances come on the surface will no longer be able to penetrate or shake this basis or even cover it over except perhaps for a moment.  The constant changing of the mood is also common enough because the physical vital is being worked upon at the same time and this changeability is a character of the physical-vital nature.  Let not that discourage you, — as soon as the basis is more ﬁxed this will diminish and the vital become more settled and even.


Sri Aurobindo: The physical consciousness has to become balanced, ﬁlled with the light and force from above, conscious and responsive. That cannot be done in a day — so go on steadily and dismiss both discouragement and impatience.     It [] was done by some people, but I don’t believe in its usefulness.


Sri Aurobindo: No doubt the physical is an obstinate obstacle, but it must be enlightened, persuaded, pressed even to change, but not oppressed or violently driven.  People use violence with the mind, vital, body because they are in a hurry, but my own observation has always been that it leads to more reactions and hindrances and not to a genuinely sound advance.   A certain inertia, tendency to sleep, indolence, unwillingness or


Sri Aurobindo: inability to be strong for work or spiritual effort for long at a time, is in the nature of the human physical consciousness.  When one goes down into the physical for its change (that has been the general condition here for a long time), this tends to increase. Even sometimes when the pressure of the sadhana on the physical increases or when one has to go much inside, this temporarily increases — the body either needing more rest or turning the inward movement into a tendency to sleep or be at rest. You need not, however, be anxious about that. After a time this rights itself; the physical consciousness gets the true peace and calm in the cells and feels at rest even in full work or in the most concentrated condition and this tendency of inertia goes out of the nature.


Sri Aurobindo:   There are many [] — but mainly obscurity, inertia, tamas, a passive acceptance of the play of wrong forces, inability to change, attachment to habits, lack of plasticity, forgetfulness, loss of experiences or realisations gained, unwillingness to accept the Light or to follow it, incapacity (through tamas or through attachment or through passive reaction to accustomed forces) to do what it admits to be the Right and the Best.    There is always some tendency to looseness, forgetfulness and inattention in the physical consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: One has to be very vigilant and careful to prevent this tendency having its way.   These are the usual suggestions of the Ignorance in the physical consciousness — everybody in that condition says the same thing, “All the rest are so nicely off, I only am not progressing and there is no hope for me” etc. These things should not be listened to at all.    It is an inertia of the physical consciousness which allows these desires to come and does not react against the suggestions; it is that also which responds to the pains and suggestion of illness.


Sri Aurobindo: But you must not accept the suggestion that you react and be free, — the physical consciousness itself cannot as yet, but the will can if it is called on to act and made accustomed to act always. Not the struggling will, but a quiet will insisting on the quietude of the mind and vital and insisting on the rejection of these adverse things. That would soon prove sufﬁcient to hold the ground for the Peace and Force to act and they would do the rest.    It is no doubt as you say, but that is always the difﬁculty of the physical consciousness until it has been enlightened from within.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the peace you feel — the peace that is taking little by little hold of the inner being — that has to deepen and strengthen itself till it can take hold of the physical also. When it can do that, the externalised physical consciousness will feel it no longer alien to itself. The Peace will enable the Force and Light to enter also into the physical and the true understanding will come there too and remove the sense of distance and difference. That is how the Yoga force always works in principle — but the more the quietude, the more rapidly and surely it will work.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the last reaction of the physical consciousness [ ] that must be got rid of — in its place there must be at such times peace constant so that you do not get restless or feel troubled. It is not possible to be always in the best condition of consciousness or sadhana — there are times when the physical needs to be merely quiet, the aspiration becomes quiescent, there is no sense of the Divine, no forward movement. Properly taken, these periods become periods of rest and assimilation but for that the consciousness must learn to be quiet, not to be troubled or thrown back into a bad or uneasy condition — it must remain at repose until the movement is resumed in a quiet peace. Or at least the greater part of the consciousness must feel like that — not even in these periods dull, weak or confused. This feeling seems to be gaining on you, but the physical consciousness or at least a part of it is still uneasy during such intervals.


Sri Aurobindo: It must go on receiving more of the light and peace till this can no longer happen.     There comes for many a stage in the opening of the consciousness when the entrance of any wrong thought or feeling or movement brings an ache or uneasiness or other sign in the body — this is because these movements are becoming foreign to the consciousness, even the physical, and so produce a discomfort.   Sometimes when these forces cannot have a success in attacking the vital directly because the psychic rejects the attack, they try to fall on the physical consciousness and the body (the emptiness, headache, disturbance in the chest were that) so as to weaken, if possible, the resistance to their pressure.


Sri Aurobindo: At such times you must be as quiet as possible and call the Mother. After a time the attacks will not come or will not last.   The legs, knees, feet — these indicate the physical consciousness — it was therefore into the obscure layers of the physical consciousness that you went down.  And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared? — for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical, and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared until these are ready.


Sri Aurobindo:   The small things go with difﬁculty because they belong to the vital physical and the things of the physical consciousness are obstinate owing to the great subjection of the physical to the force of habit. All the same the Will can act on them so as to dismiss them either rapidly or by a slow pressure.    There is always the conﬂict between the consciousness that is coming into you and the ignorant consciousness that was there before.


Sri Aurobindo: The new consciousness is gaining ground always but still against much resistance especially in the vital physical (which is indicated in the stomach attacks). But there is only one way to go and that is to insist always on the Power and Peace which are more and more felt to be always there and more and more dissociate yourself from the other condition. It is on that basis that the right understanding can come.   It is something in the vital part of the physical consciousness which has not yet understood — it feels the pressure to change, yet it is drawn outward to people or things in the old way, but is dissatisﬁed because the growth of the new consciousness behind prevents it taking pleasure in them, so that it remains restless, not understanding anything. What it has got to learn is that it must fall quiet and open to a new consciousness from above and within.


Sri Aurobindo: This part of the being is obscure, — not sufﬁciently mentalised to understand things, it acts from instinct, impulse and habit only. When its old instincts, impulses and habits are checked, it does not know what to do or what is demanded of it. But after a certain amount of pressure from the mind and will it can be got to consent to a change of its ways.  The other thing, the habit of concentrating on one thing and forgetting everything else, is a turn of the vital — it is a faculty that has a value because it can give great intensity to the nature and to any endeavour made by the nature. Only it has to be turned in the right direction and used by the mind and the psychic being for a whole-hearted concentration and devotion to the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo:  The attack comes evidently always on the vital physical and the physical — it is these parts that have to be cleared entirely — desires and dissatisfactions in the vital physical and the pain, unconsciousness and dullness in the physical. Do not yield to the idea of being helpless to repel or ignore when they come — even the pains can be rejected — you have to get the knack of bringing down the Force at once to drive them out.     The physical disturbance and weakness are simply the attack falling back on the physical system from the vital and producing there the corresponding movements — all of a nervous character — nervous restlessness, nervous pain and palpitation and trouble, nervous weakness of the body.


Sri Aurobindo: Take the lesson from what has happened, but now put away these thoughts and open yourself quietly to recover the true movement.   It [] is not the result of any pressure from above. If there were nothing coming from above, there would be no peace and clarity and the disturbances would still come and come more often.  The cravings once belonged to the vital physical, but when there is a sufﬁcient force of peace in the being, then they go out and the vital physical is free and under the inﬂuence of the quietude.


Sri Aurobindo: The forces of disturbance do not belong any longer to the personality, but although they have gone out, they wait in the atmosphere and, if they get a chance, try to come back and resume hold of the exterior being so as either to break or, if they can no longer do that, cover up the inner peace.  Because the physical vital has been accustomed to respond to them for a time willingly, now unwillingly, they are still able to make it answer to their vibrations. The peace and clarity must acquire such a force that they will remain even if these forces come back — then there will be the phenomenon of the inner peace remaining undisturbed in the inner being even while the outer is superﬁcially disturbed. This is a well-marked stage in the progress. Afterwards a force can be brought down strong enough to ﬁll the outer being also with so strong a peace and clarity that the disturbances can no longer enter there.


Sri Aurobindo: One may feel them still sometimes in the atmosphere but is no longer touched by them at all.     As for the vital physical readmitting the forces of disturbance, it is not always because it wants; it may happen also because in spite of itself certain impacts or suggestions revive the old vibrations and the habit of responding has been so strong in it that it responds, and for a time it is unable to recover its balance. This happens in all parts of the being, but it is especially true of the physical parts — physical mind yielding to habitual thoughts, physical vital yielding to habitual desires and impulsions etc., body yielding to habitual sensations, illnesses etc. etc.


Sri Aurobindo: Often sadhaks write, “But I don’t want these things, even my vital and body feel uncomfortable and wish them away, then why do they come?” It is because of this long established habit of response which is too strong for the yet too quiescent and passive will (if it can be called will) of rejection in the part affected. It is especially true of the physical parts because a passive quiescence, a habit of being driven by forces is their very nature, unless they are controlled from above or made to share in the idea and will of the higher parts.  I do not see why you doubt the fulﬁlment in your material consciousness. If there is faith, quietude, openness in the rest of the being, the material is bound to open also.


Sri Aurobindo: Tamas, inertia, ignorance, stupidity, littleness, obstruction to the true movement are universal characteristics of the material consciousness, so long as it is not enlightened, regenerated and transformed from above, — they are not peculiar to yours. Therefore, there is here no sufﬁcient reason or justiﬁcation for the doubt you describe.  When the Supramental comes down fully into the material consciousness, it will create the right conditions there. The oneness will be created, the constant presence and sense of contact will be felt in the material and there will be all the actual physical contact that is needed. The sadness you speak of is not psychic — for “painful longing” belongs to the vital, not to the psychic.


Sri Aurobindo: The psychic never feels a sadness from disappointed desire, because that is not in its nature; the sorrow it sometimes feels is when it sees the Divine rejected or the mental, vital, physical in man or in nature turning away from the Truth to follow perversion, darkness or ignorance. However, with the reign of the Supramental even the vital external nature is bound to change and therefore there will be no chance of any feelings of this character.   You should not allow yourself to be discouraged by any persistence of the movements of the lower nature. There are some that tend always to persist and return until the whole physical nature is changed by the transformation of the most material consciousness; till then their pressure recurs — sometimes with a revival of their force, sometimes more dully — as a mechanical habit. Take from them all life-power by refusing any mental or vital assent; then the mechanical habit will become powerless to inﬂuence the thoughts and acts and will ﬁnally cease.


Sri Aurobindo: The sense of being only the body belongs to the physical consciousness while the confusion came from the vital. The confusion must disappear because it makes a turmoil in the consciousness and stands in the way of the Force acting on the surface. The obstacle of the body consciousness is tedious, but it does not prevent the Force from growing and can be worn out by the action of the Force in time. It is a question of the Force, Peace, Light entering the body and giving it the sense of not being only a body but the receptacle of a higher consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: It is indeed the body consciousness that is still offering difﬁculties — but when the restlessness and confusion come, you must immediately offer it up and call for the opening of the part that resists. In this way it is possible to establish a condition in which as soon as the difﬁculty is there, the counteracting Force also comes. Then no long continued difﬁculty will be possible.


Sri Aurobindo: The ﬂesh has a consciousness as well as the mind — all the consciousness is connected together so if the mind is freed, there is no reason why there should not be an effect on the physical also.  Man is not a body alone — the body is only a small part of his being.    One should not attach too much importance to the life of the body. The body is only an incident in the progress of the soul.


Sri Aurobindo: Evolution of the soul is the objective of Karmic existence. When one has realised the soul, knowledge and enlightenment come and all the problems are solved. But before that, one should try to get peace, calm and light.


Sri Aurobindo: The body is always the most difﬁcult part of the being because of its obscurity much more than of any bad will in it. But it could respond more and more as the Light grows.


Sri Aurobindo: The body itself must become more conscious so that it will make the right movements and avoid the wrong ones.    I mean [] the higher consciousness. The consciousness that is always there in the body is tamasic and obscure and the greater part of it is subconscient. If it opens then there will be an increasing union with the higher consciousness and it will be able to share the experiences and the developments in the mind and vital.


Sri Aurobindo:   It depends on whether it [] is in tune with the vital or not. The nature of the body is tamasic — it is the vital which makes it move and uses it as an instrument: If the vital is enlightened then the Divine Force can act through it on the body.


Sri Aurobindo: It [] depends on the condition of the body or rather of the physical and the most material consciousness. In one condition it is tamasic, inert, unopen and cannot bear or cannot receive or cannot contain the force; in another rajas predominates and tries to seize on the dynamism, but wastes and spills and loses it; in another there is receptivity, harmony, balance and the result is a harmonious action without strain or effort.     I suppose the heat and thirst may be due to some struggle in the body, not altogether physical.


Sri Aurobindo: I think it must be some contrary pressure on the body which the body is trying to throw off. I do not consider your condition of dissatisfaction and difﬁculties as inner but as outer. It is an outer mass of old movements pressing on the physical consciousness and trying to keep its place by memory and recurrent habit. The physical consciousness has to push it out more and more till it is no longer felt as within it, but seen for what it really is, an outer Nature of the ignorance which had usurped the consciousness and prevented the psychic being from manifesting.   The physical troubles that belong to the constitution of the body are usually the last things to disappear.


Sri Aurobindo: When the true consciousness ﬁxes itself in the body as elsewhere, then they can be reduced and dispelled by the same process as that which removes the wrong habits of the mind and vital.  No need to despise the physical being — it is part of the intended manifestation.    The body is meant to be an instrument of the Divine and a means of sadhana and a temple for the Mother’s presence. It has to be puriﬁed, not despised and cast away — without it there can be no manifestation here.


Sri Aurobindo:   To care too much for the body is bad in sadhana, but to neglect it or overstrain it is also bad — for it is a necessary instrument and must be kept in good condition.  You must keep your body in good condition. It is the necessary instrument and channel and if it gets weak or unﬁt, that hampers the expression or dynamism of the mind and the spirit.


Sri Aurobindo:  The weakness of the body has to be cured, not disregarded. It can only be cured by bringing in strength from above, not by  forcing the body.   If your body is aching after the work, it may be that you are doing too much for your physical strength and straining the body. When you work, the Force comes down in you, takes the form of vital energy and supports your body so that it does not  feel the strain; but when you stop, the body goes back to its normal condition and feels the effects — it has not yet been sufﬁciently opened to keep the Force. You must see whether this effect (of pain) continues; if it passes away, it is all right; otherwise you must take care and not overstrain yourself by doing too much.


Sri Aurobindo:  Overstraining [] only increases the inertia — the mental and vital will may force the body, but the body feels more and more strained and ﬁnally asserts itself. It is only if the body itself feels a will and force to work that one can do that.    The ﬁrst rule [] is — there must be sufﬁcient sleep and rest, not in excess but not too little.  The body must be trained to work, but not strained beyond its utmost capacity.


Sri Aurobindo: The outer means without the inner is not effective. Up to a certain point by a training the body may be made more capable of work. But the important thing is to bring down the force for work and the rasa of work in the body. The body will then do what is asked of it without grudging or feeling fatigue.  Even so, even when the force and rasa are there, one must keep one’s sense of measure.


Sri Aurobindo: Work is a means of self-dedication to the Divine, but it must be done with the necessary inner consciousness in which the lower vital and physical must also share.  A lazy body is certainly not a proper instrument for Yoga, it must stop being lazy. But a fatigued and unwilling body also cannot receive properly or be a good instrument. The proper thing is to avoid either extreme.


Sri Aurobindo:   A strong mind and body and life-force are needed in the sadhana.  Especially steps should be taken to throw out tamas and bring strength and force into the frame of the nature.  It [] is more, I think, forgetting the body than non-identiﬁcation with it. In an intense mentalisation or an intense vital activity the body takes a second place and becomes more outward and the same may happen to a certain extent more constantly to a man who lives in his mind or his vital and is identiﬁed more closely with that.


Sri Aurobindo: But still it is the mental in the body, the vital in the body. There is no release, no getting entirely separate as in the spiritual liberation.     Yes, it is not possible for the human mind to live entirely in itself to such a degree as to ignore the body altogether — a real or complete liberation or non-identiﬁcation is not possible without the spiritual release.


Sri Aurobindo: All that is possible to the mind is a constant absorption in itself and an ignoring or forgetfulness as much as possible of the body. That one ﬁnds often in people who live a retired mental life (scholars, thinkers etc.) without the need to trouble themselves about their livelihood, family etc.   The physical consciousness has its own reactions — separate from those of the mind.


Sri Aurobindo: No, it is not necessary to lose the mental control; it is best to replace it gradually by the psychic or spiritual. But it happens to many that they lose it before the other is ready or while it is still imperfect and then the Nature-forces act in the physical consciousness which is sometimes held by the descending Peace or Power from above, sometimes by the ordinary Natureforces. This alternation happens at one stage at least to almost everybody until the higher state prevails.  This over-sensitive brooding on past blows to the vital is an unhealthy sensitiveness. What is past ought not to have a hold like that but be allowed to fade out.


Sri Aurobindo:   Probably in ’33 you were doing more tapasya and putting a strong control on yourself? At any rate that was the state at one time. Afterwards when you came down from the mentalvital level, you let yourself go for a time, removing much of the control, hence now you ﬁnd a difﬁculty in reestablishing it, — due to the habit of automatic repetition which is a characteristic of the physical nature.


Sri Aurobindo: You have now to get the control in a different way by the reestablishment of the peace and building the higher consciousness upon it, the spiritual control replacing that of mental tapasya.  The physical depends on the vital at every step — it could not do anything without the help of the vital — so it is quite natural that it should receive its suggestions.    The physical world is only a last ﬁeld in which not only the physical forces but those of other worlds also throw themselves for realisation. Whatever happens here has already been prepared or foreshadowed in the vital; it does not happen exactly as represented in the vital, but with a change suitable for the material world.


Sri Aurobindo: All that is very good — it is the psychic condition that is increasing. The peace and spontaneous knowledge are in the psychic being and from there they spread to mind and vital and physical. It is in the outer physical consciousness that the difﬁculty still tries to persist and brings the restlessness sometimes into the physical mind, sometimes into the nerves, sometimes in the shape of bodily trouble into the body. But all these things can and must go. Even the illnesses can go entirely with the growth of peace and power in the nerves and physical cells — stomach pains, weakness of the eyes and everything else.


Sri Aurobindo:   The narrowness etc. of which you complain are normal to the physical nature. It is the same thing acting in a different way which makes rebellious to advice and full of irritation and bad temper when her mistakes are shown to her. The physical nature of almost everybody is like that, intolerant, easily irritated, lacking in patience when dealing with others. But this physical nature can be replaced and changed by the psychic nature and you have had the experience of what this psychic nature is and how it acts.


Sri Aurobindo: You know therefore what change has to come in you and you know also that this new nature is already there in you preparing to come out. Have the faith therefore that it is sure to come — and when the physical comes and covers with the old movements try to remember that and remind the physical mind that it is only by this change in yourself and all that things can change. What is needed now is all should make this psychic change their main object, each for himself. If some develop it, then it will spread more rapidly among the rest. It is so only that the present state of the physical consciousness in the Asram full of ego and strife can become what it should be.


Sri Aurobindo:  What has happened is that the psychic in you which had formerly been constantly in action in the mind and vital was for a time clouded or covered over by the ignorance of the physical consciousness. It is the psychic that connected you with the Mother and turned all the movements of your being towards her or drew them from her or made them united with and dependent on her. It had so done with all your mental and vital being and its movements and it had guarded you against all wrong mental and vital suggestions and attacks, showing you what was true and what was false. Now it is this psychic being which has manifested again in your physical consciousness also. You have only to live in that and your whole being will be turned towards the Mother, remain in union with her and be protected from doubt and error and false suggestion — and you can once more progress as you did before towards the full realisation of the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   The habit of return of these feelings belongs to the physical consciousness and in his physical consciousness the human being is always weak and unable to get rid of or resist its habitual movements. There are three things that help him to do so (apart from his mental will which is not always strong enough to do it). There is ﬁrst the psychic being; for a few days your psychic was extremely active and pushing these movements away whenever they tried to come or throwing them out soon when they got in. This activity of the psychic will return and eventually come down into the physical consciousness itself; then there will be very little difﬁculty.


Sri Aurobindo: The second is the inner consciousness always awake. At present that is difﬁcult, because to keep the inner consciousness awake at all times can only come by a deepening of yourself so that the veil between the outer and inner which lifts only in concentration may cease to exist even when one is in the ordinary unconcentrated condition. It is for this deepening that the strong tendency to go inside comes upon you. Lastly, the Mother’s force always there and receiving also a response at once from the physical consciousness. These three things together can do anything.


Sri Aurobindo: It takes time to make them all three constantly active together, but that is sure to come and with them these inner difﬁculties will disappear.     You cannot so long as you have a body live without the physical consciousness, but you can live more centrally in the psychic and other parts and by them transform the physical.  The being is here on the physical plane although in touch with the mental and vital.


Sri Aurobindo: The being that is the individual consciousness has to ascend and become conscious of all the planes (vital, mental and those above the mental) until it reaches the Divine Oneness which is above all the planes and from which they emerge.  It is no doubt quite true that if you could settle the true relation [] in the psychic centre — the inner heart — and all the rest could be under its inﬂuence and take part in it, the fundamental difﬁculty would disappear; and that is what must happen. But the real difﬁculty is in the physical and external being — and it is this that the physical being is a creature of habit, of formed character, that is to say of a mass of accustomed movements. As your nature has been full of rajasic egoism, not only in this but in many past lives, it is the habit of this rajas and of the accustomed movements connected with it that the physical knows and to them it almost automatically responds; it is these movements that always easily took hold of you, mixed in the sadhana, even in the higher experience sometimes and cherished the revolt against the Mother because always her force was pressing for their removal; it was this pressure that they resented and felt as an absence of love. The mind in you is able to separate itself from these things and recognise (when not too much clouded) their true character, the higher vital also has another aim and aspiration; but the physical, especially the more material parts of it are still responding mechanically to the old movements which are wearing out indeed under the pressure, but are still strong enough to possess a great part of the consciousness when they come.


Sri Aurobindo: One feels the power, the compulsory force of this mechanical physical response and gets the impression of their inevitability and the impossibility of ever getting free. This automatic compulsory character of the obstruction is the whole power of the difﬁculty in the material nature.  (1) The ﬁrst thing is to reject the idea of helplessness, of impossibility of a successful reaction. The central will must assert itself, not violently in a constant struggle, for that brings reaction, fatigue and inertia, but with a quiet pressure and insistence.  (2) The mind must learn (even the physical external mind) never to say yes to the suggestions and impulsions of the old movement or admit any justiﬁcation for them however plausible or seemingly “true”.


Sri Aurobindo: However violently they return and insist, they must feel that they will never get any essential assent or sanction. You have almost reached that point, but it must be made more entire.  (3) There must be something in the vital itself that insists on its true aspiration and refuses even the vital consent or any vital pleasure in the wrong movements. If they come, they must feel their own fallen, ignorant, merely material brute character. This point you seem to be reaching, but it must be absolute.


Sri Aurobindo: (4) Lastly the physical, the material itself — to insist on the Light, the true will there also. For that, do not indulge the desires, the wrong impulses, the wrong brute feelings that come. Do not admit the idea that you cannot refuse. Throw them out each time they come, out of the body into the environmental consciousness till they can ﬁnally be pushed away from there also. For it is these that now separate you in the physical consciousness from the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: The difﬁculty of the physical nature comes inevitably in the course of the development of the sadhana. Its obstruction, its inertia, its absence of aspiration or movement have to show themselves before they can be got rid of — otherwise it will always remain undetected, hampering even the best sadhana and preventing its completeness. This coming up of the physical nature lasts longer or less according to the circumstances, but there is none who does not go through it. What is necessary is not to get troubled or anxious or impatient, for that only makes it last more, but to put entire conﬁdence in the Mother and quietly persist in faith, patience and steady will for the complete change.


Sri Aurobindo: It is so that the Mother’s force can best work in the being.     The sense of helplessness, of impossibility of removal [ ] is like the obscurity itself a characteristic of the physical consciousness which is inert and mechanical and accustomed to be moved inertly by whatever forces take hold of it. But this sense of helplessness or impossibility is unreal and not to yield to it, not to accept it, to remove it is quite possible and very necessary for overcoming this physical obstacle which would otherwise greatly delay the progress.


Sri Aurobindo:  It [] depends on the weak points of the individual and the stage of his progress. In a general way, the obstruction creates an inertia which impedes the working of the higher Powers. In the early stage it can obstruct progress altogether. Afterwards it works to slow it down or else impede it by intervals of stationary inertia.  The main difﬁculty of the physical consciousness is that it is incapable, before it is transformed, of maintaining any tension of tapasya — it wants periods of assimilation, sinking back into the ordinary consciousness to rest, — also there is a constant forgetfulness of what has been done etc.


Sri Aurobindo:  What you felt in your chest was the attempt of the old ignorance to bring back the vital restlessness, depression, confusion, through the physical attack — for it is on the obscuration of the physical that they now depend for stopping the Light and Force from coming and for obscuring their working and creating disturbance and destroying the quietude. Reject it as you did this time — whenever it tries to come.


Sri Aurobindo: What you say — especially the idea of being only body — proves that it is now really in the physical obscurity and obstruction that the difﬁculty lies and the vital resistance even if it recurs is no longer the central obstacle. Do not be discouraged by this physical unconsciousness — keep the quietude and it will be worked out of the system.     Do not be discouraged.


Sri Aurobindo: To go on calling is always the right thing. The struggle to surmount the physical obscurity and inertia is sometimes very tedious and bafﬂing, but if one persists the liberation from it comes — and it will surely come.     The physical obstruction is less boisterous [ ], but I have not found it less obstinate or less troublesome.


Sri Aurobindo: Inertia is a tremendous force — one of the biggest world-forces.    Inertia is the very character of the physical consciousness left to itself — it is accustomed to be passive to forces and to be their instrument or give a mechanical response to them.    Inertia is mental, vital, physical, subconscient.


Sri Aurobindo: Physical inertia can produce mental inertia, mental inertia can produce physical inertia, vital inertia almost always makes the physical lifeless and lustreless and dull, and that is inertia. Vital inertia can also infect the mind, unless the mind is very strong and clear. I have always said that the physical consciousness is the main seat and source of inertia.   The hold of inertia always increases when the working comes down into the physical and subconscient. Before that the inertia is overpowered though not eradicated by the action in mind and vital — afterwards it comes up in its natural force and has to be met in its own ﬁeld.


Sri Aurobindo:   The physical’s tendency to inertia is very great; even after the habit of living in the higher consciousness is there, some part may feel the pressure of the inertia — generally the outermost or most material parts. The inertia usually rises up from the subconscient. It does not abolish the higher consciousness in the physical, but dulls its action or else brings it down from a higher to a lower level, e.g. from the intuition to the higher mind or from the higher to the lower ranges of overmind. For some time it resists the completeness of the siddhi.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only when the most material and the subconscient and the environmental consciousness are quite liberated that this retarding or lowering effect of the primal Inertia is entirely overcome.    What you describe — dullness, uneasiness, weakness, feeling old and worn out or ill, are the reactions that come when the inertia of the physical Nature is resisting the Light — the others about sense of feeling, dignity, self-respect (of the ego) are the reactions of the vital. Both must be refused acceptance. There is only one aim to be followed, the increase of the Peace, Light, Power and the growth of a new consciousness in the being.


Sri Aurobindo: With that new consciousness the true knowledge, understanding, strength, feeling will come, creating harmony instead of revolt and struggle and union with the Divine consciousness and will.     Dullness and dispersion are the two sides of the physical’s resistance to the peace and concentrated power. They correspond to the inertia and the chaotic activity of physical Nature, that aspect of it which makes some scientists now say that all is brought about by chance and there is no certitude of things but only probability.


Sri Aurobindo:   It [] is a ﬁrst result of coming down into the physical consciousness or of the physical consciousness coming up prominently — formerly you were much in the mind and vital. The physical consciousness is full of inertia — it wants not to move but to be moved by whatever forces and that is its habit.  This inertia has to be cured by putting it into contact with the right forces from above.


Sri Aurobindo: That is why I asked you to aspire for the higher wideness, purity and peace, so that that may occupy the physical and the true Force work instead of these invading ideas and impulses.   It [] is due to the inﬂuence of the physical consciousness. The physical consciousness or at least the more material parts of it are, as I have told you, in their nature inert — obeying whatever force they are habituated to obey, but not acting on their own initiative. When there is a strong inﬂuence of the physical inertia or when one is down in this part of the consciousness the mind feels like the material Nature that action of will is impossible. Mind and vital nature are on the contrary all for will and initiative and so when one is in mind or vital or acting under their inﬂuence will feels itself always ready to be active.


Sri Aurobindo:   When the mental will acquiesces in the inertia, becomes passive to it, as we say — then one remains in the passive condition and there is no push against it until it of itself passes away. If the mental will or even the vital will or some dynamic part of the nature remains untouched and can react, then there is the effort to throw it off which may shorten the interim period.


Sri Aurobindo:   Passivity must not lead to inactivity — otherwise it will encourage inertia in the being. It is only an inner passivity to what comes from above that is needed — inert passivity is the wrong kind of passivity.


Sri Aurobindo: If it is an inert tamasic passivity subject to any inﬂuence and unable to react, then it is subjection to Nature. If it is a sattwic passivity of the Witness observing and understanding the movements of Nature, then it is an intermediate condition, often necessary for knowledge. If it is a luminous passivity open to the Divine, shut to all other inﬂuences, then it is not subjection to Nature but surrender to the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the neutrality of the physical consciousness which says, “I move only when I am moved. Move me who can.”    The period of no-effort is usually when the physical consciousness is uppermost — for the nature of that is inertia, to be moved by the higher forces or to be moved by the lower forces or any forces, but not to move itself. One must still use one’s effort if one can, but the great thing is to be able to call down the Force from above into the physical — otherwise to remain perfectly quiet and, undisturbed, expect its coming.


Sri Aurobindo:   Silence need not bring lassitude; there is all possible strength in silence. But it is possible that in your trend towards silence there is a tendency to draw back the energy from the body consciousness. That would bring physical inertia.


Sri Aurobindo:   If the calm and silence are perfectly established in the physical, then if inertia comes it is itself something quiet and unaggressive, not bringing such disturbances. But to get rid of inertia altogether a strong dynamic calm is needed.


Sri Aurobindo:  If the physical being has felt and assimilated the silence and peace, then inertia ought not to rise up.     There is always more chance of inertia at night because of the large part taken by the subconscient in sleep — but, apart from that, there should be a reaction (internal) against the rising of inertia. A quietness in the cells of the body, even a sense of immobility (so that the body seems to be moved rather than to move) is a different thing and easily distinguishable from the inertia.


Sri Aurobindo: The downﬂow of peace usually brings much of the static Brahman into the consciousness down to the physical, so that one feels the Upanishadic “unmoving it moves”.     The inertia itself is not a dynamic principle. The nature of inertia is — the action of the mechanical mind is a, though a tamasic obscure.


Sri Aurobindo:  The rain has the effect of stressing the tamas of the vital physical consciousness and bringing out its greyer notes. Physical tamas by its laxity gives more opportunities for the play of sex etc.     Everything [] can be responded to.


Sri Aurobindo: Inertia also can spread waves of itself like other things.  From what you describe it looks as if you had come down into the physical consciousness and were feeling the inertia that belongs to it. When that happens, the one way out is to open there so that the light and force may come down into the physical and replace the inertia. We shall try to get that done.


Sri Aurobindo:   When one is covered by the physical inertia one may often feel as if the former experiences had never existed or were not real.  But certainly your aspirations and experiences were real enough.  You have to ﬁght out this difﬁculty until you have got through to the Light.


Sri Aurobindo: It is, I suppose, the full Inertia that has come upon you. Now you have to get the true Energy down into it.     It must be the tamas of the physical that has enveloped the inner consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: The one way to get out of it is to remain very quiet inwardly and call down persistently the Force from above.      It


Sri Aurobindo: [ ] means that you are in full grips with the subconscient physical. However heavy and tedious the resistance you have to persevere till you have got the Peace, Knowledge, Force down there in place of the inertia.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not know that I can add anything more to what I have already written. It is only by a more constant dynamic force descending into an unalterable equality and peace that the physical nature’s normal tendency can be eradicated.  The normal tendency of the physical nature is to be inert and in its inertia to respond only to the ordinary vital forces, not to the higher forces. If one has a perfect equality and peace then one can be unaffected by the spreading of the inertia and bring down into it gradually or quickly the same peace with a force of the higher consciousness which can alter it. When that is there there can be no longer the difﬁculty and ﬂuctuations with a preponderance of inertia such as you are now having.


Sri Aurobindo:   The ﬁrst means [] is not to get upset when it comes or when it stays. The second is to detach yourself, not only yourself above but yourself below and not identify. The third is to reject everything that is raised by the inertia and not regard it as your own or accept it at all.  If you can do these things then there will be something in you that remains perfectly quiet even in the pits of inertia.


Sri Aurobindo: Through that quiet part you can bring down peace, force, even light and knowledge into the inertia itself.    When the mind and the vital take hold of the physical and make it an instrument, then there is no inertia. But here the physical consciousness has been dealt with. If it could have received the peace of the self into itself without covering it over with inertia, then it would have been all right.