Sri Aurobindo: Finally, at the bottom of the spine is the Muladhara or physical centre. Behind the heart is the psychic centre. If one concentrates in the head as many do it is a mental-spiritual meditation one seeks for, if in the heart it is a psychic meditation; these are the usual places where one concentrates. But what rises up ﬁrst or opens ﬁrst may not be the mental or psychic, but the emotional or the vital; that depends on the nature — for whatever is easiest to open in it, is likely to open ﬁrst. If it is in the vital, then the meditation tends to project the consciousness into the vital plane and its experiences.


Sri Aurobindo: But from that one can get to the psychic by drawing more and more inwards, not getting absorbed into the vital experiences but separating oneself and looking at them with detachment as if one were deep inside and observing things outside oneself. Similarly one can get the mental experiences by concentrating in the thought and by it bringing a corresponding experience, e.g. the thought of all being the Brahman, or one can draw back from the thought also and observe one’s own thoughts as outside things until one enters into the silence and the pure spiritual experience.  One can concentrate in any of the three centres which is easiest to the sadhak or gives most result. The power of the concentration in the heart-centre is to open that centre and by the power of aspiration, love, bhakti, surrender remove the veil which covers and conceals the soul and bring forward the soul or psychic being to govern the mind, life and body and turn and open them all — fully — to the Divine, removing all that is opposed to that turning and opening.  This is what is called in this Yoga the psychic transformation. The power of concentration above the head is to bring peace, silence, liberation from the body sense, the identiﬁcation with mind and life and open the way for the lower (mentalvital-physical) consciousness to rise up to meet the higher Consciousness above and for the powers of the higher (spiritual or divine) Consciousness to descend into mind, life and body.


Sri Aurobindo: This is what is called in this Yoga the spiritual transformation. If one begins with this movement, then the Power from above has in its descent to open all the centres (including the lowest centre) and to bring out the psychic being; for until that is done there is likely to be much difﬁculty and struggle of the lower consciousness obstructing, mixing with or even refusing the Divine Action from above. If the psychic being is once active this struggle and these difﬁculties can be greatly minimised.  The power of concentration in the eyebrows is to open the centre there, liberate the inner mind and vision and the inner or Yogic consciousness and its experiences and powers. From here also one can open upwards and act also in the lower centres; but the danger of this process is that one may get shut up in one’s mental spiritual formations and not come out of them into the free and integral spiritual experience and knowledge and integral change of the being and nature.


Sri Aurobindo:   I was very glad to get your letter and especially to know that you are more at peace. That is what is ﬁrst needed, the settling down of a natural peace and quiet in the nature — the spiritual peace is a bigger thing that can come afterwards.  Then as to concentration.


Sri Aurobindo: Ordinarily the consciousness is spread out everywhere, dispersed, running in this or that direction, after this subject and that object in multitude. When anything has to be done of a sustained nature, the ﬁrst thing one does is to draw back all this dispersed consciousness and concentrate. It is then, if one looks closely, found to be concentrated in one place and on one occupation, subject or object — as when you are composing a poem or a botanist is studying a ﬂower.  The place is usually somewhere in the brain, if it is the thought, in the heart if it is the feeling in which one is concentrated. The Yogic concentration is simply an extension and intensiﬁcation of the same thing.


Sri Aurobindo: It may be on an object as when one does tratak on a shining point — then one has to concentrate so that one sees only that point and has no other thought but that. It may be on an idea or a word or a name, the idea of the Divine, the word OM, the name Krishna, or a combination of idea and word or idea and name. But, farther, in Yoga one also concentrates in a particular place. There is the famous rule of concentrating between the eyebrows — the centre of the inner mind, of occult vision, of the will is there. What you do is to think ﬁrmly from there on whatever you make the object of your concentration or else try to see the image of it from there.


Sri Aurobindo: If you succeed in this, then after a time you feel that your whole consciousness is centred there in that place — of course for the time being. After doing it for some time and often, it becomes easy and normal.  I hope this is clear. Well, in this Yoga, you do the same, not necessarily at that particular spot between the eyebrows, but anywhere in the head or at the centre of the chest where the physiologists have ﬁxed the cardiac centre. Instead of concentrating on an object, you concentrate in the head in a will, a call for the descent of the peace from above or, as some do, an opening of the unseen lid and an ascent of the consciousness above.


Sri Aurobindo: In the heart-centre one concentrates in an aspiration, for an opening, for the presence or living image of the Divine there or whatever else is the object. There may be japa of a name but, if so, there must also be a concentration on it and the name must repeat itself there in the heart-centre.  It may be asked what becomes of the rest of the consciousness when there is this local concentration? Well, it either falls silent as in any concentration or, if it does not, then thoughts or other things may move about, as if outside, but the concentrated part does not attend to them or notice. That is when the concentration is reasonably successful.


Sri Aurobindo: One has not to fatigue oneself at ﬁrst by long concentration if one is not accustomed, for then in a jaded mind it loses its power or value. One can “relax” and meditate instead of concentrating. It is only as the concentration becomes normal that one can go on for a longer and longer time.    There is no harm in concentrating sometimes in the heart and sometimes above the head.


Sri Aurobindo: But concentration in either place does not mean keeping the attention ﬁxed on a particular spot; you have to take your station of consciousness in either place and concentrate there not on the place, but on the Divine. This can be done with eyes shut or with eyes open, according as it best suits you.  You can concentrate on the sun, but to concentrate on the Divine is better than to concentrate on the sun.   You can concentrate the consciousness anywhere in any centre.  You have only to think of yourself as centrally there and try to ﬁx and keep that.


Sri Aurobindo: A strain or any effort to do so is not necessary but a quiet and steady dwelling in the idea.  Most people associate consciousness with the brain or mind because that is the centre for intellectual thought and mental vision, but consciousness is not limited to that kind of thought or vision. It is everywhere in the system and there are several centres of it, e.g., the centre for inner concentration is not in the brain but in the heart, — the originating centre of vital desire is still lower down.  The two main places where one can centre the consciousness for Yoga are in the head and in the heart — the mind-centre and the soul-centre.   One has to open through concentration in the heart centre or above the head, in the former case to the psychic, in the latter to the higher Truth.


Sri Aurobindo: But without the psychic preparation or at least a thorough puriﬁcation of the being, the latter course is not safe.     It may be better to concentrate in the heart rather than in the mind, offer yourself from there and call the Mother into the heart leaving the thoughts to fall silent of themselves. Otherwise with the present method you have simply to persevere till the present brief and imperfect stillings of the mind become longer and deeper.


Sri Aurobindo:   The concentration in the heart is what brings about the opening of the psychic which is your principal need. If the concentration has brought about a feeling which makes you judge clearly all the other movements and see their nature, then the psychic is already in action. For this is the psychic feeling which brings with it a clear insight into the nature of all movements that come and makes it easy to reject what has to be rejected and keep the right attitude and perception. It does not matter about the image of the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: It is her presence whether in form or not that has to be felt always and this the psychic opening will surely bring.    It [] is the best to “start with” — but as you have already started with success on the two higher centres, there is no reason why you should discontinue that. The other you may try from time to time when you ﬁnd a sufﬁcient quietude. Concentration there leads — or should lead — to the psychic opening.


Sri Aurobindo:  Concentration in the heart is best aided if possible by the power and light descending from above the head.   At the top of the head or above it is the right place for Yogic concentration in reading or thinking.   Brain concentration is always a tapasya and necessarily brings a strain. It is only if one is lifted out of the brain mind altogether that the strain of mental concentration disappears.  The sitting motionless posture is the natural posture for concentrated meditation — walking and standing are active conditions suited for the dispense of energy and the activity of the mind.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only when one has gained the enduring rest and passivity of the consciousness that it is easy to concentrate and receive when walking or doing anything. A fundamental passive condition of the consciousness gathered into itself is the proper poise for concentration and a seated gathered immobility in the body is the best for that. It can be done also lying down, but that position is too passive, tending to be inert rather than gathered. This is the reason why Yogis always sit in an asana. One can accustom oneself to meditate walking, standing, lying, but sitting is the ﬁrst natural position.


Sri Aurobindo:   One can meditate very well when walking.   It is as each ﬁnds convenient. Some meditate better walking, some sitting.


Sri Aurobindo: The rigidity [] comes very often when there is the descent of the higher consciousness into the body.  If it is possible to keep a ﬁxed period for meditation and stick to it, it would certainly be desirable.


Sri Aurobindo: To keep the consciousness awake you must set apart a certain time every day for concentration and remembering the Mother and keeping yourself in contact with us. What is gained is not lost by interruption, but it goes behind and may take time to come out again — so the thread should not be cut.     It is not the length of the meditations that makes the difference [].


Sri Aurobindo: It is a concentration of the will that is needed.     It is better to make the deeper concentration when you are alone or quiet. Outward sounds ought not to disturb you.


Sri Aurobindo:  In external things all men of action have to do that [ ] — otherwise they would not be able to cope with their work. In respect to inner concentration, it is not so easy because people bring other vibrations which interfere with the poise of the consciousness — a mere mental interruption ought not to be difﬁcult to recover from; but if the consciousness itself gets invaded or else drawn out, it takes time to get back. In the end a condition develops in which the inner consciousness is always concentrated and in a poise,, and outside things take place only on the outermost surface. Then it becomes easy.


Sri Aurobindo: It is quite natural that at ﬁrst there should be the condition of calm and peace only when you sit for concentration. What is important is that there should be this condition whenever you sit and the pressure for it always there. But at other times the result is at ﬁrst only a certain mental quiet and freedom from thoughts. Afterwards when the condition of peace is quite settled in the inner being — for it is the inner into which you enter whenever you concentrate — then it begins to come out and control the outer, so that the calm and peace remain even when working, mixing with others, talking or other occupations. For then whatever the outer consciousness is doing, one feels the inner being calm within — indeed one feels the inner being as one’s real self while the outer is something superﬁcial through which the inner acts on life.


Sri Aurobindo:   The gaze should not be ﬁxed for a long time as it overstrains the eyes (unless one has a long practice in Tratak). The ﬁxing of the eyes is not necessary — a natural gaze is sufﬁcient and it should be varied by meditation with closed eyes.


Sri Aurobindo:   When the meditation is done with the photo, it is better done with open eyes.  You enter into a condition of deep inwardness and quiet. But if one comes too suddenly out of it into the ordinary consciousness, then there may be a slight nervous shock or a beating of the heart such as you describe, for a short time. It is always best to remain quiet for a few moments before opening the eyes and coming out of this inwardness.


Sri Aurobindo:  It is certainly much better to remain silent and collected for a time after the meditation. It is a mistake to take the meditation lightly — by doing that one fails to receive or spills what is received or most of it.     Your meditation is all right, as Mother saw — but when you came out of it, you fell into the ordinary consciousness, that is the difﬁculty.


Sri Aurobindo: You must try to keep the true consciousness always, even in activity — then the sadhana will begin to be there all the time and your difﬁculty will disappear.   That [] is the nature of the mechanical mind — it is not due to any sensitiveness in it. Only as the other parts of the mind are more silent and under control, this activity looks more prominent and takes more space. It usually wears itself out, if one goes on rejecting it.


Sri Aurobindo:   It was rather that the active mind became more quiet so that the movements of the mechanical mind became more evident — that is what often happens. What has to be done in that case is to detach oneself from these movements and concentrate without farther attention to them. They are then likely to sink into quietude or fall away.   To be able to detach oneself from the action of the mechanical mind is the ﬁrst necessity so that it may be like a noise in the street which passes and which one can ignore.


Sri Aurobindo: It is easier then for the quiet and peace of the mind to remain undisturbed by this action even if it occurs.  If the peace and silence continue to come down, they usually become so intense as to seize the physical mind also after a time.     You are probably paying too much attention to them [ ].


Sri Aurobindo: It is quite possible to concentrate and let the mechanical activity pass unnoticed.     The more the psychic spreads in the outer being, the more all these things [] fall quiet. That is the best way.


Sri Aurobindo: Direct efforts to still the mind are a difﬁcult method.  That [ ] is not called meditation — it is a divided state of consciousness.  Unless the consciousness is really engrossed and the surface thoughts are only things that come across and touch and pass, it can hardly be called meditation (dhyana). I don’t see how the inner being can be “engrossed” while thoughts and imaginations of another kind are rampaging about in the consciousness.  One can remain separate and see the thoughts and imaginations pass without being affected, but that is not being plunged or engrossed in meditation.


Sri Aurobindo: Straining and concentration are not the same thing. Straining implies an over-eagerness and violence of effort, while concentration is in its nature quiet and steady. If there is restlessness or over-eagerness, then that is not concentration.


Sri Aurobindo: Effort means straining endeavour. There can be an action with a will in it in which there is no strain of effort.    It was by your personal efforts without guidance that you got into difﬁculties and into a heated condition in which you could not meditate etc. I asked you to drop the effort and remain quiet and you did so.


Sri Aurobindo: My intention was that by your remaining quiet, it would be possible for the Mother’s Force to work in you and establish a better starting-point and a course of initial experiences. It was what was beginning to come; but if your mind again becomes active and tries to arrange the sadhana for itself, then disturbances are likely to come. The Divine Guidance works best when the psychic is open and in front (yours was beginning to open), but it can also work even when the sadhak is either not conscious of it or else knows it only by its results.  As for Nirvikalpa Samadhi, even if one wants it, it is only the result of a long sadhana in a consciousness prepared for it — it is no use thinking of it when the inner consciousness is only just beginning to open to Yogic experience.  There are two different states, that which the consciousness takes in concentration and that which it takes in relaxation — the latter is the ordinary consciousness (ordinary for the sadhak, though not perhaps the ordinary consciousness of the average man), the former is what he is attaining to by tapas of concentration in sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: To go into the Akshara and witness experiences from there is easy for the sadhak who has got so far. He can also concentrate and maintain the uniﬁcation of the main aspects of his being, although with more difﬁculty — but a relaxation there brings him back to the relaxed “ordinary” consciousness. It is only when what is gained by sadhana becomes normal to the ordinary consciousness that this can be avoided. In proportion as this is done, it becomes possible not only to experience the truth subjectively, but make it manifest in action.  What happened in the beginning of his sadhana must have been that he made the mistake of entering into a passive meditation instead of into a concentration proper.


Sri Aurobindo: This kind of passive meditation can bring a great peace and quiet and joy. The Light also may come and other spiritual experiences. But it leaves the vital and body passive and without defence against inertia, illness etc. instead of bringing it either a dynamic force or a strong self-contained peace. The consciousness instead of being concentrated gets widely diffused and loosely extended. From the passivity came the weakness and disinclination for the worldly duties; from the diffusion the play of activity in the mind which prevented sleep and could not be controlled in a tendency also for the subtle being to go out of the body in the waking condition instead of through sleep as it ordinarily does, whence the beating of the heart and the cold feet.


Sri Aurobindo: Concentration must in the earlier stages be active and dynamic with the consciousness gathered and capable of turning the will in any direction.  The concentration in this Yoga must be in the head or in the heart-centre, not in the centre at the base of the spinal cord — that can only come afterwards when all the other centres have been opened.  It is sometimes a little difﬁcult to correct the effects of a wrong start. At any rate he may try the effects of an active concentration in either the head (forehead centre) or heart. The latter may be safer so as to avoid the return of the heating of the head which came from that ﬁrst concentration.


Sri Aurobindo: If there are any disturbing results, the concentration should not be continued and all should be turned towards a puriﬁcation of the being such as he speaks of having practised and only when this is sufﬁciently advanced, should the concentration be resumed.  It is not a fact that when there is obscurity or inertia, one cannot concentrate or meditate . If one has in the inner being the steady will to do it, it can be done.


Sri Aurobindo:  It is quite natural to want to meditate while reading Yogic literature — that is not the laziness.  The laziness of the mind consists in not meditating when the consciousness wants to do so.     Ego, I suppose, or inertia [ ].


Sri Aurobindo: If higher meditation or being above keeps you dull and without any kind of satisfaction or peace in sadhana, these are the only two reasons I can think of.     If the mind gets tired, naturally it is difﬁcult to concentrate — unless you have become separated from the mind.


Sri Aurobindo:   Naturally one does not get tired if the meditation has become natural. But if the capacity is not there yet, then many cannot go on without a strain which brings fatigue.


Sri Aurobindo: Concentration is very helpful and necessary — the more one concentrates (of course in the limits of the body’s capacity without straining it), the more the force of the Yoga grows. But you must be prepared for the meditation being sometimes not successful and not get upset by it — for that variability of the meditations happens to everybody. There are different causes for it. But it is mostly something physical that interferes, either the need of the body to take time to assimilate what has come or been done or sometimes inertia or dullness due to causes such as those you mention or others. The best thing is to remain quiet and not get nervous or dejected — till the force acts again.


Sri Aurobindo: When one tries to meditate, there is a pressure to go inside, lose the waking consciousness and wake inside, in a deep inner consciousness. But at ﬁrst the mind takes it for a pressure to go to sleep, since sleep is the only kind of inner consciousness to which it has been accustomed. In Yoga by meditation sleep is therefore often the ﬁrst difﬁculty — but if one perseveres then gradually the sleep changes to an inner conscious state.


Sri Aurobindo: I think the sleepiness is a stage which everybody goes through — a sort of mechanical reaction of the physical to the pressure for including it in the concentration of the sadhana. It is best not to mind it; it will go of itself as the consciousness increases and takes the physical into its poise. It is better to let us know about any physical troubles.   The sleep does come like that when one tries to meditate. It has to be dealt with, where that is possible, by turning it into a conscious inner and indrawn state and, where not, by remaining in a quietly concentrated wakefulness open (without effort) to receive.


Sri Aurobindo:  This tendency to sit and be perfectly quiet and this pressure of sleep are not at all due to laziness. You must put that idea out of your head. It is due to the tendency to quiet, peace, going inside; when the sadhana begins with some intensity, it is most often like that for a time. Afterwards there is a more even balance between the inner and the outer consciousness or rather the outer begins to change and become of one piece with the inner. So do not let this trouble you.


Sri Aurobindo:   When the pressure gives a tendency to insideness (samadhi), the physical being, not being accustomed to go inside except in the way of sleep, translates this into a sense of sleepiness.


Sri Aurobindo: It [] is a common obstacle with all who practise Yoga at the beginning. This sleep disappears gradually in two ways — (1) by the intensifying of the force of concentration — (2) by the sleep itself becoming a kind of swapna samadhi in which one is conscious of inner experiences that are not dreams (i.e. the waking consciousness is lost for the time, but it is replaced not by sleep but by an inward conscious state in which one moves in the supraphysical of the mental or vital being).   The Yogic sleep is good only when it is Yogic enough to contain something, to be an inner consciousness or an experience of other planes. The is important — to be conscious in the sleep, an inner waking. But when the mind is not accustomed, it tends to respond to the impulse towards this “going inside” into an inner consciousness caused by meditation by simply falling into the usual sleep to which it is accustomed.


Sri Aurobindo: is one of the recognised difﬁculties of Yoga — refusing to turn into samadhi, whether or. So the force is necessary and I will try to send it. I only wish people would give me more time for this inner work both for myself and them! but that seems past hoping for.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is probably that [] you go inside into a sort of samadhi but are not yet conscious there (hence the idea of sleep).   is not asleep, but he has when he goes inside no control of his body. Many Yogis have this difﬁculty and use a contrivance which is put under the chin to hold up the head and with it the body during this inward-going concentration.


Sri Aurobindo:  There is no harm in the deep sleep that comes — as I have told you, it is the tendency to go deep inside that brings it and it is necessary to go deep inside in order to establish the full connection between the psychic and the rest of the nature.  The word is a sound expressive of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the Mantra and of japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the same idea that is expressed in the Bible, “God said, Let there be Light, and there was Light.” It is creation by the Word.    The Word has power — even the ordinary written word has a power. If it is an inspired word it has still more power.


Sri Aurobindo: What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word itself, — as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures — Veda, Upanishads, Gita, — it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience.  The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga — but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way.


Sri Aurobindo: Many have such illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this ﬁre within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped themselves and others. Therefore there is nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness to poetry of a psychic or spiritual character.  Mantras come to many people in meditation.


Sri Aurobindo: The Rishis say in the Veda that they had the Truth by vision and inspiration, “truth-hearing seers”, — Veda is got by inner hearing.    When one repeats a mantra regularly, very often it begins to repeat itself within, which means that it is taken up by the inner being. In that way it is more effective.


Sri Aurobindo:   It [] depends on the way in which the japa is done.  If rightly done, the mantra is a means of opening to the light and knowledge etc. from above and it ceases as soon as that is done.    I do not believe a mantra can change the physical consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: What it does, if it is effective, is to open the consciousness and to bring into it the power of that which the mantra represents.     There is such a thing as mantra-shakti; but it acts only on certain conditions.  OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane.


Sri Aurobindo: The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, ﬁnally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence. The last is usually the main preoccupation with those who use the mantra.  In this Yoga there is no ﬁxed mantra, no stress is laid on mantras, although sadhaks can use one if they ﬁnd it helpful or so long as they ﬁnd it helpful. The stress is rather on an aspiration in the consciousness and a concentration of the mind, heart, will, all the being.


Sri Aurobindo: If a mantra is found helpful for that, one uses it.  OM if rightly used (not mechanically) might very well help the opening upwards and outwards (cosmic consciousness) as well as the descent.   It [] is supposed to have a force of its own although that force cannot fully work without the meditation on the meaning. But my experience is that in these things there is no invariable rule and that most depends on the consciousness or the power of response in the sadhak. With some it has no effect, with some it has a rapid and powerful effect even without meditation — for others the meditation is necessary for any effect to come.


Sri Aurobindo: A divine Name or a Mantra (like the) can enter the adhara and move in the breathing as in your experience. When it does so, that is not the opening of which I speak in the sentence you quote, but it may come to make the aspiration effective by helping in the opening — by removing something that prevents the opening and by leading to the experience it carries in it.  The experience to which the mantra leads is the realisation of one Being everywhere, all as the Divine, oneself and all as essentially one with that Divine. It is an experience in which one’s separate personal existence shut up in the body ceases to be the normal thing; one feels the body as a point or small thing in a vast existence, consciousness or Ananda that is the Divine and oneself as spread out in that vast consciousness — as if the world were within us and not we inside the world or as if the world were one with us and one with the Divine. It is the “cosmic consciousness” that comes by this mantra.


Sri Aurobindo: For our Yoga this is a beginning only, not the end as it is in the ordinary Yoga, — a liberation, not the Siddhi.  The power of the Gayatri is the Light of the divine Truth. It is a mantra of Knowledge.    The Gayatri mantra is the mantra for bringing the light of Truth into all the planes of the being.


Sri Aurobindo: The other [] has a general power.    It is not necessary to give up Gayatri Japa or the process which you are following at present. Concentration in the heart is one method, concentration in the head (or above) is another; both are included in this Yoga and one has to do whichever one ﬁnds easiest and most natural. The object of the concentration in the heart is to open the centre there (heart-lotus), to feel the presence of the Divine Mother in the heart and to become aware of one’s soul or psychic being which is a portion of the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: The object of the concentration in the head is to rise to the Divine Consciousness and bring down the Light of the Mother or her Force or Ananda into all the centres. This movement of ascent and descent is implied in the process of your japa and it is not therefore necessary to renounce it.  There is a level corresponding to the Satya Loka in the head but the consciousness has at a certain stage to rise above the head freely to meet the same level in the universal Consciousness above.  The idea of your friend that it is necessary to receive a mantra from here and for that he must come is altogether wrong. There is no mantra given in this Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the opening of the consciousness to the Mother from within that is the true initiation and that can only come by aspiration and rejection of restlessness in the mind and vital.     We do not usually give any mantra. Those who repeat something in meditation call on the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo:   As a rule the only mantra used in this sadhana is that of the Mother or of my name and the Mother. The concentration in the heart and the concentration in the head can both be used — each has its own result. The ﬁrst opens up the psychic being and brings bhakti, love and union with the Mother, her presence within the heart and the action of her Force in the nature. The other opens the mind to self-realisation, to the consciousness of what is above mind, to the ascent of the consciousness out of the body and the descent of the higher consciousness into the body.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is not necessarily any difference of Force. Usually the Mother’s name has the full power in it; but in certain states of consciousness the double Name may have a special effect.  The name of the Divine is usually called in for protection, for adoration, for increase of bhakti, for the opening up of the inner consciousness, for the realisation of the Divine in that aspect.  As far as it is necessary to work in the subconscious for that, the Name must be effective there.


Sri Aurobindo:   It [] depends on the person and how he does it. The Name of the Divine is in itself a power, if it is taken with the right faith and in the right attitude.


Sri Aurobindo: Namajapa has a great power in it.     Namochcharana has power but only if it comes from the heart and the soul; mere repetition with the mind is not enough.


Sri Aurobindo:    Whatever name is called the Power that answers is the Mother.  Each name indicates a certain aspect of the Divine and is limited by that aspect; the Mother’s Power is universal.


Sri Aurobindo:   Naturally, whatever name one concentrates on [] will repeat itself [], if any does. But the calling of Mother in sleep is not necessarily a repetition — it is the inner being that often calls to her in difﬁculty or in need.


Sri Aurobindo: I did not encourage the name with the breathing because that seemed like pranayam. Pranayam is a very powerful thing, but if done haphazardly it may lead to the raising of obstructions and even in extreme cases illness in the body.  Verses of the Gita can be used as japa, if the object is to realise the Truth that the verses contain in them. If’s father has taken the salient verses containing the heart of the teaching for that purpose, then it is all right. Everything depends on the selection of the verses.


Sri Aurobindo: A coherent summary of the Gita’s teaching cannot easily be put together by putting together some verses, but that is not necessary for a purpose of this kind which could only be to put the key truths together — not for intellectual exposition but for grasping in realisation which is the object of japa.  I am sorry the old reaction to the japa has recurred. Perhaps the mind is doing it too much as a means for a result. The japa is usually successful only on one of two conditions, — if it is repeated with a sense of its signiﬁcance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attraction of the Godhead it signiﬁes and is to bring into the consciousness, that is the mental way, — or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhakti making it alive, that is the emotional way. Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance.


Sri Aurobindo: But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that support and sustenance. There is of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the mantra or name in itself, but then one has to go on till that power has sufﬁciently impressed its vibrations on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch. But if there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this effect which needs a quiet receptivity in the mind is impeded. That is why I insisted so much on mental quietude and on not too much straining or effort — to give time to allow the psychic and the mind to develop the necessary condition of receptivity — a receptivity as natural as when one receives an inspiration for poetry and music. It is also why I do not want you to discontinue your poetry — it helps and does not hinder the preparation because it is a means of developing the right position of receptivity and bringing out the bhakti which is there in the inner being.


Sri Aurobindo: To spend all the energy on japa or meditation is a strain which even those who are accustomed to successful meditation ﬁnd it difﬁcult to do — unless in periods when there is an uninterrupted ﬂow of experiences from above.   It is very good news that you got rid of the attack and it was the japa that helped you to do it. This and past experience also shows that if you can overcome the old association of the japa with sterility and sorrow, it can do its natural function of creating the right consciousness — for that is what the japa is intended to do. It ﬁrst changes the vibrations of the consciousness, brings into it the right state and the right responses and then brings in the power or the presence of the Deity. Several times before you wrote to me that by doing japa you got rid of the old impulse and recovered calm and the right turn of the consciousness and now it has helped you to get rid of the invasion of sorrow and despondency.


Sri Aurobindo: Let us hope that this last will also soon lose its strength like the impulse and calm and serenity begin to establish itself in the whole nature.  To bring the Divine Love and Beauty and Ananda into the world is, indeed, the whole crown and essence of our Yoga. But it has always seemed to me impossible unless there comes as its support and foundation and guard the Divine Truth — what I call the Supramental — and its Divine Power. Otherwise Love itself blinded by the confusions of this present consciousness may stumble in its human receptacles and, even otherwise, may ﬁnd itself unrecognised, rejected or rapidly degenerating and lost in the frailty of man’s inferior nature. But when it comes in the Divine Truth and Power, Divine Love descends ﬁrst as something transcendent and universal and out of that transcendence and universality it applies itself to persons according to the Divine Truth and Will, creating a vaster, greater, purer personal love than any the human mind or heart can now imagine.


Sri Aurobindo: It is when one has felt this descent that one can be really an instrument for the birth and action of the Divine Love in the world.   It [] can come solely as knowledge or as knowledge + calm and peace or knowledge with power. It is not always accompanied by Ananda.  What was meant [] was that it is possible to have some kind of Ananda on all the planes, vital, mental, physical; but


Sri Aurobindo: if one wants to live securely in the highest divine Ananda it can only be done by bringing down the (supramental) Truth and living ﬁrst in the supramental Light. But this is the eventual aim of the Yoga; it does not debar one from accepting whatever Ananda comes on the way. Only, mere pleasure or vital excitement and gratiﬁcation must not be mistaken for Ananda.    The human form is naturally unable to bear the Divine Love or contain it, because it is itself a creation of the ignorance, weak and impure.


Sri Aurobindo: It must be transformed in order to be capable of that; it must become strong and pure. First of all, it must have the strength to love the Divine alone and turn away from all other ties. But besides that a new consciousness must be created in it — ﬁrst a consciousness of pure and purifying Divine Peace from above which must take hold of all down to the most physical — then in that peace an increasing inner strength pure and unegoistic — then the Divine Light and Knowledge transforming all the consciousness and movements. When this has been done, then the human form can contain the Divine Love and Ananda. Till then the touches of the Divine Love and Ananda are usually momentary or brief, they cannot remain.


Sri Aurobindo: In an impure consciousness the Divine Love if it came in would create a perturbation and possibly be attacked by a mixture which would make it impossible for it to stay. It is therefore that touches only can come.     I understand that it is the physical consciousness which has come up forcibly with the old vital human movements and feelings and this has clouded for the moment the sense of higher things and the aspiration for Truth and Purity that is their atmosphere.


Sri Aurobindo: The Divine Love may not be able yet to manifest on the physical plane, humanity being what it is, as fully and freely as it would otherwise do, but that does not make it less close or intense than the human. It is there waiting to be understood and accepted and meanwhile giving all the help you can receive to raise and widen you into the consciousness in which it will be no longer possible for these difﬁculties and these misunderstandings to recur — the state in which there is possible the full and perfect union.     It [] exists in itself and does not depend on outer contact or outer expression.


Sri Aurobindo: Whether it shall express itself outwardly or how it will express itself outwardly depends on the spiritual truth that has to be manifested.     There is the one divine Love secret in all things, but the manifestation [] depends upon the state of consciousness and its organisation.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not exactly know what you mean by the Divine Love being established down to the subconscious. What love? the soul’s love for the Divine? or the principle of the Divine Love and Ananda which is the highest thing that can be reached? To establish the latter down to the subconscient is a thing which would mean the entire transformation of the whole being and it cannot be done except as the result of the supramental change which is as yet far away. The other may be established even now in principle, but to make it living and complete in the whole being would mean the psychic transformation completed with the spiritual also well under way already.


Sri Aurobindo:  The Intuitive or Overmind are more open to the truth of Divine Love and more capable of universalising love than the mind ordinarily is — love there is also more calm in its intensity, less ego-bound than in the mental parts. But the mind can also approach their quality of love, if the love in it grows psychic and spiritual.   By becoming divine in nature []; there is no other way.  The Divine’s love is that which comes from above poured down from the Divine Oneness and its Ananda on the being — psychic love is a form taken by divine love in the human being according to the needs and possibilities of the human consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo:   If love is psychic in its nature, it always brings the sense of oneness or at least of an inner intimate closeness of being. The Divine Love is based upon oneness and the psychic derives from the Divine Love.


Sri Aurobindo:   The psychic love is pure and full of self-giving without egoistic demand, but it is human and can err and suffer. The Divine Love is something much vaster and deeper and full of light and ananda.  When there is no demand or desire, only love and self-giving, that is the psychic love.


Sri Aurobindo:  Psychic love is quite satisfying, and it can change even the vital love into something great and beautiful.     Why do you want something remarkable? The love of the soul is the true thing, simple and absolute — the rest is good only if it is a means of manifestation of the soul’s love.


Sri Aurobindo:   The soul’s love and joy come from within from the psychic being. What comes from above is the Ananda of the higher consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: The love that belongs to the spiritual planes is of a different kind — the psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender.  Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love.    The psychic realisation is one of diversity in unity (the portion and the whole); it is not one of dissolving like a drop of water in the sea — for then no love or devotion is possible unless it is love of oneself, devotion to oneself.


Sri Aurobindo: Universal love is always universal — psychic love can individualise itself.     Cosmic love depends on the realisation of oneness of self with all.  Psychic love or feeling for all can exist without this realisation.


Sri Aurobindo:   The oneness with all in its basis is something self-existent and self-content which does not expression. When it does express itself as love, it is something wide and universal, untroubled and ﬁrm even when it is intense. This is in the basic cosmic oneness. There is also the surface cosmic consciousness which is an awareness of the play of cosmic forces — here anything may rise, sex also.


Sri Aurobindo: It is this part that needs the perfect psychisation, otherwise one cannot even hold, contain and deal with it in the proper way.     I do not quite understand’s question. Does he mean to ask whether one can become conscious of the Divine’s Love for all creatures before one is oneself ﬁlled with the universal love for others?


Sri Aurobindo: If that is the meaning, then one can certainly become conscious of the Divine’s Love before one has oneself the universal love — one can become conscious of it by contact with the Divine in oneself. Naturally the consciousness of it should lead to the development of a universal love for all. But if he means a love that is divine, not tainted by the lower movements, then it is true that until there comes the peace, purity, freedom from ego, wideness, light of the universal consciousness which is the basis of the universal love, it is difﬁcult to have a love that is free from all the defects, limitations, taints of ordinary human love.   The more one has of the universality the more one tends to be freed from these things.


Sri Aurobindo: The love which is turned towards the Divine ought not to be the usual vital feeling which men call by that name; for that is not love, but only a vital desire, an instinct of appropriation, the impulse to possess and monopolise. Not only is this not the divine Love, but it ought not to be allowed to mix in the least degree in the Yoga. The true love for the Divine is a self-giving, free of demand, full of submission and surrender; it makes no claim, imposes no condition, strikes no bargain, indulges in no violences of jealousy or pride or anger — for these things are not in its composition. In return the Divine Mother also gives herself, but freely — and this represents itself in an inner giving — her presence in your mind, your vital, your physical consciousness, her power re-creating you in the divine nature, taking up all the movements of your being and directing them towards perfection and fulﬁlment, her love enveloping you and carrying you in its arms Godwards. It is this that you must aspire to feel and possess in all your parts down to the very material, and here there is no limitation either of time or of completeness.


Sri Aurobindo: If one truly aspires and gets it, there ought to be no room for any other claim or for any disappointed desire. And if one truly aspires, one does unfailingly get it, more and more as the puriﬁcation proceeds and the nature undergoes its needed change.   Keep your love pure of all selﬁsh claim and desire; you will ﬁnd that you are getting all the love that you can bear and absorb in answer.  Realise also that the Realisation must come ﬁrst, the work to be done, not the satisfaction of claim and desire.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only when the Divine Consciousness in its supramental Light and Power has descended and transformed the physical that other things can be given a prominent place — and then too it will not be the satisfaction of desire, but the fulﬁlment of the Divine Truth in each and all and in the new life that is to express it. In the divine life all is for the sake of the Divine and not for the sake of the ego.  I should perhaps add one or two things to avoid misapprehensions. First, the love for the Divine of which I speak is not a psychic love only; it is the love of all the being, the vital and vital-physical included, — all are capable of the same self-giving. It is a mistake to believe that if the vital loves, it must be a love that demands and imposes the satisfaction of its desire; it is a mistake to think that it must be either that or else the vital, in order to escape from its “attachment”, must draw away altogether from the object of its love.


Sri Aurobindo: The vital can be as absolute in its unquestioning self-giving as any other part of the nature; nothing can be more generous than its movement when it forgets self for the Beloved. The vital and physical should both give themselves in the true way — the way of true love, not of ego-desire.    I suppose “love” expresses something more intense than  which can include mere liking or affection. But whether love or, the human feeling is always either based on or strongly mixed with ego, — that is why it cannot be pure.


Sri Aurobindo: It is said in the Upanishad, “One does not love the wife for the sake of the wife” or the child or friend etc. as the case may be “but for one’s self’s sake one loves the wife”. There is usually a hope of return, of beneﬁt or advantage of some kind, or of certain pleasures and satisfactions, mental, vital or physical, that the person loved can give. Remove these things and the love very soon sinks, diminishes or disappears or turns into anger, reproach, indifference or even hatred. But there is also an element of habit, something that makes the presence of the person loved a sort of necessity because it has always been there — and this is sometimes so strong that even in spite of entire incompatibility of temper, ﬁerce antagonism, something like hatred, it lasts and even these gulfs of discord are not enough to make the persons part; in other cases this feeling is more tepid and after a time one gets accustomed to separation or accepts a substitute.  There is again often the element of some kind of spontaneous attraction or afﬁnity, mental, vital or physical, which gives a stronger cohesion to the love.


Sri Aurobindo: Lastly, there is in the highest or deepest kind of love the psychic element, which comes from the inmost heart and soul, a kind of inner union or self-giving or at least a seeking for that, a tie or an urge independent of other conditions or elements, existing for its own sake and not for any mental, vital or physical pleasure, satisfaction, interest or habit.  But usually the psychic element in human love, even where it is present, is so much mixed, overloaded and hidden under the others that it has little chance of fulﬁlling itself or achieving its own natural purity and fullness. What is called love is therefore sometimes one thing, sometimes another, most often a confused mixture, and it is impossible to give a general answer to the questions you put as to what is meant by love in such and such a phrase. It depends on the persons and the circumstances.  When the love goes towards the Divine, there is still this ordinary human element in it.


Sri Aurobindo: There is the call for a return and if the return does not seem to come, the love may sink; there is the self-interest, the demand for the Divine as a giver of all that the human being wants and, if the demands are not acceded to, abhimana against the Divine, loss of faith, loss of fervour. Etc.  etc. But the true love for the Divine is in its fundamental nature not of this kind, but psychic and spiritual. The psychic element is the need of the inmost being for self-giving, love, adoration, union which can only be fully satisﬁed by the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: The spiritual element is the need of the being for contact, merging, union with its own highest and whole self and source of being and consciousness and bliss, the Divine. These two are two sides of the same thing. The mind, vital, physical can be the supports and recipients of this love, but they can be fully that only when they become remoulded into harmony with the psychic and spiritual elements of the being and no longer bring in the lower insistences of the ego.   Love for the Divine must be there in all the being — not only in the spirit and the psychic heart, but in the vital and the physical consciousness also.


Sri Aurobindo: The inﬂuence of the love for the Divine when it takes hold of any part is to turn it towards the Divine — as you describe it “concentration on the Mother” — and in the end all is gathered and harmonised around this central turn of the being. The difﬁculty is with the mechanical parts of the being in which the old thoughts go on recurring by habit. If the concentration continues to grow, this becomes a thing of little importance at the circumference of the mind and in the end drops away to be replaced by things that belong to the new consciousness.  And ﬁrst about human love in the sadhana. The soul’s turning through love to the Divine must be through a love that is essentially divine, but as the instrument of expression at ﬁrst is a human nature, it takes the forms of human love and bhakti.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only as the consciousness deepens, heightens and changes that that greater eternal love can grow in it and openly transform the human into the divine. But in human love itself there are several kinds of motive-forces. There is a psychic human love which rises from deep within and is the result of the meeting of the inner being with that which calls it towards a divine joy and union; it is, once it becomes aware of itself, something lasting, self-existent, not dependent upon external satisfactions, not capable of diminution by external causes, not self-regarding, not prone to demand or bargain but giving itself simply and spontaneously, not moved to or broken by misunderstandings, disappointments, strife and anger, but pressing always straight towards the inner union. It is this psychic love that is closest to the divine and it is therefore the right and best way of love and bhakti. But that does not mean that the other parts of the being, the vital and physical included, are not to be used as means of expression or that they are not to share in the full play and the whole meaning of love, even of divine love.


Sri Aurobindo: On the contrary, they are a means and can be a great part of the complete expression of divine love, — provided they have the right and not the wrong movement. There are in the vital itself two kinds of love, — one full of joy and conﬁdence and abandon, generous, unbargaining, ungrudging and very absolute in its dedication and this is akin to the psychic and well-ﬁtted to be its complement and a means of expression of the divine love. And neither does the psychic love or the divine love despise a physical means of expression wherever that is pure and right and possible: it does not depend upon that, it does not diminish, revolt or go out like a snuffed candle when it is deprived of any such means; but when it can use it, it does so with joy and gratitude. Physical means can be and are used in the approach to divine love and worship; they have not been allowed merely as a concession to human weakness, nor is it the fact that in the psychic way there is no place for such things. On the contrary they are one means of approaching the Divine and receiving the Light and materialising the psychic contact, and so long as it is done in the right spirit and they are used for the true purpose they have their place.


Sri Aurobindo: It is only if they are misused or the approach is not right because tainted by indifference and inertia, or revolt or hostility, or some gross desire, that they are out of place and can have a contrary effect.  But there is another way of vital love which is more usually the way of human nature and that is a way of ego and desire. It is full of vital craving, desire and demand; its continuance depends upon the satisfaction of its demands; if it does not get what it craves, or even imagines that it is not being treated as it deserves — for it is full of imaginations, misunderstandings, jealousies, misinterpretations — it at once turns to sorrow, wounded feeling, revolt, pride, anger, all kinds of disorder, ﬁnally cessation and departure. A love of this kind is in its very nature ephemeral and unreliable and it cannot be made a foundation for divine love. There has been too much of this kind in the relations of the sadhaks with the Mother — approaching her, I suppose, as a human mother with all the reactions of the lower vital nature.


Sri Aurobindo: For a long time it was perforce tolerated — and this was the concession made to human weakness — even accepted in the beginning as a thing too prominent in the human being not to be there to some extent but to be transformed by degrees; but too often, it has refused to transform itself and has made itself a source of confusion, disorder,, sometimes complete disaster. It is for this reason that we discourage this lower vital way of human love and would like people to reject and eliminate these elements as soon as may be from their nature. Love should be a ﬂowering of joy and union and conﬁdence and self-giving and Ananda, — but this lower vital way is only a source of suffering, trouble, disappointment, disillusion and disunion. Even a slight element of it shakes the foundations of peace and replaces the movement towards Ananda by a fall towards sorrow, discontent and Nirananda.  In your own case you often write in your wrong moods as if human love, even with some of these lower ingredients, were the only thing possible to you.


Sri Aurobindo: But that is not so at all, for it contradicts your own deepest experiences. Always what your inner being has asked is Love, Bhakti, Ananda and whenever it comes to the surface it is, even if only in a ﬁrst elementary form, the divine love which it brings with it. A basis of deep and intense calm and stillness, a great intensity of emotion and Bhakti, an inrush of Ananda, this is in these moments your repeated experience. On the other hand when you insist too much on the love which exists by external cravings, what comes is the other movement — ﬁts of despondency, sorrow, Nirananda. In stressing on the psychic basis, in wishing you to conquer this other movement, I am only pointing you to the true way of your own nature — of which the psychic bhakti, the true vital love are the real moving forces, and the other is only a superﬁcial immixture.


Sri Aurobindo: May I put in a plea for my poor Supramental against which you seem to have something like a grudge? I should like to say that the Supramental is not something cold, distant and remote; on the contrary, when it descends into the physical, it will mean the full outﬂow and full completeness and expression of love on the vital and physical as well as on every other plane. And it is because I know it means this and many other desirable things that I am so insistent on bringing it down as soon as possible.  And let me say also that, as regards human love and divine love, I admitted the ﬁrst as that from which we have to proceed and to arrive at the other, intensifying and transforming into it, not eliminating, human love. Divine Love, in my view of it, is again not something ethereal, cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, intimate and full of unity, closeness and rapture using all the nature for its expression.


Sri Aurobindo: Certainly, it is without the confusions and disorders of the present lower vital nature which it will change into something entirely warm, deep and intense; but that is no reason for supposing that it will lose anything that is true and happy in the elements of love.   Love cannot be cold — for there is no such thing as cold love, but the love of which the Mother speaks in that passage is something very pure, ﬁxed and constant; it does not leap like ﬁre and sink for want of fuel, but is steady and all-embracing and self-existent like the light of the sun. There is also a divine love that is personal, but it is not like the ordinary personal human love dependent on any return from the person — it is personal but not egoistic, — it goes from the real being in the one to the real being in the other. But to ﬁnd that, liberation from the ordinary human way of approach is necessary.   The Divine Love, unlike the human, is deep and vast and silent; one must become quiet and wide to be aware of it and reply to it.


Sri Aurobindo: must make it his whole object to be surrendered so that he may become a vessel and instrument — leaving it to the Divine Wisdom and Love to ﬁll him with what is needed. Let him also ﬁx this in the mind not to insist that in a given time he must progress, develop, get realisation; whatever time it takes, he must be prepared to wait and persevere and make his whole life an aspiration and an opening for the one thing only, the Divine. To give oneself is the secret of sadhana, not to demand and acquire. The more one gives oneself, the more the power to receive will grow. But for that all impatience and revolt must go; all suggestions of not getting, not being helped, not being loved, going away, of abandoning life or the spiritual endeavour must be rejected.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Mother did not tell you that love is not an emotion, but that Divine Love is not an emotion, — a very different thing to say.  Human love is made up of emotion, passion and desire, — all of them vital movements, therefore bound to the disabilities of the human vital nature. Emotion is an excellent and indispensable thing in human nature, in spite of all its shortcomings and dangers, — just as mental ideas are excellent and indispensable things in their own ﬁeld in the human stage.


Sri Aurobindo: But our aim is to go beyond mental ideas into the light of the supramental Truth, which exists not by ideative thought but by direct vision and identity. In the same way our aim is to go beyond emotion to the height and depth and intensity of the Divine Love and there feel through the inner psychic heart an inexhaustible oneness with the Divine which the spasmodic leapings of the vital emotions cannot reach or experience.  As supramental Truth is not merely a sublimation of our mental ideas, so Divine Love is not merely a sublimation of human emotions; it is a different consciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance.


Sri Aurobindo: Human love is mostly vital and physical with a mental support — it can take an unselﬁsh, noble and pure form and expression only if it is touched by the psychic. It is true, as you say, that it is more usually a mixture of ignorance, attachment, passion and desire. But whatever it may be, one who wishes to reach the Divine must not burden himself with human loves and attachments, for they form so many fetters and hamper his steps, turning him away besides from the concentration of his emotions on the one supreme object of love.  There is such a thing as psychic love, pure, without demand, sincere in self-giving, but it is not usually left pure in the attraction of human beings to one another. One must also be on one’s guard against the profession of psychic love when one is doing sadhana, — for that is most often a cloak and justiﬁcation for yielding to a vital attraction or attachment.


Sri Aurobindo: Universal love is the spiritual founded on the sense of the One and the Divine everywhere and the change of the personal into a wide universal consciousness, free from attachment and ignorance.  Divine love is of two kinds — the Divine love for the creation and the souls that are part of itself and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal is free here from all lower elements or bondage to the vital and physical instincts.   If I am to take some expressions in one of your letters at their face value you seem to put forward — at least as a poet — three notions about spiritual seeking which are somewhat extraordinary.  1. “It is the love which is addressed towards a ‘carnal prize’ and towards the Divine.”


Sri Aurobindo: I should imagine that one who approached the Divine with a “carnal” or an untransformed vital love would embrace something of the vital world but certainly get nowhere near the Divine.  2. The Divine in itself is something cold and empty and dark — only human love gives it some warmth and attraction.  I always thought that the Divine was the supreme ineffable Ananda of which human love and delight is only a clouded and fallen ray — most often hardly even that — compared with the empyrean of ethereal ﬁre. How can the luminous eternal Ananda be something cold and dark, I should like to know?


Sri Aurobindo: 3. Or perhaps you only mean that the Divine Inﬁnite which the calm sages seek is by the very fact of their calm and wisdom something cold, dark, empty, gloomy. Has it not occurred to you that if they really sought for something cold, dark and gloomy as the supreme good, they would not be sages but asses? The sages sought after the Divine as the supreme existence, consciousness and Bliss, the Light beyond lights by which all this shineth, the joy beyond all other joys.


Sri Aurobindo: Even the seekers of the Absolute Indeﬁnable ﬁnd in it the peace that passeth all understanding and that is nothing cold, dark or gloomy. The Nihilistic Buddhists?  But they did not believe in the Divine or in Eternity, only in Nonexistence and what they sought was not the supreme good, but self-extinction and the end of suffering — an intelligible aim, but something quite different from the stress towards the Eternal.  When the vital joins in the love for the Divine, it brings into it heroism, enthusiasm, intensity, absoluteness, exclusiveness, the spirit of self-sacriﬁce, the total and passionate self-giving of all the nature. It is the vital passion for the Divine that creates the spiritual heroes, conquerors or martyrs.


Sri Aurobindo:   I have never said that the vital is to have no part in the love for the Divine, only that it must purify and ennoble itself in the light of the psychic being. The results of self-loving love between human beings are so poor and contrary in the end — that is what I mean by the ordinary vital love — that I want something purer and nobler and higher in the vital also for the movement towards the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo:    The outer being has to learn to love in the psychic way without ego. If it loves in the egoistic vital way, then it only creates difﬁculties for itself and for the sadhana and for the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo:   Yes, that is the nature of vital love. It is based on desire and the sense of claim or sense of possession; psychic love is based on self-giving.


Sri Aurobindo: If the love is absolute and complete and there has never been any vital demand connected with it, then suggestions of revolt cannot come.    Formerly whenever the opening of the heart came you began to associate it with vital enjoyment and turned it upon others instead of turning the love towards the Divine and keeping its essential purity — so also the higher consciousness when it came down was being dispersed in mental movements. This time they were both coming in a purer form, but the danger of the mental and vital forces catching hold of them is still there and then both are likely to stop or break down. So you must be careful to allow no vital deviation this time.


Sri Aurobindo:   Your difﬁculty is that the vital has not yet arrived at the secret of the self-existent Ananda of love, the Ananda of love’s own pure truth, the inner beauty of it for its own sake, the secret of the inner abiding ecstasy; it cannot yet believe that the thing exists.  But it is travelling towards it and this feeling was probably a stage — a groping after a purer vital emotion on the way to the purest of all which is one with the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: What he describes is a vital demand of the ego for emotional self-satisfaction; it Maya. It is not true love, for true love seeks for union and self-giving and that is the love one must bring to the Divine. This vital (so-called) love brings only suffering and disappointment; it does not bring happiness; it never gets satisﬁed and, even if it is granted something that it asks for, it is never satisﬁed with it.  It is perfectly possible to get rid of this Maya of the vital demand, if one wishes to do it, — but the will to do it must be sincere. If he is sincere in his will, he will certainly get help and protection.


Sri Aurobindo:   Generally when people speak of vital intimacy they mean something very external which does not need to be brought down since it is common in human life. If it is the inner vital intimacy with the Divine, then of course that makes the union more complete, provided it is based on the psychic.  It is no part of this Yoga to dry up the heart; but the emotions must be turned towards the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: There may be short periods in which the heart is quiescent, turned away from the ordinary feelings and waiting for the inﬂow from above; but such states are not states of dryness but of silence and peace. The heart in this Yoga should in fact be the main centre of concentration until the consciousness rises above.     Emotion is a good element in Yoga; but emotional becomes easily a cause of perturbation and an obstacle.


Sri Aurobindo: Turn your emotions towards the Divine, aspire for their puriﬁcation; they will then become a help on the way and no longer a cause of suffering.  Not to kill emotion, but to turn it towards the Divine is the right way of the Yoga.  But it must become pure, founded upon spiritual peace and joy, capable of being transmuted into Ananda. Equality and calm in the mind and vital parts, an intense psychic emotion in the heart can perfectly go together.  Awake by your aspiration the psychic ﬁre in the heart that burns steadily towards the Divine — that is the one way to liberate and fulﬁl the emotional nature.


Sri Aurobindo:   Emotion is necessary in the Yoga and it is only the excessive emotional sensitiveness which makes one enter into despondency over small things that has to be overcome. The very basis of this Yoga is bhakti and if one kills one’s emotional being there can be no bhakti. So there can be no possibility of emotion being excluded from the Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is only the ordinary vital emotions, which waste the energy and disturb the concentration and peace, that have to be discouraged. Emotion itself is not a bad thing; it is a necessary part of the nature, and psychic emotion is one of the most powerful helps to the sadhana. Psychic emotion, bringing tears of love for the Divine or tears of ananda, ought not to be suppressed: it is only a vital mixture that brings disturbance in the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: It is quite true that by going above one can get out of all problems, for they no longer exist, but the problems are there below and it is difﬁcult to be always above with so much unsolved and calling for solution. But just as one can go high above, so one can go deep within and it is this going deep within that is needed.  What happened was at the surface of the emotional being and if one simply stays there the difﬁculties of the emotional can come, but what has to be done is not to stay on the surface but go deep within. For the psychic is there behind the emotional surface, deep behind the heart centre.


Sri Aurobindo: Once one reaches it, these things can no longer touch; what will be there is the inner peace and happiness, the untroubled aspiration, the presence or nearness of the Mother.   To indulge in the emotions, love, grief, sorrow, despair, emotional joy etc. for their own sake with a sort of mental-vital over-emphasis on them is what is called sentimentalism. There should be even in deep feeling a calm, a control, a purifying restraint and measure. One should not be at the mercy of one’s feelings and sentiments, but master of oneself always.   When the consciousness indulges in these things [ ] and wallows in the excitement of emotional joy or suffering, that is called sentimentalism.


Sri Aurobindo: There is another kind in which the mind enjoys its perceptions of emotion, love and suffering etc. and plays with them, but that is a less violent and more superﬁcial sentimentalism.  Bhakti is not an experience, it is a state of the heart and soul.  It is a state which comes when the psychic being is awake and prominent.    The very object of Yoga is a change of consciousness — it is by getting a new consciousness or by unveiling the hidden consciousness of the true being within and progressively manifesting and perfecting it that one gets ﬁrst the contact and then the union with the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: Ananda and bhakti are part of that deeper consciousness, and it is only when one lives in it and grows in it that ananda and bhakti can be permanent. Till then, one can only get experiences of ananda and bhakti, but not the constant and permanent state. But the state of bhakti and constantly growing surrender does not come to all at an early stage of the sadhana; many, most indeed, have a long journey of puriﬁcation and tapasya to go through before it opens, and experiences of this kind, at ﬁrst rare and interspaced, afterwards frequent, are the landmarks of their progress. It depends on certain conditions, which have nothing to do with superior or inferior Yoga capacity, but rather with a predisposition in the heart to open, as you say, to the Sun of the divine Inﬂuence.


Sri Aurobindo: You are no doubt right about asking for the bhakti, for I suppose it is the master-claim of your nature: for that matter, it is the strongest motive force that sadhana can have and the best means for all else that has to come. It is why I said that it is through the heart that spiritual experience must come to you.  The loyalty and the rest that you have for me and the Mother may not, as you say, be part of the bhakti itself, but they could not be there were not the bhakti deep inside. It is its coming out in full force into the surface consciousness that is to be brought about and it seems to me that it is inevitable that it should come as the outer coverings fall off. What is within must surely make its way to the surface.


Sri Aurobindo:  You believe in traditional ideas of Yoga — well, according to traditional ideas also, the one easiest method is that of bhakti, reliance, self-giving, What still stands in your way — for it was and is growing towards that in you, is an old confusion in mind and vital. The heart says, “I want bhakti”, the mind says, “No, no, let us reason”, the vital says, “Nonsense, I can’t surrender.” What you need is to quiet down that confusion created by the mind’s past sanskaras and either ﬁx on the one thing or harmonise. Bhakti as the basic force, knowledge, strength and joy in the Divine as the result — that is the harmony proposed in this Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: But in either way, if either is done, then peace becomes easily possible.     What I meant by the change was the great improvement in your mental and vital attitude and reactions to outward things and to life which was very evident in your letters and account of happenings and gave them quite a new atmosphere warm and clear and psychic. Naturally the change is not yet absolute and integral, but it does seem to be fundamental.


Sri Aurobindo: Moreover, it is certainly due to a growing bhakti within, especially an acceptance of bhakti as your path and of the implications of that acceptance. The mind has taken a new poise less intellectual and more psychic. What prevents you from seeing the growth of bhakti (sometimes you have seen it and written about it) is a continuance of the physical mind which sets going with a constant repetitionary whirl of its ﬁxed ideas whenever there is any touch of depression. One of these ideas is that you don’t progress, will not progress and can never progress, the old thing that used to say, “Yoga is not for the likes of me” etc. The activity of the physical mind (next to the wrong activity of the vital) is what most keeps one’s consciousness on the surface and prevents it from being conscious within and of what goes on within; it can see something of what happens on the surface of the nature, the results of the inner movement but not the cause of the happenings, which is the inner movement itself.


Sri Aurobindo: That is one reason why I like to see the physical mind occupied in poetry and music etc. and other salubrious activities which help the inner growth and in which the inner bhakti can express itself, for that keeps the physical mind busy, unoccupied with the mechanical rotatory movement and allows and helps the inner growth. The rotatory movement is less than it was before and I expect it one of these days to get tired of itself and give up altogether.    What you felt about replacement is quite true. The transformation proceeds to a large extent by a taking away or throwing out of the old superﬁcial self and its movements and replacing them by a new deeper self and its true action.


Sri Aurobindo: It does not matter if the higher feelings, devotion etc. seem to you sometimes like an inﬂuence or colouring. It looks like that when you feel yourself in the external physical or outer vital or outer mind. These feelings really are those of your inmost self, your soul, the psychic in you and when you are in the psychic consciousness, they become normal and natural.  But when your consciousness shifts and becomes more external, then these workings of the soul or of the divine consciousness are felt as themselves external, as merely an inﬂuence. All the same, you have to open yourself to them constantly and they will then more and more either soak in steadily or come in successive waves or ﬂoods and go on till they have ﬁlled the mind, the vital, the body.


Sri Aurobindo: You will then feel them always as not only normal but as part of your very self and the true substance of your nature.     The ﬂow of devotion and love is a thing which the more it repeats or awakens is bound to overﬂow to all the parts of being and have its effect on them.


Sri Aurobindo:   If it is the way of that you want to follow, that can be no obstacle; for there can be none better. For in that way everything can be made a means — poetry and music for instance become not merely poetry and music and not merely even an expression of bhakti, but themselves a means of bringing the experience of love and bhakti. Meditation itself becomes not an effort of mental concentration, but a ﬂow of love and adoration and worship. If simply and sincerely followed, the way of can lead as far as any other.


Sri Aurobindo:   There can be no such thing as a mechanical and artiﬁcial devotion — there is either devotion or there is not. Devotion may be intense or not intense, complete or incomplete, sometimes manifest and sometimes veiled, but mechanical or artiﬁcial devotion is a contradiction in terms.


Sri Aurobindo: These [] are the exaggerations made by the mind taking one side of Truth and ignoring the other sides. The inner bhakti is the main thing and without it the external becomes a form and mere ritual, but the external has its place and use when it is straightforward and sincere.     Bhakti should be for the Divine only — the sadhaks are sadhaks, trying to reach the Divine, but still full of faults and struggles.


Sri Aurobindo:   A “bhakti” which claims everything from the Divine and does not give itself is not real bhakti.  The nature of bhakti is adoration, worship, self-offering to what is greater than oneself — the nature of love is a feeling or seeking for closeness and union. Self-giving is the character of both; both are necessary in the Yoga and each gets its full force when supported by the other.


Sri Aurobindo:  Love is not a name of the Divine, it is a power of his consciousness and being. Bhakti and love are not quite the same thing, but love is one of the elements of bhakti. There are different kinds of bhakti and that which is of the nature of love is the strongest and is considered the highest, most intense and ecstatic of all.  Also in love itself that form of it which is made of self-giving; surrender, absolute adoration, urge towards a selﬂess union is the true kind of bhakti that is love. “Conquering love” or “Love the victor” means love prevailing over all that stands in the way of its reign, over ignorance, falsehood, selﬁshness, ego, passion and lust, outward or self-regarding desires and all else till it reigns alone and victorious, bringing down all the other gifts of the Divine Consciousness.


Sri Aurobindo: It is by force of love and selﬂessness and self-giving that the sadhak can help Love to conquer.   I suppose it [] is bhakti with love as its basis; there can be bhakti of worship, submission, reverence, obedience etc. but without love.   Selﬂessness, self-giving, entire faith and conﬁdence, absence of demand and desire, surrender to the Divine Will, love concentrated on the Divine — are some of the main signs [ ].  It is a misunderstanding to suppose that I am against Bhakti or against emotional Bhakti — which comes to the same thing, since without emotion there can be no Bhakti. It is rather the fact that in my writings on Yoga I have given Bhakti the highest place.


Sri Aurobindo: All that I have said at any time which could account for this misunderstanding was against an emotionalism which, according to my experience, leads to want of balance, agitated and disharmonious expression or even contrary reactions and, at its extreme, nervous disorder. But the insistence on puriﬁcation does not mean that I condemn true feeling and emotion any more than the insistence on a puriﬁed mind or will means that I condemn thought and will. On the contrary, the deeper the emotion, the more intense the Bhakti, the greater is the force for realisation and transformation. It is oftenest through intensity of emotion that the psychic being awakes and there is an opening of the inner doors to the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: If one does not encourage the devotion of the emotional being merely because the lower vital is not yet under control and acts differently, then how is the devotion to grow and how is the lower vital to change? Until the ﬁnal clariﬁcation and harmonising of the nature there are always contradictions in the being, but that is not a reason for in any way suppressing the play of the better movements — on the contrary it is these that should be cultivated and made to increase.   It [] has its place, only it must not be always thrown outward but pressed inward so as to open fully the psychic doors.   The emotional [] is more outward than the psychic [ ] — it tends towards outward expression. The psychic is inward and gives the direction to the whole inner and outer life.


Sri Aurobindo: The emotional can be intense, but is neither so sure in its basis nor powerful enough to change the whole direction of the life.  Vital bhakti is usually full of desires and demands, — it expects a return for what it gives; it loves the Divine more for its own sake than for the sake of the Divine. If it does not get what it wants, it is capable of revolting or turning elsewhere. It is often pursued by jealousy, misunderstanding, unfaithfulness, anger etc., — the usual imperfections of human love, and can turn these against its object of bhakti. On the other hand, if there is vital bhakti governed by the psychic, these defects disappear and the vital gives an ardour and enthusiasm to the love and bhakti which gives it a greater push for effectuation in action and life.


Sri Aurobindo: The vital should always be the instrument of the soul for self-expression in life and not act on its own account (ego, desire) or on its own separate impulse.    The vital bhakti is egoistic, usually full of claims and demands on the Divine and revolting when they are not satisﬁed. The mental is simply a worship in the thought and idea without love in the heart.


Sri Aurobindo: It [] is because it is the analysing mind that is active — that always brings a certain dryness; the higher mind or the intuition bring a much more spontaneous and complete knowledge — the beginning of the real Jnana without this effect. The bhakti which you feel is psychic, but with a strong vital tinge; and it is the mind and the vital between them that bring in the opposition between the bhakti and the Jnana. The vital concerned only with emotion ﬁnds the mental knowledge dry and without rasa, the mind ﬁnds the bhakti to be a blind emotion fully interesting only when its character has been analysed and understood. There is no such opposition when the psychic and the higher plane knowledge act together predominantly — the psychic welcomes knowledge that supports its emotion, the higher thought consciousness rejoices in the bhakti.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a mistake to think that a constant absence of is a sign that the aspiration or will for the Divine is not true. It is only in certain exclusive forms of Bhakti Yoga that a constant  or weeping or (the latter is more often vital than psychic) is the rule. Here though the psychic yearning may come sometimes or often in intense waves, what comes as the basis is a quietude of the being and in that quietude a more and more steady perception of the truth and seeking for the Divine and need of the Divine so that all is turned towards that more and more. It is into this that the experience and growing realisation come. Because the opening is growing in you, you are getting this of the presence (beyond form) of the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: It is as the inner realisation grows that the presence in the physical form takes its full value.   is a transitional experience on the plane of the vital seeking for the Spirit — there is no reason why it should not be possible at a quite early stage. It is the realisations without any uneasiness, realisations in pure Ananda that belong to the more developed sadhana.    The pure feeling of is psychic — but if rajasic or tamasic movements come in (such as depression, complaint, revolt etc.) then it becomes tamasic or rajasic.


Sri Aurobindo:   Pangs of separation belong to the vital, not to the psychic; the psychic having no pangs need not express them. The psychic is always turned towards the Divine in faith, joy and conﬁdence — whatever aspiration it has is full of trust and hope.  I have not had time yet to write about the enmity theory.


Sri Aurobindo: I will do so more fully in two or three days. But I may say at once that the idea does not seem to me at all true that by enmity to the Divine one can reach the Divine and that too more quickly than by bhakti. The idea is contrary to the spiritual truth of things, to reason, to nature and to experience.   As regards your defence of, they sound like’s own ideas and very queer ideas they are. If they are right, we should have to come to the following conclusions — 1.


Sri Aurobindo: Sattwa is not the best passage towards realisation, Rajas is the best way to become spiritual. It is the rajasic man with his ﬁerce ego and violent passions who is the true sadhak of the Divine.  2. The Asura is the best bhakta. The Gita is quite wrong in holding up the Deva nature as the condition of realisation and the Asura nature as contrary to it.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the other way round.   3. Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Shishupala were the greatest devotees of the Divine because they were capable of hostility to the Divine and so were liberated in a few lives — compared with them the great Rishis and Bhaktas were very poor spiritual vessels. I am aware of the paradox about Ravana in the Purana, but let me point out that these Asuras and Rakshasas did not pretend to be disciples or worshippers of Rama or Krishna or Vishnu or use their position as disciples to get moksha by revolt — they got it by being enemies and getting killed and absorbed into the Godhead.


Sri Aurobindo: 4. Obedience to the Guru, worship of the Divine are all tommy rot and ﬁt only for sheep, not men. To turn round furiously on the Guru or the Divine, abuse him, express contempt, challenge his sincerity, declare his actions to be wrong, foolish or a trick — to assert oneself as right at every point and his judgment as mistaken, prejudiced, absurd, false, a support of devils etc. etc. is the best way of devotion and the true relation between Guru and Shishya. Disobedience is the highest respect to the Guru, anger and revolt are the noblest worship one can give to the Divine.


Sri Aurobindo: 5. One who takes the blows of Mahakali with joy as a means of discovering his faults and increasing in light and strength and purity is a sheep and unworthy of disciplehood — one who responds to the quietest pressure to change by revolt and persisting in his errors is a strong man and a mighty adhar and a noble disciple on the way to perfection.  I could go on multiplying the consequences, but I have no time. Do you really believe all these things? They are the natural consequences of’s theory or of this theory of revolt as the way to perfection.


Sri Aurobindo: If you accept the premiss, you have to accept the logical consequences. That is what did — only he called his errors Truth and the way prescribed by me was falsehood explicable only by the fact that I was a “Master who had forgotten his higher self”. And the consequences led to his departure, not willed by us, but by his own choice — and under such circumstances that he has made it a practical impossibility for me to let him come back unless he undergoes a change which the experience of the past does not warrant me in thinking possible.  Aspiration and devotion are the natural and easy means for getting the contact. The other way by effort is laborious, slow and not sure.


Sri Aurobindo: The mind must open, but it will open best by the power of devotion and aspiration.    The more the calm, peace, joy and happiness descend and take possession, the stronger the foundation. It is the sign of the contact.  The other thing needed is the descent of the consciousness which you felt in the heart and breast.


Sri Aurobindo: That will come of itself, if this devotion and sole dependence on the Light continues.    The psychic contact does not bring mental knowledge, but it brings true perception and true feeling and it can bring down also, if you aspire from the psychic centre, a knowledge higher and truer than intellectual knowledge.


Sri Aurobindo: Quietude and surrender are the ﬁrst things to be established.  In that must come the full contact. By that contact, if well established, will come a steady progressive sadhana, not the old confused sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: When you fall from the contact, the ﬁrst and only thing you have to do is to reestablish it — to remain quiet and open yourself.  Everything else you must detach yourself from and reject. It is because you listen to ideas and suggestions of all kinds and still attach value to the old kind of “experiences”, that you cannot reestablish the contact.


Sri Aurobindo: As for not having it [] always, it is because there are parts of the being that are still unconscious or perhaps states of unconsciousness come. For instance, people write letters to each other, but they are quite unconscious that they are exchanging forces in doing so. You have become conscious of it, because of the development of your inner consciousness by Yoga — and yet there are likely to be times when you still write from the external awareness only, and then you will see the words only without being aware of what is behind. So owing to the development of the inner consciousness, you are able to understand what contacts are and get the true contact, but at times the external consciousness may be stronger than the inner one, then you are no longer (for the time being) able to get the contact.


Sri Aurobindo: The photograph is a vehicle only — but if you have the right consciousness, then you can bring something of the living being into it or become aware of the being for which it stands and can make it a means of contact. It is like the in the image in the temple.  Seeing is of many kinds. There is a superﬁcial seeing which only erects or receives momentarily or for some time an image of the Being seen; that brings no change, unless the inner bhakti makes it a means for change. There is also the reception of the image of the Divine in one of his forms into oneself, — say, in the heart, — that can have an immediate effect or initiate a period of spiritual growth.


Sri Aurobindo: There is also the seeing outside oneself in a more or less objective and subtle physical or physical way.  As for, the abiding union is within and that can be there at all times; the outer or contact is not usually abiding. There are some who often or almost invariably have the contact whenever they worship; the Deity may become living to them in the picture or other image they worship, may move and act through it; others may him always present, outwardly, subtle-physically, abiding with them where they live or in the very room; but sometimes this is only for a period. Or they may feel the Presence with them, see it frequently in a body (but not materially except sometimes), feel its touch or embrace, converse with it constantly, — that is also one kind of.  The greatest is one in which one is constantly aware of the Deity constantly abiding in oneself, in everything in the world, holding all the world in him, identical with existence and yet supremely beyond the world — but in the world too one sees, hears, feels nothing but him, so that the very senses bear witness to him alone — and this does exclude such speciﬁc personal manifestations as those vouchsafed to Krishnaprem and his guru.


Sri Aurobindo: The more ways there are of the union, the better.    Adesh and darshan are elements of a stage of sadhana in which there is still much distance from the closer state of union. The mind and vital seek the contact through darshan and the guidance through Adesh. What we aim at in our Yoga is the constant union and presence and control of the Divine at every moment.


Sri Aurobindo: But on the mental and vital level this usually remains imperfect and there is much chance of error. It is by the supramentalisation that the perfect Truth of this Divine Union in action can come.  There is no restriction in this Yoga to inward worship and meditation only. As it is a Yoga for the whole being, not for the inner being only, no such restriction could be intended. Old forms of the different religions may fall away, but absence of all forms is not the rule of the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo:   I was thinking [] not of Pranam etc. which have a living value, but of old forms which persist although they have no longer any value — e.g. Sraddha for the dead. Also here forms which have no relation to this Yoga — for instance Christians who cling to the Christian forms or Mahomedans to the Namaz or Hindus to the Sandhyavandana in the old way may soon ﬁnd them either falling off or else an obstacle to the free development of their sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: What is meant by? If it is purely external, then of course it is the lowest form; but if done with the true consciousness inside, it can bring the greatest completeness of the adoration by allowing the body and the most external consciousness to share in the spirit and act of worship.


Sri Aurobindo: What you say is no doubt true, but it is better not to take away the support that may still be there for the faith of those who need such supports. These visions and images and ceremonies are meant for that. It is a spiritual principle not to take away any faith or support of faith unless the persons who have it are able to replace it by something larger and more complete.  If the brings down a powerful Presence [ ], that may remain there long after the one who has brought it has left his body. Usually it is maintained by the bhakti of the ofﬁciant and the sincerity of belief and worship of those who come to the temple for adoration.


Sri Aurobindo: If these fail there is likely to be a withdrawal of the Presence.    The “scientiﬁc” explanation [ ] would be that somebody, a servant perhaps, disregarding prohibitions got secretly in and polished off the food of offering when there was nobody to see!  That however assumes that occult manifestations are impossible, which is not the case; it is besides only a probable inference or theory. Occultists, or some of them, hold that the food offered to unseen beings is sometimes (but not by any means always) taken in its subtle elements, leaving the outward body of the food as it was.


Sri Aurobindo: The actual taking of the food, physically, is rare, but instances are believed to have happened where the bhakti was very strong.  Prayer and aspiration are a part of the spiritual life and do not conﬂict with surrender, provided one is not disturbed in either way by the fulﬁlment or unfulﬁlment of the prayer and keeps one’s faith and quietude all the same. In the ordinary life prayer is one of the chief elements of human relation with the Divine and is often but not always answered; when it is not answered the religious man keeps his faith in the Divine and either understands that to answer was not the Divine Will or else he prays more fervently till his prayer is heard — that depends on the man and the circumstances. A sadhak can intercede internally for others in their affairs, provided he remains unattached and equal-minded, but he is not bound to intervene.   Of course all prayer is not heard — the world would be a still more disastrous affair than it is, if everybody’s prayers were heard, however sincere.