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Sri Aurobindo: They were, if I may say so, representative cosmic men who were instruments of a divine Intervention for ﬁxing certain things in the evolution of the earth-race. I stick to that and refuse to submit myself in this argument to any other standard whatever. I did not admit that Rama was a blind Avatar, but offered you two alternatives of which the latter represents my real view founded on the impression made on me by the Ramayana that Rama knew very well but refused to be talkative about it — his business being not to disclose the Divine, but to ﬁx mental, moral and emotional man (not to originate him for he was there already) on the earth as against the Animal and the Rakshasa forces. My argument from Chaitanya (who was for most of the time, ﬁrst a pandit and then a bhakta, but only occasionally the Divine himself) is perfectly rational and logical, if you follow my line and don’t insist on a high speciﬁcally spiritual consciousness for the Avatar. I shall point out what I mean in my next.
Sri Aurobindo: By sattwic man I do not mean a moral or an always selfcontrolled one, but a predominantly mental (as opposed to a vital or merely physical man) who has rajasic emotions and passions, but lives predominantly according to his mind and its will and ideas. There is no such thing, I suppose, as a purely sattwic man — since the three gunas go always together in a state of unstable equilibrium, but a predominantly sattwic man is what I have described. My impression of Rama from Valmiki is such — it is quite different from yours. I am afraid your picture of him is quite out of focus — you efface the main lines of the character, belittle and brush out all the lights to which Valmiki gave so much value and prominence and hammer always at some details and some parts of shadow which you turn into the larger part of Rama. That is what the debunkers do — but a debunked ﬁgure is not the true ﬁgure.
Sri Aurobindo: By the way, a sattwic man can have strong passion and strong anger — and when he lets the latter loose, the normally violent fellow is simply nowhere. Witness the outbursts of anger of Christ, the indignation of Chaitanya — and the general evidence of experience and psychology on that point. All this however by the way — I shall try to develop later. P. S. The trait of Rama which you give as that of an undeveloped man, viz., his decisive spontaneous action according to the will and the idea that came to him, is a trait of the cosmic man and many Vibhutis, men of action of the large Caesarian or Napoleonic type.
Sri Aurobindo: That also I hope to develop sometime. Why should Rama not have as well as? — they were supposed to go together as between husband and wife in ancient India. The performances of Rama in the of Sita are due to Valmiki’s poetic idea which was also Kalidasa’s and everybody else’s in those far-off times about how a complete lover should behave in such a quandary. Whether the actual Rama bothered himself to do all that is another matter.
Sri Aurobindo: As for the unconscious Avatar, why not? Chaitanya is supposed to be an Avatar by the Vaishnavas, yet he was conscious of the Godhead behind only when that Godhead came in front and possessed him on rare occasions. Christ said “I and my Father are one”, but yet he always spoke and behaved as if there were a difference. Ramakrishna’s earlier period was that of one seeking God, not aware from the ﬁrst of his identity. These are the reputed religious Avatars who ought to be more conscious than a man of action like Rama.
Sri Aurobindo: And supposing the full and permanent consciousness, why should the Avatar proclaim himself except on rare occasions to an Arjuna or to a few bhaktas or disciples? It is for others to ﬁnd out what he is; though he does not deny when others speak of him as That, he is not always saying and perhaps never may say or only in moments like that of the Gita, “I am He.” When I said, “Why not an unconscious Avatar?” I was taking statement (not mine) that Rama was unconscious and how could there be an unconscious Avatar. My own view is that Rama was not blind, not unconscious of his Avatarhood, only uncommunicative about it.
Sri Aurobindo: But I said that even taking your statement to be correct, the objection was not insuperable. I instanced the case of Chaitanya and the others, because there the facts are hardly disputable. Chaitanya for the ﬁrst part of his life was simply Nimai Pandit and had no consciousness of being anything else. Then he had his conversion and became the bhakta, Chaitanya. This bhakta at times seemed to be possessed by the presence of Krishna, knew himself to be Krishna, spoke, moved and appeared with the light of the Godhead — none around him could think of or see him as anything else when he was in this gloriﬁed and transﬁgured condition.
Sri Aurobindo: But from that he fell back to the ordinary consciousness of the bhakta and, as I have read in his biography, refused then to consider himself as anything more. These, I think, are the facts. Well then, what do they signify? Was he only Nimai Pandit at ﬁrst? It is quite conceivable that he was so and the descent of the Godhead into him only took place after his conversion and spiritual change.
Sri Aurobindo: But also afterwards when he was in his normal bhakta-consciousness, was he then no longer the Avatar? An intermittent Avatarhood? Krishna coming down for an afternoon call into Chaitanya and then going up again till the time came for the next visit? I ﬁnd it difﬁcult to believe in this phenomenon.
Sri Aurobindo: The rational explanation is that in the phenomenon of Avatarhood there is a Consciousness behind, at ﬁrst veiled or sometimes perhaps only half-veiled, which is that of the Godhead and a frontal consciousness, human or apparently human or at any rate with all the appearance of terrestriality, which is the instrumental Personality. In that case, it is possible that the secret Consciousness was all along there, but waited to manifest until after the conversion; and it manifested intermittently because the main work of Chaitanya was to establish the type of a spiritual and psychic bhakti and love in the emotional vital part of man, preparing the vital in us in that way to turn towards the Divine — at any rate, to ﬁx that possibility in the earth-nature. It was not that there had not been the emotional type of bhakti before; but the completeness of it, the, the vital’s rapture in it had never manifested as it manifested in Chaitanya. But for that work it would never have done if he had always been in the Krishna consciousness; he would have been the Lord to whom all gave bhakti, but not the supreme example of the divine ecstatic bhakta. At the same time the occasional manifestation showed who he was and at the same time evidenced the mystic law of the Immanence.
Sri Aurobindo: Voil`a — for Chaitanya. But, if Chaitanya, the frontal consciousness, the instrumental Personality, was all the time the Avatar, yet except in his highest moments was unconscious of it and even denied it, that pushed a little farther would establish the possibility of what you call an unconscious Avatar — that is to say, of one in which the veiled consciousness might not come in front but always move the instrumental Personality from behind. The frontal consciousness might be aware in the inner parts of its being that it was only an instrument of Something Divine which was its real Self, but outwardly would think, speak and behave as if it were only the human being doing a given work with a peculiar power and splendour. Whether there was such an Avatar or not is another matter, but logically it is quite possible.
Sri Aurobindo: What is all this obsession of greater or less? In our Yoga we do not strive after greatness. It is not a question of Sri Krishna’s disciples, but of the earth consciousness — Rama was a mental man, there is no touch of the overmind consciousness (direct) in anything he said or did, but what he did was done with the greatness of the Avatar. But there have since been men who did live in touch with the planes above mind — higher mind, illumined mind, Intuition. There is no question of asking whether they were “greater” than Rama; they might have been less “great”, but they were able to live from a new plane of consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo: And Krishna’s opening the overmind certainly made it possible for the attempt at bringing Supermind to the earth to be made. About greater and less, one point. Is Captain John Higgins of S.S. a greater man than Christopher Columbus because he can reach America without trouble in a few days? Is a university graduate in philosophy greater than Plato because he can reason about problems and systems which had never even occurred to Plato?
Sri Aurobindo: No, only humanity has acquired greater scientiﬁc power which any good navigator can use or a wider intellectual knowledge which anyone with a philosophic training can use. You will say greater scientiﬁc power and wider knowledge is not a change of consciousness. Very well, but there are Rama and Ramakrishna. Rama spoke always from the thinking intelligence, the common property of developed men; Ramakrishna spoke constantly from a swift and luminous spiritual intuition. Can you tell me which is the greater?
Sri Aurobindo: the Avatar recognised by all India? or the saint and Yogi recognised as an Avatar only by his disciples and some others who follow them? Krishna is not the supramental light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually bringing, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya, he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards his Ananda.
Sri Aurobindo: What Krishna worked for was the Overmind consciousness acting in the mind and vital. What was said was that Krishna as a manifestation on earth opened the possibility of the Overmind consciousness here to men and stood for that, as Rama was the incarnation in mental Man. If Krishna was overmind “God”, that means he was not an Incarnation, not the Divine, but somebody else who claimed to be the Divine — i.e. he was a god who somehow thought he was God.
Sri Aurobindo: I suppose very few recognised him [] as an Avatar; certainly it was not at all a general recognition. Among the few those nearest him do not seem to have counted — it was less prominent people like Vidura etc. Those who were with Krishna were in all appearance men like other men.
Sri Aurobindo: They spoke and acted with each other as men with men and were not thought of by those around them as gods. Krishna himself was known by most as a man — only a few worshipped him as the Divine. may be used in a general sense, as in English “from age to age” and not refer technically to the proper according to the Puranic computation.
Sri Aurobindo: But the has an air of referring to very numerous lives especially when coupled with . In that case all these many births could not be full incarnations, — many may have been merely Vibhuti births carrying on the thread from incarnation to incarnation. About Arjuna’s accompanying him in each and every birth, nothing is said, but it would not be likely — many, of course. He [] afﬁrmed practically something unknowable that was Permanent and Unmanifested. Adwaita does the same.
Sri Aurobindo: Buddha never said he was an Avatar of a Personal God but that he was the Buddha. It is the Hindus who made him an Avatar. If Buddha had looked upon himself as an Avatar at all, it would have been as an Avatar of the impersonal Truth. If a Divine Consciousness and Force descended and through the personality we call Buddha did a great work for the world, then Buddha can be called an Avatar — the tapasya and arriving at knowledge are only an incident of the manifestation.
Sri Aurobindo: If on the other hand Buddha was only a human being like many others who arrived at some knowledge and preached it, then he was not an Avatar — for of that kind there have been thousands and they cannot be all Avatars. I don’t know that historically there could have been any other Buddha. It is the Vaishnava Puranas, I think, that settled the list of Avatars, for they are all Avatars of Vishnu according to the Purana. The ﬁnal acceptance by all may have come later than Shankara, after the Buddhist-Brahminic controversy had ceased to be an actuality.
Sri Aurobindo: For some time there was a tendency to substitute Balarama’s name for Buddha’s or to say that Buddha was an Avatar of Vishnu, but that he came to mislead the Asuras. He is evidently aimed at in the story of Mayamoha in the Vishnu Purana. He [] had a more powerful vital than Ramakrishna, a stupendous will and an invincible mind of thought. If he had led the ordinary life, he would have been a great organiser, conqueror and creator.
Sri Aurobindo: Mahomed would himself have rejected the idea of being an Avatara, so we have to regard him only as the prophet, the instrument, the Vibhuti. Christ realised himself as the Son who is one with the Father — he must therefore be an, a partial incarnation. He [] never wrote an autobiography. What he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly quite as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya.
Sri Aurobindo: Augustus Caesar organised the life of the Roman Empire and it was this that made the framework of the ﬁrst transmission of the Graeco-Roman civilisation to Europe — he came for that work and the writings of Virgil and Horace and others helped greatly towards the success of his mission. After the interlude of the Middle Ages, this civilisation was reborn in a new mould in what is called the Renaissance, not in its life-aspects but in its intellectual aspects. It was therefore a supreme intellectual, Leonardo da Vinci, who took up again the work and summarised in himself the seeds of modern Europe. Never heard before of my declaring or anybody declaring such a thing [ ].
Sri Aurobindo: What Leonardo da Vinci held in himself was all the new age of Europe on its many sides. But there was no question of Avatarhood or consciousness of a descent or pressure of spiritual planes. Mysticism was no part of what he had to manifest. I don’t think it can be said that Napoleon had little of ego. He was exceedingly ego-centric.
Sri Aurobindo: He made himself a dictator from Brumaire, and as a dictator he should always have acted — but he felt the need of support and made the error of seeking it in the democratic way — a way for which he was utterly unﬁt. He had the capacities of a ruler but not of a politician — as a politician he would have been an entire failure. His hesitations were due to this defect — if it can be called one. He could not have dealt successfully with parties or a parliamentary assembly.
Sri Aurobindo: I never heard that Napoleon failed at Waterloo for want of self-conﬁdence. I have always read that he failed because he was, owing to his recent malady, no longer so quick and selfconﬁdent in decision and so supple in mental resource as before. Please don’t rewrite history unless you have data for your novel version. Why should the Divine not care for the outer greatness? He cares for everything in the universe.
Sri Aurobindo: All greatness is the Vibhuti of the Divine, says the Gita. Obviously outer greatness is not the aim of Yoga. But that is no reason why one should not recognise the part played by greatness in the order of the universe or the place of great men of action, great poets and artists etc.
Sri Aurobindo: People have begun to try to prove that great men were not great, which is a very big mistake. If greatness is not appreciated by men, the world will become mean, small, dull, narrow and tamasic. By greatness is meant an exceptional capacity of one kind or another which makes a man eminent among his fellows.
Sri Aurobindo: That kind of greatness [] has nothing to do with the psychic. It consists in a special mental capacity (Raman, Tagore) or in a great vital force which enables them to lead men and dominate them. These faculties are often but not always accompanied by something in the personality Daivic or Asuric which supports their action and gives to men an impression of greatness apart even from the special capacity — the sense of a great personality.
Sri Aurobindo: Most great men know perfectly well that they are great. It is the power in them [] that is great and that power comes from the Divine — by their actions and greatness they help the world and aid the cosmic purpose. It does not matter whether they have ego or not — they are not doing Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo: If a man rises to a higher plane of consciousness, it does not necessarily follow that he will be a greater man of action or a greater creator. One may rise to spiritual planes of inspiration undreamed of by Shakespeare and yet not be as great a poetic creator as Shakespeare. “Greatness” is not the object of spiritual realisation any more than fame or success in the world — how are these things the standard of spiritual realisation?
Sri Aurobindo: Of course you can [] — there is no need of being great. On the contrary humility is the ﬁrst necessity, for one who has ego and pride cannot realise the Highest. Each one can be truly great only in the measure in which he feels and opens to the source of all greatness, the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo: It is not only the very very very big people who are of importance to the Divine. All energy, strong capacity, power of effectuation are of importance. As for Napoleon, Caesar and Shakespeare, not one of them was a virtuous man, but they were great men — and that was your contention, that only virtuous men are great men and those who have vices are not great, which is an absurd contention. All of them went after women — two were ambitious, unscrupulous. Napoleon was most arrogant and violent.
Sri Aurobindo: Shakespeare stole deer, Napoleon lied freely, Caesar was without scruples. But do you really believe that men like Napoleon, Caesar, Shakespeare were not great men and did nothing for the world or for the cosmic purpose? that God was deterred from using them for His purpose because they had defects of character and vices? What a singular idea!
Sri Aurobindo: Why should he [] care []? Is he a policeman? So long as one is in the ordinary nature, one has qualities and defects, virtues and vices.
Sri Aurobindo: When one goes beyond, there are no virtues and vices, — for these things do not belong to the Divine Nature. Yes, certainly. Many great men even have often very great vices and many of them.
Sri Aurobindo: Great men are not usually model characters. They [] have more energy and the energy comes out in what men call vices as well as in what men call virtues. Men with great capacities or a powerful mind or a powerful vital have very often more glaring defects of character than ordinary men — or at least the defects of the latter do not show so much, being like themselves, smaller in scale.
Sri Aurobindo: Great or dazzling, or small in their ﬁeld, ambition is ambition and it is necessary for most for an energetic action. What is the use of calling a thing a vice when it is small and glorifying it when it is big? Each follows in the world his own line of destiny which is determined by his own nature and actions — the meaning and necessity of what happens in a particular life cannot be understood except in the light of the whole course of many lives. But this can be seen by those who can get beyond the ordinary mind and feelings and see things as a whole, that even errors, misfortunes, calamities are steps in the journey, the soul gathering experience as it passes through and beyond them until it is ripe for the transition which will carry it beyond these things to a higher consciousness and higher life.
Sri Aurobindo: When one comes to that line of crossing one has to leave behind one the old mind and feelings. One looks then on those who are still ﬁxed in the pleasures and sorrows of the ordinary world with sympathy and wherever it is possible with spiritual helpfulness, but no longer with attachment. One learns that they are being led through all their stumblings and trusts to the universal Power that is watching and supporting their existence to do for them whatever for them is the best. But the one thing that is really important for us is to get into the greater Light and the Divine Union — to turn to the Divine alone, to put our trust there alone whether for ourselves or for others.
Sri Aurobindo: Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives in the Ignorance. What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated in the past acting on each other and determining the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of spiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor, the Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma which can lift the sadhak beyond the present possibilities of his nature.
Sri Aurobindo: One’s spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the future. The only doubt is about the vicissitudes of the path and the time to be taken by the passage. It is here that the hostile forces playing on the weaknesses of the past nature strive to prevent the rapidity of the progress and to postpone the fulﬁlment. Those who fell, fell not because of the attacks of the vital forces, but because they put themselves on the side of the hostile Force and preferred a vital ambition or desire (ambition, vanity, lust, etc.) to the spiritual siddhi. Each has his own destiny which he brings with him into the world.
Sri Aurobindo: Each has his own destiny and his entering into a particular family in one life is only an incident. Obviously, neither Nature nor Destiny nor the Divine work in the mental way or by the law of the mind or according to its standards — that is why even to the scientist and the philosopher Nature, Destiny, the way of the Divine, all remain a mystery.
Sri Aurobindo: Nature is very largely what you make of her — or can make of her. Destiny is not an absolute, it is a relative. One can alter it for the better or the worse.
Sri Aurobindo: It is difﬁcult indeed to make out what Planck means in these pages — what is his conclusion and how he arrives at it; he has probably so condensed his arguments that the necessary explanatory links are missing. The free will affair, I see by glancing through the previous pages, arises only incidentally from his position that the new discoveries grouped round the quantum theory do not make a radical difference in physics. If there is a tendency to regard laws as statistical — in which case there is no “strict causality” and no determinism — still there is nothing to prove that they cannot be treated and may not be advantageously treated as dynamical also — in which case determinism can stand; the uncertainty of individual behaviour (electrons, quanta) does not really undermine determinism, but only brings a new feature into it. That seems from a hasty glance to be his position. Certain scientiﬁc thinkers consider this uncertainty of individual behaviour to be a physical factor correspondent to the element of free will in individual human beings.
Sri Aurobindo: It is here that Planck brings in the question of free will to refute the conclusion that it affects strict causality and the law of determinism. His argument, as far as I can make it out, is this: (1) The law of strict causality stands because any given action or inner happening of the individual human being is an effect determined completely by two causes, (a) the previous state of his mind taken as a whole, (b) external inﬂuences. ( 2
Sri Aurobindo: ) The will is a mental process completely determined by these two factors; therefore it is not free, it is part of the chain of strict causality — as are also the results of the free will. (3) What is important is not the actual freedom of the will, but the man’s consciousness of freedom. This creates an inner experience of conscious motive which again creates fresh motives and so on indeﬁnitely. For this reason it is impossible for a man to predict his future action — for at any moment a fresh motive may arise.
Sri Aurobindo: But when we look back at the past, then the concatenation of cause and effect becomes apparent. (4) The fact of strict causality (or at least the theory of it) stands therefore unshaken by the consciousness of free will of the individual. It is only obscured by the fact that a man cannot predict his own actions or grasp the causes of his present state; but that is because here the subject and object are the same and this subject-object is in a state of constant alterative motion unlike an object outside, which is supposed not to change as a result of the inner movements of the knower. There is a reference to causal law and ethical law which bafﬂes me. Is the “ethical law” something outside the strict chain of effects and causes?
Sri Aurobindo: Is there such a thing at all? If “strict causality” rules all, what is such an ethical law doing there? That is the argument so far as I can follow it, but it does not seem to me very conclusive. If a man’s conduct cannot be predicted by himself, neither can it be predicted by anyone else, though here the subject and object are not the same; if not predictable, then it must be for the same reason, the element of free will and the mobility created by the possible indeﬁnite intrusion of fresh motives. If that is so, strict causality cannot be afﬁrmed, though a plastic causality in which the power of choice called by us free will is an element (either as one among many contributory causes or as an instrument of a cause beyond itself) can still be asserted as possible.
Sri Aurobindo: The statement that the action of the individual is strictly determined by his total mental state + external inﬂuences is doubtful and does not lead very far. It is possible to undermine the whole idea of inevitable causality by holding that the total existing state before a happening is only the condition under which it happens — there are a mass of antecedents and there is a sequent, if it may be so called, or a mass of sequences, but nothing proves that the latter are inevitable consequences of the mass of antecedents. Possibly this total existing state is a matrix into which some seed of happening is thrown or becomes active, so that there may be many possible results, and in the case of human action it is conceivable that free will is or at least determining factor. I do not think therefore that these arguments of Planck carry us very far. There is also of course the question raised in the book itself whether, granting determinism, a local state of things is an independent ﬁeld of causality or all is so bound together that it is the whole that determines the local result.
Sri Aurobindo: A man’s action then would be determined by universal forces and his state of mind and apparent choice would be only part of the instrumentation of Universal Force. In the case of Socrates and that of the habitual drunkard raised by you, the difference you make is correct. The weak-willed man is governed by his vital and physical impulsions, his mental being is not dynamic enough to make its will prevail over them. His will is not “free” because it is not strong enough to be free, it is the slave of the forces that act on or in his vital and physical nature. In the case of Socrates the will is so far free that it stands above the play of these forces and he determines by his mental idea and resolve what he shall or shall not do.
Sri Aurobindo: The question remains whether the will of Socrates is only free in this sense, itself being actually determined by something larger than the mentality of Socrates, something of which it is the instrument, whether Universal Force or a Being in him of which his daemon was the voice and which not only gave his mind that decisive awareness of the mental ideal but imposed on it the drive to act in obedience to the awareness. Or it may be subject to a nexus between the inner Purusha and the Universal Force. In the latter case there would be an unstable balance between determinism of Nature and a self-determination from within. If we start from the Sankhya view of things, that Being would be the soul or Purusha and both in the strong-willed Socrates and in the weakwilled slave of vital impulse, the action and its results would be determined by the assent or refusal of the Purusha. In the latter the Purusha gives its assent to and undergoes the play of the forces of Nature, the habit of the vital impulse, through a vital submission while the mind looks on helpless.
Sri Aurobindo: In Socrates the Purusha has begun to emancipate itself and decide what it shall accept or shall not accept — the conscious being has begun to impose itself on the forces that act on it. This mastery has become so complete that he can largely determine his own actions and can even within certain limits not only forecast but ﬁx the results — so that what he wants shall happen sooner or later. As for the Superman, that is the conscious being whose emancipation is complete by his rising to a station beyond the limits of mind. He can determine his action in complete accord with an awareness which perceives all the forces acting in and on and around him and is able, instead of undergoing, to use them and even to determine. After reading Krishnaprem’s exposition [ ], I saw what might be said from the intellectual point of view on this question so as to link the reality of the supreme Freedom with the phenomenon of the determinism of Nature — in a different way from his but to the same purpose.
Sri Aurobindo: In reality, the freedom and the determination are only two sides of the same thing — for the fundamental truth is self-determination, a selfdetermination of the cosmos and in it a secret self-determination of the individual. The difﬁculty arises from the fact that we live in the surface mind of ignorance, do not know what is going on behind and see only the phenomenal process of Nature. There the apparent fact is an overwhelming determinism of Nature and as our surface consciousness is part of that process we are unable to see the other term of the biune reality. For practical purposes, on the surface there is an entire determinism in Matter — though this is now disputed by the latest school of Science. As Life emerges a certain plasticity sets in, so that it is difﬁcult to predict anything exactly as one predicts material things that obey a rigid law.
Sri Aurobindo: The plasticity increases with the growth of Mind so that man can have at least a sense of free will, of a choice of his action, of a self-movement which at least helps to determine circumstances. But this freedom is dubious because it can be declared to be an illusion, a device of Nature, part of its machinery of determination, only a seeming freedom or at most a restricted, relative and subject independence. It is only when one goes behind away from Prakriti to Purusha and upward away from Mind to spiritual Self that the side of freedom comes to be ﬁrst evident and then, by unison with the Will which is above Nature, complete. Well, the determination of human life and events is a mysterious thing.
Sri Aurobindo: Can’t help that, you know. Fate is composed of many things — Cosmic Will + individual self-determination + play of forces + Karma + x + y + z + a + b + c ad inﬁnitum. I am afraid I have no great conﬁdence in Cheiro’s ideas and prophecies — some prophecies are fulﬁlled but most have gone wrong. The idea about the Jews is an old Jewish and Christian belief; not much faith can be put in it. As for the numbers it is true that according to occult science numbers have a mystic meaning.
Sri Aurobindo: It is also true that there are periods and cycles in life as well as in world-life. But too exact a meaning cannot always be put in these things. Mother says Cheiro has always missed his predictions.
Sri Aurobindo: They are (at best) half truths which you have to turn this way or that to get something out of them corresponding with the fact. Your extracts taken by themselves are very impressive, but when one reads the book, the impression made diminishes and fades away. You have quoted Cheiro’s successes, but what about his failures? I have looked at the book and was rather staggered by the number of prophecies that have failed to come off.
Sri Aurobindo: You can’t deduce from a small number of predictions, however accurate, that all is predestined down to your putting the questions in the letter and my answer. It may be, but the evidence is not sufﬁcient to prove it. What is evident is that there is an element of the predictable, predictable accurately and in detail as well as in large points, in the course of events. But that was already known; it leaves the question still unsolved whether all is so predictable, whether destiny is the sole factor in existence or there are other factors also that can modify destiny, — or, destiny being given, there are not different sources or powers or planes of destiny and we can modify the one with which we started by calling in another destiny source, power or plane and making it active in our life. Metaphysical questions are not so simple that they can be trenchantly solved either in one sense or in another contradictory to it — that is the popular way of settling things, but it is quite summary and inconclusive.
Sri Aurobindo: All is free will or else all is destiny — it is not so simple as that. This question of free will or determination is the most knotty of all metaphysical questions and nobody has been able to solve it — for a good reason, that both destiny and will exist and even a free will exists somewhere — the difﬁculty is only how to get at it and make it effective. Astrology? Many astrological predictions come true, quite a mass of them, if one takes all together.
Sri Aurobindo: But it does not follow that the stars rule our destiny; the stars merely record a destiny that has been already formed, they are a hieroglyph, not a Force, — or if their action constitutes a force, it is a transmitting energy, not an originating Power. Someone is there who has determined or something is there which is Fate, let us say; the stars are only indicators. The astrologers themselves say that there are two forces, and, fate and individual energy, and the individual energy can modify and even frustrate fate. Moreover the stars often indicate several fate-possibilities; for example that one may die in mid-age, but that if that determination can be overcome, one can live to a predictable old age. Finally, cases are seen in which the predictions of the horoscope fulﬁl themselves with great accuracy up to a certain age, then apply no more.
Sri Aurobindo: This often happens when the subject turns away from the ordinary to the spiritual life. If the turn is very radical the cessation of predictability may be immediate; otherwise certain results may still last on for a time, but there is no longer the same inevitability. This would seem to show that there is or can be a higher-power or higher-plane or higher-source spiritual destiny which can, if its hour has come, override the lowerpower, lower-plane or lower-source vital and material fate of which the stars are indicators. I say vital because character can also be indicated from the horoscope much more completely and satisfactorily than the events of the life.
Sri Aurobindo: The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us binds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating new fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. That gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European critics wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism. But again our will and action can often annul or modify even the past Karma, it is only certain strong effects, called , that are non-modiﬁable.
Sri Aurobindo: Here too the achievement of the spiritual consciousness and life is supposed to annul or give the power to annul Karma. For we enter into union with the Will Divine, cosmic or transcendent, which can annul what it had sanctioned for certain conditions, new-create what it had created; the narrow ﬁxed lines disappear, there is a more plastic freedom and wideness. Neither Karma nor Astrology therefore points to a rigid and for ever immutable fate. As for prophecy, I have never met or known of a prophet, however reputed, who was infallible. Some of their predictions come true to the letter, others do not, — they half-fulﬁl or misﬁre entirely.
Sri Aurobindo: It does not follow that the power of prophecy is unreal or the accurate predictions can be all explained by probability, chance or coincidence. The nature and number of those that cannot is too great. The variability of fulﬁlment may be explained either by an imperfect power in the prophet sometimes active, sometimes failing or by the fact that things are predictable in part only, they are determined in part only or else by different factors or lines of power, different series of potentials and actuals. So long as one is in touch with one line, one predicts accurately, otherwise not — or if the line of power changes, one’s prophecy also goes off the rails. All the same, one may say, there must be, if things are predictable at all, some power or plane through which or on which all is foreseeable; if there is a divine Omniscience and Omnipotence it must be so.
Sri Aurobindo: Even then what is foreseen has to be worked out, actually is worked out by a play of forces, — spiritual, mental, vital, physical forces — and in that plane of forces there is no absolute rigidity discoverable. Personal will or endeavour is one of those forces — Napoleon when asked why he believed in Fate, yet was always planning and acting, answered, “Because it is fated that I should work and plan” — in other words, his planning and acting were part of Fate, contributed to the results Fate had in view. Even if I foresee an adverse result, I must work for the one that I consider should be; for it keeps alive the force, the principle of Truth which I serve and gives it a possibility to triumph hereafter, so that it becomes part of the working of a future favourable Fate, even if the fate of the hour is adverse. Men do not abandon a cause because they have seen it fail or foresee its failure; and they are spiritually right in their stubborn perseverance. Moreover, we do not live for material result alone, — far more the object of life is the growth of the soul, not outward success of the hour or even of the near future.
Sri Aurobindo: The soul can grow against or even by a material destiny that is adverse. Finally, even if all is determined, why say that Life is, in Shakespeare’s phrase or rather Macbeth’s, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? Life would rather be that if it were all chance and random incertitude. But if it is something foreseen, planned in every detail, does it not rather mean that life does signify something, that there must be a secret Purpose that is being worked up to, powerfully, persistently through the ages, and ourselves are a part of it and fellow-workers in the fulﬁlment of that invincible Purpose?
Sri Aurobindo: Well, one of the greatest ecstasies possible is to feel oneself carried by the Divine, — not by the stars or Karma, for the latter is a bad business, dry and uncomfortable — like being turned on a machine, “”. Astrology is an occult science — it is not a part of the Yoga except as anything can be made part of the Yoga — if done in the right spirit. That is not the question.
Sri Aurobindo: The question is what inﬂuence has the sadhak on the stars at his birth? Karma is not luck, it is the transmission of past energies into the present with their results. All energies put into activity — thought, speech, feeling, act — go to constitute Karma. These things help to develop the nature in one direction or another, and the nature and its actions and reactions produce their consequences inward and outward: they also act on others and create movements in the general sum of forces which can return upon oneself sooner or later.
Sri Aurobindo: Thoughts unexpressed can also go out as forces and produce their effects. It is a mistake to think that a thought or will can have effect only when it is expressed in speech or act: the unspoken thought, the unexpressed will are also active energies and can produce their own vibrations, effects or reactions. If it [] goes on with its Karma, then it does not get liberation. If it wants only farther experience, it can just stay there in the ordinary nature.
Sri Aurobindo: The aim of Yoga is to transcend Karma. Karma means subjection to lower Nature; through Yoga the soul goes towards freedom. The bondage to the effects of Karma remains so long as one has not passed out of the ordinary human consciousness which is its ﬁeld to the higher spiritual consciousness where all bonds are untied. As for peace one can gain it by an entire reliance on the Divine and surrender to the Divine Will.
Sri Aurobindo: In life all sorts of things offer themselves. One cannot take anything that comes with the idea that it is sent by the Divine. There is a choice and a wrong choice produces its consequence. Karma and heredity are the two main causes [ ].
Sri Aurobindo: According to some heredity is also subject to Karma, but that may be only in a general way, not in all the details. Many things in the body and some in the mind and vital are inherited from the father and mother or other ancestors — that everybody is supposed to know. There are other things that are not inherited, but peculiar to one’s own nature or developed by the happenings of this life. You must realise that all human beings are made partly of what is given them by their ancestors (not only father and mother but all the ancestors), partly of what they bring with them.
Sri Aurobindo: The part they get from the ancestors is called hereditary — it is part (not the whole) of the physical and lower vital consciousness, sometimes a little of the external mind also — it is a small portion of the external being, but although small, it is sometimes very persistent and active. The rest of the being, inner and a great part too of the external, is brought from past lives. This hereditary part has to be got rid of and replaced by the true individuality spreading itself to the whole external nature. A very big stamp in most cases — it is in the physical vital and physical material that the stamp chieﬂy exists — and it is increased by education and upbringing.
Sri Aurobindo: There is always a hereditary part of the nature which is a large portion of the outward nature — there is also the educational inﬂuence of the father which has put a stamp on you. Hereditary inﬂuence creates an afﬁnity and afﬁnity is a living thing.
Sri Aurobindo: It is only when the hereditary part is changed that the afﬁnity ceases. It is your own being that seeks for the Divine. The hereditary part is not your true being, but something you have taken up as part of this birth.
Sri Aurobindo: It can be got rid of or changed. The question as put in your letter seems to me to be too rigidly phrased and not to take into sufﬁcient account the plasticity of the facts and forces of existence. It sounds like the problem which one might raise on the strength of the most recent scientiﬁc theories — if all is made up of protons and electrons, all exactly similar to each other (except for the group numbers, and why should a difference of quantity make such an extraordinary difference or any difference of quality?) how does their action result in such stupendous differences of degree, kind, power, everything? But why should we assume that the psychic seeds or sparks all started in a race at the same time, equal in conditions, equal in power and nature?
Sri Aurobindo: Granted that the One Divine is the source of all and the Self is the same in all; but in manifestation why should not the Inﬁnite throw itself out in inﬁnite variety, why must it be in an innumerable sameness? How many of these psychic seeds started long before others and have a great past of development behind them and how many are young and raw and half-grown only? And even among those who started together, why should not there be some who ran at a great speed and others who loitered and grew with difﬁculty or went about in circles? And then there is an evolution, and it is only at a certain stage in the evolution that the animal belt is past and there is a human beginning; what constitutes the human beginning, which represents a very considerable revolution or turnover? Up to the animal line it is the vital and physical that have been developing — for the human to begin is it not necessary that there should be the descent of a mental being to take up the vital and physical evolution?
Sri Aurobindo: And may it not well be that the mental beings who descend are not all of the same power and stature and, besides, do not take up equally developed vital and physical consciousness-material? There is also the occult tradition of a hierarchy of beings who stand above the present manifestation and put themselves into it with results which will obviously be just such a stupendous difference of degrees, and even intervene by descending into the play through the gates of birth in human Nature. There are many complexities and the problem cannot be put with the rigidity of a mathematical formula. A great part of the difﬁculty of these problems, I mean especially the appearance of inexplicable contradiction, arises from the problem itself being badly put. Take the popular account of reincarnation and Karma — it is based on the mere mental assumption that the workings of Nature ought to be moral and proceed according to an exact morality of equal justice — a scrupulous, even mathematical law of reward and punishment or, at any rate, of results according to a human idea of right correspondences.
Sri Aurobindo: But Nature is non-moral — she uses forces and processes moral, immoral and amoral pell-mell for working out her business. Nature in her outward aspect seems to care for nothing except to get things done — or else to make conditions for an ingenious variety of the play of life. Nature in her deeper aspect as a conscious spiritual Power is concerned with the growth, by experience, the spiritual development of the souls she has in her charge — and these souls themselves have a say in the matter. All these good people lament and wonder that unaccountably they and other good people are visited with such meaningless sufferings and misfortunes. But are they really visited with them by an outside Power or by a mechanical Law of Karma?
Sri Aurobindo: Is it not possible that the soul itself — not the outward mind, but the spirit within — has accepted and chosen these things as part of its development in order to get through the necessary experience at a rapid rate, to hew through,, even at the risk or the cost of much damage to the outward life and the body? To the growing soul, to the spirit within us, may not difﬁculties, obstacles, attacks be a means of growth, added strength, enlarged experience, training for spiritual victory? The arrangement of things may be that and not a mere question of the pounds, shillings and pence of a distribution of rewards and retributory misfortunes! It is the same with the problem of the taking of animal life under the circumstances put forward by your friend in the letter. It is put on the basis of an invariable ethical right and wrong to be applied to all cases — is it right to take animal life at all, under any circumstances, is it right to allow an animal to suffer under your eyes when you can relieve it by an euthanasia?
Sri Aurobindo: There can be no indubitable answer to a question put like that, because the answer depends on data which the mind has not before it. In fact there are many other factors which make people incline to this short and merciful way out of the difﬁculty — the nervous inability to bear the sight and hearing of so much suffering, the unavailing trouble, the disgust and inconvenience — all tend to give force to the idea that the animal itself would want to be out of it. But what does the animal really feel about it — may it not be clinging to life in spite of the pain? Or may not the soul have accepted these things for a quicker evolution into a higher state of life? If so, the mercy dealt out may conceivably interfere with the animal’s Karma.
Sri Aurobindo: In fact the right decision might vary in each case and depend on a knowledge which the human mind has not — and it might very well be said that until it has it, it has not the right to take life. It was some dim perception of this truth that made religion and ethics develop the law of Ahimsa — and yet that too becomes a mental rule which it is found impossible to apply in practice. And perhaps the moral of it all is that we must act for the best according to our lights in each case, as things are, but that the solution of these problems can only come by pressing forward towards a greater light, a greater consciousness in which the problems themselves, as now stated by the human mind, will not arise because we shall have a vision which will see the world in a different way and a guidance which at present is not ours. The mental or moral rule is a stop-gap which men are obliged to use, very uncertainly and stumblingly, until they can see things whole in the light of the spirit. It [] is a universal force — the happening or change called death is simply one result of the working of the force.
Sri Aurobindo: Most people die before the vitality of the body is exhausted. It is due to many causes of which one is the destiny prepared by past lives; another the inner purpose or utility of the present life being completed — but these are subtle and secret reasons — others, accident, violence or other causes, are only an exterior machinery. had reached a stage of her development marked by a predominance of the sattwic nature, but not a strong vital (which works towards a successful or fortunate life) or the opening to a higher light, — her mental upbringing and surroundings stood against that and she herself was not ready. Her early death with much suffering may have been the result of past (prenatal) inﬂuences or they may have been chosen by her own psychic being as a passage towards a higher state for which she was not yet prepared but towards which she was moving.
Sri Aurobindo: This and the nonfulﬁlment of her capacities would be a ﬁnal tragedy if there were this life alone. As it is she has passed towards the psychic sleep to prepare for her life to come. You can explain to that the death of his nephew had nothing to do with their [] obscurities and imperfections — it was part of his own Karma — each person has his own destiny and follows its line; to be in a certain family and with certain relations is only a temporary incident in its course. The sadhak should be free from these attachments and regard these happenings as ordeals to be passed through with equality and faith in the Divine — doing his best for those who are in his charge but not disturbed by results. It is a very intricate and difﬁcult question to tackle and it can hardly be answered in a few words.
Sri Aurobindo: Moreover it is impossible to give a general rule as to why there are these close inner contacts followed by a physical separation through death — in each case there is a difference and one would have to know the persons and be familiar with their soul history to tell what was behind their meeting and separation. In a general way, a life is only one brief episode in a long history of spiritual evolution in which the soul follows the curve of the line set for the earth, passing through many lives to complete it. It is an evolution out of material inconscience to consciousness and on towards the divine Consciousness, from ignorance to divine Knowledge, from darkness through half-lights to Light, from death to Immortality, from suffering to the Divine Bliss. Suffering is due ﬁrst to the Ignorance, secondly to the separation of the individual consciousness from the Divine Consciousness and Being, a separation created by the Ignorance — when that ceases, when one lives completely in the Divine and no more in one’s separated smaller self, then only suffering can altogether cease. Each soul follows its own line and these lines meet, journey together for a space, then part to meet again perhaps hereafter — often they meet to help each other on the journey in one way or another.
Sri Aurobindo: As for the afterdeath period, the soul passes into other planes of existence, staying there for a while till it reaches its place of rest where it remains until it is ready for another terrestrial existence. This is the general law, but for the connections of embodied soul with embodied soul, that is a matter of personal evolution on which nothing general can be said as it is intimate to the soul stories of the two and needs a personal knowledge. That is all I can say, but I don’t know that it will be of much help to her, as these things are helpful usually only when one enters into the consciousness in which they become not mere ideas but realities. Then one grieves no longer because one has entered into the Truth and the Truth brings calm and peace. I can understand the shock your wife’s catastrophic death must have been to you.
Sri Aurobindo: But you are now a seeker and sadhak of the Truth and must set your mind above the normal reactions of the human being and see things in a larger greater light. Regard your lost wife as a soul that was progressing through the vicissitudes of the life of Ignorance — like all others here — in that progress things happen that seem unfortunate to the human mind and a sudden accidental or violent death cutting short prematurely this always brief spell of terrestrial experience we call life seems to it especially painful and unfortunate. But one who gets behind the outward view knows that all that happens in the progress of the soul has its meaning, its necessity, its place in the series of experiences which are leading it towards the turning point where one can pass from the Ignorance to the Light. He knows that whatever happens in the Divine Providence is for the best even though it may seem to the mind otherwise. Look on your wife as a soul that has passed the barrier between two states of existence.
Sri Aurobindo: Help her journey towards her place of rest by calm thoughts and the call to the Divine Help to aid her upon it. Grief too long continued does not help but delays the journey of the departed soul. Do not brood on your loss, but think only of her spiritual welfare. The telegram announces the passing away of your husband. All has been done that could be done to keep him in life.
Sri Aurobindo: What has happened must now be accepted calmly as the thing decreed and best for his soul’s progress from life to life though not the best in human eyes which look only at the present and at outside appearance. For the spiritual seeker death is only a passage from one form of life to another, and none is dead but only departed. Look at it as that and shaking from you all reactions of vital grief — they cannot help him in his journey, — pursue steadfastly the path to the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo: There is nothing to grieve about as death means only passing over to another country — to which you probably go very often when you are asleep. That is, so long as one has attachment — one ought to look at it like that. But all attachment to past ties should be overcome. Of course, that is the real fact — death is only a shedding of the body, not a cessation of the personal existence.
Sri Aurobindo: A man is not dead because he goes into another country and changes his clothes to suit that climate. There is after death a period in which one passes through the vital world and lives there for a time. It is only the ﬁrst part of this transit that can be dangerous or painful; in the rest one works out, under certain surroundings, a remnant of the vital desires and instincts which one had in the body. As soon as one is tired of these and able to go beyond, the vital sheath is dropped and the soul, after a little time needed to get rid of some mental survivals, passes into a state of rest in the psychic world and remains there till the next life on earth. One can help the departed soul by one’s good will or by occult means if one has the knowledge.
Sri Aurobindo: The one thing that one should not do is to hold them back by sorrow for them or longings or anything else that would pull them nearer to earth or delay their journey to their place of rest. It may happen to some not to realise for a little time that they are dead, especially if the death has been unforeseen and sudden, but it cannot be said that it happens to all or to most — some may enter into a state of semi-unconsciousness or obsession by a dark inner condition, created by their state of mind at death, in which they realise nothing of where they are etc., others are quite conscious of the passage.
Sri Aurobindo: It is true that the departing being in the vital body lingers for some time near the body or the scene of life very often for as many as eight days and in the ancient religions mantras and other means were used for the severance. Even after the severance from the body a very earthbound nature or one full of strong physical desires may linger long in the earthatmosphere up to a maximum period extended to three years. Afterwards it passes to the vital worlds, proceeding on its journey which must sooner or later bring it to the psychic rest till the next life. It is true also that sorrow and mourning for the dead impedes its progress by keeping it tied to the earth-atmosphere and pulling it back from its passage.
Sri Aurobindo: After death the soul passes in a little while or at once from the earth atmosphere and goes into the vital worlds where it remains for a time until it is ready to leave it. Thus it passes on its way till it is ready to pass into the psychic world where it rests until it is ready for a new birth. After death one passes through various vital and mental planes till the psychic being drops its vital and mental sheaths and enters into rest on the psychic plane till the time comes for rebirth. At the time of death the being goes out of the body through the head; it goes out in the subtle body and goes to different planes of existence for a short time until it has gone through certain experiences which are the result of its earthly existence. Afterwards it reaches the psychic world where it rests in a kind of sleep until it is time for it to start a new life on earth.
Sri Aurobindo: That is what happens usually — but there are some beings who are more developed and do not follow this course. That is a superstition [ naraka () ]. People after death pass through certain vital and mental worlds or through certain psychological states which are the results of their nature and action in life, afterwards they go to the psychic world and return to birth at a later time.
Sri Aurobindo: When the Mother spoke of the continuance of the same trouble after death, she did not mean another life. At death you go out of this physical frame in another kind of body, not physical, and are the same person with the same consciousness. That is why to talk of dying as going to rest is an ignorance and why it is useless. The only real thing is to get rid of the old lower self and be reborn to the new higher one, which can only be done by a change within you.
Sri Aurobindo: That is what the Mother wants of you. The psychic being at the time of death chooses what it will work out in the next birth and determines the character and conditions of the new personality. Life is for the evolutionary growth by experience in the conditions of the Ignorance till one is ready for the higher light. The dying wish of the man is only something on the surface — it may be determined by the psychic and so help to shape the future but it does not determine the psychic’s choice.
Sri Aurobindo: That is something behind the veil. It is not the outer consciousness’s action that determines the inner process, but the other way round. Sometimes, however, there are signs or fragments of the inner action that come up on the surface, e.g. some people have a vision or remembrance of the circumstances of their past in a panoramic ﬂash at the time of death, that is the psychic’s review of the life before departing. The psychic being’s choice at the time of death doesn’t work out the next formation of personality, it ﬁxes it. When it enters the psychic world, it begins to assimilate the essence of its experience and by that assimilation is formed the future psychic personality in accordance with the ﬁxation already made.
Sri Aurobindo: When this assimilation is over, it is ready for a new birth — but the less developed beings do not work out the whole thing for themselves, there are beings and forces of the higher world who have that work. Also when it comes to birth, it is not sure that the forces of the physical world will not come across the working out of what it wanted — its own new instrumentation may not be strong enough for that purpose; for there is the interaction of its own energies and the cosmic forces here. There may be frustration, diversion, a partial working out — many things may happen. All that is not a rigid machinery, it is a working out of complex forces. It may be added however that a developed psychic being is much more conscious in this transition and works much of it out itself.

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