FOREWORD   THE letters of Sri Aurobindo are a vast literature of very great value. Written mostly to his disciples in answer to their specific inquiries they have also a wider bearing and are likely to prove of great benefit not only to those who are interested in the things of the Spirit but also to all those who, not satisfied with the usual and the ordinary, strive for higher and greater values in life. For, the most significant and central idea of Sri Aurobindo's spiritual metaphysics as well as of his Yoga is that he does not consider human and spiritual values as totally distinct and basically incompatible, but, in their true significance, as related parts of an all-comprehending

VIII   Science, Reasoning and Yogic Experience, Avatar and Symbols, Yoga Force, Beauty and Art, etc.   Reply to Leonard Woolf's Criticism of Mysticism   I HAVE read Leonard Woolf's article, but I do not propose to deal with it in my comments on Professor Sorley's letter—for apart from the ignorant denunciation and cheap satire in which it deals, there is nothing much in its statement of the case against spiritual thought or experience;  its reasoning  is superficial and springs from an entire misunderstanding  of the case for the mystic. There are four main arguments he sets against it and none of them has any value. Argument number one. Mysticism and mystic

III Yoga; Its Principle and Process   The Central Aim and Discipline of Yoga   TO find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the rest is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him,—that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become that in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is

IV   Parts of Total Consciousness   Consciousness   I   CONSCIOUSNESS is not, to my experience, a phenomenon dependent on the reactions of personality to the forces of Nature and amounting to no more than a seeing or interpretation of these reactions. If that were so, then when the personality becomes silent and immoblie and gives no reactions, as there would be no seeing or interpretative action, there would therefore be no consciousness. That contradicts some of the fundamental experiences of Yoga, e.g., a silent and immoblie consciousness infinitely spread out, not dependent on the personality but impersonal and universal, not seeing and interpreting contacts but m

       

VI   Love: Human to Divine   The True Foundation of Love   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

I   Evolution : Material - Spiritual - Supramental   Spiritual Evolution   THERE have been times when the seeking for spiritual attainment was, at least in certain civilisations, more intense and widespread than now or rather than it has been in the world in general during the past few centuries. For now the curve seems to be the beginning of a new turn of seeking which takes its start from what was achieved in the past and projects itself towards a greater future. But always, even in the age of the Vedas or in Egypt, the spiritual achievement or the occult knowledge was confined to a few, it was not spread in the whole mass of humanity. The mass of humanity evolves slow

V   Yogic Visions -- Experiences -- Realisations   Realisations and Experiences   I DON'T say that these experiences are always of no value, but they are so mixed and confused that if one runs after them without any discrimination at all they end by either leading astray, sometimes tragically -astray, or by bringing one into a confused nowhere. That does, not mean that all such experiences are useless or without value. There are those that are sound as well those that are unsound; those that are helpful, in the true line, sometimes sign-posts, sometimes  stages on the way to realisation, sometimes stuff and material of the realisation. These naturally and rightly on

Yoga-Force   I   ALL the world, according to Science, is nothing but a play of Energy—a material Energy it used to be called, but it is now doubted whether Matter scientifically speaking, exists except as a phenomenon of Energy. All the world, according to Vedanta, is a play of a power of a spiritual entity, the power of an original consciousness, whether it be Maya or Shakti, and the result an illusion or real. In the world so far as man is concerned we are aware only of mind energy, life energy, energy in matter; but it is supposed that there is a spiritual energy or force also behind them from which they originate. All things, in either case, are the results of a Shakti, energ

VII   Difficulties of the Path   Difficulties and Ordeals   ALL who enter the spiritual path have to face the difficulties and ordeals of the path, those which rise from their own nature and those which come in from outside. The difficulties in the nature always rise again and again till you overcome them; they must be faced with both strength and patience. But the vital part is prone to depression when ordeals and difficulties rise. This is not peculiar to you, but comes to all sadhakas—it does not imply an unfitness for the sadhana or justify a sense of helplessness. But you must train yourself to overcome this reaction of depression calling in the Mother's Force to