4 FROM LETTERS TO FLORENCE RUSSELL You are right in seeing a clear sign of the luminously unexpected - that is, of the "Hour of God" - in certain world-events where parties that had looked absolutely irreconcilable have come together to create a new harmony. But much in the world still remains untouched by the breath of the Spirit blowing from - to quote a Wordsworthian expression - An ampler ether, a diviner air, which betokens the subtle presence of Sri Aurobindo within our gross-physical space. The Hour of God has indeed struck - in fact it struck quite a time ago - but the ears of most men are closed. The only thing that somehow has sounded on their dull tympanums i

22 The therapies you are following strike me as effective. The doctor has full faith in them and you must do the same. But not only is perseverance required: patience too is to be practised. For, while perseverance makes for the active dedicated drive of the mind towards the end in view, patience stands for a certain quietude in the being, rendering it receptive in its depth and helping to set right the jangle of the nerves. Do not look upon the disease as exclusively your enemy. It has come for a purpose - and that purpose you have yourself intuited: "I must confess that by this disease my Sadhana has got such an intensity as I would never have reached without it" This does not

28 The whole basis of the Vibrational Theory which you present as the way to supramentalise the body's cells is most shaky in the sense that without a supramentalisation of the inner consciousness one can't hope to supramentalise the body. Of course, by mantra-power one may subtilise the physical being but to supramentalise it is a different cup of tea - or, to hark back to Rigvedic terminology, a different goblet of Soma, the nectar of Immortality. Your friend appears to make his followers believe that by merely quieting the mind and the vital nature one can have the power to supramentalise the physical instrument by means of a mantra. No follower of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ca

13 You write: "On page 19, line 8 of the new edition of The Future Poetry I stumbled over translating the following passage: 'Nevertheless, mere force of language tacked on to the trick of the metrical beat does not answer the higher description of poetry...' The word 'trick' in the sense of 'device' does make sense, but could it not be that the original has the word 'tick' which seems to fit in more perfectly here?" Your perplexity over "trick" and "tick" has a point, but I am afraid "tick" won't do: "the metrical beat" is itself a "tick", so there will be an unnecessary repetition hardly conducive to either substance or style. In this context, "trick" means not only "device"

11 I was delighted to get from you for the New Year the quaint coloured picture of a Lamb sitting on one of the paws of a Lion. I construed it immediately as showing the relationship of Lamb-Amal to Lion-Sri Aurobindo. The in-drawn majestic yet most forbearing and compassionate look of the Master is very well suggested. So also is that of the disciple with his wide confident smile, his eyes lit happily with a dream of the future, his big ears stretched out to catch the message of the Lord's silence. Lamb-Amal is sitting on that paw which has a wrist-watch above it, symbolising Lion-Sri Aurobindo's time-manifestation. I see that the golden Lion is clothed in green, the supramental Tr

INTRODUCTION The "personal letters" which started appearing fourteen years ago in Mother India, Monthly Review of Culture, published from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, have proved to be a popular feature. A large number of readers from all over the country and even some from abroad have expressed their gratitude for helpful treatment of a lot of problems which aspirants to the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother meet on their way. Repeated suggestions have also come to collect the series of "Life-Poetry-Yoga" in book-form so that it may be easily available for consultation. These suggestions have now been taken up and the project is to divide the letters into

6 You have become a storehouse of creative life, fissioning the human to set free the divine within and fusioning the human and the divine to bring about the super-person ahead. Then there is the energy evoked - energy to go through a car-journey and, instead of resting, sitting down to type out a scientific passage and interspersing it with mystic hints and glints. I used to be like that once - coming to Bombay by train from Pondy after two and a half days' run and immediately getting busy penning a long letter to my associate editor and fellow sadhak in Pondy on the philosophical implications of modern physics. What is this about it being "wonderful to be with you, near you, at

18 Before I try to answer your questions let me quote them back to you so that my reply may have a better look of relevance. You write: "I do not wish to take up your time, but one thing I cannot stop myself from asking and that is: if we have Savitri with us, if we keep uttering Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's names, if we have their symbols affixed on our doors or are wearing them, if we carry the Mother's Blessings Packet with us, can the hostile forces still come to us and try to lead us astray? If Yes, then in what and where is the protection from them? Only in our own minds and hearts? One has heard the story of an evil force having taken the form of Sri Aurobindo and dar

24 You have asked me to clarify Sri Aurobindo's statement: "...to be able to take, without insistence or seeking, any food given and to find in it (whether pronounced good or bad by others) the equal rasa, not of the food for its own sake, but of the universal Ananda."1 The words "any food" have puzzled you. They imply that we must get rid of preference for a particular stuff to eat or for a special style of cooking. A certain equanimity should be there and an inner feeling that whatever has come on the table has come from the Divine and is an expression of the Divine's undiminishable delight in all that He has made. An attempt to participate in that delight would constitute "the

9 You may remember my speaking to you of the difference between the "lonely" and the "solitary". Apropos of it I may dig up some lines that arose in me at the Samadhi at 5 p.m. on October 10. There was suddenly a pull from some profound within, threatening to take away whatever might be the dearest joy of one's days. I say "threatening" because that is how the pull seemed at first, but soon the sense of loss was gone and a recompense beyond one's highest hope was felt. Then the lines took shape: Suddenly life's sweetest love was snatched away To a veiled Within that gave no marvel back. Then a strange silence found its final word: "This paradise must swallow up al