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February 1935
N asked me to tell you that he felt your Presence and Force in the evening very concretely. He does not want any medicine at all; he says that he used to have doubts before, but now they have disappeared.
It is queer. All the force I am putting into it or almost all turns into this subjective form — some objective result is there but still slight, uncertain and slow. Of course the cause is apparent — he has been accustomed to receive subjectively but not accustomed to receive physically. It is not however convenient for the present purpose — except as a preparation for the more objective receptivity.
We are not anxious to stuff him with too much medicine.
Perhaps it is better not to give medicines except Lithiné.
I still can't understand why you should bother to follow us doctors. The Divine can very easily act from the supramental consciousness directly; you don't really need a diagnosis given by ordinary men! Page - 120 If things were like that, why the deuce should we have Doctors or a dispensary at all? And what would have been the use of your 20,000? We don't propose to do the whole business of the inside and outside off our own bat. You are as necessary for this as Chandulal for the building or others for their work. Who told you we are acting from supramental consciousness? We aren't and can't until the confounded quarrel with Matter is settled.
If we doctors are important as mediums, you must tell me what our attitude should be in conducting a case.
Faith, openness, an alert and flexible intelligence. I mean by faith especially faith as a dynamic means of bringing about what has to be effected or realised. February 1, 1935
Can we help a patient by aspiring for him ? Since the Divine Force is already acting on him, how can my aspiration help him further?
It can. Every little helps.
What is this "confounded quarrel with Matter" you mention? Does this refer to the lower vital and physical movements of the sadhaks?
I am not speaking of the sadhaks, but the resistance of the Earth nature itself in its material parts. But these are things you people cannot understand unless you have less childlike notions about things.
I am still wondering why there should be doctors and a dispensary at all! Isn't it a paradox — the Divine sending his disciples to the human physician? Rubbish! This is a world of the play of forces, sir, and the Doctor is a force. So why should not the Divine use him? Have you realised that if the Divine did everything, there would be no world, only a show of marionnettes ? Page - 121 D also thinks the same as I do. Why is it not possible for the Force to cure the patients? Let the Dispensary go to the devils!
Thank you for your suggestions all the same — especially about the dispensary and the devils. D.S. almost sent it there, but it went to you instead.
Coming back to the cure you effected in D by your Force, X says that it might have been due to a combination of unseen factors — not due to your Force.
How does he know? Why can't my poor force be there among the invisibles, since invisibles there are? If only visibles were admitted, then of course. In that case all the trouble I took for D was sheer waste of energy, hallucination and chimera. Hallucination also the fact that D's improvement agreed exactly with the thought I put out in the force? Well, it may be so. Modern science says there is no such thing as cause and effect, only conditions and statistics. But what are these unseen factors? (The Doctor at any rate thought it miraculous. And what about the hundreds of cases of healing by suggestion or other mental forces everywhere?)
You say "natural and inevitable" things make my brain whirl [31.1.35].. But N has been here for so many years, no frivolous company, no lower trouble; on the contrary 7 or 8 hours meditation daily. Yet he was notable to cut his attachment for his dead mother. Then what kind of a sadhana has he done?
What kind of meditation? The only report he gave to me of it was devils. See note on next page. I have always been at a loss to understand why mere length of meditation should be a title to greatness in Yoga. Did he ever try ? To my knowledge he did not. He was in constant correspondence with wife and son, always thinking about his family, demanding the advent of wife (+ son understood) here in spite of our constant refusals. As for his meditations, in them he was always going to his house, getting attacked there by devils and still Page - 122 returning. Yet you think his keeping attachment unnatural and evitable! Have some common sense.
As for G, I hear that he is preaching the Truth, saying, '' Will you accept the Truth from Sri Aurobindo or from me?" What else is insanity!
But he has always been like that.
This fellow has been saying that you have told him that he has played great parts in the Divine Lila, informer births, had beautiful experiences!
Hallo! How often have I intimated that G was no great clergy. As for experiences, anybody with an occult bent can have experiences. The thing is to know what to do with them.
Am I to say alas, human nature! Or alas. Divine Power!
Excuse me. It was not the Divine Power that told G to be a Teacher. It was his ego.
Please don't mind our pungent remarks. We don't look upon you as a Bengali father but as an English one — who is a father and a friend.
That you is who? I decline the adhyaropa¹ of an English or any father on me!
If you find my ravings too much to answer, let me hear something about the patient N.
What about the patient? It is for you to say, not me. February 2, 1935 N is very well today : fresh and cheerful. What about giving
¹ A role or a title imposed on a person. Page - 123 him some orange ? Yesterday he enjoyed those few bits from D.R.
When Mother has she will give.
If he doesn't take pocket money, can I help him with a few annas?
Yes. But also if you think he needs. Mother can give the pocket money.
M's servant boy came today at 11 a.m. but R was not available. He was asked to come at 4 p.m. but he didn't turn up.
This won't do. He should be told to go to the Government hospital. We can't be responsible for a case like that.
So tomorrow we'll examine him.
If you want to examine, examine him at once, or else send him to the Hospital without farther ado. February 3, 1935 N has less sweating, and above all, his general appearance is so changed and he feels it.
We are inclined to agree with you.
He is weak, he says. I stopped soup. But should I increase soup because of flatulence ? Yes, if there is flatulence, soup is best.
Fruits may benefit him. If you think the same, he will require the pocket money for this month, to buy them.
Mother will tell C to send 2 oranges daily. Will that be enough? If more is needed, pocket money can be given.
I incised J's finger and he was quite bold. But funnily Page - 124 enough, while I was bandaging it, he said he was feeling giddy, and fell unconscious!
I think J himself is a little nervous by temperament.
It seems you were a little displeased about my "ado" about M's servant boy?
No, not at all.
Your mentioning "ulcer" made me think.
It was the story of blood-vomiting several times that made Mother suspect ulcer and insist on the hospital. February 4, 1935
N is keeping better. Temperature actually came down to 99.4°, the first time in his illness. He is already aspiring to do his gate duty on Darshan day. What more evidence? Yesterday during meditation he felt a lot of Force on his chest, he said.
It is evidence of a subjective improvement which helps — but we must get the objective one also. If his lungs are improving and temperature [has a] downward tendency then it is all right.
I have a very wonderful colleague in Dr. B. He can't utter two words about you without shedding tears! Is it second childhood? In spite of all this devotion, domestic affairs bind him.
It is not second childhood — he has always been like that. Here or over there looking after his affairs, his bhakti is constant and genuine.
I am simply overjoyed to learn that one day your retirement can really come to an end. We had always a fear that you might never come out. Tagore expressed this sentiment saying that the world has lost you. How can the world be Page - 125 changed without the personal presence of the Incarnate Divine ?
You mean to say I am not personally present — I have gone off to the x loka¹ already?
You refuse to be a Guru and decline to be a father, though ladies especially think of you as father and call you so. If they come to know of your refusal, I'll have to run with smelling salts from one lady to another!
Father is too domestic and Semitic — Abba² Father! I feel as if I had suddenly become a twin-brother of the Lord Jehovah. Besides, there are suggestions of a paternal smile and a hand uplifted to smite which do not suit me. Let the ladies "father" me if smelling salts are the only alternative, but let it not be generalised.
But what is the relation you won't decline? Is it something besides the recognised ones in spiritual history ?
I don't know. I always prefer something new to the old labels. I will see the Supramental and perhaps find something.
They are saying that a "sweet relation" has been established between you and me. I only hope and pray that it will be sweeter and sweetest.
The sweet relation is all right, but let it be nameless. I have brought down a verse from heaven on the correspondence like Bahaullah³ — which proves that if I am not an Avatar, at least I am a prophet. It is I fear full of chhandapatan and bhashapatan,4 s( but it expresses my feelings:
¹ The other world. ² Hebrew term for father. ³Founder of the Bahai. 4 In Bengali: faulty rhythm and language. Page - 126 But for heaven's sake, don't show this undivine outbreak to anybody ! They will think I am trying to rival Dara² in his lighter poetic moods. February 5, 1935 [Morning] Your humorous verse on the burden of correspondence makes me feel a bit guilty.
I don't mind your correspondence. It is a relief. But when people write four letters a day in small hand closely running to some 10 pages without a gap anywhere and one gets 20 letters in the afternoon and forty at night (of course not all like that, but still!) it becomes a little too too.
Though I admit that you have reclaimed one non-believer by means of your correspondence, the thought of going away is becoming more and more remote. Perhaps this is no consolation to you, for what do you care after all? Men many come and men may go —
But letters go on forever! February 5, J935 [Evening] Correspondence suspended till after the 21st and resumable only on notice. But under cover of your medical cloak, you can carry on. Only mum about it! Otherwise people might get jealous and give you a headache.
Yesterday X and I had a discussion about the action of your Force. Try as I would, I could not convince him of its reality.
¹ Translation: If the sadhaks had not in their hearts a craving for correspondence, I would live with a smiling face, merged in supramental bliss. Alas, alas, where is such a hope? ² An old disciple who used to write comic poems. Page - 127 Let me put before you the discussion in dialogue form as it actually took place. X: I just can't believe that D was cured by Sri Aurobindo 's Force, unless I hear to this effect from Sri Aurobindo himself. Myself: But the facts and figures are there: they show quite clearly that something utterly miraculous happened — an abdominal abscess being cured without any material '' intervention,— symptoms subsiding, the temperature coming down from 103 degrees to 102, and then dropping to 99. As a doctor, I think, I am in a position to judge these things. X: Maybe all this happened, but how do you know it was Sri Aurobindo's Force that brought about this sudden change? Myself: Everybody knows here that Sri Aurobindo's Force is constantly acting on us with a tremendous power. Almost all of us have experienced it one time or another. D was brought here under the Mother's instructions, even though his condition was precarious, so that Sri Aurobindo could act upon it with his Force. So it seems quite obvious that he had been cured by this Force just as others have been. What other blessed force could have acted upon him, and if some force did act, why not the Force under which we are living and which is all the time animating us? X: If that is so, what about the instances where the Divine Force has failed, and why does it succeed in some cases and not in others?
The mistake is to think that it must be either a miraculous force or else none. There is no miraculous force and I do not deal in miracles. The word Divine here is out of place, if it is taken as an always omnipotently acting Power. Yogic Force is then better; it simply means a higher Consciousness using its power, a spiritual & supraphysical force acting on the physical world directly. One has to train the instrument to be a channel of this force; it works also according to a certain law and under certain conditions. The Divine does not work arbitrarily or as a thaumaturge; He acts upon the world along the lines that have been fixed by the nature and purpose of the world we live in — by an increasing action of the thing that has to manifest, not by a sudden change or disregard of all the Page - 128 conditions of the work to be
done. If it were not so, there would be no need of Yoga or time or human action
or instruments or of a Master and disciples or of a Descent or anything else.
It could simply be a matter for the
Myself: I don't see how you can deny the reality of this Force. Were you able to write with such vigour before you came here? X: Yes, I could work a lot; so much so that people were astounded! Was that Sri Aurobindo's Force?
What is Sri Aurobindo's force? It is not a personal property of this body or mind. It is a higher Force used by me or acting through me.
And Tagore, Lenin, etc. who are giants — is your Divine Force working in them too ?
Of course it is a Divine Force, for there is only one force acting in the world, but it acts according to the nature of the instrument. Yogic Force is different from others because it is a special power of the spiritual consciousness.
Myself: It may not be Sri Aurobindo 's Force, but how can I exclude the possibility of Divine Force behind? Because one is an atheist, it doesn't mean the Divine is undivine against him!
There was an obvious intervention in the case he speaks of — but the agent or process could only be determined if one knew all the circumstances. Such interventions are frequent; e.g. My uncle's daughter was at her last gasp, the doctors had gone away telling him there was no more to be done. He simply sat down to pray — as soon as he had finished, the death symptoms were suspended, the girl recovered without farther treatment (it was a case of typhoid fever). Several cases of that kind have come within my personal observation. Page - 129 X: Oh, if you say that everything is being done at the Divine impulsion, I have nothing to say. But you can't say for that matter that I am working because Sri Aurobindo is constantly at my back! (He had admitted this before, I don't know whether for the sake of argument, but he recedes now. What can I say against it?)
I am not very particular about that. It is a personal question and depends on X's feeling. I certainly put force on him for the development and success of his poetry — about the rest I don't want to say anything. I have marginalised on the Force — to write more completely would need more time than I have tonight. Of course, if it depended on a few cases of illness, it would be a thing of no certitude or importance. If the "Force" were a mere freak or miracle, it would be equally trivial and unimportant, even if well-attested. It is only of importance if it is part of the consciousness and the life, used at all times, not only for illness but for whatever one has to do. It manifests in various ways —as a strength of the consciousness evenly supporting the life and action, as a power put forth for this or that object of the outward life, as a special Force from above drawn down to raise and increase the scope of the Consciousness and its height and transform it not by a miraculous, but by a serious. steady, organised action following certain definite lines. Its effectiveness as well as its action is determined first by its own height and intensity or that of the plane from which it comes (it may be from any plane ranging from the Higher Mind upward to the Overmind), partly by the condition of the objects or the field in which it acts, partly by the movement which it has to effect, general or particular. It is neither a magician's wand nor a child's bauble, but something one has to observe, understand, develop, master before one can use it aright or else — for few can use it except in a limited manner — be its instrument. This is only a preface. February 6, 1935 I am simply dying to show your divine verse to D; "heaven's sake" I can't take seriously; you don't mean it either. Besides, I am no believer in heaven, so you will excuse me. No one in our group will think Dara's influence is acting on you! Page - 130 Well, under careful limitations and in all confidentiality, you may risk the indiscretion
Your yesterday's letter has given us quite
a new and interesting point to think about. Our idea was that the Divine is
always omnipotent, independent of all conditions and not limited by the particular
plane from which he acts. But you give so many clauses under which the Force
can operate successfully I K then seems to be right when he says that if one
has not got a particular possibility in him the Divine cannot make him develop
in that direction. Pushing this a little farther, I would say that one must
have a talent or capacity as a nucleus in him for the spiritual development
he is going to have later. One must have it, the Divine cannot
make anything out of
What is
But I may be wrong. It again seems possible that the Divine can do these things — even change an atom into a mountain. If he does not, he has reasons of his own for not doing it. But then how is it that you spent so much Force on P but to no avail? Is it that you did not use the supramental Force, which alone can work irresistibly without the necessity of adapting itself to existing conditions?
Certainly, supramental Force was not the force used in that case, it was mental-spiritual. In such cases the object of the Force has always the right to say No. I put the force on him because he said he wanted to change, but his vital refused — as it had the right to do. If nothing in him had asked for the change, I would not have tried it, but simply put another force on him for another purpose.
There may be conditions and qualifications for the success of the Divine Force, but is it not also true that the Divine can rise above all conditions and act, and get a thing done
¹ Shunyam: the void. Page - 131 if he wants to ? You make a distinction between the Yogic force and the Divine Force; but is not the former an outcome of the latter?
Of course, but all force is the Divine Force. It is only the egoism of the individual which takes it as his own. He uses it, but it is not his.
By the way, X did not question the reality of your Force for his poetry or other literary activities, but he said he could not admit that all his activities were through and through permeated by your Force, because he used to work with great vigour and energy even before he came here.
Of course not — all the activities cannot be that. It is only in the Yoga realisation that one feels all one's activities to be from the one source — something from above or the Yogashakti or the Guru Shakti or the Cosmic Force or whatever it may be (all names for the same thing in different formations) driving the whole consciousness and being.
Outside life is interdependent — on one's own energy and the environmental stimulus; fame, ambition, social stimulations, and one may thrive very well. But when these conditions are removed, his whole energy may be paralysed, unless some higher Energy takes him up...
What is one's own energy after all? You mean Nature's energy in you? It may, in new conditions, remain extant in some things, develop in others, fail or change in others. One can't make a rule.
Looking at myself, I wonder how a vitalistic man can pass his days in cellular imprisonment without any suffocation!
That kind of change happens.
One may say that a tamasic, indolent man can't be activised by the Divine to that extent.
Of course he can. Page - 132 Am I really wrong?
No, but there are many sides or aspects to a question.
After the "preface", is any chapter likely to follow, or is it going to be like so many other prefaces — nothing coming after them ?
Perhaps in some weeks or some months or some centuries the chapter may follow! But I used the word preface to characterise the nature of what I had written, not in a prophetic sense. There are two things — Yoga-Force in its original totality, which is that of the Divine spiritual force, always potentially all-powerful, and Yoga force doing its work under the conditions of the evolutionary world here. It is not a question of "can" or "cannot"¹ at all. All is possible, but all is not licit — except by a recognisable process; the Divine Power itself imposes on its action limits, processes, obstacles, vicissitudes. It is possible that an ass may be changed into an elephant, but it is not done, — at least physically, because of the lack of a process. Psychologically analogous changes do take place. I have myself in my time changed cowards into heroes and that can be done even without Yogashakti, merely by an inner force. How can you say what is latent in man or what is incurably absent ? I have developed many things by Yoga, often even without any will or effort to do so, which were not in my original nature. I may even say that I have transformed my whole nature and it is in many respects the opposite of what I began with. There can be no question about the power to change, to develop, to awaken faculties that were not there before; this power exists already, but it can be raised to an acme by being lifted to the spiritual plane. The force put on the gentleman you speak of at least made it necessary for him to change if he remained here. He had no will in the vital to change and so did not remain here but went to his fate. The rest is for the indefinable future. One day I shall certainly try to explain methodically and by examples what the spiritual force
¹ See in an earlier question: "K. then seems to be right when he says that if one has not got a particular possibility in him the Divine cannot make him develop in that direction". Page - 133 is; how it has worked on the earth-plane, how it acts and under what conditions — conditions not rigidly fixed, but plastic and mutable. , February 7, 1935 If you want seriously to write more on the subject as you hinted, may I point out to you that now is the golden opportunity? After the 21st, you will be again crushed and we shall have to rescue you with difficulty, from the heap of correspondence.
Yes, but I cannot spend these days in elaborate literary production — I have taken this respite¹ (though I find that letters still come) for more serious work that has been badly impeded since November. So it is only marginals and short comments that I can indulge in
A .D.² has questioned your placing of Intuition above Reason. My question is whether genuine yogic feelings are not some form of Intuition?
The heart has its intuitions as well as the mind and these are as true as any mental perceptions. But neither all feelings nor all mental perceptions nor all rational conclusions can be true.
Some would, like A.D., perhaps consider Reason to be the sole arbiter. But if the question be the quest of Truth, I should say that feeling or intuition should be more reliable than reason, especially where instances are not lacking that reason is not infallible and feelings have as much claim to certitude as reason...
How can Reason be the sole arbiter? Whose reason? The reason in different men comes to different, opposite or incompatible conclusions. We cannot say that Reason is infallible, any more than feeling is infallible or the senses are infallible.
If someone refuses to accept my feeling as a proof of some-
¹ During the time of Darshan, Sri Aurobindo suspended all correspondence. ² An Indian philosopher. Page - 134
thing, since it is not based on reason, but when I get a confirmation from you in support of the truth of my feeling, then he accepts it, must I not say that his reason is a less sure guide than my feeling ?
Your feeling is a guide for you until it leads you towards the Truth — but it is difficult for another to accept your feeling as a guide — he must find out things for himself. February 8. 1935 We are a little puzzled when you give your own example to prove your arguments and defend your views, because that really proves nothing. I need not explain why: what Avatars can achieve is not possible for ordinary mortals like us to do. So when you say that you had a sudden "opening" in the appreciation and understanding of painting, or that you freed your mind from all thoughts in three days, or transformed your nature, it is very poor consolation for us. Then again, when you state that you developed something that was not originally there in your nature, can it not be said that it was already there in your divya amsa?¹
I don't know what the devil you mean. My sadhana is not a freak or a monstrosity or a miracle done outside the laws of Nature and the conditions of life and consciousness on earth. If I could do these things or if they could happen in my Yoga, it means that they can be done and that therefore these developments and transformations are possible in the terrestrial consciousness.
There are many who admit that faculties which are latent can be developed, but they maintain that things which are not there in latency cannot be made manifest. My belief is that even that can be done. The Divine is everywhere, and wherever he is, there everything exists. Still, I don't think that I could be turned into, say, an artist or a musician!
How do you know that you can't?
¹The divine part. Page - 135 As for your statement, "Ail is possible, but all is not licit — except by a recognisable process... It is possible that an ass may be changed into an elephant, but it is not done, at least physically, because of the lack of a process", people say that there is no point in saying this, because it is no use knowing that a thing can be done when it is not licit, and is therefore not done.
[Sri Aurobindo made the following, brief marginal comment on this remark but gave a longer answer to it at the end of the letter :] You had said it can't be done or somebody had said it.
About your changing "cowards into heroes ”, they put forward the same "latency theory". True, it is not possible to know what is latent or what is not, but that does not refute either theory
How do they prove their theory — when they don't know what is or is not latent? In such conditions the theory can neither be proved nor refuted. To say "O, it was latent" when a thing apparently impossible is done, is a mere post factum explanation which amounts to an evasion of the difficulty.
They state very strongly that a servant of the Asram, like Muthu, for example, cannot be changed into a Ramakrishna, or a Yogi for that matter, even by the Divine.
If he were, they would say "O, it was latent in him". Well, Ramakrishna himself was an ignorant, unlettered rustic according to the story.
Another point, one can't say categorically and absolutely that the Divine is omnipotent, because there are different planes from which he works. It is when he acts from the Supramental level that his Power is omnipotent.
If the Divine were not in essence omnipotent, he could not be omnipotent anywhere — whether in the supramental or anywhere else. Because he chooses to limit or determine his action by conditions, Page - 136 it does not make him less omnipotent. His self-limitation is itself an act of omnipotence.
The fact that P was not changed by the mental-spiritual force put on him proves that.
It does not prove it for a moment. It simply proves that the omnipotent unconditioned supramental force was not put out there — any more than, it was when Christ was put on the cross or when after healing thousands he failed to heal in a certain district (I forget the name) because people had no faith (faith being one of the conditions imposed for his working) or when Krishna after fighting eighteen battles with Jarasandha¹ failed to prevail against him and had to run away from Mathura. Why the immortal Hell should the Divine be tied down to succeed in all his operations? What if failure suits him better and serves better the ultimate purpose? What if the gentleman in question had to be given his chance as Duryodhan was given his chance when Krishna went to him as ambassador in a last effort to avoid the massacre of Kurukshetra?² What rigid primitive notions are these about the Divine! And what about my explanation of how the Divine acts through the Avatar? It seems all to have gone into water. By the way about the ass becoming an elephant — what I meant to say was that the only reason why it can't be done is because there is no recognizable process for it. But if a process can be discovered whether by a scientist (let us say transformation or redistribution of the said ass's atoms or molecules — or what not) or by an occultist or by a Yogi, then there is no reason why it should not be done. In other words certain conditions have been established for the game and so long as those conditions remain unchanged certain things are not done — so we say they are impossible, can't be done. If the conditions are changed, then the same things are done or at least become licit — allowable, legal, according to the so-called laws of Nature,— and then we say they can be done. The Divine also acts
¹ A powerful king, ally of the Kauravas. ² Duryodhan was the king of Kauravas who fought against the Pandavas in the great battle of Kurukshetra.
Page - 137 according to the conditions of the game. He may change them, but he has to change them first, not proceed, while maintaining the conditions to act, by a series of miracles. February 9, 1935 Excuse my writing today, since all days are Sundays for you it is all right, I suppose.
The whole Asram seems to reason in the same way and to draw the farther consequence that the perpetual Sunday is the proper day for each writing his special letter to me! What a touching proof of unanimity and solidarity in the communal mind!
You say that since "these things"¹ have been possible in you, they are possible in the earth-consciousness. Quite true; but have they been done? Has any sweeper or street beggar been changed into a Buddha or a Chaitanya by the Divine? We see in the whole history of spirituality only one Christ, one Buddha, one Krishna, one Sri Aurobindo and one Mother. Has there been any breaking of this rule? Since it has not been done, it can't be done.
The question was not whether it had been done but whether it could be done. The street-beggar is a side-issue. The question was whether new faculties not at all manifested in the personality up to now in this life could appear, even suddenly appear, by force of Yoga. I say they can and I gave my own case as proof. I could have given others also. The question involved is also this — is a man bound to the character and qualities he has come with into this life — can he not become a new man by Yoga? That also I have proved in my sadhana, it can be done. When you say that I could do this only in my case because I am an Avatar (!) and it is impossible in any other case, you reduce my sadhana to an absurdity and Avatarhood also to an absurdity. For my Yoga is done not for myself who need nothing and do not need salvation or anything else, but precisely for the earth-consciousness, to open a way to the earth-consciousness to change. Has the Divine need to come
¹ Cf. the last letter: Sudden opening in the understanding of painting, liberation of the mind in three days, transformation of Nature. Page - 138 down to prove that he can do this or that or has he any personal need of doing it? Your argument proves that I am not an Avatar but only a big human person. It may well be so as a matter of fact, but you start your argument from the other basis. Besides, even if I am only a big human person, what I achieve shows that that achievement is possible for humanity. Whether any street-beggar can do it or has done it is a side-issue. It is sufficient if others who have not the economic misfortune of being street-beggars can do it. What a wonderful argument! Since it has not been done, it cannot be done! At that rate the whole history of the earth must have stopped long before the protoplasm. When it was a mass of gases, no life had been born, ergo, life could not be born — when only life was there, mind was not born, so mind could not be born. Since mind is there but nothing beyond, as there is no supermind manifested in anybody, so supermind can never be born. Sobhanallah!¹ Glory, glory, glory to the human reason!! Luckily the Divine or the Cosmic Spirit or Nature or whoever is there cares a damn for the human reason. He or she or it does what he or she or it has to do, whether it can or cannot be done.
Kindly excuse the impudence of the next question; it has been hovering at the back of my mind for some time. Can a Muthu or a sadhak be ever a Sri Aurobindo, even if he is supramentalised? I say that it is absolutely impossible, impossible, a thousand times so.
What need has he to be a Sri Aurobindo ? He can be a supramentalised Muthu!
If anybody comes and says "Why not?" I would answer, "You had better rub some Madhyam Narayan oil² on your head."
I have no objection to that. Plenty of the middle Narayan is needed in this Asram. This part of your argument is perfectly correct — but it is also perfectly irrelevant.
¹ Urdu term meaning "Glory to God". ² Oil used for insanity, composed of thirteen herbs and barks. Madhyam literally means "middle". Page - 139 And how can it be otherwise ? You are looked upon by us here, and even by many outside, as a full Incarnation of the Divine. The sadhaks here at best are misty sparks of the Divine. I cannot by any empyrean flight of imagination conceive of this possibility even for a second. The psychic being is more than a spark at this stage of its evolution It is a flame. Even if the flame is covered by mist or smoke, the mist or smoke can be dissipated. To do that and to open to the higher consciousness is what is wanted, not to become a Sri Aurobindo or equal to the Mother. But if we are the Divine, what is the harm of evolving into a portion of the Divine, living in the divine Consciousness even if in a lesser degree? No middle Narayan will then be needed for anybody's head.
Once when Y had said she wanted to be like the Mother — you thundered saying, "How can it be? That is an ambition! ” Do you say now it's possible ?
Certainly not, it is not intended and I never said that [she] could as a practical matter.
All this is really too much for me. Please give a more direct answer — is it possible or not? Can a Muthu be changes into a being as great as an Avatar? If he can be, I have nothing further to say ; if not, there is a limit to the omnipotence of the Divine. It is for this reason that I said that your own example doesn't prove much.
Not at all. You are always making the same elementary baby stumble. It is not because the Divine cannot manifest his greatness anywhere, but because it is not in the conditions of the game, because he has chosen to manifest his centrality in a particular line that it is practically impossible.
Next point: it is hoped that the sadhaks will be supramentalised. Since it is a state surpassing the Overmind, am I to deduce that the sadhaks would be greater them Krishna, who was the Avatar of the Overmind level? Logically it follows, but looking at others and at myself, I wonder Page - 140 |
and nothing more. But that would be irrational if you like and worse than irrational
—'childish'. This does not mean that interventions, things apparently miraculous,
do not happen — they do. But all cannot be like that.
