and beating, hammering and hammering, but it comes not!

Inspiration failing to descend, perhaps.

[Sri Aurobindo drew an arrow indicating the last sentence. ]

Exactly. When any real effect is produced, it is not because of the beating and the hammering, but because an inspiration slips down between the raising of the hammer and the falling and gets in under cover of the beastly noise. It is when there is no need of effort that the best ponies. Effort is all right, but only as an excuse for inducing the Inspiration to come. If it wants to come, it comes — if it doesn't, it doesn't and one is obliged to give up after producing nothing or an inferior mind-made something. I have had that experience often enough myself. I have also seen Amal often producing something good but not perfect, beating the air and hammering it with proposed versions each as bad as the other; for it is only a new inspiration that can really improve a defect in the transcription of the first one. Still one makes efforts, but it is not the effort that produces the result, but the inspiration that comes in answer to it. You knock at the door to make the fellow inside answer. He may or he mayn't — if he lies mum, you have only to walk off swearing. That's effort and inspiration.

One has to work hours and hours on end. What do you call this labour?

Hammering, making a beastly noise so that Inspiration may get excited and exasperated and fling something through the window, muttering "I hope that will keep this insufferable tinsmith quiet."

By the way I discovered today from which corner the depression has come to me. It is our remarkable D again who got it immediately after Darshan. Then from him I got it! It is a pity though that one should get depressions after Darshan! It would suggest almost a post hoc theory. And he thinks it would be good to take a trip to Calcutta, or pass some time with X. Gracious, passing time with Mother and Sri Aurobindo doesn't help and X will?. .

That is why I affiliate you to D. It is not the first time I have seen your depressions coincide with his. But as a matter of fact he got

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depressed before the Darshan and came ready to be dark and unresponsive. The cause as usual was piffling — because Sotuda and P. S. had bothered him about his houses! Formerly it was always because I didn't smile but remained grim, aloof and supramental. I secured one happy darshan by smiling at everybody with a Herculean labour of persistence. But that only set his outer mind seeking for some new excuse for being unhappy with the Darshan and he found it that way — and then the usual gloom and horror of darkness and, frantic letters of departure — of course going back to the old grievance, no response from the Divine. Well, if anyone treated you as D does the Divine, would you be inclined to give a response? You would be more likely to be off to the Equator. And yet if he only did patiently what I have told him to do, he would get in time what he wants! Well, well!

S asks me to take him to the hospital for his eye-trouble. I asked him if R had given him permission — but R doesn't say anything. Also about the X-ray findings, when I asked R, he replied curtly as usual, "Oh I am not interested!"

R has given up S — only S goes on pushing reports saying "I am in perfect health except for a little cold" under R's door. It does not matter as S is going. He has written for his passage money.

S is in a danger-zone (suffering from chronic stomach ulcer). I don't understand why he stays here without a chance of coming to Pranam or meditation for months. I thought Mother's touch would do him good.

He is too insincere. Mother refuses to have him for Pranam or meditation. She says he is so full of falsehood that she can put no force on him except a Mahakali one and as he would resist that also, it would be more dangerous to him than helpful.

D was saying that his ailments don't ever improve after reporting to you. Please see that this report gives some response, otherwise another factor will be added to his depression!

The attitude of his physical mind prevents any result — for it is

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so unwilling to recognize anything as the result of the Force that his subconscient works in the direction of preventing any result coming — and it is the subconscient that is most determinative in matters of illness.

If Mother has no objection and Rajangam is willing to look after the Dispensary, I would like to fly to the Lake or Villinur on a cycle.

Mother says if nothing is needed to be done and nothing happens while you are away and R has only to sit and guard the Dispensary, then it is all right. On condition of course he doesn't kick down the Dispensary by an ill-considered movement of his legs in your absence! This last is my addition.

March 6, 1936

With all these "buts" and "ifs", I drew back today. So if Mother doesn't really approve I won't go. I didn't quite catch if Mother said that in the Pranam.

Mother had forgotten all about Villenur and the Rajangam-guarded Dispensary. So that had nothing to do with her look at Pranam.

It is really a pity that J is going with so many parts, also!

He is going with tears and full of blessings. Perhaps it is the "parts" you speak of that call him — his horoscope was found to be brilliant and almost Leninesque. Perhaps one day you will gaze at the figure of(I think that is Mridu's description) presiding over the destinies of a Communist India!! Why not? Hitler in his "handsome Adolf " days was not lessor prettier, so there is a chance.

Really, how things happen here so suddenly! He had been laughing, joking and one day I find he has turned quite a different man — morose, muttering, etc.

That is because he is listening to "voices" and feeling "influences", Anilbaran's and others', e.g. Nolini's. Imagine Nolini engaged in dark and sinister occult operations to take possession of somebody.

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You said something about the intermediate zone. I thought it was sex-trouble.

Sex-trouble, ego-trouble, occult-power trouble.

I had an idea that the intermediate zone is something that one is likely to tumble into after making a great progress in sadhana. . . I find there is some similarity between him, N, etc.

Anybody passing the border of the ordinary consciousness can enter into this zone, if he doesn't take care to enter into the psychic. In itself there is no harm in passing through provided one does not stop there. But ego, sex, ambition etc., if they get exaggerated, can easily lead there to the fate of N and Co.

. , . He has very big ideas about himself , e.g. he once said to me that he was trying to solve the sex-problem of the Asram!

So did N — he solved it finally by joining his wife.

(N.B. Sir, it is your pen that is making these blots.)

Really, I don't understand, how with so much love for you, such is the result.

Yes, but the vital got into the love and that always creates trouble, unless the vital agrees to be under the control of the psychic.

It is as if the psychic is crying .and. crying but other parts are dragging him away.

Quite true. But the psychic is weak, the mind erratic, the vital restless and over-eager. Hence these results.

Is this intermediate zone such a beastly thing that you can't draw anyone out of it in spite of his bearing so much love for you?

The difficulty is that if I draw him out, he runs back into it. These

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people feel a tremendous attraction to the wrong Influences and call them back. It is because in the absence of the occult experiences they feel ordinary and dull — and they are people who like to be extraordinary. I did pull out G; but he became as flat as a pancake and would do nothing more in the sadhana, because naturally I refused to put any more power upon him as he might misuse it. Others also when I cured their extravagances, complained that they felt so "ordinary" and shouted for their "Extravagant Influences" back again. There are always plenty of forces ready to answer a call like that. How often did I cudgel B and bring him back to his senses and he became quite clairvoyant and lucid for a time. But always he went back to his central Extravagance — mistaking his Ego for the Divine.

By the way—

My boil has burst and as you see

From the depression I am free.

Thanks, Guru, thanks to Thee!

Wilt Thou now pour some poetry ?

Yes, I got irritated last night by your persistent boiling and put a gigantic Force which I am glad to see burst the little boil.

Thank God for that!

Free from boil,

At poems toil.

Laugh and grow fat.

Dilip's temperature was 101.4° in the morning; evening, 100.4° Had two half-boiled eggs in the morning as he was hungry because we starved him last night!

A robust patient!

He says he has eaten two eggs out of greed, asks to be excused.

Quite safe !

U now vacillates or hesitates, thinking of pain and suffering,

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etc. and says, "After all how much can it grow in one or two years?” So I leave him with his tumour on the neck.

Mother was looking at his mango. It looked to her as if it was rather deep and would need more than a local anaesthetic. If he is afraid of the operation, no use operating.

I did. not quite follow what you meant by "it does not matter'' about S. He wants the glasses badly and says his eyes are burning.

Really now, what have I to do with his glasses? He is going — once out of the Asram, all these things will be his own business.

As he is going tonight, if any intelligent fellow with some interest in work can take his place or guard the Dispensary at least, please give us one.

Good Lord! what high expectations! Where are they, these intelligent interested fellows who are ready to stand guard over the Dispensary? Spot them, please.

March 7, 1936

How is it you remained unresponsive to my petty offers ? (because they were petty ?) I deferred the purchase of the pad, because if you have one, another would be of no use. I hope you haven't.

I am afraid I have.

But why should my depression coincide with D's? Too much association? Well, there are A, N, who mix with him more than I and yet they don't bring away the reward — and why do I?

Their separative individuality is more robustly precise. Besides they have not the Man of Sorrows temperament as part of their make-up.

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You surely can't hold off Krishna, Shiva or Brahma because X treats the Divine like that. That would be acting not like a Friend, though maybe like the Divine!

What do you mean? I am not holding off Krishna. It is Krishna who is holding off himself, as he generally does, except when he finds a likely person who will tolerate his ways.

As to X's not doing what you ask him to, in a talk I raised the issue casually. He said: "What am I not doing? I tell Guru everything that I am doing." I replied, "But to my mind our failure to get anything in Yoga is due perhaps to our terrible egoistic demands — I have done so much, where's the result? This sort of thing prevents us from any success, as this is a Yoga of surrender and not of effort. Effort is necessary but without any demand. . . "

The real thing is that he had his own ideas of Yoga and never accepted mine. He raged against the supermind, sneered at the psychic, stared with blank unintelligence at the idea of love and self- giving without demand etc. So how the deuce could he do what I told him? Outwardly he tried in an imperfect way, but it is only recently that he has been doing it in earnest — but inwardly? and inwardly is the most important thing. What I have to do all the time is to try to force the growth of the psychic in him without his knowing it and it is an uphill and precarious business.

Is effort without demand of result possible unless the psychic fellow comes to the front?

Perfectly possible, if you can once distinguish between the will of the Purusha and the demand of the vital. Of course, it is easiest and indeed plain sailing if the psychic comes in front, but even before that it is possible.

X said that Mother asked him to try to be conscious at every step, but it is "a very tiresome business".

Exactly; there it is. He doesn't want to do what he is told because it is tiresome or not according to his ideas.

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It seems he hasn't quite caught what you want him to do in spite of so many letters.

That's the difficulty.

Now I come to my state of affairs. I find now, except during depression, that I don't take the trouble of thinking of the Divine. . . Where is Yoga? Where is the aspiration, urge, etc. ? An inner certitude that everything will be done by the Guru, what? Or a tamasic beatitude? I don't see really how the "blue moon" is going to rise.

You rely too much on your own seeing as the standard ,of all truth — again like D.

You actually propose "Laugh and grow fat" though laughing never makes fat!

You oppose one of the most ancient traditions of humanity by this severe statement. But your statement is mistaken even according to Science. We are now told that it is the activity of certain glands that makes you thin or fat. If glands, then why not gladness?

Really I am now wondering at my own revelry and hilarity. No particular concern about yoga, yet I am happy. What kind of psychic attitude is this, Sir ?

It is not. a psychic attitude, but it is better than depression.

In what biological order will you put an egg — plant or animal?

European vegetarians regard it as a vegetable — others say that unimpregnated eggs can be eaten because there is no life in them — others say that as it is not destruction of conscious life it can be done.

I would like to have Mother's opinion on taking eggs so that I may not commit a sacrilege, if it is one.

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Mother allows eggs as a special provision for health in cases like R. Otherwise she does not approve.

D was given Codein Phos syrup, and he says it instantaneously stopped the cough. Very surprising, almost miraculous, more effective and definite than Yoga-Force — his opinion.

The fellow! After my strong intervention, he now says it is not God's Force, but Codein Phos!

Very strange, Sir, that you don't have a single intelligent chap in the species of your Supramental race-to-be ! On what do you build your hopes, please?

Excuse me, you said intelligence and interest. You might find one of these separately, but how do you hope to get them combined together? Anyhow we can't hunt for the kind of animal you want, you really should take up the chase.

March 9, 1936

[At the end of the day's medical report.]

About Mulshankar? How is he progressing? Have you asked him to take up some work? so we learn from B.S.¹

March 1O, 1936

Herewith Chand's letter. He wants to change his residence. But if he goes to a Mohamedan mess, it would be from the frying pan into the fire. However, he wants your opinion, Have you any to offer ?

Have no opinion to offer. Don't very well understand the proposed culinary operation. He is going to earn Rs.10 and spend 14 — and on the top of that bring his mother — to live with him in a Mohamedan mess? It sounds very modern — but too much of a mess. Irish stew — what!

¹ Building Service.

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He also writes that if M's wife gets angry with him and abuses him [for nothing], [this and that] might happen.

He means it will then not be Obviously! If are going to happen, a shift might be preferable.

There is something enclosed in the bag. Good enough, Sir ?

Very nice. But these things are generally somewhere else when one needs them.

What has happened to my typescript? Hibernating?

My dear sir, if you saw me nowadays with my nose to paper from afternoon to morning, deciphering, deciphering, writing, writing, writing, even the rocky heart of a disciple would be touched and you would not talk about typescripts and hibernation. I have given up (for the present at least) the attempt to minimise the cataract of correspondence; I accept my fate like Raman Maharshi with the plague of Prasads and admirers, but at least don't add anguish to annihilation by talking about typescripts.

March 11, 1936

I let go the typescript, but the poem ? How can I allow you to break a promise, Sir?

Break a promise? Who's going to do that? No time was fixed — so the promise can be fulfilled, say in 1997. If you say you are not likely to be alive then, nor I either — well, our heirs can complete the transaction.

What is the use of your complaining? You have committed the grave blunder of coming into this sorrowful world

¹ Meaningless.

² Meaningful.

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with a mighty magical pen. Sri Krishna, I conjecture, may have complained about his lungs because of his incessant blowing and fluting to melt our hard hearts.

It is an idea! Strange that none of the poets has mentioned it — a modernist poet would catch at it at once, "The Flute and the Lungs," or "Krishna's Bronchitis."

I am knocking about with Kanai and trying some joint meditation in the hope of getting something. Vain illusion?

Don't know — sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.

D has presented me a copy of his novel and writes: Good Lord! can't afford to be his companion in melancholy any more. He has beaten me hollow, what?

Ten times hollow! What the hell has made him so abnormally sensitive? He attributes his last despair deep as black Erebus to a joke of mine which he took as a personal sarcasm against him, though it was only a joke pointing out the logical outcome of his idea that you can't love the Divine until you experience that highly elusive gentleman. I say, you are not going to be his in that kind of thing? If so, I shall stop joking betimes and write to you henceforth with the solemnity of an owl.

U's lipoma can be operated upon under a local anaesthetic. Now all this question of operation is useless, because he says he is afraid. After all he has no discomfort and neither is it very big, he says, so let it be. Only I am thinking that if it grows bigger, as undoubtedly it will, unless your Force prevents it, what will be done then?

No use doing it if he is afraid. Let us wait on the Gods and hope they won't increase the lipoma till it deserves a diploma for its size.

¹ dolā; swing.

² With affection, to one who has till now remained my companion in melancholy.

³ sāthī : companion.

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An American skyscraper on the neck would be obviously inconvenient.

About Mulshankar's massage — do you think a servant can be trusted to do it properly — or a sadhak, say Virabhadra, should be asked to do it. Mother wants your opinion.

You have read Nishikanta's poem I would like to know how far the images he has put on the back of the swan, are permissible in poetry. It seems the imagination has run riot. D also voiced the same opinion. Here is a quotation: You have shown new paths to the horse known as Uchchhaishrava. .. By one single quiver your dance Urvasi was born. .

Isn't it rather too much for a swan's miraculous activity?

If you except² matter-of-fact verisimilitude from N or a scientific ornithologically accurate swan, you are knocking at the wrong door. But I don't see exactly the point of your objection. The lake is not a lake but a symbol — the swan is not a swan but a symbol. You can't expect the lake merely to ripple and do nothing else or the swan simply to swim and eat and do nothing else. It is as much a symbol as the Bird of Fire or the Bird of the Vedic poet who faced the guardians of the Soma and brought the Soma to Indra (or was it to a Rishi, I have forgotten) — perhaps carrying a pot or several pots in his claws and beak!! for I don't know how else he could have done it. How is he to use his symbol if you do not make allowances for a miraculous Swan? If the swan does nothing but what an ordinary swan does, it ceases to be a symbol and becomes only a metaphor. The animals of these symbols belong not to earth but to Wonderland.

March 13, 1936

What Sir, in your letter on "Swan and its symbol" expect has become except? Supramental slip!

Do you mean to say this is the first you have met? I used to make ten per page formerly in the haste of my writing. Evidently I am

¹ rājhansa : swan.

² See below — the following letter.

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arriving towards a supramental accuracy — spontaneous and careless in spite of the lightning speed of my epistolary movement.

I admit that the swan is a symbol, but don't you think that behind the expressions there should be a meaning?

Yes, of course.

The Vedic bird can be imagined to be bringing pots of Soma, but what would you understand by:

Take

² — one can find some meaning, but what about the line above?

As the is significant, so Urvasi is significant — so why should there be no meaning? Of course what you signify by Urvasi is another question. For me Urvasi is the divine beauty in the vital, with its intoxication and ecstasy. Why can't that come into being by a quiver, vibration, frisson of the dance of the Soul? Is it so meaningless? I confess that feeling it in that sense the line gave me a poetic thrill.

Isn't it true that you can't really love the Divine until you experience him in some way? Before that it won't be an intense or deep love.

Your supposition conflicts with the experience of many sadhaks. I think Ramkrishna indicated somewhere that the love and joy and ardour of seeking was much more intense than that of fulfilment. I don't agree, but that shows at least that intense love is possible before realisation.

For Mulshankar, I think the servant will do because only a slow up-and-down movement is needed. But when he is dispensed with, no longer needed, we can ask Virabhadra.

¹ By one single quiver of your dance Urvasi was born.

² You pacified the elephant maddened by desire. . .

³ Mad elephant.

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This servant is to be dismissed on the 19th, as he is found unsatisfactory in several respects. So perhaps you could press V into service as masseur.

March 14, 1936

Sahana came with a gritting sensation in the right eye. She rubbed and rubbed it since noon and it has become very red.

You didn't tell her that rubbing and restless touching is the worst thing one can do with the eye?

March 15, 1936

Yes, intense love is possible before realisation, but some sort of a decisive experience one must have, psychic, mental or vital, before the love can be profound, solid and intense.

What do you mean by experience? Love and Bhakti are themselves an experience.

First time I heard of any such rule.

One should be able to have the vision of the loving and intensely lovable Presence of Krishna or his blue radiance sending thrills of ecstasy. .

Hundreds of Bhaktas had to wait for long and many years before anything of the kind came.

Five minutes or twenty-four hours of intense rapture by your touch will do something, but it would be a hardly sufficient solid basis. One may pull on with this petty capital of 5 minutes or more raptures till some decisive experience makes the capital absolutely beyond any chance of failure or insolvency. That's how I look at it.

That may be how you look at Love, but why should everybody else be obliged to do so?

You are again making a general sweeping rule out of your own standpoint.

Love and ardour of seeking with the same or increased intensity

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without any big experience may be possible in cases like Ramakrishna's who from boyhood used to fall into trance even at the sight of blue clouds, reminding him of Krishna. Even then isn't it said that many times he resolved to drown himself in the Ganges because the Mother wouldn't come ?

What has that to do with it? It only shows that his yearning was excessive.

Was he shaken in his faith or love, or was it the impetuosity of love that wouldn't brook delay?

If his love was shaken, i.e. if he had ceased to want her, why the deuce should he care a damn whether she came or not? There is no question of faith, it is about love. Do you think at any time R ceased to believe in the Divine?

Don't you think your realisation of the Self helped you in your crucial moments of struggle, kept up your faith and love?

That has nothing to do with love. Realisation of Self and love of the personal Divine are two different movements.

My struggle has never been about the Self. All that is perfectly irrelevant to the question which concerns the Bhakta's love for the Divine.

But the sweet memory of that experience of the Self must have sustained you.

There was nothing sugary about it at all. And I had no need to have any memory of it, because it was with me for months and years and is there now though in fusion with other realisations.

We poor people in dark times which pay us frequent visits, fall back on our petty capital of Ananda, even on some of your jokes, to fortify ourselves. If such things can bring back a momentary wave of love and devotion, restored faith, how much would decisive experiences not do? . . .

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My point is that there have been hundreds of Bhaktas who have the love and seeking without any concrete experience, with only a mental conception or emotional belief in the Divine to support them. The whole point is that it is untrue to say that one must have a decisive or concrete experience before one can have love for the Divine. It is contrary to the facts and the quite ordinary facts of the spiritual experience.

it is only the lion-hearts that can go on without any experience.

The ordinary Bhakta is not a lion-heart. The lion-hearts get experiences comparatively soon, but the ordinary Bhakta has often to feed on his own love or yearning for years and years — and he does it.

March 17, 1936

J has been asked to use mustard oil, cocoanut oil or castor oil for her eczema. Which one should she use ?

Pavitra must be asked what oil he is using and that can be used — for he has found it effective. Mother thought it might be cocoanut oil, but she is not sure.

March 18, 1936

Freed once more from the devil's claws! Just a few words about the process: I took up H's poem, felt like writing one after reading it, failed; then went to Pranam, there found Jatin 's letter which I enclose, waiting, read it and as soon as I sat in the Hall, lo, everything fell off my shoulders or soul, as if by the breath of an invisible wave.

Yes, of course, it was the old man of the Sea, I mean of Sorrows, who dropped off because he can't stand anything cheerful and hopeful. The main credit goes to the letter, because it has a push in it of the psychic force which took your vital and the OM. also by surprise and knocked him off and you up, before the said vital had time to turn round and cry, "Hélas! Hélas! Alas! Ototototoi!"

¹ hāy hāy: alas, alas.

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But I don't know what did the job. Poetry, letter or Mother? The letter itself gave me a sense of something pleasant.

All together — Poetry first attempt, letter brought a good atmosphere (that was the sense of something pleasant), and both were the effect of a long pressure from me which you had resisted sitting firm in a Gandhian passive resistance.

This shows, Sir, you make me suffer unnecessarily; you can, at any moment, draw me out if it pleases you.

Not at all; you can't be drawn out if something in you refuses and sticks like a badger in its hole. When that says "Oh damn it, after all let me get out and breathe some fresh air", then it can be done.

Please read his letter. I am sure your heart will leap at the response to your Force, by at least one soul, what?

Excuse me, he is .not the only one.

J's is a most fascinating and convincing example. Alas, when will my hard crust be broken, and feel at least some fragments of what he feels!

The difference is that his mind is ready to accept and makes no resistance. If his vital is as willing,— the sex affair looks like it — then he can go very fast.

I don't understand what my friend means by the disturbance in connection with the affairs of the world.

That is clear enough. His new consciousness makes him feel more strongly the opposite forces that one contacts when one moves in the world and has to do affairs and meet with others and he is afraid of a response in his vital which will upset his sadhana or create difficulties. ,

Evidently he is a man who is psychically sensitive or has become so to that thing which you blindly refuse to recognize even when you are in the midst of it — the play of forces. You can feel your friend's atmosphere through the letter "so beautiful, so strengthening,

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so refreshing" and it has an immediate effect on you. But your mind stares like an owl and wonders "What the hell can this be?"— I suppose, because your medical books never told you about it and how can things be true which are not known either to the ordinary mind or science? It is by an incursion of an opposite kind of forces that you fall into the Old Man's clutches, but you can only groan and cry "What's this?" and when they are swept aside in .a moment by other forces, blink and mutter "Well, that's funny!" Your friend can feel and know at once when he is being threatened by the opposite forces — and so he can be on his guard and resist Old Nick, because he can detect at once one of his principal means of attack.

Please reply to all the points raised.

Will see, so hold on to the letter.

I went over his letter again — it is so beautiful, so strengthening and refreshing. And how beautifully he writes about the snow-flakelike falling of delight.

That's his psychic atmosphere, sir. That is what the psychic feels like — to anyone who can contact it, "beautiful, strengthening and refreshing."

Give me a beautiful "beating", Sir, will you? Have not had it for a long time!

Have given you One or two smacks. No time to make it long.

March 19, 1936

Did you say "Old Man of the Sea"?

Yes.

But why sea, Sir? Any allusion?

Well, traditionally, it is, I believe, old man of the mountains, but there were no mountains here, only a sea of sobs and sorrows — so I had to vary the phrase

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