Part One
1933-1938
(Reproduced overleaf: letter of
December 1, 1935. See text pp. 61-63.)
(Written during Prithwi Singh's first stay at the Ashram.)
Mother,1
I will be able to do good copying work, both in English and Bengali. Also I know typewriting a little. I can do general work also as assistant to somebody if I have not to go about from place to place which is difficult on account of weak eyesight.
By your grace I am staying here till the 5th of December. And during this time I will gladly undertake any work you may choose for me.
With deep reverence
Devotedly yours
Prithwisingh
It would be difficult to arrange anything as it is only for another week that you are staying.
Sri Aurobindo
28 November 1933
* * *
Mother,
What is the meaning of the last stanza of the magnificent prose poem The Bird of Fire dazzling with high coloured imageries—
"O Flame, who art Time's last boon of the sacrifice, offering-flower held by the finite's gods to the Infinite, O marvel bird with the burning wings of light and the unbarred lids that look beyond all space,
1. Let us note that at the time, the disciples used to write to Mother, but most of the time it was Sri Aurobindo who answered.
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One strange leap of thy mystic stress breaking the barriers
of mind and life, arrives at its luminous term thy flight;
Invading the secret clasp of the Silence and crimson Fire
thou frontest eyes in a timeless Face."
Why "Flame" is "Time's last boon of the sacrifice'"?
and what is the inner significance of the last two lines ?
It is not a prose poem—it is a poem with fixed metre and a system of rhymes.
The flame means the Bird of Flame and the Bird is the symbol of an inner Power that rises from the "sacrifice" in the Yoga. The last lines mean that it has the power of going beyond mind and life to that which is beyond mind and Life.
Sri Aurobindo
2 December 1933
Prithwi Singh
In regard to what you write about sex, it is the normal experience that when it is driven out of the waking consciousness, more or less entirely, it takes refuge in the subconscient vital and finally in the subconscient material and comes up in sleep or else in the moments just after waking when the consciousness is still tamasik and disposed to accept whatever movements come up from the subconscient without resistance or control. In sleep it usually comes up as dreams, but not always—for it is sometimes only a mechanical impulse without the form of dream. In any case what you experience is not due to any badness in the nature or accumulation of past evil,
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but is the normal course taken in the elimination of the impulse from the nature. There is no ground therefore for discouragement. You have only to get the habit of asserting your will in the moments after sleep and, if possible put a will into the subconscient which will act automatically in sleep as well as in waking to discourage the coming up of the sex impulse whether in the form of dream or any other.
Sri Aurobindo
13 May 1934
* * *
Prithwi Singh
The Mother has received your letter and she appreciates very much the offer you have made to her and most the spirit in which it is made. But she had learned that the price of the crown will amount to Rs.1500, a far higher sum than any she would ever have thought of allowing to be spent on this or any similar object for her. She would therefore like to ask all of you to give up the idea of preparing so costly a crown especially as it would appear that it is very difficult and might not be a success. It would be a disastrous result if so much, far too much were spent to no purpose. The proposal of the crown may therefore be abandoned altogether. The Mother values very highly the spirit of bhakti and offering which has animated you and Umirchand1 and Udaysingh,2 and she trusts that you and they will understand and will not feel the giving up of the project.
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We send to you all our love and blessings.
Sri Aurobindo
7 June 1934
* * *
Prithwi Singh
In our Yoga we mean by the subconscient that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious and coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself. These impressions can rise up—do constantly rise up in dream in an incoherent and disorganised manner—they can also rise up into our waking consciousness as a mechanical repetition of old thoughts, mental, vital and physical habits or an obscure stimulus to sensations, actions, emotions which do not rise from our conscious thought or will and are even often opposed to it. In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate sanskaras [imprints] formed by our past, an obscure vital full of the seeds of habitual desires, sensations and nervous reactions, a most obscure material which governs much that has to do with the condition of the body. It is largely responsible for our illnesses and chronic illnesses are mainly due to the subconscient and its obstinate memory and habit of repetition of whatever has impressed itself upon the body consciousness. This subconscient must be clearly distinguished from the subliminal parts of our being such as the inner or subtle physical consciousness, the inner vital or inner mental which are not at all obscure or incoherent or ill-organised, but only veiled from our surface consciousness which constantly receives something from these sources but does not know for the most part whence they come.
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As for asserting one's will in sleep it is simply a matter of accustoming the subconscient to obey the will laid upon it by the waking mind before sleeping. It very often happens for instance that if you fix upon the subconscient your will to wake up at a particular hour in the morning, the subconscient will obey and you wake up automatically at that hour. This can be extended to other matters. Many have found that by putting a will against sexual dreams or emission on the subconscient before sleeping, there comes after a time (it does not always succeed at the beginning) an automatic action causing one to awake before the dream concludes or before it begins or in some way preventing the thing forbidden from happening. Also one can develop a more conscious sleep in which there is a sort of inner consciousness which can intervene.
As regards your other letter, the Mother accepts very willingly the offering you wish to make to her. She did not wish to disappoint anybody about the crown even, but it had gone so far beyond the expected limits that she was obliged to say no.
Sri Aurobindo
P.S. The typewriter given by you has arrived, it is a very fine instrument and the Mother is very much pleased with it.1
24 June 1934
* * *
... The fact is that all my life I have used medicines very occasionally and I would like to rely on your help cooperating with it by strongly putting my will for the throwing up of this chronic illness from the
1. An Underwood typewriter imported from Germany, which was used by Pavitra.
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system. But if you think that this reluctance is due to some pride in the nature or undesirable please tell me so and I shall certainly obey you.
I feel deep joy to be here but this joy demands an effort to throw out all the lower clingings of the animal human nature. I am sincerely trying to do it and I again humbly pray for your help.
You are quite right in your objection to going to the doctors.
For the sex you have taken the right attitude and the necessary control is coming and is bound to grow. If there is still persistence, you should not feel dejected, for it is the nature of this impulse to persist and struggle for survival; but with perseverance it will be mastered.
Sri Aurobindo
Undated (1934?)
** *
Krishnayya is mistaken. Mother is not anxious to have this land, and she does not approve of your giving this money for that purpose. (It would also be a great pity to sell the diamond,1 as it would certainly not fetch anything like its true price in the market.) It is not a moment when we can go in for these things. So keep to the original arrangement about the money. We do not wish you either to give up your stay in the Asram.
Sri Aurobindo 13 August 1934
** *
1. Which came from the nose ring of Prithwi Singh's late wife.
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Mother,
I shall not write again about the diamond as you wish it so. It is premature now but some months later after my return I shall again write to you about it.
While I am here I should like to do some sort of work. I can take up the work of the classification of books in the library according to the method of Dr. Dewey whose book I have brought with me. A sort of arrangement in cards is also necessary. If you approve I can explain the method to Nolini Babu1 and if he thinks it is not too complicated for the average user I can take up the work quite gladly. In any case I shall try faithfully to perform any work that you may be pleased to give me.
Yes. Arrange with Nolini.
Regarding my movements here, I find it extremely difficult, Mother, to still my mind. Try as much as I may the thoughts come rushing one upon the other and as soon as they are detected in their endless and often silly formations they stop for a moment only to return with the same obstinacy. It is all the more embarrassing as I am now endeavouring to meditate for half an hour or forty-five minutes at a stretch. I try to fix my thought upon an imaginary circle of light (or sometimes "Om") at the will-centre but after a time the controlling movement is somehow gone and thoughts chase each other endlessly, sweeping the point of light into nothingness.
1. Nolini Kanta Gupta.
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These are usually the reactions in the early stages, if one tries by force to concentrate the mind.
The mantram (Radhāswāmi) that was taught to me I often repeat, sometimes simply I cry "Ma, Ma." Only at rare moments when my mind is a little stilled I hear various sounds (curiously always in the right ear and sometimes even unexpectedly). Yesterday however during meditation-time I distinctly heard the sound of "Om "for a very brief space of time though.
But these things are transitory, they come and go at their will, whereas I want to establish a deep silence so that I may receive the Mother's transforming power and love in the right way and more fully. Therefore I humbly beseech you, Mother, to teach me the art of meditation, how to guard against the overwhelming rush of thoughts and the right attitude that will help.
It is not possible to establish a deep silence all at once unless you can separate yourself from the thoughts, feel them as coming from outside and reject them before they enter. But everybody cannot do that at once.
How keenly I feel my weaknesses gathering strength to baffle me in my efforts! Your help alone can save me and lift me from this deep gloom and sense of utter worthlessness.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
P.S. I may say that at the pranam-time when I receive your blessings a sense of sweet overflowing peace and
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deep gratitude fills my being—this experience I had not had last time. This makes me all the more sorrowful at my incapacity to tune myself into a perfect poise even for a short time.
It may be better to concentrate in the heart rather than in the mind, offer yourself from there and call the Mother into the heart leaving the thoughts to fall silent of themselves. Otherwise with the present method you have simply to persevere till the present brief and imperfect stillings of the mind become longer and deeper.
Sri Aurobindo
17 August 1934
** *
Mother,
It is my earnest prayer to-day, take away even the last vestige of the kartritwa abhimana1 and make myself a conscious and perfect channel of Thy expression.
22 August 1934
*
* *
Mother and the Master,
I have translated your poem "To the Sea" being encouraged in my previous attempt which you said was good. If I have been able by your Grace to convey in what faint measure even may be possible in translation some of the subtle depths and grandeur of the original that is sufficient—even if it is a failure I do not
1. The idea of oneself as the doer.
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regret the time spent over it because it helps me so much, by my living—though for a time only—in that profound atmosphere surcharged with an unspeakable strength of your realisation shining through the lines. I am sending the translation and should very much like to know how you like it, Master.1...
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
It is a very good translation indeed.
Sri Aurobindo
26 August 1934
* * *
The sounds of bells and the seeing of lights and colours are signs of the opening of the inner consciousness which brings with it an opening also to sights and sounds of other planes than the physical. Some of these things, like the sound of bells, crickets etc. seem even to help the opening. The Upanishad speaks of them as brahmavyaktirkrāni yoge? The lights represent forces—or sometimes a formed light like that you saw may be the Light of a being of the supraphysical planes.
Sri Aurobindo
September 1934
* * *
1.Prithwi Singh went on to translate many poems of Sri Aurobindo into Bengali, most of them with his detailed comments and suggestions. These translations are published in Kabita, Natok O Probandho.
2.Signs accompanying the opening to the higher consciousness in yoga.
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Mother,
A friend of mine Haren Ghose1 intends to publish an English annual "The Four Arts Annual" possibly during Christmas. He wishes very much to have a poem from the Master for this journal. Will it be possible for the Master to give him one ? What shall I write to him ?
I never write for publication. If something happens to be there then I may give to publisher, but I have none.
He also seeks permission to print a photo of the Master. Can he do it ?
We are giving you a photo he can print.
He would also like to take photographs of the Asram buildings for publication and is quite willing to come for the purpose himself with an expert photographer if the permission is given.
Very well.
Sri Aurobindo
3 September 1934
1. The first Indian impresario. He is best known as having presented Uday Shankar and his dance to the Indian public in 1930. Indeed, it is thanks to him that dancers like Bala Saraswati, Rukmini Devi, and a number of others got their first chance to perform at Calcutta, then the cultural capital of India. He was a good photographer, and published many photographs of well-known personalities in his mid-thirties periodical, The Four Arts Annual,
Just weeks before India won her freedom in 1947, during the Calcutta riots, he was gruesomely murdered in his office.
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(The following four texts are not letters, but
from Prithwi Singh's diary.)
How clearly do I feel to-day, Mother, that my work has ended. The responsibility has ceased to be mine. The work belongs to Thee and Thine the responsibility. All the ordinary motive-forces behind my work have now dwindled into non-entity and it is but Thy Energy that has taken charge of the machinery. This seizure of the being by Thyself has been effected in the inner levels of consciousness and the Power is now asserting Itself victoriously, marching forward triumphantly, conquering plane after plane and ruthlessly smiting down all forces that oppose the onward march. It is because of this rapid progression of Thy consciousness that this feeling of the cessation of my work has become so strong. The persistence of the outer being in its egoistic play is there by habit and the outer crust may fall off any moment when the pressure from within is impetuous. The inner movements of the nature are definitely becoming more and more concentric and the Time is ahead when the realisation of the Psychic Self in all Its luminous amplitude will become the sole aim and object of life. This concentric movement has sounded a death-knell of all egoistic ways of activity and prepared the conditions for an eventual efflorescence of Thy supreme Self.
Undated
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Mother,
Bury the dead past. Let the memories of the past,— memories of sad mistakes, false identification, haltings and delayings on the way, deviations, weak-kneed aspiration, dilettantism, oscillations and such ignorant clinging to the habits and formations of life,—no more afflict the being. They try to cast a spell of gloom over the bright and sanguine movements of the higher nature, suggesting, "How sad mistakes did you commit in the past; you got true impulses and true attitude very often but failed to remain faithful to them." It suggests, moreover, that had I remained faithful to the call, what a wonderful progress would I have made by this time. That is why, I pray to Thee, O Mother, bury the past fraught with sad memories and let it not have the strength to cast shadows upon the play of Light, Truth and Joy. If the past has had a long history of tragic errors and ignorant activities, it had also to counterbalance them, bright movements, true formations, upward pushes, ardent aspiration, sincere invocation to Light, Power and Joy, moments of unconditioned opening to the Supreme Truth, dedication, loving remembrance and many such movements of Light. The past, I see, is not an unmixed evil. It records a mixed play of light and darkness, power and weakness, truth and untruth and even the stumblings and failures, I feel, have but served the Divine Purpose and been wisely manipulated by the Supreme Will and Wisdom to lead the being towards the Supreme Felicity. Pray, let me have the strength to turn my back upon the past life and look forward and fix my steadfast gaze upon the Light and the Truth. I do
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not belong to the past dawns but to the noons of the future.1 The past is past and it cannot bind the future. May the future movements be an unbroken history of luminous movements and flaming intensities.
4 September 1934
* * *
Unbounded is my love for Thee, O supreme Mother. Knowingly or unknowingly from times immemorial, I have loved but Thee. My love has stood the test of time and now it unfurls the banner of its victory over all the opposing forces. Forgetting Thee I fulfilled Thy Intention, going astray I served Thy Purpose. My heart refuses to believe that there was ever any breach in my love for Thee. If, by way of play, Thou didst hide Thyself from my view, it was to reappear with a greater effulgence and if I ran away from Thee it was but to run into Thy lap and hug and kiss Thee. It was nothing else than a rapturous play of hide-and-seek. Now I feel, Mother, that the nature of the play would be different. No more a play of hide-and-seek but that of seek-and-seek. Thou and I in the orb of light, playing an eternal game,—that is the picture that floats before my mind's eye. The future play, therefore, will not be a play of light and darkness but of an undying light. But even when darkness intervened and a separative consciousness grew up in our mutual play, my love never for a moment turned its face from Thee. Attachment, lust, greed, passion, egoistic demands,
1. From Sri Aurobindo's sentence in Essays on the Gita
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deviations and all these so-called undivine forces were created by Thee for enacting the play of hide-and-seek most perfectly and even in that period of total oblivion of Thyself my love never languished. This feeling of an uninterrupted and overflowing love for Thee is very strong in me to-day and I doubt not its validity.
10 September 1934
* * *
Enough of unprofitable questionings and doubtings of the mind: let it now have a free and silent room for a descent of the Supreme Truth. Let the sense-mind be no more enmeshed in the sense-objects and be satisfied with flickering and pale enjoyments but let each and every sense-organ get a perfect enjoyment in the Divine. Let the sense-mind depend for its myriad activities upon the Divine and in Him let it find the ultimate satisfaction. It will then see the Divine, hear the Divine, smell the Divine, touch the Divine and taste the Divine, in short, it will sense nothing else than the Divine. That will ensure its perfect functioning and real enjoyment.
The pragmatic mind rejoices in playing habitually in a narrow groove. Partial and dusky reflections of the Supreme Idea, random play of thoughts, ill-formed and yet constantly trying to assert themselves without having any real control over the objective world, blind adherence to its parochial ideations— these are the things that characterise the play of the pragmatic mind. Let it now be made a free, conscious and dynamic channel of the expression and formation
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of the Supreme Idea.
The ethical mind is too much enamoured of the rules, the canons, the laws and the regulations of its own creation and thus ignorantly fetters itself. Starting with the purpose of ultimately getting the Divine, it but loses Him, His Plenitude and His Freedom. The rules and canons give it more satisfaction than even the Divine. Bright beginning but sad end. May it be made an unobstructing and a luminous channel for the right activity of the Supreme Law, the Supreme Harmony and the Supreme Truth.
The aesthetic mind, while having an inherent seeking after the Supreme and Plenary Beauty of the Divine, rests satisfied with fragmentary mental representations of It. Not the whole of It but Its shadow-reflections does the aesthetic mind happen to get. Let its limited and sensuous enjoyment be replaced by the clear-seeing and rapturous enjoyment of the Supreme Beauty.
The emotive mind ignorantly revels in the derivative play of the Pure Emotion. Limping and feverish play of emotions, sometimes giving thrilling sensations, sometimes rendering the mind an arid desert—that is the nature of its enjoyment. Let it, my Lord, be a rapture-bound instrument for the limpid and boisterous play of the Supreme Emotion.
The vital mind in the same way slavishly indulges in the dualistic and diseased satisfactions of vital insistences. In the place of a strong, impetuous and cyclonic enjoyment of the Supreme Life-expression, it has to remain satisfied with sham enjoyments. Let it be made a strong, pure and luminous channel for the
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expression of the Supreme Life.
Purify, Mother, each and every part of the mind, make it a consecrated and transformed instrument of Thy expression in all Thy luminous amplitudes. Not an annihilation of the mind but a transmutation of it in the light of the Supreme Truth, not a quietist enjoyment at the expense of the mind but a Pleroma of Light, Beauty and Power, not a truncated realisation but an integral and a harmonious one,—these and nothing short of them that I pray for. Listen to this heart-felt prayer of mine and make the mind, released from its physical obsessions, a sublime and effective instrument for Thy Ineffable Play.
11 September 1934
* * *
Prithwi Singh
When one is living in the world, one cannot do as in an Asram—one has to mix with others and keep up outwardly at least ordinary relations with others. The important thing is to keep the inner consciousness open to the Divine and grow in it. As one does that, more or less rapidly according to the inner intensity of the sadhana, the attitude towards others will change. All will be seen more and more in the Divine and the feeling, action etc. will more and more be determined, not by the old external reactions, but by the growing consciousness within you.
It is true that there is an increasingly powerful descent of the Higher Force. Many now see the lights and colours around the Mother and her subtle luminous forms— it means that their vision is opening to supraphysical realities, it is not a phantasy. The colours or lights you
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see are forces from various planes and each colour indicates a special force.
The supramental Force is descending, but it has not yet taken possession of the body or of matter—there is still much resistance to that. It is a supramentalised Overmind Force that has already touched; and this may at any time change into or give place to the Supramental in its own native power.
The Mother finds that you have made considerable progress since you came here this time and that the opening in you is widening very much. The little difficulties and details you speak of are of very little importance. Let the consciousness grow within you as it is growing and the opening of the consciousness grow entirely wide.
Sri Aurobindo
14 September 1934
** *
Prithwi Singh
I will answer your letter this afternoon or tomorrow morning at some length. Mother will certainly say yes to your coming here, but about the time, the affairs, the children, something must be said which has to be said in more detail. That I will write in the course of the day.
Sri Aurobindo
29 September 1934
*
* *
Prithwi Singh
The Mother accepts in principle your coming here as a permanent member of the Asram. She would like you indeed to consider yourself, from now on as a member,—
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as Duraiswami1 is though living for most of the year in Madras,—not an outside disciple.
The question remains about the time of your coming here not to return. Here the Mother is inclined to think that it would be more satisfactory to settle the affairs of the estate definitely, and then permanently come. There would in that case be some delay, but it would have this advantage of leaving little chance of a call or pull from over there to create any vibrations in the sadhana. The second date proposed by you would then have to be adopted.
Next, the children. Most of them are too young to have an intelligent will of their own in such matters as yet and in a matter like sadhana there should be no pressure or influencing of any kind. The delay will give some of them time to grow into a possibility of a clear and willed choice. Under this arrangement the matter of their coming over here can be decided then, when things are ready. Meanwhile their photographs can be sent and perhaps the older of them can come at some darshan2 time so that the Mother can see them.
I think these are the main points in your letter. As for other details it is for you to arrange. You have given us a clear idea of the situation and the possibilities and we will help you with the Force we can give you to support your measures.
Sri Aurobindo
29 September 1934
1.S. Duraiswami Iyer, a reputed lawyer at the Madras High Court. In 1942 he was Sri Aurobindo's personal messenger to the Congress, to urge them to accept the Cripps proposal.
2.When the disciples used to silently stand in front of Sri Aurobindo and Mother for a few moments. There were three darshans a year at the time.
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(Regarding Prithwi Singh's Bengali translation
of Sri Aurobindo's poem, "Love and Death.")
Prithwi Singh,
I do not think it is the ideas that make the distinction between European and Indian tongues—it is the turn of the language. By taking over the English turn of language into Bengali one may very well fail to produce the effect of the original because this turn will seem outlandish in the new tongue; but one can always, by giving a right turn of language more easily acceptable to the Bengali mind and ear, make the idea as natural and effective as in the original; or even if the idea is strange to the Bengali mind one can by the turn of language acclimatise it, make it acceptable. The original thought in the passage you are translating1 may be reduced to something like this: "Here is this beautiful world, the stars, the forest, the birds—I have not yet lived long enough to know them all or for them to know me so that there shall be friendship and familiarity between us and now I am thus untimely called away to die." That is a perfectly human feeling, quite as
1. The passages referred to are:
"I have not numbered half the brilliant birds In one green forest"
and
"Nor have I seen the stars so very often
That I should die."
This was in reply to the question whether the ideas in the passages referred to were Indian and European. Sri Aurobindo commented: "I can't say. Neither of them are particularly European. These feelings, I should imagine, are simply human." And then he gave this valuable note on translation given above. [Prithwi Singh's note on a typed version of Sri Aurobindo's letter.]
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possible, more easily possible to an Indian than to a European (witness Kalidasa's Sakuntala) and can very well be acceptable. But the turn given it in English is abrupt and bold though quite forcible in going straight home— in Bengali it may sound strange and not go home. If so, you have to find a turn in Bengali for the idea which will be as forcible and direct; not here only, but everywhere this should be the rule. Naturally one should not go too far away from the original and say something quite different in substance but, subject to this limitation, any necessary freedom is quite admissible.
Sri Aurobindo
October, 1934
* * *
Mother,
On the night of the 2nd inst. I had a wonderful experience. I suddenly woke up late at night and felt a power coming from over the head reaching up to the waist. I felt a very joyful sensation as it enveloped me in its sweet fold. There was very slight trembling and the bell-sound was continuously ringing in the right ear. I was calling Mother, Mother, and I felt your near presence and soothing caress. Gradually it passed away and after some time I again fell asleep.
Yes, it was the beginning of the descent of the Mother's force and the Mother's enveloping presence.
Last night there was a recurrence of sex-impulse accompanied by wet dream, but immediately it was controlled by my willed interference as I became aware
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and the whole vital movement was expelled. I am however not much perturbed for I feel that these movements obstinate as they are, are bound to disappear sooner or later as I feel them more and more as outside forces.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
They are certain to disappear—only things from the subconscient take some time to clear out.
Sri Aurobindo
5 October 1934
** *
Prithwi Singh,
It is true that the habit of gossip and fault-finding with others does interfere because it brings down the consciousness from a higher to a lower level. But I do not think a retirement such as you propose is the way to cure it. It would only be suspended and the tendency come up again when you resumed free intercourse with others. It is on its field itself that it has to be first observed, then cured by detachment from it and rejection of it when it comes. A partial retirement may sometimes be helpful for concentration,—but not for these things; there the only cure is what I suggest or else the descent of a higher consciousness to replace the present imperfect nature.
Sri Aurobindo
13 October 1934
*
* *
Mother,
I heard from Nirod who came to know it from Tulsi
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who learned from somebody who said to him that you had told him that the Supermind was certain to descend by this November. Is it correct ? If so, will there be any sudden great change not only in the Asram but outside also ? Or the change will be gradual as the Power effectively sweeps over and takes possession of the earth-consciousness more and more.
When the Supermind touches the body, is it that Your Power will be absolute over the physical and the subconscient and the fumes of the latter disappear at your very Touch ? Supramentalised overmind has already touched Your Body which has become "God's happy living tool". When the Supermind touches, will there be further changes in the chemical constituent of the body, and will it become immortal to be withdrawn only when willed ?
I pray, Mother, you will at least say something about these things.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
I do not know who was Tulsi's informant, but certainly the Mother never said to anybody that the Supermind was to descend on the 24th November. Dates cannot be fixed like that. The descent of the supermind is a long process or at least a process with a long preparation and one can only say that the work is going on sometimes with a strong pressure for completion, sometimes retarded by the things that rise from below and have to be dealt with before farther progress can be made. The process is a (spiritual) evolutionary process concentrated into a brief period—it could be done otherwise (by what men would
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regard as a miraculous intervention) only if the human mind were more flexible and less attached to its ignorance than it is. As we envisage it, it must manifest in a few first and then spread, but it is not likely to sweep over the earth in a moment. It is not advisable to discuss too much what it will do and how it will do it, because these are things the Supermind itself will fix, acting out of that Divine Truth in it, and the mind must not try to fix for it grooves in which it will run. Naturally, the release from subconscient ignorance and from disease, duration of life at will, and a change in the functioning of the body must be among the ultimate results of a supramental change; but the detail of these things must be left for the Supramental Energy to work out according to the truth of its own nature.
Sri Aurobindo
18 October 1934
Mother,
For more than a fortnight every time when I come from the Pranam or rather just after I receive Your Gracious Touch I feel a sense of great nourishment affecting even my physical body which feels strong and weighty though light. And when in Your own way You press playfully with Your fingers on the opening point of the spinal cord I feel something coming within, something subtle that makes my inner being overflow with causeless joy—but what it is I do not know or can guess.
The sense of nourishment (it is a feeling that a new substance is created within) is so apparently powerful
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that even when I am a little unwell and weak it completely dominates with its sense of joy and security.
I should like to know what it all means. From the way of your Touch I sometimes feel that it is meant to open some recalcitrant part. Although I am losing fast all my faith in personal effort and realise more and more that You are doing Sadhana for us and that the only effort worthwhile is to call down Your Grace and aspire for Your guiding Light within, yet if it is advisable to let me know I shall also aspire as best I can to make that part open to Your Light.
I sometimes feel "tremors" at night as before but now my body is almost able to bear the full impact without shaking and at those times I fervently call You, Mother, which completely destroys all lurking fears that cast their shadows sometimes.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
As you suffer from ill health, Mother presses the nourishment of the divine strength and health into your physical being, renewing its substance with that.
Sri Aurobindo
3 November 1934
* * *
Mother,
I have just received photos of my children.... As the boys except the eldest are at Santiniketan they have done the photographing themselves—hence this poor result.
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The photographs are too small and vague. Still Mother will look at them most carefully to find if anything can be seen.
Along with the photographs I got a letter from my brother that leaves me astonished at the audacity of relatives. My wife died just two years back on the "bijaya dasami" day and neither I nor any of our children had ever seen her "ghost"____; / do not believe
either in "pinda"2 and such rubbish unspiritual things that pass by the name of religion. I am intending to write a particularly strong letter and give these fellows a bit of my mind, but I should very much like to know from you, Mother, about the truth of these matters.
Of course, it is all nonsense.
Sri Aurobindo
8 November 1934
* * *
(1)
Prithwi Singh
What do you mean by a ghost? The word "ghost" as used in popular parlance covers an enormous number of distinct phenomena which have no necessary connection with each other. To name a few only—
(1) An actual contact with the soul of a departed human
1.Here, Prithwi Singh relates how his wife's "ghost" is supposed to have manifested in a relative of his.
2.The symbolic food offered to a departed person in certain funeral and memorial rites.
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being housed in its subtle body and transcribed to our mind by the appearance of an image or the hearing of a voice.
(2)A mental formation stamped by the thoughts and feelings of a departed human being on the atmosphere of a place or locality, wandering about there or repeating itself—till that formation either exhausts itself or is dissolved by one means or another. This is the explanation of such phenomena as the haunted house in which the scenes attending or surrounding or preceding a murder are repeated over and over again and many similar phenomena.
(3)A being of the lower vital planes who has assumed the discarded vital sheath of a departed human being or a fragment of his vital personality and appears and acts in the form and perhaps with the surface thoughts and memories of that person.
(4)A being of the lower vital plane who by the medium of a living human being or by some other means or agency is able to materialise itself sufficiently so as to appear and act in a visible form or speak with an audible voice or, without so appearing, to move about material things, e.g. furniture or to materialise objects or to shift them from place to place. This accounts for what are called poltergeists, phenomena of stone-throwing, tree-inhabiting bhutas and other well-known phenomena.
(5)Apparitions which are the formations of one's own mind but take to the senses an objective appearance.
(6)Temporary possession of people by vital beings who sometimes pretend to be departed relatives etc.
(7)Thought-images of themselves projected, often by people at the moment of death, which appear at that time or a few hours afterwards to their friends or relatives.
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You will see that in only one of these cases, the first, can a soul be posited and there no difficulty arises.
(2)
Again what do you mean by a soul? My proposition simply meant that there is no existence which has not the support of something of the Divine behind it. But the word soul has various meanings according to the context; it may mean the Purusha supporting the formation of Prakriti which we call a being, though the proper word would be rather a becoming; it may mean on the other hand specifically the psychic being in an evolutionary creature like man; it may mean the spark of the Divine which has been put into Matter by the descent of the Divine into the material world and which upholds all evolving formations here. There is and can be no psychic being in a non-evolutionary creature like the Asura; there can be none in a God who does not need one for his existence. But what the god has is a Purusha and a Prakriti or Energy of nature of that Purusha. If any being of the typal worlds wants to evolve he has to come down to earth and take a human body and accept to share in the evolution. It is because they do not want to do this that the vital beings try to possess men so that they may enjoy the materialities of physical life without bearing the burden of the evolution or the process of conversion in which it culminates. I hope this is clear and solves the difficulty.
(3)
The three stages you speak of are stages not of evolution but of the involution of the Divine in matter. The Devas and Asuras are not evolved in Matter; for the typal
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being only a Purusha with its Prakriti is necessary—this Purusha may put out a mental and vital Purusha to represent it and according as it is centred in one or another it belongs to the mental or vital world. That is all.
There is no essential difference anywhere, for all is fundamentally the essential Divine; the difference is in the manifestation. Practically, we may say that the Jivatman is one of the divine Many and dependent on the One; the Atman is the One supporting the Many. The psychic being does not merge in the Jivatman, it becomes united with it so that there is no difference between the central being supporting the manifestation from above and the same being supporting the manifestation from within it, because the psychic being has become fully aware of the play of the Divine through it. What is called merging takes place in the Divine Consciousness when the jivatman feels itself so one with the Divine that there is nothing else.
Sri Aurobindo
18 November 1934
* * *
To characterise suicide as a willed withdrawal from life is the most astounding statement that would not bear a moment's scrutiny Suicide is accompanied in most cases by a morbid feeling of disappointment with life, a violent revolt against what is considered the imposition of an unjust providence or an adverse malignant fate. It has nothing of the sense of freedom behind it, no knowledge of the play of forces behind the exterior life, no means of mastering them or using them as stepping-stones to a
1. We found this letter copied by Prithwi Singh in his diary, but are not certain whether it was addressed to him. We reproduce it as found.
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higher freedom, a greater destiny. The calm poise of the soul, the peace that surpasseth understanding are not his. He is moved by dark forces who hold him completely in their grip. The sense of freedom of which he vaunts is the conjuring trick of the black magician by which he is deluded and dragged to a greater degradation. That is why it is said in the Upanishads that those who slay themselves enter into blind worlds of darkness. A violent exit by suicide is an act of excessive egoism, not of freedom.
The true freedom is found in unity with God and in the abiding sense of immortality. When the soul has risen above the bondage of his lower nature, and from the spirit heights of his being can survey their actions seated in a calm, untouched, unmoved by happenings in Time.
Sri Aurobindo
Undated
* * *
Prithwi Singh
The movement of the psychic being dropping the outer sheaths on its way to the psychic plane is the normal movement. But there can be any number of variations; one can return from the vital plane and there are many cases of an almost immediate birth, sometimes even attended with a complete memory of the events of the past life.
Hell and heaven are often imaginary states of the soul or rather of the vital which it constructs about it after its passing. What is meant by hell is a painful passage through the vital or lingering there, as for instance in many cases of suicide where one remains surrounded by the forces of suffering and turmoil created by this unnatural and violent exit. There are of course also worlds of mind and vital
41
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worlds which are penetrated with joyful or, in the latter case, with dark experiences. One may pass through these as the result of things formed in the nature which create the necessary affinities, but the idea of reward or retribution is a crude and vulgar conception which is a mere popular error.
There is no rule of complete forgetfulness in the return of the soul to rebirth. There are especially in childhood many impressions of the past life which can be strong and vivid enough, but the materialising education and influence of the environments prevent their true nature from being recognised. There are even a great number of people who have definite recollections of a past life. But these things are discouraged by education and the atmosphere and cannot remain or develop; in most cases they are stifled out of existence. At the same time it must be noted that what the psychic being carries away with it and brings back is the essence of the experiences it had in former lives and not the details, so that you cannot expect the same memory as one has of the present existence.
A soul can go straight to the psychic world, but it depends on the state of consciousness at the time of departure. If the psychic is in front at the time, this immediate transition is quite possible. It does not depend on the acquisition of a mental and vital as well as a psychic immortality—those who have acquired that would rather have the power to move about in the different worlds and even act on the physical world without being bound to it. On the whole it may be said that there is no one rigid rule for these things, manifold variations are possible depending upon the consciousness and its energies, tendencies and formations, although there is a general framework
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and design into which all fit and take their place.
Sri Aurobindo
16 December 1934
* * *
(This letter refers to Sri Aurobindo's poem "Thought
the Paraclete."1 Two other letters, of 1936 and 1944,
follow as they deal with the same poem.)
As thought rises in the scale, it ceases to be intellectual, becomes illumined, then intuitive, then overmental and finally disappears seeking the last Beyond. The poem
1. As some bright archangel in vision flies
Plunged in dream-caught spirit immensities,
Past the long green crests of the seas of life,
Past the orange skies of the mystic mind
Flew my thought self-lost in the vasts of God.
Sleepless wide great glimmering wings of wind
Bore the gold-red seeking of feet that trod
Space and Time's mute vanishing ends. The face
Lustred, pale-blue-lined of the hippogriff,
Eremite, sole, daring the bourneless ways,
Over world-bare summits of timeless being
Gleamed; the deep twilights of the world-abyss
Failed below. Sun-realms of supernal seeing,
Crimson-white mooned oceans of pauseless bliss
Drew its vague heart-yearning with voices sweet.
Hungering, large-souled to surprise the unconned
Secrets white-fire-veiled of the last Beyond,
Crossing power-swept silences rapture-stunned,
Climbing high far ethers eternal-sunned,
Thought the great-winged wanderer paraclete "
Disappeared slow-singing a flame-word rune.
Self was left, lone, limitless, nude, immune.
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does not express any philosophical thought, however; it is simply a perception of a certain movement, that is all. "Pale blue" is the colour of the higher ranges of mind up to the intuition. Above it begins to be golden with the supramental light.
Sri Aurobindo
14 January 1935
* * *
Mother,
In the Master's poem "Thought the Paraclete"I should like to know why thought is conceived as mediator, or rather the elucidation of these two lines:
Thought the great-winged wanderer paraclete
Disappeared slow-singing a flame-word rune
And also these lines :
Sleepless wide great glimmering wings of wind Bore the gold-red seeking of feet
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
Thought is not the giver of knowledge but the "mediator" between the Inconscient and the Superconscient. It compels the world born from the Inconscient to seek for a Knowledge other than the instinctive vital or merely empirical, for the Knowledge that itself exceeds thought; it calls for that superconscient knowledge and prepares the consciousness here to receive it. It rises itself into the higher realms and even in disappearing into the supramental and Ananda levels is transformed into something
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that will bring down their powers into the silent Self which its cessation leaves behind it.
Gold-red is the colour of the supramental in the physical—the poem describes Thought in the stage when it is undergoing transformation and about to ascend into the Infinite above and disappear into it. The flame-word rune is the Word of the Inspiration, Intuition, Revelation which is the highest attainment of Thought.
Sri Aurobindo
29 December 1936
* * *
My Lord,1
According to Rishabhchand the explanation of the Four Movements of Thought in its upward ascent to Infinity as brought out by Dr. Iyengar is not correct, and he thinks that in the lines
The face
Lustred, pale-blue-lined of the hippogriff,
Eremite, sole, daring the bourneless ways,
Over world-bare summits of timeless being
Gleamed
the Overmind is already crossed, and the lines
Sun-realms of supernal seeing,
Crimson-white mooned oceans of pauseless bliss
Drew its vague heart-yearnings with voices sweet
are a description of Supermind and Ananda planes.
For greater accuracy here is the explanation of those
lines in his own words:
1. This letter with Sri Aurobindo's answers was found among Sri Aurobindo's papers after his departure.
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"Thought the Paraclete is passing rapidly through the planes of Intuition and Overmind 'daring the bourneless ways.' When these planes are crossed, from over the 'world-bare summits of timeless being,' it gleams down upon the world only to find 'its deep twilights' fail below. Time and Space have been overpassed and the Paraclete is now being 'drawn' by the sweet voices of the 'sun-realms' of the Supermind and the mooned oceans of the Bliss-planes And thus drawn Paraclete advances, 'hungering and large-souled,' traverses 'power-swept silences' and finally disappears 'seeking the last Beyond.'"
This explanation, however, does not appear to be satisfactory for the following reasons:
(1) 'World-bare summits of timeless being' seems obviously to be connected with the previous line 'Space and Time's mute vanishing ends' and they seem to me to be the description that is not meant to be applicable to any intermediate higher ranges but rather to the Infinity beyond time and space which is the goal of the Thought's pilgrimage. From the higher intermediate ranges, possibly the Illumined Mind, Thought has already envisaged, conceptively 'trod Space and Time's mute vanishing ends,' for its 'sleepless ... wings of wind bore the gold-red seeking' which can only end when it has found the object of its seeking, the Supramental. And from the heights of the Intuition plane this vision has widened so that it shone forth (gleamed) over 'world-bare summits of timeless being.' Therefore the lower world of Ignorance has now lost all hold over it. For, in such condition only will Overmind draw it up into its own supernal seeing (for in its own plane it receives the direct Light from
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the Supermind) and its 'oceans of pauseless bliss.'
(2)'Hungering' is a state which ought to precede the act of being drawn. If Thought was already drawn by Supermind into itself, its next step would be the final disappearance. But to say that it is first drawn up, then advances hungering and finally disappears does not seem to me to fit very well.
(3)If 'world-bare summits of timeless being' were a description of Supermind, then why 'with voices sweet' have the 'vague heart-yearnings' of Thought been drawn up and not with 'rapture-stunned silences'?
(4)If 'sun-realms of supernal seeing' were a description of Supermind and 'crimson-white mooned oceans of pauseless bliss' that of Ananda plane, then it would be difficult to explain a repetition of the same description in slightly varying language in the subsequent lines reversed:
power-swept silences rapture-stunned and
high far ethers eternal-sunned.
But if the first two lines speak of Overmind, then the latter varying expression would appear to have great significance, subtlety and power, indicating a transition to yet higher plane.
(5)Another point to note is that the 'face lustred, pale-blue-lined of the hippogriff gleamed over 'world-bare summits. 'According to Rishabhchand this pale-blue or intuitivised aspect of face is only at the start, when it 'gleamed' it had already overpassed the Overmind plane beyond which only is the 'world-bare' summits!
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The intermediate transitions are implied, not expressly stated. But this seems very far-fetched indeed.
[Sri Aurobindo's comment in the margin:] How do you know there are not many world-bare summits one above the other? Where do you place the self of the last line?
These are my chief difficulties in accepting Rishabhchand's reading of the poem, but I may not be right.
As it is a difficult poem liable to many interpretations I shall be very happy if it be possible for my Lord to give a brief analysis of the thought-structure of the poem or at least to indicate the main lines of the ascent in the poem.
[Sri Aurobindo's comment on this last sentence:] Well, then leave each to find out one of the many interpretations for himself. Analysis! Well, well!
With deep devotion
Prithwi Singh
There is no thought-structure in the poem; there is only a succession of vision and experience; it is a mystic poem, its unity is spiritual and concrete, not a mental and logical building. When you see a flower, do you ask the gardener to reduce the flower to its chemical components? There would then be no flower left and no beauty. The poem is not built upon intellectual definitions or philosophical theorisings; it is something seen. When you ascend a mountain, you see the scenery and feel the delight of the ascent; you don't sit down to make a map with names for
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every rock and peak or spend time studying its geological structure—that is work for the geologist, not for the traveller. Ayengar's geological account (to make one is part of his métier as a critic and a student and writer on literature) is probably as good as any other is likely to be; but each is free to make his own according to his own idea. Reasoning and argumentation are not likely to make one account truer and invalidate the rest. A mystic poem may explain itself or a general idea may emerge from it, but it is the vision that is important or what one can get from it by intuitive feeling, not the explanation or idea; it is a vision or revelation of an ascent through spiritual planes, but gives no names and no photographic descriptions of the planes crossed. I leave it there.
Sri Aurobindo
18 March 1944
* * *
Prithwi Singh
You can certainly come in February for the darshan, we shall be very glad to see you here and the two children1 can also come. You will have all to crowd in one room, but as it is only for a few days that should not matter. We are getting more and more packed in the Asram and our elbow-room has diminished since you were here.
I hope that you will soon get out of the listlessness or have already got out of it. It must have been due to the going out of this atmosphere into another which was not helpful to the new consciousness in you. But this is a first result which is not likely to last. Whatever the distance
1. Abhay Singh and Sujata, aged 11 and 9.
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or surroundings, call confidently to the Mother and you will pass unshaken through all inner or outer difficulties. My blessings and the Mother's are with you.
Sri Aurobindo
27 January 1935
* * *
Prithwi Singh
We have received all your letters and the Rs. 2000 sent by instalments, but I have not up till now been able to sit down at leisure and write a letter to you.
We were very glad to hear that things have been arranging themselves and all went smoothly.11 trust that what is still to be done will go as smoothly and that whatever internal difficulties you still feel will soon melt under the stress of sadhana and the Mother's grace.
I have seen the opinion of the publisher consulted by Amiya Chakrabarty:2 Dilip's friend, the novelist Thompson, has also written to him offering to get a small selection of my poems published. Both opinions agree that poetry has very little chance of success nowadays. Thompson says that poetry is out of fashion; the publisher also indicates that new and original poetry has very little chance with the public. I believe they are both right. I also agree that if anything is to be published in Europe, it should be something in prose rather than in poetry. But I do not feel inclined to be in any haste in either direction; when anything of the kind ought to happen—I mean "ought" from the inner truth of things, I suppose it will arrange
1.The marriage of Prithwi Singh's eldest son Dhir Singh with Rajsena Dugar on April 30,1935.
2.Rabindranath Tagore's cultural secretary, himself a poet.
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itself. You will remember that when I consented to let your friend show my poems to some publishers there, it was more to know what they would say and how they would take such poetry of an entirely new kind (I speak of course of the six poems and the sonnets) and not with an idea of immediate publication. Neither mere selling nor having the books in good print and in a good and pleasing form seems to me a sufficient justification for the expenditure. If publication agrees with an inner truth and serves a deeper purpose, then it will be worth while. I hope my decision will not disappoint you too much; it seems to me from my point of view the right one. The Mother sends you her blessings.
Sri Aurobindo
16 June 1935
*
* *
Prithwi Singh
I have not had time yet to write about the enmity theory. I will do so more fully in two or three days. But I may say at once that the idea does not seem to me at all true that by enmity to the Divine one can reach the Divine and that too more quickly than by bhakti. The idea is contrary to the spiritual truth of things, to reason, to nature and to experience.
Sri Aurobindo
13 September 1935
** *
Prithwi Singh
Your question raises very large and complex issues. I shall try to answer it on or before Sunday, but I don't
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know whether I can give space enough for an adequate reply. But I shall try just to say succinctly what I mean by consciousness from the Yoga point of view and its gradations.
Sri Aurobindo
8 October 1935
* * *
Prithwi Singh
I had intended to give only a concise answer to your question about consciousness, but it began to develop itself and roll out into a great length and I could not as yet finish it. I send you for the moment a more summary reply.
(1)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 immobile 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 immobile consciousness infinitely spread out, not dependent on the personality but impersonal and universal, not seeing and interpreting contacts but motionlessly self-aware, not dependent on the reactions, but persistent in itself even when no reactions take place. The subjective personality itself is only a formation of consciousness which is a power inherent, not in the activity of the temporary manifested personality, but in the being, the Self or Purusha.
(2)Consciousness is a reality inherent in existence. It
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is there even when it is not active on the surface, but silent and immobile; it is there even when it is invisible on the surface, not reacting on outward things or sensible to them, but withdrawn and either active or inactive within; it is there even when it seems to us to be quite absent and the being to our view unconscious and inanimate.
(3)Consciousness is not only power of awareness of self and things, it is or has also a dynamic and creative energy It can determine its own reactions or abstain from reactions ; it can not only answer to forces, but create or put out from itself forces. Consciousness is Chit but also Chit Shakti.
(4)Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range which no more exhausts all the possible ranges of consciousness than human sight exhausts all the gradations of colour or human hearing all the gradations of sound—for there is much above or below that is to man invisible and inaudible. So there are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it unconscious,—supramental or overmental and submental ranges.
(5)When Yajnavalkya says there is no consciousness in the Brahman state, he is speaking of consciousness as the human being knows it. The Brahman state is that of a supreme existence supremely aware of itself, swayampra-kash,—it is Sachchidananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. Even if it be spoken of as beyond that, paratparam, it does not mean that it is a state of Non-existence or Non-consciousness, but beyond even the highest spiritual substratum (the "foundation above" in the luminous paradox of the Rig Veda) of cosmic existence and consciousness.
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As it is evident from the description of Chinese Tao and the Buddhist Sunya that it is a Nothingness in which all is, so with the negation of consciousness here. Superconscient and subconscient are only relative terms; as we rise into the superconscient we see that it is a consciousness greater than the highest we yet have and therefore in our normal state inaccessible to us and, if we can go down into the subconscient, we find there a consciousness other than our own at its lowest mental limit and therefore ordinarily inaccessible to us. The Inconscient itself is only an involved state of consciousness which like the Tao or Sunya, though in a different way, contains all things suppressed within it so that under a pressure from above or within all can evolve out of it—"an inert Soul with a somnambulist Force."
(6)The gradations of consciousness are universal states not dependent on the outlook of the subjective personality; rather the outlook of the subjective personality is determined by the grade of consciousness in which it is organised according to its typal nature or its evolutionary stage.
(7)It will be evident that by consciousness is meant something which is essentially the same throughout but variable in status, condition and operation, in which in some grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness can exist either in a suppressed or an unorganised or a differently organised state, while in other states some other activities may manifest which in us are suppressed, unorganised or latent or else are less perfectly manifested, less intensive, extended and powerful than in the higher grades above our highest mental limit.
Sri Aurobindo
13 October 1935
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(Prithwi Singh sought Sri Aurobindo's comments on the following statement of Gandhi in response to a call by Dr. Ambedkar for mass conversions among the depressed classes: "But religion is not like a house or a cloak which can be changed at will. It is more an integral part of one's self than of one's body. Religion is the tie that binds one to one's Creator, and while the body perishes as it has to, religion persists even after that.")
Prithwi Singh
If it is meant by the statement that the form of religion is something permanent and unchangeable, then it cannot be accepted. But if religion here means one's way of communion with the Divine, then it is true that that is something belonging to the inner being and cannot be changed like a house or a cloak for the sake of some personal, social or worldly convenience. If a change is to be made, it can only be for an inner spiritual reason, because of some development from within. No one can be bound to any form of religion or any particular creed or system, but if he changes the one he has accepted for another for external reasons, that means he has inwardly no religion at all and both his old and his new religion are only an empty formula. At bottom that is I suppose what the statement drives at. Preference for a different approach to the Truth or the desire of inner spiritual self-expression are not the motives of the recommendation of change to which objection is made by the Mahatma here; the object proposed is an enhancement of social status and consideration which is no more a spiritual motive than conversion for the sake of money or marriage. If a man has no religion in
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himself, he can change his credal profession for any motive; if he has, he cannot; he can only change it in response to an inner spiritual need. If a man has a bhakti for the Divine in the form of Krishna, he can't very well say "I will swap Krishna for Christ so that I may become socially respectable."
Sri Aurobindo
19 October 1935
* * *
Mother,
I am sending another sonnet [in Bengali]. ...
I should like to know Mother how beyond the mental-emotional plane where there is no thought or feeling Beauty is experienced by the being? And is it that what the mind perceives as Beauty is a reflection on it of the Divine Delight which is the nature, the Dharma of the above-mental planes? I have given this idea in the sonnet but I should like to know if it is true or if Beauty and Delight are two different things.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
Beauty is not the same as delight, but like Love it is an expression, a form of Ananda,1—created by Ananda and composed of Ananda, it conveys to the mind that delight of which it is made. Aesthetically, the delight takes the appearance of Rasa2 and the enjoyment of this rasa is the mind's and the vital's reaction to the perception of Beauty. The spiritual realisation has a sight, a perception, a feeling
1.Ananda: bliss
2.Rasa : taste
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which is not that of the mind and vital;—it passes beyond the aesthetic limit, sees the universal beauty, sees behind the object what the eye cannot see, feels what the emotion of the heart cannot feel and passes beyond Rasa and Bhoga1 to pure Ananda—a thing more deep, intense, rapturous than any mental or vital or any physical rasa reaction can be. It sees the One everywhere, the Divine everywhere—the Beloved everywhere, the original bliss of existence everywhere and all these can create an inexpressible Ananda of beauty—the beauty of the One, the beauty of the Divine, the beauty of the Beloved, the beauty of the eternal Existence in things. It can see also the beauty of forms and objects, but with a seeing other than the mind's, other than that of a limited physical vision—what was not beautiful to the eye becomes beautiful, what was beautiful to the eye wears now a greater marvellous and ineffable beauty. The spiritual realisation can bring the vision and the rapture of the All-Beautiful everywhere.
Sri Aurobindo
26 October 1935
* * *
Mother,
It is mentioned in p.45 of The Mother that there are Vibhutis of the powers and personalities of the Ishwara and those of the Mother, but in both cases it is the action of Grace of the Mother, Her power and force and working that can alone effect a transformation of the Vibhuti.
I should like to know Mother what is the difference
1. Bhoga: enjoyment
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in the form of expression or realisation between the Vibhuti of the Ishwara and the Vibhuti of the Mother? E.g. Christ, Chaitanya, Ramkrishna, Confucius, Zara-thustra, Mahummad, Buddha, Sankara, Alexander, Napoleon—among these well-known figures who are the Vibhutis of the Mother and who are the Vibhutis of the Ishwara? And what to say of the Mother's action in the case of the Auatara, Rama and Krishna ? I should like to know something of these, Mother.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
The Mother's vibhutis would normally be feminine personalities most of whom would be dominated by one of the four personalities of the Mother. The others you mention would be personalities and powers of the Ishwara, but in them also as in all the Mother's force would act. I do not quite catch the question about the transformation of the Vibhutis. All creation and transformation is the work of the Mother.
Sri Aurobindo
29 October 1935
* * *
... page 45 of The Mother applied equally to Avatars as well as to Vibhutis.
But can the statement also be taken to mean that it is the personalities of the Mother who behind the veil prepare the condition for the descent of the Avatara or Vibhutis as "all creation is Her work"?
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
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If you mean the divine Personalities of the Mother— the answer is yes. It may even be said that each Vibhuti draws his energies from the Four, from one of them predominantly in most cases, as Napoleon from Mahakali, Rama from Mahalakshmi, Augustus Caesar from Maha-saraswati.
Sri Aurobindo
31 October 1935
... Do the gods then come as in the days of old to accept your Guidance Supreme and, by manifesting themselves when the ground will be ready, help in the work of reconstructing the world in accordance with your Divine Will ?
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
What you say is correct—it is for that the gods come and not for transformation. While the gods cannot be transformed, for they are typal and not evolutionary beings, they can come for conversion—that is to say, to give up their own ideas and outlook on things and conform themselves to the higher will and supramental Truth of the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo
Undated
* * *
Mother,
I should like to know what truth is there in spiritualistic séances and automatic writings. According
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to Morosoff whom Ouspensky quotes, "In spite of the strange phenomena that undoubtedly occur at spiritualistic séances, 'spirits' take no part in them. "Automatic writing, he considers a result of thought-reading rather than "as is supposed a proof of the cooperation of intelligent forces of another world."...
There are others of course who say otherwise. But if spirits appear they really seem to be very unreliable and the information they give quite commonplace. And they can tell very little of the future or even
current problems Now, are these spirits that are
supposed to come of the lower vital plane which may account for their tricky behaviour or do the gods also come ? Mother, I should like to know the answer from you which alone is unerring amidst the conflicting mass of perplexing scientific theories and observations.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
Automatic writings and spiritualistic séances are a very mixed affair. Part comes from the subconscious mind of the medium and part from that of the sitters. But it is not true that all can be accounted for by a dramatising imagination and memory. Sometimes there are things none present could know or remember; sometimes even, though that is rare, glimpses of the future. But usually these séances etc. put one into rapport with a very low world of vital beings and forces, themselves obscure, incoherent or tricky and it is dangerous to associate with them or to undergo any influence. Ouspensky and others must have gone through these experiments with too "mathematical" a
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mind, which was no doubt their safeguard but prevented them from coming to anything more than a surface intellectual view of their significance.
Sri Aurobindo
10 November 1935
** *
Prithwi Singh
It must have been the descent of the higher silence, the silence of the self or Atman. In this silence one perceives, but the mind is not active,—things are sensed, but without any responsive connection or vibration. The silent self is there as a separate reality, not bound or involved in the activities of Nature, aloof, detached and self-existent. Even if thoughts come across this silence, they do not disturb it; the self is separate from the thinking mind also. In this condition the feeling "I think" is a survival from the old consciousness—in the full silence what one feels is that "thought occurs in me"—the identification with thought as well as with the perception of objects ceases.
Sri Aurobindo
27 November 1935
** *
Prithwi Singh
The descent of the Silence is not usually associated with sadness, though it does bring a feeling of calm detachment, unconcern and wide emptiness, but in this emptiness there is a sense of ease, freedom, peace. The absorption as if something were drawing deep from within is evidently the pull of the inmost being, the psychic. There
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is a psychic sadness often when this inmost soul opens and feels how far the nature and the world are from what they should be, but this is a sweet and quiet sorrow, not distressing. It must be something in the mind and vital which is not yet awake to what has happened within you and gives this colour of dissatisfied and distressed seeking.
You have certainly made a great progress since you came and there is no reason to fear any setback of the sadhana.
I don't think you need attach any value to what Dilip professes to think about the supramental. The descent of the supramental is an inevitable necessity in the logic of things and is therefore sure. It is because people do not understand what the supermind is or realise the significance of the emergence of consciousness in a world of "inconscient" Matter that they are unable to realise this inevitability. I suppose a matter-of-fact observer if there had been one at the time of the unrelieved reign of inanimate Matter in the earth's beginning would have criticised any promise of the emergence of life in a world of dead earth and rock and mineral as an absurdity and a chimera; so too afterwards he would have repeated his mistake and regarded the emergence of thought and reason in an animal world as an absurdity and a chimera. It is the same now with the appearance of supermind in the stumbling mentality of this world of human consciousness and its reasoning ignorance. I do not know that the descent depends on the readiness of the sadhaks of this Asram. It is likely that these things are determined from above rather than from below. That the descent is preparing and progressing is a fact; it is that which you
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feel and are justified in feeling.1
Sri Aurobindo
1 December 1935
* * *
Prithwi Singh
Abhay Singh and Sujata are getting on very well and the Mother has no doubt that the soul in them will grow and the seed of psychic capacity develop. The arrangements for Sujata of which you speak in your letter are approved by the Mother. Abhay Singh has become very fond of the Asram; but the Mother thinks he has need of your direct care and training as he is so very young and that is why she preferred that he should return with his uncle.2
There has come up a work that you can do for the Mother over there.3 Dilip is anxious to sell his three houses and get the money here so that he can place it at the Mother's disposal—he is eager that it should be done as speedily as possible and he desires that you and Udaysingh should take it up and manage the sale. We are sending you a letter of authority from him for that purpose. The sale deeds are with his uncle, but he has written for them and they will be entrusted to you as soon as they are in his possession. You will see the houses and try to get them sold at as good a price as is possible. Dilip wishes you to
1.As an illustration of the manner in which Sri Aurobindo's letters were censored in the Centenary Edition of Sri Aurobindo's works, let us note that in it, these last three sentences were omitted (see Vol. 22, p. 8).
2.Uday Singh.
3.In Calcutta.
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see his friend (who came here a little while ago and took up this Yoga) at his address in Calcutta
Satyendra Mukherji
..........
Ballygunge
and take his help, as he is a good man for the purpose and is sure to know many likely purchasers. We shall be glad to be kept informed from time to time of all that you will be doing in this matter till it comes to a conclusion. Our blessings are with you and our help always.
Sri Aurobindo
30 December 1935
* * *
Pondicherry
Prithwi Singh
I send you Dilip's letter and the enclosures. You will see from what he has written that the necessary papers are with his uncle who will not be in Calcutta till February— you will have to see him there then and get the papers.
It is not necessary or advisable to advertise. It is better to do all through private persons as far as possible.
As for the views of the Professor, there are those all worldly-wise and "reasonable" people. Outside people need not know that Dilip is giving the money to the Mother, only that he wants to convert his property into cash. But I suppose they will guess it all the same.
Abhay Singh and Sujata have their way as Uday Singh is not going before February; they are jubilant over the turn things have taken.
As for the poetry, it is held back for the time being. There
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will be a time for all things and for this also.
Sri Aurobindo
19January 1936
Prithwi Singh
I spoke of three houses of Dilip's, but the third is not in Calcutta and is of no importance, for its value is not over but rather under Rs. 2000 only. It is disappointing to know that the two houses are not likely to be sold at more than Rs. 60,000. At less than a lakh Mother would not be disposed to sell. She needs the money for a particular purpose1 and for that a minimum of one lakh is needed and the full sum would probably be a lakh and a half. A smaller sum, such as Rs. 60,000 would not be of use. However, you can go on with what is necessary to do, get the plans in February and make the valuation and see what price is likely to be available. For the rest we shall see afterwards.
Sri Aurobindo
20January 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh
I am sending you enclosed Dilip's letter of authority as redrafted by Duraiswami; it will I suppose be sufficient. Dilip's uncle has written to him expressing his perfect willingness not only to hand over the documents to you but help if he can in the sale.
1. For the building of "Golconde," a large guest-house in the Ashram.
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I must have forgotten to write to you that the children can come.
With our love and blessings
Sri Aurobindo
P.S. Nani's brother can have permission for the darshan —of course accommodation in the Asram is not possible.
6 February 1936
* * *
Private and
confidential
Prithwi Singh
The Naik-Mridu1 affair was one of the frequent quarrels that take place from time to time in the Asram between sadhaks and became prominent only by the violence of the two combatants and the excessive attention given to it by the sadhaks owing to Mridu's clamours. I do not regard Naik as someone who is dangerous. He is in his ordinary moments a good-natured and even kind but oversensitive man, but he is subject to fits of anger in which he loses proper control of speech and gesture and even, though up to a certain point only, of his acts. He has had several outbursts of this kind, but has never yet actually
1. Mridu, a Bengali, she was widowed young. Rotund, she looked like a volleyball put on top of a balloon. Quarrelsome. Sri Aurobindo with sweet patience soothed her myriad plaints. A good cook, she sent up dishes for Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Then distributed prasad (food tasted by Sri Aurobindo) to all and sundry- children like Sujata and Abhay, Governor Boron and his secretary Bernard E. (who later become Satprem) were all recipients. She passed away on 22 September 1962. Naik, a Gujarati sadhak who left the Ashram after some time.
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hurt anybody. It is true that he is sometimes seized in these moments by a dark force, and that, coupled with this streak of violence, could become dangerous, if it made him hostile. But up till now it has not done so. He has tried to go away but something in him will not allow him to do so.
As for the general question of people moved by wrong forces, sending away has been done sometimes, usually if they become quite unmanageable or hostile. But it has been found that it is no solution. The forces find other instruments. It is the forces themselves that have to be overcome.
Sri Aurobindo
26 February 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh
The force which you felt must evidently have been a rising of the Kundalini ascending to join the Force above and bring down the energy needed to ease the depression and then again rising to enforce the connection between the Above and the lower centres. The seeming expansion of the head is due to the joining of the mind with the consciousness of the Self or Divine above. That consciousness is wide and illimitable and when one rises into it the individual consciousness also breaks its limits and feels wide and illimitable. At such times one often feels as if there were no head and no body but all were a wide self and its consciousness, or else the head or the body is only a circumstance in that. The body or the physical mind are sometimes startled or alarmed at these experiences because they are abnormal to it; but there is no ground
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for alarm,—these are usual experiences in the Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo
16 April 1936
Prithwi Singh
We have received all your letters and are very well satisfied with the results obtained...
The ascension and descent of the Force in this Yoga accomplishes itself in its own way without any necessary reproduction of the details laid down in the books. Many become conscious of the centres, but others simply feel the ascent or descent in a general way or from level to level rather than from centre to centre, that is to say, the Force descending first to the head, then to the heart, then to the navel and still below. It is not at all necessary to become aware of the deities in the centres according to the Tantrik description but some feel the Mother in the different centres. In these things our sadhana does not cleave to the knowledge given in the books, but only keeps to the central truth behind and realises it independently without any subjection to the old forms and symbols. The centres themselves have a different interpretation here from that given in the books of the Tantriks.
Mother has given instructions to Nolini about the Arya numbers.2
Sri Aurobindo
26 April 1936
1.With regard to the sale of Dilip's houses. We have omitted a few letters dealing with the details of this sale.
2.Prithwi Singh's personal collection of the Arya, Sri Aurobindo's monthly review published from 1914 to 1921, which Prithwi singh donated to the Ashram.
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Prithwi Singh
The Mother gladly accepts your offer about the books1 and is pleased that you have made it. The books needed are 150 in number. If you let us know the exact date of your removal to the new house,2 Mother will distribute the books on that day.
I return you my last letter and the typed copy with the necessary correction—it was due to a slip of the pen in the letter itself that you could not make out the words omitted in the typescript.
Yes, the object of our Yoga is to establish direct contact with the Divine above and bring down the divine consciousness from above into all the centres. Occult powers belonging to the mental, vital and subtle physical planes are not our object. One can have contact with various Divine Forms and Personalities on the way, but there is no need to establish them in the centres, though sometimes that happens automatically (as with the four Personalities of the Mother) for a time in the course of the sadhana. But it is not a rule to do so. Our Yoga is meant to be plastic and to allow all necessary workings of the Divine Power according to the nature, but these in the details may vary with each individual.
Sri Aurobindo 29 May 1936
* * *
1.The Bases of Yoga, an early collection of letters of Sri Aurobindo. Prithwi Singh's offer met the cost of printing at the Arya publishing House.
2.To Hindustan Road from Indian Mirror Street.
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Prithwi Singh
It is necessary to understand clearly the difference between the evolving soul (psychic being) and the pure Atman, self or spirit. The pure self is unborn, does not pass through death or birth, is independent of birth or body, mind or life or this manifested Nature. It is not bound by these things, not limited, not affected, even though it assumes and supports them. The soul on the contrary is something that comes down into birth and passes through death—although it does not itself die, for it is immortal— from one state to another, from the earth plane to other planes and back again to the earth-existence. It goes on with this progression from life to life through an evolution which leads it up to the human state and evolves through it all a being of itself which we call the psychic being that supports the evolution and develops a physical, a vital, a mental human consciousness as its instruments of world-experience and of a disguised, imperfect, but growing self-expression. All this it does from behind a veil showing something of its divine self only in so far as the imperfection of the instrumental being will allow it. But a time comes when it is able to prepare to come out from behind the veil, to take command and turn all the instrumental nature towards a divine fulfilment. This is the beginning of the true spiritual life. The soul is able now to make itself ready for a higher evolution of manifested consciousness than the mental human—it can pass from the mental to the spiritual and through degrees of the spiritual to the supramental state. Till then there is no reason why it should cease from birth, it cannot in fact do so. If having reached the spiritual state, it wills to pass out of the terrestrial manifestation, it may indeed
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do so—but there is also possible a higher manifestation, in the Knowledge and not in the Ignorance.
Your question therefore does not arise. It is not the naked spirit, but the psychic being that goes to the psychic plane to rest till it is called again to another life. There is therefore no need of a Force to compel it to take birth anew. It is in its nature something that is put forth from the Divine to support the evolution and it must do so till the Divine's purpose in its evolution is accomplished. Karma is only a machinery, it is not the fundamental cause of terrestrial existence—it cannot be, for when the soul first entered this existence, it had no Karma.
What again do you mean by "the all-veiling Maya" or by "losing all consciousness." The soul cannot lose all consciousness, for its very nature is consciousness though not of the mental kind to which we give the name. The consciousness is merely covered, not lost or abolished by the so-called Inconscience of material Nature and then by the half-conscious ignorance of mind, life and body. It manifests, as the individual mind and life and body grow, as much as may be of the consciousness which it holds in potentiality, manifests it in the outward instrumental nature as far as and in the way that is possible through these instruments and through the outer personality that has been prepared for it and by it—for both are true—for the present life.
I know nothing about any terrible suffering endured by the soul in the process of rebirth; popular beliefs even when they have some foundation are seldom enlightened and accurate.
Sri Aurobindo
2 September 1936
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Mother,
In his autobiography Jawaharlal [Nehru] has written, "I dreamt of astral bodies and imagined myself flying vast distances. This dream of flying high up in the air (without any appliance) has indeed been a frequent one throughout my life; and sometimes it has been vivid and realistic and the country-side seemed to lie underneath me in a vast panorama."
Curiously enough in my childhood days I too had this dream very frequently and with no less vividness. The impression was so strong even after waking that I often used to think I could jump from the housetop without the least harm to myself easily alighting on the ground. Only something prevented me from actually making the attempt. Often I used to dream that I was flying through space, through waves of sea having the colour of lightning, but rarely if at all I saw any beings. Of other details my memory is not clear now.
Does this kind of dream indicate anything ? If so, I should, like Jawaharlal Nehru, like to know it very much, Mother.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
A great many people have these dreams. It is the vital being that goes out in sleep and moves about in the vital worlds and has this sense of floating in the air in its own (vital) body. The waves of sea having the colour of lightning must have been the atmosphere of some vital province. I have known of some sadhaks when they go at first out of
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the body in a more conscious way thinking they have actually levitated, the vividness of the movement is so intense, but it is simply the vital body going out.
Sri Aurobindo
8 September 1936
** *
Mother,
lam sending a letter which Abhay Singh has written to me to give you. Perhaps he wants to come in February for "darshan"—so he has written to me. I shall write to him in accordance with your wish in the matter.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
He can come if you are here then.
Sri Aurobindo
10 September 1936
*
* *
Most of these visions are the result of your getting into contact with a certain field of forces in the vital world which are at present creating the pressure for war and revolution and all catastrophic things in Europe. It was from here that these menacing visions were coming. There is no coherence or reality in them. Chhinnamasta1 is a symbol of this kind of force, feeding as it were the world with her own blood.
1. Chhinnamasta: a headless Kali, one of the ten Mahavidyas or Tantric aspects of the Mother.
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They have to be at once rejected. It was not meant that you should be inactive, but that there was sufficient Force gathering to carry on the sadhana as if by an automatic action. But the consent of the sadhak, his rejection of all that comes against is always necessary.
Sri Aurobindo
13 September 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh
Mother thinks that the offer is a good one—you can try as you propose.
... Your attitude to the gossip is quite the right one. A great part of what is talked in the Asram about others is untrue, a great part is distorted or exaggerated and what remains are things that can be left to the Mother and need not be made the subject of small talk among the sadhaks.
Sri Aurobindo
16September 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh
The ascent and descent are to form a free connection between the higher and lower nature. The expansion often does not come at once, but only when this movement has made everything ready. ...
Sri Aurobindo
17September 1936
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Mother,
I am very glad to get your letter this morning.
I am also enclosing a letter which Sumitra1 has sent. It is in her childish hand with corrections by Abhay. She requests permission for February "darshan" and begs to be answered in Bengali.
Yes, she can come.
Haren has written to me and to Nolini pressing very much for an article for his Annual from the Master. I shall write to him as the Master will decide.
Nolini is sending the letter on Shelley's Skylark.
Baidyanath, Haren and my daughter-in-law all write to me to convey their pranams to you and the Master.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
18 September 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh
Mother finds that it is not good for Sujata2 to have no fixed occupation and be free to wander about unoccupied
1.Prithwi Singh's seventh child, then eight years old.
2.Sujata was running eleven. For a few months she lived with her father in the Ashram. At the time she gave sittings to Chinmayee in Pavitra's room; Mother used to come by, look at the painting, often taking the brush from Chinmayee's hand and painting a few strokes herself. Then as Sujata was about to leave, she would give her fruit.
Page-75
here and there, for that tends to spoil children. She wants her to have regular study daily. Sujata is willing for 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the afternoon. English and something of the necessary things, Arithmetic, Geography, History could be taught. But Mother can only think of you and Parichand to teach her. She would like to know what you think of it.
Sri Aurobindo
24 September 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh
What you write about Sujata is quite satisfactory. Of course the child must have her time for play and recreation —only it must be in the cadre of necessary work and the limits that make for the training of the character.
Sri Aurobindo
28 September 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh,
The Divine Force, not using the supramental Power, can certainly throw back the forces of Death and that has been done many times. But the Divine Force works here under conditions imposed by the Divine Will and Law; it has to take up an immense mass of conflicting forces, conditions, habits and movements of Nature and out of it arrive at the result of a higher consciousness on Earth and a higher state. If it were to act otherwise, then all would be done by a miracle or magic, no sadhana would be needed, no way beaten out for the process of spiritual
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evolution to follow; there would be no real transformation of consciousness, but only a temporary feat of force which having no basis in the substance of creation here would vanish as it came. Therefore conditions have to be satisfied, the work to be done has to be wrought out step by step. The powers that hold the field up to now have to be given their chance to oppose, so that the problem may be solved and not evaded or turned into a sham fight or unreal game without significance. Therefore there is a sadhana to be done, there is a resistance to be overcome, a choice made between the higher and the lower state. The Divine Power does the work, gives a protection and a guidance; but it is not here to use an absolute force— except when that is sanctioned by the Divine Wisdom and in the Light of that Wisdom justifiable. Then the decisive Power acts of itself and does what it has to do.
Sri Aurobindo
4 October 1936
* * *
Mother,
... He [Sotuda] intends starting on the 13th inst. and will be coming here with his children.1 He has written me to tell you that they should be under your care.
With deep devotion,
Prithwisingh
It is all right about his coming. But it is difficult about the children, because it is impossible for Mother to take personal care of children, the work is not organised so as
1. Sotuda: Satyendranath Mukherji, Dilip's lawyer friend; his children were Prashanta and Montu.
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to allow of that. Some children with a predisposition may go on all right under the conditions here. But we do not know what these are like.
Sri Aurobindo
6 October 1936
* * *
...I should like very much to know Mother if You will please condescend to tell me in some detail if the imperialistic powers will be allowed indefinitely to continue in their old ways exploiting the weak and carrying on the plague of abject misery and suffering wherever they go. Will not these things come to an end when Your supramental Will begins its work ? Please write me something Mother, I pray.
With deep devotion,
Prithwisingh
I would prefer to avoid all public controversy especially if it touches in the least on politics. Gandhi's theories are like other mental theories built on a basis of one-sided reasoning and claiming for a limited truth (that of nonviolence and of passive resistance) a universality which it cannot have. Such theories will always exist so long as the mind is the main instrument of human truth seeking. To spend energy trying to destroy such theories is of little use; if destroyed they are replaced by others equally limited and partial.
As for imperialism, that is no new thing—it is as old as the human vital; there was never a time in known human history when it was not in existence. To get rid of it means to change human nature or at least to curb it by
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a superior power. Our work is not to fight these things but to bring down a higher nature and a Truth-creation which will make spiritual Light and Power the chief force in terrestrial existence.
Sri Aurobindo
10 October 1936
* * *
Mother,
There has been a relapse ... yesterday and to-day. As it is a chronic malady and hereditary it is so obstinately persistent.
That the body responded, though partially, to Your curative Force makes me take the view that it must obey the Force thoroughly with the coming of greater openness. Anyway I am not worried Mother but I simply inform You of it.
In to-day's Pranam the Force you sent through the spine by repeated pressure of the finger seems to me to have been meant for this purpose. So perhaps it is unnecessary to take Your time by writing to inform You of it.
With deep devotion,
Prithwisingh
Mother saw that you had need of a special concentration and so there was this action at the Pranam. But it is always better to inform as that has itself an effect in drawing the action of the force.
Sri Aurobindo
31 October 1936
* * *
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Mother,
... But Mother I must confess I feel so sad as I have to write even in these days with the rule of "no correspondence."1 I very humbly pray to you Mother to say me not to write about this little thing till the end of this month.
With deep devotion,
Prithwi Singh
I think it is better to keep us informed.
Sri Aurobindo
3 November 1936
* * *
It is good that you have spoken with him2 and dispelled the misunderstanding. It is a great pity that things lightly said should be reported like that to the person concerned and unnecessary trouble created.
Sri Aurobindo
7 November 1936
* * *
Prithwi Singh
The progress described in eliminating the sex factor is very satisfactory—its hold on the nature is usually obstinate and if it can be thrown out in a short time when it comes, that is an indication that its power is very much decreasing.
1.For two or three weeks around the darshans, the sadhaks were supposed not to write to Sri Aurobindo or Mother.
2.Dr. Mahendranath Sircar, a well-known author of philosophical works.
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Mother does not think it necessary for you to go after the Darshan. You can for the present do what is necessary by correspondence and through Sotuda.
Sri Aurobindo
14 November 1936
* * *
... I frankly confess to you Mother that I feel almost like weeping for very shame as I report day after day the sad fact of the body's unopenness to your Force, but to disobey You is far worse and inexcusable and with as much equanimity as I can command I go on writing until your order is otherwise.
There is no need to be distressed by having to write. These things are obstinate and even if the body is open and willing they linger in the subconscient over which the mind's control is very little. That is why they can stick for a considerable time.
Even very small children are allowed at "Darshan" now, while it was not so before. From this would it be wrong to infer that the earth-consciousness can bear higher Force more stably and that some part of the Supramental has touched and made its opening in it ? Many used to tremble before at the touch of the Master but now generally it is not so and does not that point to the same conclusion ?
There have always been some young children coming from time to time in spite of the general rule.
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At this "darshan" I felt such an overflowing ecstatic joy that I cannot express it.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
PS. 12th of this month is Sujata's birthday. She will just complete her 11th year.
Mother will see her.
1 December 1936
* * *
Mother,
... Last year I got from Purani some translations of the Rig-Vedic hymns done by the Master after the retirement. ...I have not given any copies to anybody except one to Nolini. I have just retyped them for myself and Parichand wanted my old copy. I am sending the same to You Mother and shall keep it only if You will allow me to do so, because to possess a thing like this without your knowledge is not good.
These translations are provisional, not final—so I should not like them to be freely copied and seen by all; but I have no objection to your keeping a copy.
I have written two sonnets. Both of them are devotional from different angles. I shall be glad to know how the Master likes them.
I find both of them very fine.
Sri Aurobindo
3 December 1936
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... Some truth there seems to be in this idea of Beauty but it is rather angularised, it seems to me, for Croce1 puts entire emphasis on the image-making faculty alone. But I should like to know very much Mother what you think about Croce's ideas on Beauty and how far they can be accepted.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
I have not read Croce but it seems to me that Durant must have taken something of their depth out of them in his presentation. At any rate, I cannot accept the proposition that there are only two forms of knowledge, imaginative and intellectual,—still less if these two are made to coincide with the division between knowledge of the individual and that of the universal and again with image-production and concepts. Art can be conceptual as well as imaginative—it may embody ideas and not merely produce images. I do not see the relevancy of the Da Vinci story— one can sit motionless to summon up concepts as well as images or a concept and image together. Moreover what is this intuition which is perfect sight and adequate imagination, i.e., production of an image: is it empty of all idea, of all conception? Evidently not,—for immediately it is said that the miracle of art lies in the conception of an idea. What then becomes of the division between the production of images and the production of concepts; and how can it be said that Art is ruled only by the image-producing power and images are its only wealth? All this seems to be very contradictory and confusing. You cannot
1. An Italian philosopher and critic (1866-1952).
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cut up the human mind in that way—the attempt is that of the analysing intellect which is always putting things as trenchantly divided and opposite. If it had been said that in art the synthetic action of the idea is more prominent than the analytic idea which we find most prominent in logic and science and philosophical reasoning, then one could understand the statement. The integrating or direct integral conception and the image-making faculty are the two leading powers of art with intuition as the driving force behind it—that too would be a statement that is intelligible.
Still more strange is the statement that the externali-sation is outside the miracle of art and is not needed; beauty, he says, is adequate expression, but how can there be expression, an expressive image without externalisa-tion? The inner image may be the thing to be expressed, it may itself be expressive of some truth, but unless it is externalised how can the spectator contemplating beauty contemplate it at all or get into unity of vision with the artist who creates it? The difference between Shakespeare and ourselves lies only in the power of inwardly forming an image, not in the power of externalising it? But there are many people who have the power of a rich inner imaging of things, but are quite unable to put them down on paper or utter them in speech or transfer them to canvas or into clay or bronze or stone. They are then as great creative artists as Shakespeare or Michelangelo? I should have thought that Shakespeare's power of the word and Michelangelo's of casting his image into visible form is at least an indispensable part of the art of expression, creation or image-making. I cannot conceive of a Shakespeare or Michelangelo without that power—the one would be a
Page-85
mute inglorious Shakespeare and the other a rather helpless and ineffective Angelo.
Sri Aurobindo
P.S. This is of course a comment on the statement as presented—I would have to read Croce myself in order to form a conception of what is behind his philosophy of Aesthetics.
19 December 1936
* * *
Mother,
... Regarding the experience of the ascension and descent of the Force it was preceded by a sort of dream element in last two instances.
1) This morning I felt, in dream I suppose, I was in an out of the way place where a Tantrik was sitting wrapped in meditation and there were some disciples around him, some perhaps assisting in the ceremonial which was rather vaguely felt than perceived clearly. Suddenly a call came from somewhere to the Yogi to succour India whose children were undergoing great torture. But he was absolutely unmoved in his work of concentration though all others left except one, but it was felt by me not without his approval. Then I changed my position and was looking at a woman's face her eyes rigidly held in trance with a far far-away look while the disciple (the one who remained) was reciting some incantations. But fixed and unmoved she was to all external things. I looked boldly and full at the face and with that an energy radiated or I could draw an energy with which my consciousness rose and came back and rose again. I
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was feeling much joy in rising while all the time very consciously and without the least element of fear calling you name, Mother. Though the swinging movement was at the back primarily the whole body was throbbing with the vibrations and at those moments when the consciousness would return into the body I could even hear the sounds distinctly made in the adjacent bathroom by Nolini as he was taking his bath. And as I was willing I was rising again and again drawing energy by looking at the eyes of the trance-held face. Strangely I was not in the least moved by anything, the only desire or aspiration was to rise and rise, to experience the swinging movement again and again. After some time it slowly became normal.
In this dream certain forces seem to have taken symbolic bodies, e.g., Yoga-force in the Yogi and the power of concentration in the woman. It was rather a dream-experience than a dream proper.
2) Two days back it was. I imagined I was in a house where my children were but soon I discovered I was sleeping outside the house which was looking very fine in a brilliant night-light (for queerly enough there was no moon-light). It was an empty house peopled with unseen presences, though the atmosphere was charming unlike the sensation of a haunted house. But I felt like leaving the house and with the stretcherlike thing on which I was sleeping I slowly moved out automatically into the street and then the ascending and descending movements began several times. After that the consciousness became normalised.
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I should like to know Mother if in course of these dream-experiences my attitude has been the right one or not. And what was that Yogi or the house ? So strange they seem as dreams I rarely have.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
In this other experience the house seems to be a symbol of the mind—and you had to go out in order to be no more confined in the Mind and its constructions.
Sri Aurobindo
21 December 1936
* * *
...In many ways Mother I feel your protection now more potently and in spite of the prolonged [ailment] people say I look trim and healthy and as a matter of fact do not feel weak either. Notwithstanding all these the sorry fact remains that I cannot yet draw in Your Force sufficiently strongly and my helplessness is all the more painful to me. Only I know—and that is a great consolation—that Yours is the Divine Mercy which forgives human frailties at every step.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
The body is always the most difficult part of the being because of its obscurity much more than of any bad will in it. But it could respond more and more as the Light grows.
Sri Aurobindo
28 December 1936
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Mother,
...By your Grace I feel definitely relieved to-day as there is no longer any necessity for me to go [to Calcutta]____
With deep devotion
Prithwi Singh
That is all right then. It is good that any necessity of your going now has been obviated.
As to the subject matter of the other letter. For the last year or about no onions are being used in the Asram food. What you take for onions is a vegetable called the leek, not much known here, which when put in raw or in quantities has a smell and may be mistaken for onions. In this dish they were put in raw, that is why you felt it like that. Mother had asked that they should not be put in without cooking them, for many people do not like the taste or smell of raw leeks.
I think the importance of sattwic food from the spiritual point of view has been exaggerated. Food is rather a question of hygiene and many of the sanctions and prohibitions laid down in ancient religions had more a hygienic that a spiritual motive. The Gita's definitions seem to point in the same direction—tamasic food, it seems to say, is what is stale or rotten with the virtue gone out of it, rajasic food is that what is too acrid, pungent etc., heats the blood and spoils the health, sattwic food is what is pleasing, healthy etc. It may well be that different kinds of food nourish the action of the different gunas and so indirectly are helpful or harmful apart from their physical action. But that is as far as we can confidently go. What particular
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eatables are or are not sattwic is another question and more difficult to determine. Spiritually, I should say that the effect of food depends more on the occult atmosphere and influences that come with it than on anything in the food itself. Vegetarianism is another question altogether; it stands, as you say, in a will not to do harm to the more conscious forms of life for the satisfaction of the belly.
As to the question of practising to take all kinds of food with equal rasa, it is not necessary to practise nor does it really come by practice. One has to acquire equality within in the consciousness and as this equality grows one can extend it or apply it to the various fields of the activity of the consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo
2 January 1937
* * *
Mother,
Yesterday I received a letter from Anindita Devi1 and a note enclosed therein from Shantisudha Devi. It seems to me that intellectually she has understood something of the Master's writings much better that many people but has not yet read sufficiently to understand the unique contribution of the Master and the new standpoint from which he has essayed the problem of monism vs. dualism, the reconciliation of dynamism in a Sachchidananda Consciousness.
As she seems to me to be sincere I have written something to make the point clear and the two extracts from the Master's writings I believe will be helpful to
1. Mother of Amiya Chakrabarty.
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her. If you do not approve of what I have written Mother please let me know or if I have not caught the point of her difficulty.
As to other enquiries about coming to the Asram and correspondence, shall I write that as a rule the Master does not reply1 to outside questions for want of time and it is better to write for permission for coming to the Asram through some friends or shall I say that it can be written to Nolini or directly to You ?
I shall reply as you will please direct me.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
It may be better not to write directly but through friends.
What you have written along with the extracts are, I think, a sufficient answer to her question, at least as it has been put.
Sri Aurobindo
7 January 1937
*
ADDENDUM
(Shantisudha Devi's letter:)
There are only two points of similarity between Sri Aurobindo's teaching and the theories of modern European philosophy. First, Bergson's conception of intuition as distinguished from intellect; secondly, the theory of the Unconscious as propounded by the
1. Sri Aurobindo wrote Yes in the margin of the letter in answer to this question.
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Freudian school. But whereas these philosophers have caught only a faint glimpse of the truth in discovering that intellect cannot realise the essence of things, and that there are vast hidden realms in our own existences which our conscious mind cannot know, Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is more comprehensive and gives a clearer exposition of the nature of intuition and of the various planes of the Unconscious. In fact, Sri Aurobindo is giving us not a system of philosophy, but a system of Yoga, not the result of an intellectual search after truth, but a method of realisation of truth. European thinkers (with the exception of the Neo-Platonists and Bergsonians) have all along been trying to find truth by means of intellect alone. But Sri Aurobindo shows us the way of knowing and realising truth by means of the psychic self. Hence the difference in the conclusions obtained. Hence also the difference in the degree of clarity of vision and exposition in the two cases. The one infers the truth, the other sees it.
But one thing in Sri Aurobindo's teachings still remains obscure and perplexing to us. If union with the Divine is to be achieved through the total elimination of the vital part of our nature, does it not follow that the vital urge is something alien to the Divine Being? Certainly then it is not a part of, and does not come from the Divine. Whence then does this vital and vital-physical part originate? This question is the old stumbling-block on which every system of philosophy has foundered,—the problem of monism vs. dualism.
Shantisudha Devi
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(Prithwi Singh's answer:)
You have rightly noted the distinction between the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the intellective philosophy of the West. Even the points of similarity between the Bergsonian and Freudian schools of thought are very superficial. For Sri Aurobindo's Yoga-philosophy holds the key to a knowledge that is other than the mind's, its expressions bear the impress of a global vision, a Yoga-drishti the range of which it is impossible for us to fathom.
The question you have put ought not to have arisen however. It is based, I am afraid, on an entire misunderstanding of his teachings. For the problem of monism vs. dualism which you write as "the old stumbling-block on which every system of philosophy has foundered" has been fully faced and answered by Sri Aurobindo. Indeed the solution he offers is the most satisfying to the modern mind and is of the greatest importance in visualising the logical structure of the supralogical vision of Truth which he reveals to us in his writings.
Your perplexity seems to me to arise from a confusion of ideas. For the surrender of our vital parts to the Divine which Sri Aurobindo demands as an indispensable condition of his Yoga is not synonymous with the elimination of our vital parts. Surrender and elimination are not identical terms.
What is meant is that we are to turn all our movements, not only vital activities.but physical and mental activities as well, completely towards the Divine, consecrating our smallest acts as well as our
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highest. Is it not rather a change of allegiance than elimination or annihilation? It is ego that perverts the truth bringing disharmony and discord in the dynamism of life,—that has to go, not the dynamism, so that the real person may emerge who is the eternal portion of the divine Many. And it is to be carefully noted that according to his teachings "ego" is only a formation of consciousness, not the true person so that its disappearance does not mean the disappearance of the personal "I".
The difficult aim of his Yoga is to universalise the individual who yet retains his individual centre of divine action. How this can be achieved is another question however to which the mind can give no answer, it is sufficient for us to know that an integral consecration of our selves, of our mental, vital and physical existences is an indispensable condition of this change—not their elimination or destruction.
I do not know if I have been able to give a sufficiently clear exposition that will satisfy you. However I am sending two extracts from the writings of my Master which I believe will be of help to you.
Prithwisingh
* * *
Mother,
Recently I had to take some important decisions. I did not write to you because I thought you would prefer that I should decide them myself.
I have decided that from 19381 shall offer you the 20001- whether there occurs some legal delay or not in the procedure of partition and the final drafting of
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the necessary documents, or whether I am able to come in the early or in the later part of that year.
In consequence the Rs. 201 - per month which I am giving to Sahana for food-offering has to cease from 1938. Outside I had been giving Rs. 151- a month1 to one of my sisters2 who had fallen in straitened circumstances due to her husband's mismanagement of his state. Another amount of Rs. 500/- a year I had been giving to the widow of my guru Nishanath Rai-chowdhury with whom I practised yoga for some time when he suddenly died due to some misregulation of vital winds. These also I have decided to discontinue however painful it might be to them. If I would have died these helps would have automatically ceased; a voluntary renunciation of ordinary life is to my mind a greater reason for adopting this attitude. And I never promised either to my sister or to the widow that the help would continue even after my death. So long even in the midst of difficulties, sometimes even hardships I have always faithfully kept my promise. But now I feel I have to act differently. I have frankly stated my decisions, Mother, but I am not certain whether you approve them or otherwise. Somehow I had never felt to bind down the children to my commitments. Each must have his freedom and experiment life in his own way—that has been my idea. Anyway please Mother let me know what you think of it.
Yes, certainly, you are quite free to make these arrangements. The Mother gives her approval.
1.Equivalent to roughly Rs. 600 of today.
2.Meena Kumani Bachhawat.
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I was informed yesterday that Dhirsingh's wife gave birth to a male child.1 Can I send your blessings to the boy, Mother ?...
Yes, you can send blessings.
I have composed another sonnet and should like to know how the Master likes this.
It is very beautiful.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
PS. These days I am better in health ...by your Grace.
14 January 1937
...I should like to know Mother what is exactly meant by Timeless-Spaceless Eternal. ...
In the Eternal, there are neither Time nor Space— is it because the Eternal is present in all Time and extended in all Space in an inseparable indivisible unity ?
Then, is there any difference between "beyond Time and Space" and Timeless-Spaceless ? Or they are simply different modes of saying the same thing?
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
1. Dhir Singh is Prithwi Singh's first child. Prabir, Dhir Singh's second son, was born on 12th January 1937.
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Time and Space are not limited, they are infinite—they are the terms of an extension of consciousness in which things take place or are arranged in a certain relation, succession, order. There are again different orders of Time and Space; that too depends on the consciousness. The Eternal is extended in Time and Space, but he is also beyond all Time and Space. Timelessness and Time are two terms of the eternal existence. The Spaceless Eternal is not one indivisible infinity of Space, there is in it no near or far, no here or there—the Timeless Eternal is not measurable by years or hours or aeons, the experience of it has been described as the eternal moment. But for the mind this state cannot be described except by negatives,— one has to go beyond and to realise it.
Sri Aurobindo
22 January 1937
* * *
Mother,
... I am sending a sonnet [in Bengali] and should be glad to know how the Master likes it.
Very fine.
I should also like to know if I have made some progress since my coming here this time and if there is any necessity of concentrating on any particular direction.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
You have made certainly much progress since you came.
Sri Aurobindo
8 February 1937
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Prithwi Singh,
You write as if what is going on in Europe1 were a war between the powers of Light and the powers of Darkness —but this is no more so than during the Great War. It is a fight between two kinds of Ignorance. Our aim is to bring down a higher Truth, but that Truth must be able to live by its own strength and not depend upon the victory of one or other of the forces of the Ignorance. That is the reason why we are not to mix in political or social controversies and struggles; it would simply keep down our endeavour to a lower level and prevent the Truth from descending which is none of these things but has a quite different law and basis. You speak of Brahmatej being overpowered by Kshatratej,2 but where is that happening? None of the warring parties incarnates either.
Sri Aurobindo
17 February 1937
* * *
Mother,
Yesterday during evening meditation I felt a pressure on the head which made my thoughts still and this was repeated once more when along with calm I experienced a sense of release as if something heavy and obstructing has been removed.
This means that the lid above is being removed and the Higher Consciousness is pressing on the lower—its first touch being that of silence and peace.
1.The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in which Hitler and Mussolini actively supported the fascist commander Franco against republican forces, while France and Britain remained helpless spectators.
2.Brahmatej: spiritual power; kshatratej: warrior power.
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Last night I got up at about 2. And after walking a little in the bright moonlight outside the room in the verandah I tried to sleep again with a strong aspiration for the rising of the consciousness (or Kundalini). I must have slept some time but when I awoke I felt the rising sensation mildly, but by letting the body remain passive and willing for its continuation the rising in greater and greater force and height continued for more than half a dozen times. At that time my consciousness was wide awake and I prayed that I may surrender myself completely to You, Mother.
The whole consciousness was turned towards the process of rising as in a series of waves that pushed the being upwards and the body seemed like an empty lifeless chest.
But I cannot yet make the experience repeat while sitting up. Perhaps the absorption and relaxation that are necessary I have not learnt yet. In sleep while the outer being is relaxed Your Force works up the necessary conditions when alone the rising of the Kundalini is possible, which the Tantriks and Yogis of other schools do consciously after a laborious process of breath-regulation etc. Now I feel by your Grace much joy and ease in this experience and its recurrence also has increased but up to now this has not led to any further development.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
Nothing needs to be done to bring the ascension— aspiration is sufficient. The object of the ascension is for the lower nature to join the higher consciousness so that
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(1) the limit or lid between the higher and the lower may be broken and disappear (2) the consciousness may have free access to higher and higher planes (3) a free way may be made for the descent of the higher Consciousness into the lower planes.
Sri Aurobindo
24 February 1937
* * *
Mother,
... About Tagore's exasperation, I think it is due to his perception that his ideal is crumbling; otherwise what does it matter to him that he would say, Prithwisingh is entrapped there, Dilip is not allowed [to come out] or rather kept imprisoned at Pondicherry, and things like that? It simply appears to me amusing and shows what poverty of intellect is there in cultured people like them. They would praise Buddha who was guilty of deserting his wife just when a child was born to her, but would call humble folks fools who follow under much favourable circumstances the example of a great teacher. It simply shows the inevitable necessity of Yoga for a man who really wants to change, for mere idealising leaves one where he was except for a few moments of a grand elevating passion.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
That is true. Idealising is a pastime of the mind— except for the few who are passionately determined to make the ideal real. Buddha is in Nirvana and his wife
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and child are there too perhaps, so it is easy to praise his spiritual greatness and courage—but for living people with living relatives a similar action is monstrous. They ought to be satisfied with praising Buddha and take care not to follow his example.
Sri Aurobindo
1 March 1937
*
Addendum
(It is but fair to the Reader to show the other side
of the picture. We give below a letter of Sri Aurobindo's
about Rabindranath Tagore, written on
24 March 1934—five years before the start
of World War II, and seven years before
Tagore's death. *)
It is queer the intellectuals go on talking of creation while all they stand for is collapsing into the Néant without their being able to raise a finger to save it. What are you going to create and from what material? Besides, what use is it if a Hitler with his cudgel or a Mussolini with his castor-oil can come at any moment and wash it out or beat it into dust?
But I don't think Tagore's passing into the opposite camp is a certitude. He is sensitive and perhaps a little affected by the positive, robustious, slogan-fed practicality of the day. For I don't see how he can turn his back on all the ideas of a life-time. After all he has been a wayfarer
1. Part of this letter was published in the Centenary Edition (Vol. 26, p. 346). This is the complete text.
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towards the same goal as ours in his own way—that is the main thing, the exact stage of advance and putting of the steps are minor matters. So I hope there will be no attack or harsh criticism. Besides, he has had a long and brilliant day creating on a very high level—I should like him to have as peaceful and undisturbed a sunset as may be. You ask what may be the verdict of posterity. The immediate verdict after his departure or soon after it may very well be a rough one,—for this is a generation that seems to take a delight in trampling with an almost Nazi rudeness on the bodies of the ancestors, specially the immediate ancestors. I have read with an interested surprise that Napoleon was only a bustling and self-important nincompoop all whose great achievements were done by others, that Shakespeare was "no great things", and that most other great men were by no means so great as the stupid respect and reverence of past ignorant ages made them out to be! What chance has then Tagore? But these injustices of the moment do not endure—in the end a wise and fair estimate is formed and survives the changes of Time.
As for your question, Tagore, of course, belonged to an age which had faith in its ideas and whose very denials were creative affirmations. That makes an immense difference. His later development, too, was the note of the day and it expressed a tangible hope of fusion into something new and true—therefore it could create. Now all that idealism has been smashed to pieces by the immense adverse Event and everybody is busy exposing its weaknesses— but nobody knows what to put in its place. A mixture of scepticism and slogans, "Heil-Hitler" and the Fascist salute and Five-Year Plan and the beating of everybody into one
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amorphous shape, a disabused denial of all ideals on one side and on the other a blind "shut-my-eyes and shut-everybody's-eyes" plunge into the bog in the hope of finding some firm foundation there, will not carry us very far. And what else is there? Until new spiritual values are discovered, no great enduring creation is possible.
* * *
(One of Mother's first letters to Prithwi Singh.)
Prithwi Singh,
Your letter received to-day.
Sri Aurobindo is answering, but as it may take two or three days more, I am sending you this with our love and blessings.
Mother
PS. Will you hand over the enclosed to Uday Singh; he asked to send his mail at your address.
2 April 1937
* * *
Prithwi Singh
We have received the Rs. 100 through Mahendranath and the stamps enclosed in the letter and the closing accounts; the Gita index also. It is very satisfying to have closed so well the work you undertook for the Mother in connection with Dilip's houses overcoming all difficulties and ending in such a satisfactory result. It has enabled Mother to commence the realisation of a large project1 for
1. The construction of "Golconde," a guest-house.
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the Asram which she had to keep in abeyance for years. But your work for the Mother is always sure to be the same, thorough, conscientious and skilful and inspired by a firm faith and openness to her force; where these things are success is always sure.
As for the two dreams you wrote about in your shorter letter of the 1st May, the one about the horse is not so clear as the other about the white calf. But the horse is always the symbol of Power; it must be then a Power which you were trying to catch and make your own while sometimes it was trying to come up with you, perhaps to use you. This is what happens in the vital where there are these uncertain and elusive movements. The high platform was evidently the level of a higher Consciousness which stilled this fluctuating movement and made control of the Power more possible, as it became still and near.
The white calf is the sign of a pure and clear consciousness,—the cow or calf being the symbol of Light in the Consciousness, something psychic or spiritual that you felt natural and intimate to you and inseparable.
As we have only just received the Gita index, it is not possible to write about it in this letter as I shall need to look at it more closely.
I hope that Sujata and all are well now and yourself also. The Mother sends you her love and blessings.
Sri Aurobindo
24 May 1937
* * *
Prithwi Singh
It is of course understood that you come for the August darshan. The children also can come. As for the alternatives
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before you the Mother thinks that the second is the best, to come and stay till November and take the final step in May or June 1938. This will give you time to arrange everything completely and at leisure.
We are glad to hear that you are keeping better health and hope it will now continue.
Our love and blessings are always with you.
Sri Aurobindo
25 June 1937
Mother,
Is the Bhuvarloka referred to in the Vedas and the Upanishads identical with the planetary world of the material universe ? It is described as the world of the vital beings, and if it is identical, then it follows that some types of the vital beings can and do inhabit a material (planetary) world. But is that possible ? The reverse of course is not, e.g. a material being cannot live in a non-material world. And I have also read in the "Conversations" that normally it is not possible for a vital being to establish any direct contact with a material body.
If it is not identical, then the Bhuvarloka or the mid-region may be said to exist in a different plane of consciousness organised on other than the material basis and related to the Bhurloka or the material Universe only psychologically like the Svarloka and the higher supra-physical non-material planes.
In that case, are the stars, planets, etc. that we see only huge aggregates of atoms harbouring no other
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life, scattered in inconceivably immense masses of material bodies and moving in the infinite spaces of the Universe ? Or if they harbour some life, what kind of beings dwell there ? Are they material on a differently organised basis of matter, other than the earth-type, or subtle physical or vital or another?
I should like very much Mother to know of these things and have my ideas cleared.
With deep devotion
Prithwi Singh
The bhuvarloka is not part of the material universe—it is the vital world that goes by that name. Dyuloka = mind world, bhuvarloka = vital world, bhurloka = material world. Swarloka is the highest region of the dyuloka, but it came to be regarded as identical with it.
As for the other question, there is no reason to suppose that there is not life in any part of the material cosmic system except earth. No doubt the suns and nebulae cannot harbour material life because there is not the necessary basis, but wherever there is a formed world, Life can exist. It used formerly to be supposed that life could not exist except in conditions identical with the earth, but it is now being discovered that even man and the animals can adapt themselves to atmospheric conditions deficient in oxygen such as exist in the stratosphere—this proves that all depends on adaptation. There are animals that can exist only in the sea, yet sea-animals have become amphibious or turned into land animals—so animals on earth can by habit of the adaptation live only in a certain range of atmosphere and need oxygen, but they could adapt themselves to other conditions—it is a law of habit
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of Nature, not a law of inevitable necessity of Nature. It is therefore quite possible for life to exist on other planets in our and other systems, though the beings there may not be quite like earthly humanity or life quite the same.
Sri Aurobindo
9 September 1937
* * *
Mother,
Jatindra1 showed me your letter and he is very willing to take up the work of teaching Sujata. I have spoken to him and from to-day he has begun the work and I have told him to write to you about it in detail. I am much relieved and I feel so grateful to you for all you are doing but outward expression is not adequate and I should concentrate all my efforts more and more towards a thorough self-giving however long may be the way and arduous and I pray to You Mother from the depth of my heart to give me strength to make it effective shattering with your mighty Force without any pity all that bars the way to a complete surrender....
Prithwisingh
11 September 1937
* * *
Prithwi Singh,
I have just received your letter about the necklace.2
1.Jatindranath Ball, engineer by profession, who stayed many years in the Ashram. Sujata also took English lessons from an English disciple, Pavita (Margaret Aldwinckle).
2.A diamond necklace of Prithwi Singh's late wife, Suhag Kumari.
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Amal wrote to his grandfather informing him about the sale of the necklace as a very good occasion and asking him to buy it for Lalita.1 The old man replied that Lalita was never moving out of the Ashram and what then could she do with the necklace unless it was simply to have it for admiring it. So you can see that my name never came into the matter. I would never have allowed them to ask it for me.
If you had no debts to pay off or if I were in a position to clear the debts myself for you I would have gladly accepted the necklace, but as it is it seems to me more reasonable to keep to your original plan of selling it.
Hoping all is well with you and the children.
Our love and blessings are with you.
Mother
P.S. Your furniture has reached safely and is placed in your room.
24 January 1938
* * *
Prithwi Singh,
I had advised you to sell the necklace because that seemed in the circumstances the most reasonable thing to do. But since you are moved by your inner feeling to offer the necklace to me, it is not possible for me to refuse it. There are certainly no motives of ego in what you express in your letter, but a very fine, delicate and psychic movement. So I promise you not to scold or chastise you when you bring the gift but accept it and the fine spirit in you which makes the offering.
1. Lalita was Amal Kiran's wife.
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With love and blessings to you and the children.
Mother
2 February 1938
* * *
Prithwi Singh,
You may feel sure that all you have done has been rightly done and has our approval and blessings.
You are right about Jawaharlal.1 It is quite impossible to give our blessings, for with this bargaining spirit nothing could be successfully done. He would not have been able to receive the force.
Expecting to see you and Sujata here soon.2
Our love and blessings
Mother
17 May 1938
... Yesterday I received a letter from my second son Birsingh who has just taken his admission in the 3rd year class, taking honours in chemistry—therein was another letter from Sumitra. I am sending it along with. Shall I send a brief reply or is it best to keep silent in all things except in case of business letters which, when they come, will have to be acknowledged perhaps?
1.Jawaharlal was a relation of Prithwi Singh's, who was once cured of an illness by the grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. He had made an unsolicited promise to make an offering which, once cured, he did not keep. The result: his illness returned.
2.They arrived on May 29.
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There is no need to keep silent; you can reply.
Sri Aurobindo
June (?) 1938
** *
Mother,
Regarding library work I am now giving IV2 hour in the morning from 8: 30 to 9: 30 and for the rest I am trying to do everything myself. Altogether about 2925 books have been arranged, labelled and classified and there would be another 500 volumes or so of English book still left to be done .........
At present I am working irregularly from 5 to 6 hours because I am still feeling a little tired physically, but I intend to devote a little more time— 7 hours regularly. Which I pray will have your approval. Only it is not possible to work at night for it may strain the eyes and there is also no proper lighting arrangement in the library.
With deep devotion
Prithwisingh
Approved if you feel the need of it and there is no strain. Otherwise 5 to 6 hours is enough.
Sri Aurobindo
4 June 1938
** *
Mother,
Regarding my letters ... there is an uncertainty in my mind as to your exact wish in the matter. Except
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usually once a month to children I do not write to anyone outside unless with your sanction for some work of the Asram. But still I find that 2 to 3 letters a month come to me apart from the children's. You will please therefore let me know Mother if it will be possible for you to see them without feeling any inconvenience. My object in begging this favour from you was that it will put a check on my writing outside. But I will never insist, I will follow what you will please say.
I think it is not necessary to send the letters that come.
The other letter I am enclosing herewith for your kind perusal. It will speak for itself. My brief acquaintance with him was at Santiniketan and he seemed to me to be a good man but I am no judge of characters. As you will see from the letter, he wants to come permanently. Please let me know, Mother, what I shall write to him in reply.
With deep devotion
Prithwi Singh
At present it is out of the question. There is and will remain for some time the difficulty of accommodation. Moreover it is not possible to accept anyone as a permanent resident sadhak without having seen him first. Usually it is only after one has practised the Yoga for a time and made some progress that it is useful or advisable to take up life in the Asram.
Sri Aurobindo
5 September 1938
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Prithwi Singh
These stone-throwing or stone-producing incidents and similar extraordinary occurrences which go outside the ordinary course of physical Nature happen frequently in India and are not unknown elsewhere; they are akin to what is called poltergeist phenomena in Europe. Scientists don't say or think anything of such supernormal happenings except to pooh-pooh them or to prove that they are simply the tricks of children simulating supernatural manifestations. It was only three or four stones that fell inside a room, the others were thrown from outside and in the last period banged day after day against the closed door of Bijoy Nag who was sheltering inside the servant boy who became the centre of the phenomena. As the boy got wounded by two of the last stones, we sent him away to another house with the idea that then the phenomena would cease and it so happened. As a rule these things need certain conditions to happen—e.g. a house which becomes the field of the action of these supernormal forces and a person (usually, psychologically ill-developed) who is very often their victim as well as their centre. If the person is removed elsewhere, the phenomena often stop but sometimes his aura is so strong for these things that the house aura is not needed—they continue wherever he or she goes. As for the other necessary factor it is supposed to be elemental beings who are the agents. Sometimes they act on their own account, sometimes they are controlled and used by a person with occult powers. It was supposed here that some magic must have been used—such magic is common in the Tamil country and indeed in all South India. The stones were material enough, a huge heap of them were collected and remained at the
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staircase bottom for two or three days, so they were not thoughts taking a brick form. It was evidently a case of materialisation probably preceded by a previous demate-rialisation and "transport"—the bricks became first visible in their flight at a few feet from the place where they fell.
Scientific laws only give a schematic account of material processes of Nature—as a valid scheme they can be used for reproducing or extending at will a material process, but obviously they cannot give an account of the thing itself. Water for instance is not merely so much oxygen and hydrogen put together—the combination is simply a process or device for enabling the materialisation of a new thing called water; what that new thing really is is quite another matter. In fact there are different planes of substance, gross, subtle and more subtle going back to what is called causal (karana) substance. What is more gross can be reduced to the subtle state and the subtle brought into the gross state; that accounts for demate-rialisation and materialisation and rematerialisation. These are occult processes and are vulgarly regarded as magic. Ordinarily the magician knows nothing of the why and wherefore of what he is doing, he has simply learned the formula or process or else controls elemental beings of the subtler states (planes or worlds) who do the thing for him. The Thibetans indulge widely in occult processes; if you see the books of Madame David Neel who has lived in Tibet you will get an idea of their expertness in these things. But also the Tibetan Lamas know something of the laws of occult (mental and vital) energy and how it can be made to act on physical things. That is something which goes beyond mere magic. The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon matter can be extended to an almost
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illimitable degree—but that has nothing to do with the stone-throwing affair which is of a lower and more external order. In your (2) and (3) different operations seem to be confused together, (1) the creation of mere (subtle) images which the one who sees may mistake for real things, (2) the temporary materialisation of subtle substance into forms capable of cognition not only by the sight but by material touch or other sense, (3) the handling of material objects by mind-energy or vital force, e.g. making a pencil move and write on paper. All these things are possible and have been done. It must be remembered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or life-energy acting directly on material energy and substance; if they do they can make a material object do things or rather can do things with a material object which would be to that object in its ordinary poise or "law" unhabitual and therefore apparently impossible.
I do not see how cosmic rays can explain the origination of matter; it is like Sir Oliver Lodge's explanation of life on earth that it comes from another planet; it only pushes the problem one step farther back—for how do the cosmic rays come into existence? But it is a fact that Agni is the basis of forms as the Sankhya pointed out long ago, i.e. the fiery principle in the three powers radiant, electric and gaseous (the Vedic trinity of Agni) is the agent in producing liquid and solid forms of what is called matter.
Obviously, a layman cannot do these things, unless he has a native "psychic" (that is, occult) faculty and even then he will have to learn the law of the thing before he
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can use it at will. It is always possible to use spiritual force or mind-power or will-power or a certain kind of vital energy to produce effects in men, things and happenings; but knowledge and much practice is needed before this possibility ceases to be occasional and haphazard and can be used quite consciously, at will or to perfection. Even then to have "a control over the whole material world" is too big a proposition, a local and partial control is more possible or, more widely, certain kinds of control over matter.
Sri Aurobindo
24 October 1938
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ADDENDUM
(For the interest of the readers, we append here an extract of a conversation between Sri Aurobindo and Dilip Kumar Roy on February 4,1943, when Sri Aurobindo narrated this episode of stone throwing as an illustration of "materialisation.")
"Let me tell you," Sri Aurobindo said smilingly, "what I have seen with my own eyes if only to obviate your objection about the hearsay evidence. And it was an occurrence witnessed to by at least half-a-dozen people besides, who were with me."1
[Next day Dilip wrote to Sri Aurobindo to supply him
1. E.g., Barindra Kumar Ghose, Upendra Nath Banerji, Nolini Kan to Gupta, Suresh Chandra Chakravarti, Hrishikesh Kanjilal, Bijoy Nag, Amrita and others. All except the last two were eminent intellectuals and the first four were writers and thinkers of standing in Bengal.
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with details, as he wanted to be accurate. Sri Aurobindo complied and wrote:]
"I gave you this as an instance of actual occult law and practice, showing that these things are not imaginations or delusions or humbug, but can be true phenomena.
"The stone-throwing began unobtrusively with a few stones thrown at the Guest-House kitchen—apparently from the terrace opposite, but there was no one there. The phenomenon began at the fall of dusk and continued at first for half-an-hour, but daily it increased in frequency, violence and the size of the stones, and the duration of the attack increased also, sometimes lasting for several hours until, towards the end, in the hour or half-hour before midnight, it became a regular bombardment; and now it was no longer at the kitchen only but thrown in other places as well: for example, the outer verandah. At first we took it for a human-made affair and sent for the police, but the investigation lasted only for a short time and when one of the constables in the verandah got a stone whizzing unaccountably between his two legs, the police abandoned the case in a panic. We made our own investigations, but the places whence the stones seemed to be or might be coming were void of human stone-throwers. Finally, as if to put us kindly out of doubt, the stones began falling inside closed rooms; one of these— it was a huge one and I saw it immediately after it fell— reposed flat and comfortable on a cane table as if that was its proper resting-place. And so it went on till the missiles became murderous. Hitherto the stones had been harmless except for a daily battering of Bijoy's door— during the last days—which I watched the night before the end. They appeared in mid-air, a few feet above the
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ground, not coming from a distance but suddenly manifesting and, from the direction from which they flew, should have been thrown close in from the compound of the Guest-House or the verandah itself, but the whole place was in clear light and I saw that there was no human being there nor could have been. At last the semi-idiot boy servant who was the centre of the attack and was sheltered in Bijoy's room under his protection, began to be severely hit and was bleeding from a wound by stones materialising inside the closed room. I went in at Bijoy's call and saw the last stone fall on the boy; Bijoy and he were sitting side by side and the stone was thrown at them in front but there was no one visible to throw it—the two were alone in the room. So unless it was Wells' Invisible Man—!
"So far we had only been watching or scouting around, but this was a little too much, it was becoming dangerous and something had to be done about it. The Mother, from her knowledge of the process of these things, decided that the process here must depend on a nexus between the boy servant and the house, so if the nexus were broken and the servant separated from the house, the stone-throwing would cease. We sent him away to Hrishikesh's place and immediately the whole phenomenon ceased; not a single stone was thrown after that and peace reigned.
"That showed that these occult phenomena are real, have a law or process as definite as that of any scientific operation and that the knowledge of the processes can not only bring them about but put an end to or annul them.
"So you see," Sri Aurobindo said at the end of his
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narration, "the Mother who had studied occultism in North Africa could understand it all because of her deep occult knowledge."
(To bring this to a close, let us add what
Dilip learnt from Amrita.)
"I was told afterwards by Amrita, who had been an eyewitness of the whole drama, that all this had happened in mid-winter in 1921 day after day. And fortunately, he had kept a record of the whole incident which he showed me. From this I gathered that a cook called Vattal was the author of the mischief. Infuriated for having been dismissed, the fellow had threatened that he would make the place too hot for those who remained. And he went for help to a Mussulman Faquir who was versed in black magic, and then it all began. I asked Amrita whether the stones could have been illusory. He smiled and said that he had had them collected and kept them as exhibits for months and that they had a very curious feature in that they were all covered with moss. I was also told that among those who were then on the spot there was the rationalist stalwart Upendra Nath Banerji who had at first pooh-poohed the black-magic story and girded up his loins to unearth the miscreants who were responsible for it all. But even he had to confess himself beaten in the end as he could not make any sense out of the strange episode. But it all transpired when Vattal's wife came in an extremity of despair and threw herself at the mercy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Her husband had realised that the nemesis had overtaken him for he knew occultism enough to realise that Sri Aurobindo and the
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Mother had hurled the force back. When such occult forces are aroused against one who can repel them they inevitably recoil back upon the head of its original author. So her husband had fallen desperately sick. Sri Aurobindo in his generosity forgave the fellow and said in Amrita's presence: 'For this he need not die.' The black magician recovered after that."1
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1. Among the Great, by Dilip Kumar Roy, p.337-340
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