On Himself

Conditions of Acceptance as Disciples

I do not very readily accept disciples as this path of Yoga is a difficult one and it can be followed only if there is a special call.

If he wishes to accept my Yoga the conditions are a steady resolve and aspiration towards the truth I am bringing down, a calm passivity and an opening upward towards the source from which the light is coming. The Shakti is already working in him and if he takes and keeps this attitude and has a complete confidence in me, there is no reason why he should not advance safely in the Sadhana.

9-12-1922

As for the Zamindar he seems to expect some dīkṣā of the traditional kind from me, but this I cannot give. He will have to be told that I do not and that my method is different. It may be a little difficult to explain to him or for him to understand what it is. Perhaps he may be told that those who come to have the Yoga are not accepted at once and there is sometimes a long period of trial before they are. We can see how he takes it and decide afterwards if he persists in his desire to come here.

11-7-1949

If he had a true Yogic capacity it would be different, but we see no trace of it. Tell him he needs another kind of guidance—he will not be able to stand this Yoga.

It is not possible for me to give him help and guidance—for that would mean an Influence put on him and in the present stage of his development he has not the necessary strength and balance to receive it and bear it.

Page 175

I have said he cannot do this Yoga. He needs something else that he can assimilate.

4-7-1936

I have read and considered your letter and have decided to give you the opportunity you ask for—you can reside in the Ashram for two or three months to begin with and find out whether this is really the place and the path you were seeking and we also can by a closer observation of your spiritual possibilities discern how best we can help you and whether this Yoga is the best for you.

This trial is necessary for many reasons, but especially because it is a difficult Yoga to follow and not many can really meet the demands it makes on the nature. You have written that you saw in me one who achieved through the perfection of the intellect, its spiritualisation and divinisation; but in fact I arrived through the complete silence of the mind and whatever spiritualisation and divinisation it attained was through the descent of a higher supra-intellectual knowledge into that silence. The book, Essays on the Gita, itself was written in that silence of the mind, without intellectual effort and by a free activity of this knowledge from above. This is important because the principle of this Yoga is not perfection of the human nature as it is but a psychic and spiritual transformation of all the parts of the being through the action of an inner consciousness and then of a higher consciousness which works on them, throws out their old movements or changes them into the image of its own and so transmutes lower into higher nature. It is not so much the perfection of the intellect as a transcendence of it, a transformation of the mind, the substitution of a larger greater principle of knowledge—and so with all the rest of the being.

This is a slow and difficult process; the road is long and it is hard to establish even the necessary basis. The old existing nature resists and obstructs and difficulties rise one after another and repeatedly till they are overcome. It is therefore necessary to be sure that this is the path to which one is called before one finally decides to tread it.

Page 176

If you wish, we are ready to give you the trial you ask for. On receiving your answer the Mother will make the necessary arrangements for your residence in the Ashram.

26-3-1937

Write to your friend that we do not ask for any financial help from your father and therefore you are not called upon to answer the questions in his letter. It is not everyone who has the adhikāra to help in the work of the Ashram.

Those only can do so who have faith in it, or sympathy or at least confidence in Sri Aurobindo....

Sri Aurobindo is not anxious to increase the number of his disciples and only those are accepted usually who have the call and capacity for Yoga and are ready to satisfy the conditions.

14-10-1928

If I said only things that human nature finds easy and natural, that would certainly be very comfortable for the disciples, but there would be no room for spiritual aim or endeavour. Spiritual aims and methods are not easy or natural (e.g., as quarrelling, sex-indulgence, greed, indolence, acquiescence in all imperfections are easy and natural,) and if people become disciples, they are supposed to follow spiritual aims and endeavours, however hard and above ordinary nature and not the things that are easy and natural.

3-5-1937

Q: Here is a man of fifty intending vānaprastha, who thinks our Ashram will just be the place for him. He says he has prepared himself for Ashram life; his only fault being taking a little opium for the sake of health. What should I write to him?

Page 177

A: Declined with thanks. Opium not allowed here. Also this is not a vānaprastha Ashram.

17-7-1936

Q: Here is a village girl, a young widow, who has heard your call in a dream and is eager to come here.

A: Too young—such dreams are not decisive and there is too much of the vital tone in her remarks; you need say nothing about that however.

14-10-1938