The aim is to bring out the essential Parichand - a dedicated disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, an untiring pilgrim of the spirit.
3
Guntdev,
I bow at your feet, I am a fellow-traveller on your path of Yoga, pursuing this path with the help of your method. Seven years of sadhana have resulted in inducing all the parts of darkness in me to surrender. But in this darkness, my vital is still weak and full of impurities. It continues to resist and does not want to surrender; due to this lack of submission, my sadhana is not dynamic.
Of late I have understood that Shakti is lacking in me and that for this reason the play of the Force has not yet started. Therefore I pray to God all the time to give me Power as well as Knowledge and Ananda, for otherwise I do not know whether I will be able to bear the darkness or not.
You know what is best for me and I surrender myself to you. Let your wish be carried out in my life.
Nolini
The letter1 is an extremely intelligent one and shows considerable justness of mind and discriminating observation both as to the nature of the sadhana and its obstacles and the movements in him. You had better correspond with him and encourage him.
Tell him that his observations are all very correct and there is little to add to them. If he perseveres with sincerity and the same discriminating correctness of vision he is sure to progress. The sadhana is a difficult one and time should not be grudged; it is only in the last stages that a very great and constant rapidity of progress can be confidently expected. As for Shakti, the descent of Shakti before the vital is pure and surrendered, has its dangers. It is better for him to pray for purification, knowledge, intensity of the heart's aspiration and as much working
1. Only the essential portion of the letters of Parichand is given here.
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of the Power as he can bear and assimilate.
Add anything else that the letter may suggest to you.
18 May 1931
*
Bhagavan,
As I felt the want of power in my adhara, I prayed for that to the Mother and She gave it. The power descended, seated itself in the vital and began its work from that centre. With the assent of the inner vital, my sadhana became dynamic and took on an entirely new shape. The arduousness, intellectual dryness and morbidity of the sadhana gave place to spontaneity, buoyancy and intensity. The descent of power with its natural concomitant Ananda led me deeper. At a certain point I began to feel such a rapturous and ecstatic joy in me and such a close communion with the Divine that I thought I was in the lap of the Mother. I intimated about it to X and he called it the "psychic consciousness ".
But the sadhana has also got its play of darkness and that is much more intense. The concealing of the Divine Consciousness means the rushing in of the hostile forces raging in fury, leaping, dancing, revelling and thus rendering the whole psycho-vital plane a pandemonium. These forces disturb the equilibrium of the mental being and try to shut up all the doors to light and knowledge.
Do you give your sanction to X's assertion that this movement is the psychic consciousness?
No; it is the opening of the vital consciousness to the touch of the Divine which always brings with it either the Light, the Force or the Ananda. This opening of the vital is a great step forward, but as he has found, it does not preclude the entrance of the forces of the Darkness. Only the opening of the psychic consciousness can give a constant help against that.
This intermittent play of Light and darkness has given rise in my mind to a fear that the power playing in the vital is many times usurped by the hostile forces and made to serve
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their ends. This fear finds a justification in the fact that the occasional psychic touches of the Divine have not yet given birth to a single-minded, unswerving devotion towards the Divine, a constant and never-failing aspiration for Him. Why so?
Because the psychic being is not in front. It is only by the awakening of the psychic being that this kind of devotion can come. What he has now is the mental and vital bhakti.
One or two movements have drawn my attention these days:
1)An intense desire to hear discourses about sadhana and talk about it. I am so overwhelmed with joy while talking about sadhana and my realisation that sometimes I feel as if I were beyond myself. But such discourses, instead of deepening the Divine Consciousness, make the adhara empty and destitute — a blank.
This desire is vital and it is the nature of vital expansions to expend the power — tapakshaya.
2)A rise of ambition which many times goads me to talk. This flatters my ego, distorts my vision and makes me believe that such discourses may do immense benefit to somebody, alter his life's course etc.
This again is vital — he must get over the vital desires and replace them by an aspiration to the Divine.
16 January 1932
Your reply to my previous letter rectified the wrong impression under which I had been acting. From that time on, there grew in me a determined will to sink deep into the Divine Being, reach the psychic consciousness and then bring that consciousness to the front. This led me to put an intense stress on meditation. The practice of meditation has led me only so
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far as to have a calm and serene condition, a sort of movementless pure state; from it I longed to take a plunge, get away from the physical mind and enter the realms of the Spirit; but I was debarred from getting entrance. Still, each time that I sit for meditation I am instantly transported into a state of quiescence in which I sometimes see flashes of light, almost impalpable. But I cannot go any further — it seems that the doors are still bolted from within.
His sadhana seems to be proceeding normally and on the whole very well. There are always difficulty and a hampered progress in the early stages and a delay in the opening of the inner doors until the adhara is ready. If he feels whenever he meditates the quiescence and the flashes of the inner Light and if the inward urge is growing so strong that the external hold is decreasing and the vital disturbances are losing their force, that is already a great progress. The road of Yoga is long, every inch of ground has to be won against much resistance and no quality is more needed by the sadhak than patience and single-minded perseverance with a faith that remains firm through all difficulties, delays and apparent failures.
9 March 1932
You can write to X that when vital difficulties assail a sadhak, he has not to identify his consciousness with them, but to stand back and remaining quiet in the observing part of his being call down persistently the Divine Force. The help will then come through this steady and silent part of the being.
27 December 1932
Gurudev,
In the past I committed one grand mistake — a total subordination of the consciousness of the Purusha to that of the Prakriti alone. Not that I gave myself up entirely to Prakriti, to the hands of the Mother, to be played upon by Her through the three modes of Nature; no, that calm, equal and detached attitude of the Purusha also remained at the back. But it was
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allowed to remain too far in the background; there was not that strong drive of the Will to make the Purusha consciousness dynamic and living.
I must say that sometimes when I feel the necessity of standing apart from the play of Prakriti, I also have the counteracting feeling that this would mean a belittlement of the Mother, that I would thereby shut out Her Grace and consequently Her Light, Power and Joy.
In spite of many movements of the Light, I feel a profound want of one thing — the want of this static, receptive equality of the Purusha becoming dynamic and possessive — and for this I pray for Your guidance.
In order to get the dynamic realisation it is not enough to rescue the Purusha from subjection to Prakriti; we must transfer the allegiance of the Purusha from the lower Prakriti with its play of ignorant Forces to the Supreme Divine Shakti, the Mother.
It is a mistake to identify the Mother with the lower Prakriti and its mechanism of forces. Prakriti is a mechanism only which has been put forth for the working of the evolutionary Ignorance. As the ignorant mental, vital or physical being is not the Divine, although it comes from the Divine — so the mechanism of Prakriti is not the Divine Mother. No doubt something of her is there behind this mechanism maintaining it for its evolutionary purpose — but what she is in herself is not a Shakti of Avidya, but the Divine Consciousness, Power, Light, Para Prakriti to whom we turn for the release and the divine fulfilment.
The realisation of the Purusha consciousness calm, free, observing the play of forces but not attached or involved in them is a means of liberation. The calm, the detachment, a peaceful strength and joy (atmaratih), must be brought down into the vital and physical as well as into the mind. If this is established, one is no longer a prey to the turmoil of the vital forces. But this calm, peace, silent strength and joy is only the first descent of the Power of the Mother into the Adhar. Beyond that is a Knowledge, an executive Power, a dynamic Ananda which is
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not that of the ordinary Prakriti even at its best and most sattwic, but divine in its nature.
First, however, the calm, the peace, the liberation is needed. To try to bring down the dynamic side too soon is not advisable — for then it would be a descent into a troubled and impure Nature unable to assimilate it and serious perturbations might be the consequence.
20 April 1933
(Regarding Sri Aurobindo's poem, "The Bird of Fire")
The Flame means the Bird of Flame and the Bird is the symbol of an inner Power that rises from the "sacrifice" i.e. 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.
2 December 1933
Yesterday I went with X and Y to Oosteri Lake at noon by cycle. We stayed there for two hours and happened to eat plantains purchased from the market. After our return, I began to feel out of sorts and by the time of meditation the body appeared to be weak and a little feverish. There is an attack of cold and this cold has been troubling me all along since my coming to Pondicherry. In my college days and even after, my body could endure hardship, irregularities of diet and inclemencies of weather. But for a year and a half it has been very sensitive and delicate — // cannot undergo the same amount of physical labour and exertion as before, nor can it remain unaffected in the teeth of irregularities. I do not know why. There is a general belief that as sadhana progresses the body becomes more and more impregnable and endurance increases tenfold, but in my case the condition is quite different. Will you please let me know why? Also tell me whether my going to the Lake yesterday and the eating of plantains were inadvisable?
It is better to let the Mother know when you go far out like that so that it may be with her protection that you go. The eating of
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plantains from the bazaar (especially if it was Villenour bazaar) was indeed a mistake. Mother has several times warned against it and X knows that. The body often becomes sensitive at a certain stage of the Yoga, but there should at the same time be the development of a higher Force which will protect and push back all attacks upon it.
November or December 1934
The experiences you speak of are certainly signs of the psychic being awake and in action. There is a process of change and modification going on in your inner mental and vital and the subtler parts of the physical consciousness under the psychic influence. When they are fully permeated and ready, the outer consciousness can also be put under the psychic control which would bring about the psychicising of the whole being — the best condition for the descent.
4 December 1934
I cannot but draw your attention to some physical disturbances which became chronic in Calcutta and are also persisting here. Constipation, want of proper assimilation of food and a consequent heaviness of the body are of regular recurrence.
Please let met know how can I get over them. Is it by reducing food or by paying no attention to the disturbances even if they continue?
Diminishing food does not usually help. For each one the remedy is different — we shall have to find out which is the one for you.
7 December 1934
The Mother has already given you orally the answer to your letter and the directions you asked for. As she told you, your concentration should be in the heart centre and all the rest — the rising above the head etc. — should come of itself in the natural process of the sadhana. Through the heart you will get
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the closer and closer touch of the Mother and the working of her Force in the whole being.
9 December 1934
There is no doubt that the inner being and the psychic in you are opening and that the psychic is influencing all including the physical centre.
As to the centres — The psychic is placed behind the heart-lotus, the centre of the emotional being, the Anahata chakra — it is therefore the opening of the Anahata that is most important for the unveiling of the psychic. The Manipura (navel centre) and the Swadhisthana below it are the seats of the vital being, the Muladhara is the seat of the physical. The opening of the Manipura gives one the free play of the inner vital consciousness and it is very helpful, no doubt, for the influence of the psychic on the vital, but it is not the direct or first condition of the psychic opening itself. But so also the opening of the higher centres is helpful for the influence of the psychic on the mental being. All the centres have to open, because otherwise the inner consciousness is not opened out and liberated to its full working in all its parts.
There is however no invariable rule as to the order of the opening. By concentration on the heart centre that can open first liberating the psychic action, which is veiled by the emotional, into free play. In many there is first some opening of the vital centre and for a long time there is an abundant but unpurified play of experiences on the vital plane. In the Tantric discipline there is a process of opening all the centres from the Muladhara upward. In our Yoga very often the Power descends from above and opens the Ajnachakra first, then the others in order. But it is perhaps the safest to open by concentration the heart lotus first so as to have the psychic influence from the beginning.
The psychic cannot lose its consciousness in the enjoyment of experiences; when it is in free action, it has the unfailing discrimination of which you speak. It has besides no push to outward enjoyment, though it has Ananda. It is the vital that is carried away by enjoyment and carries away with it the mind
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and other lower parts — and it can also cover up the psychic; but then what happens is not that the psychic loses its own consciousness, which is impossible, but that the sadhak loses for the time being the full possession of the psychic consciousness. But it can always be recovered by a rectification of the wrong movement. But if one lives firmly in the psychic, there is not much danger of this aberration. What one must not do is to throw oneself out into the mind and vital; one. must live within and from there command one's experience.
16 December 1934
I have received my brother's letter today. He seems to have sympathy for my pursuit of Yoga, but as usual he raises the issue that if this pursuit takes years and necessitates an ashram life, away from life, how can it be held to be a Yoga in life and what is the difference between the old traditional ways of Yoga and Sri Aurobindo's Yoga ? He questions me, "Why not call it a Yoga of renunciation?" This is the stock argument of people of the world because they never try to get at the psychology of the thing. Should I answer his question and if so, what answer shall I give ?
You can answer to your brother that Yoga life and the ordinary life cannot be the same thing — otherwise there would be no use in doing Yoga, if one lives just as others in the same way and with the same motives. The object of the Asram life is to prepare a new way of living based on a spiritual consciousness — it is the preparation of a new foundation of life in which all works have to be done not for the self but for the Divine.
31 December 1934
Two questions have arisen in the mind in connection with Sri Aurobindo's poem "Rose of God".
I) Does the rose, of all flowers, most perfectly and aptly express the divine ecstasies or has it got any symbolic allusion in the Veda or the Upanishad?
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There were no roses in those times in India — roses came in with the Mahomedans from Persia. The rose is usually taken by us as the symbol of surrender, love etc. But here it is not used in that sense, but as the most intense of all flowers it is used as symbolic of the divine intensities — Bliss, Light, Love etc.
2) Are the seven ecstasies referred to there the following: Bliss, Light, Power, Immortality, Life, Love and Grace.
No, it is not seven kinds, but seven levels of Ananda that are meant by the seven Ecstasies.
2 January 1935
This cold does not want to leave me. It seems to have grown enamoured of me from its long habitation in my body. Is it not an outer expression of' Tamas in the nature? How to part company with this cold, which resides likely an incubus?
Cold like that is usually due to constipation and bad functioning of the liver. If that is cured, the cold is likely to go.
5 January 1935
While reading Sri Aurobindo's poem "Thought the Paraclete", a question cropped up in my mind. What is this "Thought"? It is not a mental idea or a conceptual thought. It seems to me a rising up of the central consciousness — I mean the psychic consciousness — towards the Divine.
Also, please let me know what is meant by "pale-blue-lined of the hippogriff".
The rising of the psychic consciousness cannot be called "Thought" — thought belongs to the mind. 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 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
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to the intuition. Above it begins to become golden with the supramental light.
14 January 1935
In the Chhandogya Upanishad it is said: "Now, that golden Person (Purusha) who is seen within the Sun has a golden beard and golden hair, all golden is he, even to the tips of his fingers." (1.6.6) Does not this description refer to the Supramental Purusha, who, in the verse below, is said to be the Lord of all worlds beneath himself and also the Fulfiller of the desires of the gods?
It may very well be an imaged description of the Supramental Purusha.
"He is the Lord of all the worlds beneath this one, and the Lord of men's desires." (1.7.6) Does not this describe the psychic being who is said to be the Lord of all the worlds below and fulfiller of human desires?
The psychic being is not the fulfiller of desires — it is the spark of the Divine in all things manifested here that grows into the psychic being and supports the evolution. It is that which survives the dissolution of the vital and physical sheaths and returns to birth again.
January 1935
Whenever my meditation tends to be deep, sleep overcomes me. This tendency of sleepiness now proves to be a veteran antagonist and stubbornly opposes any inward opening. Even while meditating in the course of my pacing up and down in my room, this sleepiness hangs heavily on my eye-lids whenever I try to go deep down. Moreover, even after an undisturbed sleep of six or seven hours, I feel sleepy in the morning on rising from bed. Please enlighten me on the true nature of this physical inertia and let me know how to overcome it.
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I think the sleepiness is a stage which everybody goes through — a sort of mechanical reaction of the physical to the pressure for including it in the concentration of the sadhana. It is best not to mind it; it will go of itself as the consciousness increases and takes the physical into its poise. It is better to let us know about any physical troubles.
1935
The movements of which you speak are not personal — they are general movements of the universal Nature which besiege the subconscient and, as the subconscient is being enlightened, you have become aware of them. It is good, but simply reject them and fix your main attention on the positive things of the psychic nature to which you aspire.
12 January 1936
To me it seems that 5 1/2 hours' sleep is sufficient. If You sanction it, I shall try to bring it to that limit.
5 1/2 hours is quite insufficient. Six is the absolute minimum, it can go up to seven hours.
Early 1936
The subconscient is not the whole foundation of our nature; it is only the lower basis of the Ignorance and affects mostly the lower vital and physical exterior consciousness and these again affect the higher parts of the nature. While it is necessary to see what it is and how it acts, one must not be too preoccupied with this dark side or this apparent aspect of the instrumental being. One should rather regard it as something not oneself, a mask of false nature imposed on the true being by the Ignorance. The true being is the inner with all its vast possibilities of reaching and expressing the Divine and especially the inmost, the soul, the psychic Purusha which is always in its essence pure, divine, turned to all that is good and true and beautiful. The exterior being has to be taken hold of by the inner being and turned into an instrument no longer of the upsurgings of the ignorant
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subconscient Nature, but of the Divine. It is by remembering always that and opening the nature upwards that the Divine Consciousness can be reached and descend from above into the whole inner and outer existence, mental, vital, physical, the subconscient, the subliminal, all that we overtly and secretly are. This should be the main preoccupation. To dwell solely on the subconscient and the aspect of imperfection creates depression and should be avoided. One has to keep a-right balance and stress on the positive side most, recognising the other but only to reject and change it. This and a constant faith and reliance on the Mother are what is needed for the transformation to come.
14 July 1936
Selfishness and the reaction of unselfishness of which you speak are both of them things that have to be put aside — both are obstacles or movements leading off from the true and straight path. For both these things belong to the mind and vital, they are different forms of the ego. The mind in its attempt to get away from the rajasic selfish ego tries to do just the opposite of what selfishness usually does and serve others, sacrifice itself for others, but in doing so it is only constructing another kind of egoism that prides itself on its own unselfishness and altruism and makes human service its mental ideal instead of spiritual service of the Divine. That it is a misguiding movement you saw yourself; for it wanted to sacrifice your sadhana, that is your seeking for the Divine to this new ego of altruistic self-righteousness; it was prepared to do things without permission of the Mother or rather avoiding asking for permission. One has to get rid of selfishness and ego, not in this way, but by selfless service of the Divine and by merging the ego in the Divine Consciousness, submitting the personal will to the Divine Will, calling into the being the Divine Peace, Purity, Oneness, Knowledge, Light, Ananda, replacing the ego by the psychic being devoted and surrendered to the Divine. It is the love of the Divine that saves, not a love turned towards human beings. When the Divine Consciousness is there, then there comes based on the love of the Divine a true love and oneness for all beings. But
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that does not act separately from the Divine, but only according to the Divine Mother's will and in her service.
20 July 1936
The activity of mind is necessary so long as a higher activity cannot be reached; but if the spiritual consciousness becomes active with its direct power of perception, the mind must become more and more content and give place to spiritual perception, psychic intimations and discrimination, intuitions, a deeper knowledge from within, a higher knowledge from above.
Your way for the purification of the vital was a good method. The constant living in the psychic is necessary for that purification and the purification cannot be done without it. The other thing necessary is the opening of the spiritual consciousness above.
As for the method mentioned in the Bases of Yoga, it was the one by which I got silence and the disappearance of the separative consciousness in the Brahman, but it is not the right method for everybody. Yours is the one needed at present for you.
3 October 1936
When my sleep breaks at 4:30 a.m. I have ample time to finish my work, but sometimes I rise at 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. and then I can manage only to sweep the room and do certain essential things. But even if my sleep breaks at 4:30 (as the alarm-clock awakes me), I feel heavy and inclined to sleep again. Sometimes I struggle to keep awake and get to work, but sometimes I give in and then I am late to get up. Should I put a stronger will to control my sleep and limit it to the minimum of six hours, not more?
The feeling that you have in the morning proves that you need more sleep, so it is not wise to cut it short to the minimum as that in the end tells on the body. It is better to continue the sleep when you feel sleepy. 7 hours is not too much for sleep.
1936
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X once asked me to take a book out of the library for him in my name. He required it, but as he had taken already two books from the library he could not get another. I did it but I felt some disturbance, I do not know why. Is there anything wrong in this act?
If you feel this disturbance, it is an indication that you should not do it.
In one letter about work Sri Aurobindo says: "As for the dedication make the sankalpa always of offering it, remember and pray when you can.... This is to fix a certain attitude. Afterwards, the Force can take advantage of this key to open the deeper dedication within."
May I know in what terms this deeper dedication can be expressed?
One begins to feel a double consciousness, one an inner being within which is always dedicated, spontaneously and silently full of the devotion to the Mother or aware of her Force working or of her presence or all these together and another the outer through which the work is done.
Once in an interview the Mother told me, "Why do you make any difference between me and work ?" I am not sure if I have been able to reproduce the exact words, but they are almost like that. I pray to You to make the idea a little more explicit.
As it stands, it has no meaning. What Mother must have said is "Why do you make any separation between me and work?" It is she who is doing the work, she is there in it, so it is a mistake to make a difference or opposition between concentration on her and the work. Her presence is there in both.
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Ill-will still predominates in my instrumental nature. Selfishness in innumerable disguises governs and influences its activities and movements. Tell me, please, how to get rid of these formidable adversaries of the efflorescence of love.
Detach yourself quietly from these things, do not be disturbed when you see them, but regard them quietly as a defective machinery to be changed and go on rejecting in a patient tranquil spirit and calling the Force to change them. Time is needed for the elimination of these things.
My constipation, cold and eczema are still continuing. I feel there are supports for them in the physical. I did not have the clear urge to apply the conscious will towards their elimination as I do towards the elimination of vital and mental impurities. If You instruct me to do so, I am ready to act accordingly.
It is good to apply the conscious will for this purpose, provided it is a quiet will, — not a restless or struggling or overeager will — for this kind of will action creates struggle and resistance in the being.
There is a constant upsurge of shocking perversions, but something tells me, "Do not be afraid if they come more and more into the limelight. Press on inward and upward with a silent and steady will and rely more and more upon the Mother's guidance." Is it a right voice?
Yes, — as I said, it is no use being disturbed or attending too much to these things. It is the positive side that must grow.
This evening Y told me, "Fill the entire nature with the Mother's power." This brought into my mind the idea that it is power that I lack much in my nature. So far as I remember, in my past sadhana I have never consciously invoked power;
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the whole stress has been on purity and clarity. Something in me clearly has prevented me from praying for power. But if that is the need of my nature, I shall pray for it along with my prayer for other things.
It is not necessary to ask for Power. It is the Mother's Force that must work in the being and if it is there, all necessary power will come.
The disturbances that ensued from yesterday's incident brought out in full relief three predominant formations of my ego. First, an excessive self-esteem. This self-esteem or amour-propre seems to have struck root in some fundamental part of my being and refuses eviction. Second, an enervating influence of public opinion and a resultant fear of calumny or disgrace, shame and timidity. Third, an inordinate deference to moral ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and a consequent shrinkage of the nerves in horror.
What is the right way of dealing with these constituents of my ego-personality and putting an end to them ?
These are habits of the physical mind and the vital physical which almost everybody has, small things that are yet almost instinctive and ingrained in the nature. That is why it is difficult to get them out. A quiet detached observation, looking at them not so much as personal things but as a machinery that has to be set right or changed is the best attitude — with that a correction of the movement whenever observed — that will eventually check, diminish and eliminate these habits. It does not matter if the elimination takes time.
c.1936
I am going to bed at 10:00 or 10:15 and rising at 5:00. In order to fix these hours of sleep I have to take recourse to the alarum-clock, otherwise I may lie sleeping up till 5:45. Do you sanction it?
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Mother does not approve of the alarum — if you wake naturally, that is best.
I feel that there ought to be a certain regularity in my daily programme. But one thing 1 have noticed: the outer nature puts too great a premium on this regularity and tends to be rigid — so when the regularity cannot be maintained, it gets a little disturbed.
Too much rigidity is not good.
c. 1936
In one letter Sri Aurobindo writes: "For if the mind remains alert and clings to the truth, then the attack can only upheave the vital and, though this may be painful enough, yet the right attitude of the mind acts as a corrective." In what terms can this "right attitude of the mind" be expressed?
The right attitude means what is described above: "remains alert and clings to the truth" — does not allow itself to be obscured by the attack and does not give assent or sanction to its suggestions.
In the same letter he says: "If the vital keeps its balance, then the attack touches the physical consciousness only with its suggestions." What are the forms of these suggestions?
They are the same as in the mind and the vital — except that in the mind the push to doubt and denial is strongest, in the vital the push to satisfaction of the vital desires and impulses and the revolt against the law of Truth and the spiritual life, in the physical the push to inertia and tamasic yielding to the mechanical habits of the nature and the movements of the ordinary unspiritual life. But in the mass the suggestions are the same. When they cannot attack the thinking mind or vital, they attack the physical mind and vital physical. In the body however these may also come as suggestions of illness.
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I felt a tremendous resistance yesterday during the meditation and it lasted for a number of hours yesterday and today. I do not know which parts of my being are open to the adverse forces or what the defect in my attitude is. I am trying with all my might to keep the spiritual atmosphere, but the hostile forces slip in by invisible means.
These things come because of something in the nature that allows them to enter. If one is conscious what it is, one takes it as a warning to get rid of that element. If one is not aware, it is no use seeking with the mind. What has to be done is to make an act of faith and self-giving calling for the enlightenment and removal of whatever ought to disappear — the light can then fall upon that part and a spontaneous consciousness of it come.
I experience an attachment to food. Will an occasional fasting help to break the bondage of the habit?
No. It will make it worse.
I think you still give an exaggerated importance and attention to the ego and other elements that are interwoven in the nature of humanity and cannot be entirely got rid of except by the coming of a new consciousness which replaces them by higher movements. If one rejects centrally and with all sincerity the ego and rajas, their roots get loosened and sattwa can prevail in the nature, but the expulsion of all ego and rajas cannot be done by the will and its effort. After a certain stage of preparation therefore one must stress more on the positive side of the sadhana than on the negative side of rejection, — though this of course must remain to help the other. Still what is important is to develop the psychic within and bring down the higher consciousness from above. The psychic as it grows and manifests detects immediately all wrong movements or elements and at the same time supplies almost automatically the true element
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or movement which will replace them — this psychic process is much easier and more effective than that of a severe tapasya of purification. The higher consciousness in descending brings peace and purity into all the inner parts; the inner being separates itself from the imperfect outer consciousness and at the same time the peace that comes carries in it a power which can throw out what contradicts the peace and purity. Ego can then slowly or swiftly but surely disappear — rajas and tamas change into their divine substitutes.
19 March 1937
While we were reading something about kartavyam karma, X asked me if for us in the Ashram whatever is sanctioned by the Mother can be accepted unhesitatingly as our kartavyam karma. I replied, "Yes, if the sanction is asked for in the right spirit." He said, "What do we know of the right or wrong spirit? If the Mother's sanction is there, is it not enough?" I replied in the affirmative, but not with full conviction. Something was lurking in my mind suggesting that the Mother sometimes does sanction an act which may not be according to Her Will but for which a sadhaka may have a strong desire.
If the sadhak has a strong insistence or a strong desire, the Mother may say "Yes" or "Do as you wish" or give her sanction to the thing requested or demanded. That does not make it a kartavyam karma, but simply a thing which the sadhak can do. Again if a thing is indifferent or unobjectionable and the Mother is asked by somebody if he can do it, that does not exalt it into a kartavyam karma.
31 July 1937
Page 36
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