Sri Aurobindo and Mother to Prithwi Singh

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 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