too is only an appearance. Prakriti is in reality the conscious power of the Spirit.Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Yoga
4. Reason, Science and Yoga
Fragment ID: 258
As for what you write about your experience and your ideas, it looks as if it were simply the old thoughts and movements rising, as they often do, to interfere with the straight course of the sadhana. Mental realisations and ideas of this kind are at best only half-truths and not always even that; once one has taken up a sadhana that goes beyond the mind, it is a mistake to give them too much importance. They can easily become by misapplication a fruitful ground for error.
If you examine the ideas that have come to you, you will see that they are quite inadequate. For example:
1. Matter is jaḍa only in appearance. As even modern Science admits, Matter is only energy in action, and, as we know in India, energy is force of consciousness in action.
2. Prakriti in the material world seems to be jaḍa, but this too is only an appearance. Prakriti is in reality the conscious power of the Spirit.
3. A bringing down of the Spirit into Matter cannot lead to a laya in jaḍa prakṛti. A descent of the Spirit could only mean a descent of light, consciousness and power, not a growth of unconsciousness and inertia which is what is meant by the jaḍa-laya.
4. The Spirit is there already in Matter as everywhere else; it is only a surface apparent unconsciousness or involved consciousness which veils its presence. What we have to do is to awake Matter to the spiritual consciousness concealed in it.
5. What we aim at bringing down into the material world is the supramental consciousness, light and energy, because it is this alone that can truly transform it.
If there is at any time a growth of unconsciousness and inertia, it is because of the resistance of the ordinary nature to the spiritual change. But this is usually raised up in order to be dealt with and eliminated. If it is allowed to remain concealed and not raised up, the difficulty will never be grappled with and no real transformation will take place.
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
Other publications: