Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

Letter ID: 231

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

May 8, 1932

I am afraid in this question about the cinema you are putting to me something which I am unable to answer. It is not a question of willingness or unwillingness, but the thing itself is quite outside the province in which I can make or give decisions. On all matters concerning the sadhana or life in the sadhana I can or may recommend or say Yes or No,– your poetry or your music I regard as part of the sadhana, part of your own and the collective Yoga life, but Charlie Chaplin and the City Lights are so outside it that I am unable to say anything about it whatever.

I find it rather surprising that you should regard what the Mother said to you or what I wrote as a recommendation to relax aspiration or postpone the idea of any kind of siddhi till the Greek Kalends! It was not so intended in the least nor do I think either of us said or wrote anything which could justly bear such an interpretation. I said expressly that in the way of meditating of which we spoke, aspiration, prayer, concentration, intensity were a natural part of it; the way was put before you because our experience has been that those who take it go quicker and develop their sadhana, once they get fixed in it, much more easily as well as smoothly than by a distressed, doubtful and anxious straining with revulsions of despondency and turning away from hope and endeavour. We spoke of a steady opening to the Divine with a flow of the force doing its work in the ādhār [vessel], a poised opening with a quiet mind and heart full of trust and the sunlight of confidence; where do you find that we said a helpless waiting must be your programme?

As for light-heartedness and insouciance, the Mother never spoke of insouciance – a light don’t care attitude is the last thing she would recommend to anybody. She spoke of cheerfulness, and if she used the word light-hearted, it was not in the sense of anything lightly or frivolously gay and careless – although a deeper and finer gaiety can have its place as one element of the yogic character. What she meant was a glad equanimity even in the face of difficulties and there is nothing in that contrary to yogic teaching or to her own practice. The vital nature on the surface (the depths of the true vital are different) is attached on the one side to a superficial mirth and enjoyment, on the other to sorrow and despair and gloom and tragedy,– for these are for it the cherished lights and shades of life; but a bright or wide and free peace or an ānandamaya intensity or, best, a fusing of both in one is the true poise of both the soul and the mind – and of the true vital also – in Yoga. It is perfectly possible for a quite human sadhak to get to such a poise, it is not necessary to be divine before one can attain it. All this is nothing new and original; I have been saying it ever since I began speaking at all about Yoga and I cannot see anything in it resembling a gospel of helpless waiting or of careless insouciance or anything contrary to our own practice. I do not think that we have either of us become relentlessly grim and solemn or lacking in humour or that the Mother has lost her smile! I am afraid you are looking at her and things as through a glass darkly and seeing them in too sombre colours. As for instance what you say about the music – she came up straight to me from it and spoke at once about your music and the presence of Krishna there and she was in a very different mood from what you describe.

I have read your¹ poem; it is very beautiful, but also too sombre in colour. Do throw off this mood and become yourself once more!

¹ In the book – you.– Ed. of this e-publication.

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