Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
Sarat Chatterji’s letter is not a glory of the vital at all, even though it may have come through the vital – but not from it: it is psychic throughout, in every sentence. If I were asked how does the psychic work in the human being, I could very well point to the letter and say “like that”. The ordinary vital is another guess thing! The psychic is the soul, the divine spark animating matter and life and mind and as it grows it takes form and expresses itself through these three touching them to beauty and fineness – it works even before humanity in the lower creation leading it up towards the human, in humanity it works more freely though still under a mass of ignorance and weakness and coarseness and hardness leading it up towards the Divine. In Yoga it becomes conscious of its aim and turns inward to the Divine. It sees behind and above it – that is the difference. The psychic is not responsible for my aloofness or retirement – it is the mass of opposition that I have to face which is responsible for that. It is only when I have overcome by the aid of the psychic and (excuse me!) your other bête noire, the supermind, that the retirement can cease.
Of course all prayer is not heard – the world would be a still more disastrous affair than it is, if everybody’s prayers were 
heard, however sincere. Even the Godward prayer is not always heard – at once, even as faith is not always justified at once. Both prayer and faith are powers towards realisation which have been given to man to aid him in his struggle – without them, without aspiration and will and faith (for aspiration is a prayer) it would be difficult for him to get anywhere. But all these things are merely means for setting the Divine Force in action – and it sometimes takes long, very long even, before the forces come into action or at least before they are seen to be in action or bear their result. The ecstasist is not altogether wrong even when he overstates his case. Even the overstatements sometimes help to convince the Cosmic Power, so that it says “Oh well, if it is like that, all right – tathāstu.”