Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 3
Yesterday morning I was reading Krishnaprem’s article in the Aryan Path on the Seventh Chapter of the Gita where he says: (I give you the gist) that meditation can’t be fruitful for most and that is because a high degree of inner development and purification has not been achieved, one of the conditions being that most men are not yogis whom the pairs of opposites that torment other people will have no power to disturb’ etc. He posits a host of other conditions for a successful meditation which well nigh drive me to despair. It is no joke, it seems. One must become perfect first before one can hope for any result in meditations. No wonder my attempts were fruitless.
Last evening as I lolled on the pier alone I felt sad: what is this path I have taken where one has to be a Hercules to be able to do anything – even to try meditation. My cherished preconception that prayer, meditation, etc. purify received such a blow! Then how on earth is one to arrive? By writing notations to music and songs and poems? I wonder if anyone ever realised the Divine through such a way! I was really very much disheartened. No doubt you have been encouraging us – but Krishnaprem has at last blurted out the home truth. Look at me: I have been working hard enough in all conscience – but with no consciousness at all of the least sense of illumination within. What can such work do! But then again meditation is useless d’aprés Krishnaprem unless one were thoroughly purified and stationed in the perfect yogic poise. Today I have been struggling against this despondency: for us it is perhaps impossible to arrive by any path. Then why do yoga? Work? Only to ward off the depression that comes from repose?
I do not know what Krishnaprem said or in which article, I do not have it with me. But if the statement is that nobody can 
have a successful meditation or realise anything till he is pure and perfect, I fail to follow it, it contradicts my own experience. I have always had realisation by meditation first and the purification started afterwards as a result. I have seen many get important, even fundamental realisations by meditation who could not be said to have a great inner development. Are all Yogis who have meditated to effect and had great realisations in their inner consciousness perfect in their nature? It does not look like it to me. I am unable to believe in absolute generalisations in this field, because the development of spiritual consciousness is an exceedingly vast and complex affair in which all sorts of things can happen and one might almost say that for each man it is different according to his nature and that the one thing that is essential is the inner call and aspiration and the perseverance to follow always after it, no matter how long it takes or what are the difficulties or impediments, because nothing else will satisfy the soul within us.
It is quite true that a certain amount of purification is indispensable for going on, that the more complete the purification the better, because then when the realisations begin they can go on without big difficulties or relapses and without any possibility of fall or failure. It is also true that with many purification is the first need – certain things have to be got out of the way before one can begin any consecutive inner experience. But the main thing is a certain preparation of the consciousness so that it may be able to respond more and more freely to the higher Force. In this preparation many things are useful – the poetry and music you are doing can help, for it acts as a sort of śravaṇa [hearing] and manana [thinking], even if the feeling roused is intense, a sort of natural nididhyāsana. Psychic preparation, clearing out of the grosser forms of mental and vital ego, opening mind and heart to the Guru and many other things help greatly – it is not perfection that comes or a complete freedom from the dualities or ego, but preparedness, a fineness of the inner being which makes spiritual responses and receiving possible.
There is no reason therefore to take as gospel truth these demands which may have been right for Krishnaprem on the way he has trod, but cannot be imposed on all. There is no around for despondency of that ground – the law of the spirit is not so exacting and inexorable.