Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 4

Letter ID: 954

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

Undated

I don’t like to be in “a parlous state” – but que faire? The sun has never inspired me as a Godhead in the way that a Krishna or a Kali has. How ought I to look on the sun anyhow? I would like not to look at him irreverently, but how can there be positive reverence for one who, for all we know, doesn’t seem to be conscious in the same sense as for instance an Avatar is conscious?

Well, if not reverently at least amiably, as a nice and friendly being who removes the darkness.

That is just what Krishnaprem is jocosely damning, your parlous state of ignorance about the occult world and what lies behind things here.

If Krishnaprem were asking you to concentrate on Surya instead of Krishna, you could very obviously retort on him with the sloka from the Gita,

devandevayajo yanti madbhakta yanti mamapi. [To the gods go the worshippers of the gods, but my devotees come to Me.

Bhagavad Gita VII. 23

But he is not asking that, he only suggests that you should believe in higher worlds and higher beings, divine beings also who are here behind material phenomena, not in the reality of the outer material world alone, after the Aristotelian fashion – though I am under the impression that Aristotle also worshipped the gods, including the Sun (Apollo). I think that is all he is after. But you needn’t bother your head much about Surya at present; if he manifests himself to you in vision or otherwise, then you can begin to take a more active interest in his deity.