Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 4

Letter ID: 957

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

May 10, 1943

I am writing an article on you for “Aria”. They offered at Almora, as you may remember. They pay handsomely too. I have very nearly finished. I will send it to you tomorrow or the next day in all probability.

In the meanwhile I have a question for you as I consider it as important and people seem to cherish very wrong notions hereanent. I will be very grateful if you will throw a little light.

Last night Anilkumar asserted that you said that no matter what guru one has accepted the disciple may realise and then what he realises, under even a humbug guru will be the same thing as what another realises under an Avatar. I find this a little incomprehensible. From what I have gathered from your writings I have an idea that avatars are in a special category and what they achieve can not be achieved through any other intermediary. I don’t know if I am clear but I hope you will understand what my difficulty is. To make it a little more clear: I have felt that though I may have profited by Krishnaprem’s contact I do not need it. I can get all I want from you and what I can get from you he cannot get from his guru – assuming of course that you are what we believe to be. I mean if you were an ordinary guru, Krishnaprem and we would be on a level ground. But since you are not, we are better off spiritually. Is this notion mistaken? I don’t see how it can be. For if I am will not the logical conclusion be that though one can say that there are shishyas and shishyas, one can’t say that there are gurus and gurus? Do you get me? What the blessed use of an avatar is there for a disciple ?

Well, according to this striking and overwhelming theory, the Avatar may have a use for external world changes, but none for internal or spiritual realisation; for, on this principle you can catch anybody in the street or your cook or a butler in the house opposite and make him your guru and go splash into the supreme Brahman – of course leaving behind you the said cook or butler, as his utility is over. I leave to Anilkumar the full responsibility of this invention: I refuse either to patent it or to share in the credit of its discovery. All what I meant was that one can have a guru inferior in spiritual capacity (to oneself or to other gurus) carrying in him many human imperfections, and yet, if you have the faith, the bhakti, the right spiritual stuff, contact the Divine through him, attain to spiritual experiences, to spiritual realisation, even before the Guru himself.

Mark the “if” – for that proviso is necessary; it is not every disciple who can do that with every guru. From a humbug you can acquire nothing but humbuggery. The guru must have something in him which makes the contact with the Divine possible, something which works even if he is not himself in his outer mind quite conscious of its action. If there is nothing at all spiritual in him, he is not a guru – only a pseudo. Undoubtedly, there can be considerable differences of spiritual realisation between one guru and the other; but much depends on the inner relation between guru and shishya. One can go to a very great spiritual man and get nothing or only a little from him; one can go to a man of less spiritual capacity and get all he has to give – and more. The causes of this disparity are various and subtle; I need not expand on them here. It differs with each man. I believe the guru is always ready to give what can be given, if the disciple can receive, or it may be when he is ready to receive. If he refuses to receive or behaves inwardly or outwardly in such a way as to make reception impossible or if he is not sincere or takes up the wrong attitude, then things become difficult. But if one is sincere and faithful and has the right attitude and if the guru is a true guru, then, after whatever time, it will come.