Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1935

Letter ID: 1455

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

October 26, 1935

Yes, I was informed of B.P. using the reading room, and I had asked him to go when there were very few people.

His touching the newspapers is not dangerous?

A has been long complaining of ever increasing weakness – uncured by cod-liver oil, I suppose? Mother was suggesting to him to be examined at the hospital.

This silent mind you speak of in your case, [22.10.35] seems to be a result of Yoga.

Of course; the ordinary mind is never silent.

Do thinkers and philosophers usually write from a silent mind, but unconsciously?

No, certainly not. It is the active mind they have; only of course they concentrate, so the common incoherent mentalising stops and the thoughts that rise or enter and shape themselves are coherently restricted to the subject or activity in hand. But that is quite a different matter from the whole mind falling silent.

If thoughts come like that [23.10.35], why is there a difference, sometimes a great difference, between the thought-substance of one person and that of another? Why don’t thoughts, in some, shape themselves as profoundly, harmoniously and luminously as in others? Question of the opening into higher planes? And why is the beating not always successful?

Well done or badly done; also good condition or bad condition of the mental recipient.

First of all these thought-waves, thought-seeds or thought-forms or whatever they are, are of different values and come from different planes of consciousness. Even the same thought-substance can take higher or lower vibrations according to the plane of consciousness through which the thoughts come in (e.g. thinking mind, vital mind, physical mind, subconscient mind) or the power of consciousness which catches them and pushes them into one man or another. Moreover there is a stuff of mind in each man and the incoming thought uses that for shaping itself or translating itself (transcribing we usually call it), but the stuff is finer or coarser, stronger or weaker etc., etc., in one mind than in another. Also there is a mind-energy actual or potential in each which differs and this mind-energy in its recipience of the thought can be luminous or obscure, sattwic, rajasic or tamasic with consequences that vary in each case.

If I am not to “run away with the idea”, you have to tell me definitely how to avoid being led into quagmires by any blessed idea. If the mental being is ignorant how will it discriminate or be impartial?

Experientia docet – experience is the doctor. Also the habit of intuitivising if it is honestly done develops a discrimination that begins to know how to sort the sheep from the goats or the demis and semis and semi-demis from the real thing. By honestly I mean without ego or parti pris.

As for the ego – I can pride myself in being an instrument, a medium, can’t I?

No, you can’t – or if you do, you’ll make an unblessed mess. Why should the chisel pride itself because the sculptor uses it? He could just as well have used another and it would have done as well. But anyhow the point is that ego brings a lack of poise and lack of receptive honesty and meddles with what is received.

You said on the 18th, “As for spiritual light, it is another thing altogether.” What do you exactly mean by it? Do you mean that it can very well be had from anything – either high or low?

No. I did not mean that. I meant simply that an idealistic notion or a religious belief or emotion were something quite different from getting spiritual light. An idealistic notion might turn you towards getting spiritual light, but it is not the light itself.

We hear that one word, one sign, one line may put the spark to the powder and ignite the whole thing. But how? Because the psychic being was ready without one’s knowing it?

It is true howeyer that “the spirit bloweth where it listeth”, and that one can get some emotional impulse or touch of mental realisation of spiritual things from almost any circumstance, as Bilwamangal got it from the words of his courtesan mistress. Obviously it happens, because something is ready somewhere,– if you like, the psychic being waiting for its chance and taking some opportunity in mind, vital or heart to knock open a window somewhere.