Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1936

Letter ID: 1539

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

February 2, 1936

By the way, you spoke of my friend J.B. as receiving the Mother’s Force.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined “Mother’s Force”.]

“In contact with” the Divine Force which is the force of the Mother – that was what I wrote, I believe.

But which Mother? Ours or some universal Mother as people say? Perhaps an ignorant and foolish question, but can’t help it.

How many Mothers are there? Who is this some universal Mother? How many of these some universal Mothers are there?

I ask because I do not understand how without invoking the Mother, he gets her Force.

Have you not put him by the photograph and his letter in connection with us? Has he not turned in this direction? Has he not met Prithwisingh and been impressed by him – a third channel of contact. That is quite sufficient to help him to a contact if he has the faith and the Yogic stress in him.

And I do not understand either, how a married man – married not like Ramakrishna I mean,– gets all these experiences so easily.

Why not? A married man can get experiences, especially if he is not gross or over-sexy by nature. But if he follows this Yoga, he will have to drop copulation or he will get upsettings.

You have heard of Monoranjan Guha Thakurtha and his wife who, leading a married life, having children, were making a lot of progress in sadhana – especially his wife, it seems, had no sex-desire at all. She used to submit to these procreative acts with detachment. Possible?

That is possible but how many can do it?

I thought any sex-act, with or without desire, is a great hindrance to Yoga, and Mother has said, I hear, that every sex-act is a step towards death.

Well, did your Mrs. Guha live?

Well, but in spite of all these, she did progress in sadhana, as far as a layman can judge. Can you enlighten?

To a certain extent yes – but if she had been sexy, it would have been more difficult for her.