Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
SABCL 26
Fragment ID: 8184
Q: You say that with the growth of the inner consciousness one can feel the forces of illness coming; one can feel its symptoms in the subtle physical sheath and can destroy it before its manifestation. How then do you explain your illness or that of the sadhaks which surely you can see coming, even if we can’t?
A: Always1 the same rigid mental that turns everything into a statement of miraculous absoluteness! It is my experience and the Mother’s that all illnesses pass through the subtle consciousness and subtle body before they enter the physical. If one is conscious, one can stop it entering the physical, one can develop the power to do so. We have done that millions of times. But that does not mean that every time we will do so. It may come without one’s noticing or when one is asleep or through the subconscient or in a sudden rush when one is off one’s guard etc., etc. Let us suppose, however, that I am always on guard, always conscious even in sleep – that does not mean that I am immunised in my very nature from all illness. It only means a power of self-defence against it, when it tries to come. Self-defence may become so strong that the body becomes practically immune as many Yogis’ are. Still this “practically” does not mean “absolutely”. The absoluteness can only come with the supramental change. For below the supramental it is an action of a Force among many forces – in the supramental, it becomes a law of the nature.
26-3-1935
1 This text was omitted in Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Librarry in 30 Volumes. It was present, however, in Sri Aurobindo International Univercity Centre Collection .- Vol.1.- Pondicherry, 1953.- P.409.