Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume I - Part 3
Fragment ID: 10397
There is no ambiguity that I can see1. “En fait” and “attachée” do not convey any sense of inevitability. “En fait” means simply that in fact, actually, as things are at present all life (on earth) has death attached to it as its end; but it does not in the least convey the idea that it can never be otherwise or that this is the unalterable law of all existence. It is at present a fact for certain reasons which are stated,– due to certain mental and physical circumstances – if these are changed, death is not inevitable any longer. Obviously the alteration can only come “if” certain conditions are satisfied – all progress and change by evolution depends upon an “if” which gets satisfied. If the animal mind had not been pushed to develop speech and reason, mental man would never have come into existence,– but the “if”, a stupendous and formidable one, was satisfied. So with the ifs that condition a farther progress.
1 Sri Aurobindo is referring to the ambiguity seen by the correspondent in two statements of the Mother: “If this belief [in the necessity of death] could be cast out ... death would no longer be inevitable” and “Death as a fact has been attached to all life upon earth.... ” (The Mother, «Questions and Answers 1929-1931», 2003 ed., p. 36) The correspondent read these statements in French. – Ed.