Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume I - Part 4
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As for the faith-doubt question you evidently
give to the word faith a sense and a scope I do not attach to it. I will have to 
write not one but several letters to clear up the position. It seems to me that you mean by faith a mental belief in an alleged
fact put before the mind and senses in the doubtful form of an unsupported asseveration. I mean by it a dynamic intuitive conviction in the inner being of the truth of supersensible things which cannot be proved by any physical evidence but which are a subject of experience. My point is that this faith is a most desirable preliminary (if not absolutely indispensable – for there can be cases of experience
not preceded by faith) to the desired experience. If I insist so much on faith – but even less on positive faith than on the throwing away of a priori doubt and denial – it is because I find that this doubt and denial have become an instrument in the hands of the obstructive forces and clog your steps whenever I try to push you to an advance. If you can’t or won’t get rid of it, (“won’t” out of respect for the reason and fear of being led into believing things that are not true, “can’t” because of contrary experience) then I shall have to manage for you without it, only it makes a difficult instead of a straight and comparatively easy process.
Why I call the materialist’s denial an a priori denial is because he refuses even to consider or examine what he denies, but starts by denying it, like Leonard Woolf with his “quack quack”, on the ground that it contradicts his own theories, so it can’t be true. On the other hand the belief in the Divine and the Grace and Yoga and the Guru etc. is
not a priori, because it rests on a great mass of human experience which has been accumulating through the centuries and millenniums
as well as the personal intuitive perception. Therefore it is an intuitive perception which has been confirmed by the experience of hundreds and thousands of those who have tested it before me.
Current publication:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga. I // CWSA.- Volume 28. (≈ 22 vol. of SABCL).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2012.- 590 p.
Other publications:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
[A letter: ] Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo to Dilip / edited by Sujata Nahar, Shankar Bandyopadhyay.- 1st ed.- In 4 Volumes.- Volume 2. 1934 – 1935.- Pune: Heri Krishna Mandir Trust; Mysore: Mira Aditi, 2003.- 405 p.
Sri Aurobindo. Letters of Sri Aurobindo: In 4 Series.- Second Series [On Yoga].- Bombay: Sri Aurobindo Sircle, 1949.- 599 p.