Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Kamala’s Correspondence with
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Fragment ID: 15749

(this fragment is largest or earliest found passage)

Sri Aurobindo — Kamala Amin

April 9, 1937

Mother,

There is a strong desire to visit and see the different places of the world. What is the reason for it? What shall I do?

It is a restlessness of the vital which does not want to remain in the same place. In some people as in Kantilal it is very acute and they are always going from place to place. It is one of the things in the vital that has to be kept under control by the will.

Mother,

Many times, I feel hatred towards my own self because I neither have the ability nor the skill in me to do anything. I start doing some work and then leave it undone. I have no perseverance. What is the reason for this?

These also come from a certain restlessness in the vital. Most people put a control of the will on those things and try to get rid of them in that way. But they disappear fully only when the inner being is awakened and a new Force (the Mother’s) begins fully to work in the nature.

Mother,

How can I do yoga when I do not know anything about your yoga? I do not also know what to do.

There are two ways of doing yoga, one by knowledge and one’s own efforts, the other by reliance on the Mother. In the last way one has to offer one’s mind and heart and all to the Mother for her Force to act on it, call her in all difficulties, have faith and bhakti. At first it takes time, often a long time, for the consciousness to be prepared in this way and during that time many difficulties can come up, but if one perseveres, a time comes when all is ready. The Mother’s Force opens the consciousness fully to the Divine, then all that must develop, develops within, spiritual experience comes and with it the knowledge and union with the Divine.

Sri Aurobindo