Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1933-34

Fragment ID: 16060

1933-34

You once spoke of two kinds of causes – a psychological cause and a rational one. Will you please tell me when depression can be attributed to the former and when to the latter?

If you imagine that the Mother is displeased because she does not do what you would like her to do and begin to be depressed and sorrowful, the psychological cause is the vital, its egoism, its demand, its turn for being miserable. If you had been smoking and the Mother were really displeased, that would be a rational cause.