Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1933-34

Fragment ID: 16129

1934

When I feel drawn into the inner being my consciousness still remains aware of all the things of the outer world, though usually it does not react to their impacts. Does not this remaining consciousness of external phenomena mean that my inward turning is incomplete?

No, why should it? To live in the inner being it is not necessary to become unconscious of external things. One is conscious of them, but not affected or controlled by them or subject to the ordinary reactions.

The “whole nature” does not so easily change. What has to be done is to get the inner being spiritualised by a higher consciousness.

As for the vital, there is always something in it that resists and tries to retard, but if the inner being opens sufficiently and you can live in the inner being, peace can descend and establish itself there in such a way that the vital movements of the surface may be there, but will not be able to break the inner peace.