Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1935

Fragment ID: 17737

1935

Yesterday you wrote to me, “Usually however one does not so much feel the self active as an action in and through the self.” I am sorry I fail to grasp the phrase about the self and the action.

The Self or Atman is inactive; Nature (Prakriti) or Shakti acts. When the Self is felt it is first an infinite existence, wideness, silence, freedom, peace that is felt – that is called Atman or Self. When action takes place, it is according to the realisation either felt as forces of Nature working in that wideness, as the Divine Shakti working or as the Cosmic Divine or various powers of his working. It is not felt that the Self is acting.