Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3. 1936-37

Fragment ID: 18099

1936-37

When the vital is dissatisfied, the being does not care much for the sadhana. For it feels that if the Divine is displeased with me what is the use of all this tapasya, experience, progress?

What being feels like that? If it is the whole being that shares whatever the vital chooses to raise, dissatisfaction, causeless despair etc., how do you propose to get rid of the vital opposition in a short time? It is not possible to get rid “directly” of a thing to which the whole being consents.

It is mostly when the sadhana condition is interrupted that the vital becomes agitated or impatient and restless. Instead of remaining quiet and waiting or calling down the real push from above, it begins to get vexed and restless and begins to ask questions “Why this? Why that?” Also the old vital mental egoism rises up and if the answers do not please it, it becomes challenging, disputatious, insistent on its own point of view. These are old defects which are part of the external nature and therefore difficult to root out. You must learn to recognise them and get rid of them by a quiet rejection and disuse.