Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3. 1936-37

Fragment ID: 18112

1936-37

I have raised this question again because X tells me that when he is depressed there are never any external causes. Well, that may prove that depression is possible in the absence of any outward reasons.

You seem to rely very much on X and his experiences and ideas about them. X’s experience proves nothing because he is quite ignorant. His depression comes from outside and has its causes, only his vital mind does not record or understand the causes, but there is a response to them all the same. Because the vital mind has in the past always associated depression with these causes and that impression remains in the vital stuff, so it responds to their touch with the usual reaction taught to it by the vital mind. An ignorant and untrained mind like X’s cannot be expected to realise the secret machinery of the movements of his own consciousness.

If the vital responds [to the depression] so intensely and easily, it shows that there is not a complete liberation in the vital. You have been stressing so much on the violence and intensity of this vital activity or response, that it is difficult to suppose it is in the environmental only. For then, how is it that you do not feel, are not conscious that it comes from outside and is not a thing having its origin within you?